17 1/2 Miles of Books.

Some 25,000 volumes are added each year to the library collections at Dartmouth, and, according to Associate Librarian Edward C. Lathem '51, if you put all of the more than 911,500 books now in the Dartmouth College Libraries on one shelf, it would extend 171/2 miles.

The new books and journals added each year to support the College's classroom and research programs cost about $220,000. An additional $620,000 is spent on a staff now numbering 110 (plus numerous student assistants) and on maintenance. Such expenditures and coping with the problems of finding resources for even more book purchases, space, recruiting, and keeping up with new library techniques such as use of the computer are all part of the Libraries' purpose, Mr. Lathem notes, in "putting right things in the right hands at the right times."