ఆంధ్ర గ్రంథాలయం/సంపుటము 1/సంచిక 1/The Heart of a University

by పుణ్యమూర్తుల రాజశేఖరం

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'University Libraries'

"In the perplexity in which the literary public now stand with regard to university education whether studies shall be compulsory or elective, whether the stress shall be on Latin and Greek or on modern sciences - the one safe investment which all can agree to increase is the library."

- EMERSON.

"The value of the university libraries lies not so much in the number of books possessed by them but rather in the great mass of research and reference material available."

"Library is the very heart of a university and if it withers, the university dies."

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'The Heart of a University'

By PUNYAMURTI

The general tendency in all instruction to-day is from what may be called 'the few-books' to 'the many books' method. The lecture, note taking and text-book method of instruction is fast passing away in under-graduate as well as post-graduate study. Of course text-books are still in use in under-graduate and Master of Arts Courses; but they have been relegated to a subordinate position. Emphasis is laid on the work done and the assimilation of ideas gathered from many sources rather than upon memorising the treatise of one author. These changed methods of instruction imply the fullest provision for library maintenance as the primary and the most vital need in the equipment of a "University Library."

A student from a university may now wish to do some original work either in science or in arts. Before he can undertake it with any assurance of its being original work when finished, he must refer to books to learn what others have accomplished. An individual cannot afford to buy all the books on the subject; nor can he hope to get the great help that a modern library can give. The periodical literature has added a terror to research and it can be mitigated only by the challenging bibliographical service of a modern library. 'An adequate library is therefore not only the basis of all teaching and study: it is the essential condition of research'.

A library to a university is therefore the door to all Science, all literature, all art. It is the means of intelligent and profitable recreation, of profound technical research and at the same time of a complete general education. Well supplied all its departments, it is a magnificent educational apperatus.

Hence a university library can no longer be a store-house of books relegated to an ill ventilated room or rooms in one of the colleges of a university or to a dilapidated under-ground cell of a senate house. If it is to live and to be used, it must have a suitable abiding place-one that combines beauty of architecture and convenience for accommodating the contents and the various types of clientele. I mean sufficient space and ventilation for the lending and reference stacks, periodicals room and the reading room, the staff and the counter etc. and special rooms for research scholars and ladies and so on. Even then the library will not be worth its name if its contents constitute a trashdom of fiction, out of date and worn out books perhaps given to it as gifts. The collection should be a living one, new tissues constantly replacing those that are worn out. The provision of periodical publications--the only means of keeping abreast of the progress made in any subject makes another important demand. It will not do to have a mere provision of 'a mob of books' and 'a heap of periodicals'. But there should he a proper classification and a good catalogue which is almost an annotated bibliography so as to facilitate their use. Now the machine is in place. But the reader with rare exceptions, knows almost nothing about its use. So there is a need for systematic instruction in the use of library. This requires generous provision for reference staff with necessary reference tools which indeed would cost the library much.

To help either a young inexperienced reader or a busy administrator or a specialist with required reference, slow, dull- witted, immobile, absent-minded and unqualified persons cannot be of any service. A retentive and associative memory of a qualified person is required. To select books, to order them, classify them, prepare them for use, help them with references and lend them the contents in a modern University Library that is to serve the research community at large, any and every man cannot constitute the staff. Any university library requires on its staff persons who have scholarship combined with good professional training. Their speciality must be bibliography and their attitude must be that of a student. They must have sufficient knowledge of and sympathy with all branches of knowledge to do justice to them in the selection of books, to give the readers the guidance of which they stand in need and to divine in the quickest manner the place where the information sought by the readers can be found. University degrees are required for those who aspire to the highest places in library service.

It is quite easy, now-a-days to secure a person with a university degree on a low salary. The army of unemployed graduates would supply us with a person at a moments notice. But such a person would be merely marking time with his mind and heart elsewhere. The little experience that he might gather during his short stay would be lost to the library as he would take the earliest opportunity to step out. 'A discontented staff is a social danger'. Unless the library staff are well paid and given the right status - say of the professor and his assistants, the profession cannot attract the right type of men.

A spacious building, suitable books, useful classification and cataloguing and qualified staff will be mere castles in the air if adequate funds are not supplied by the university. No. money, no library and no library, no university. If the university does not take care to provide a well equipped library by library grants, it simply shows its callous- mess to what it has proposed to do. If the university is not paying heed to the demands for a well equipped library, it means that it has proposed to give stones to those who have come for bread. The library is the very heart of a university, and if it withers the university dies. If the university is to live, its students and fellows and professors should be sumptuously fed on the contents of a well organised library which alone can sustain them. The character and efficiency of a university will be gauged by the treatment it accords to its central organ - the library by the building in which it is situated, the collection it has bought, the arrangement it has made, the staff it has employed and the grants it receives.

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