Library Growth

THE number of books a college has in its library is not necessarily an index to its educational excellence, but when an undergraduate college gets up to 666,443 volumes, as Dartmouth did at the end of the last academic year, and houses nearly all of them in a building as superbly useful as Baker Library, there is quite a lot of justification for citing this as an exceptional educational asset.

Although the Dartmouth library continues to add steadily to its collections of books, the rate of accession has slowed down considerably in recent years. The obvious reason for this, the Committee on the Library told the Faculty in a recent report, is the rise in prices without any corresponding increase in the funds available for purchasing books. During the year ending July 1, 1950, the number of volumes added was .9,739, nothing like the lush days when almost twice as many were acquired at the same cost. A slow rate of growth is the prospect for the years immediately ahead, the Library Committee stated.

The Committee took pleasure in reporting an all-time high in the number of books taken out for general reading. The circulation figure of 88,890 at the main desk was nearly 7,000 higher than for the year before. A drop in circulation at the reserve desk, where texts for class assignments are loaned, cannot be considered significant because of the wide variation in course procedures from year to year.

About one-third of the library books added in 1949-50 were gifts. The Friends of the Dartmouth Library were responsible for obtaining most of these and the Committee's report was warm in its praise for what this organization achieves each year. The most notable single gift consisted of 535 volumes of English and American authors "in many respects the most extraordinary collection of rare books we have ever received" presented by Mr. Perc S. Brown of Richmond, California, father of Bruce L. Brown '41 and Gordon S. Brown '42. Since that time Mr. Brown has made two additional gifts of great value, one consisting of 46 volumes of rare first editions and the other, received just last month, of 143 modern first editions and fine press books.

Gifts from a great many benefactors, added to regular purchases, have enabled Dartmouth to achieve quality as well as quantity in a library that grows steadily in distinction.