Dissertation Information for Winifred B. Linderman NAME: - Winifred B. Linderman
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- Columbia University (USA) (1959)
ADVISORS: - Erling M. Hunt
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Dwight C. Miner - Maurice Tauber
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: History of the Columbia University Library, 1876-1926
Abstract: The years from 1876 to 1926 are among the most significant in the long history of Columbia University and its Library, for they cover the period of change from a small undergraduate college with a School of Law and a School of Mines to the complex of a large metropolitan university with graduate and professional schools well established. The acceptance of the concept of instruction by means of a variety of materials and the elevation of research programs to a place of equal importance with teaching required the library to share in the growth of the institution, particularly in respect to resources and services.
The College Library was in existence almost from the founding of King's College in 1754. Like the College, it suffered from the Revolutionary War, but by 1876 it was reported to have a small but valuable collection. At the time it bore the characteristics ascribed to many college libraries of the period: slender resources, part-time administration, inadequate organization, and short hours of opening. In order to provide more adequate service for their students, the Schools of Law and Mines had established their own libraries.
The real history of the College Library starts with the arrival on the Columbia campus in 1876 of Professor John W. Burgess whose insistence on adequate library collections properly cataloged and interpreted for use, together with the establishment, in 1880, of a graduate school with a program of research, gave impetus to a new emphasis on the importance of the library in the educational objectives of the institution.
This study covers the history of the Columbia University Library from 1876-1926 and investigates such topics as changes in governmental organization, the growth of resources, services, the related problems of space and centralization versus dispersal of collection, the integration of the library in the Columbia educational program and with resources outside the university , personnel policies, and administrative arrangements.
During the fifty years the leadership passed from a minister-custodian to Melvil Dewey, who established his library school to train assistants for Columbia as well as other libraries and who first organized the unified collections in a new building. George Hall Baker, who succeeded Dewey, laid the foundations for a great research collection; James H. Canfield, former university president, gave the library prestige and an efficient administration; while William Dawson Johnston contributed the bibliographical apparatus necessary for a research program and the concept of service units near potential users. The last twelve years were under the administrations of part -time acting librarians until 1926, when the library school returned to Columbia and Dr. Charles C. Williamson became Director of Libraries and Dean of the School of Library Service.
While the Columbia Library development related was not necessarily unique, the study offers one more partial history of a university library as a contribution to an eventual general history of university libraries in the United States
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MPACT Scores for Winifred B. Linderman A = 3
C = 3
A+C = 6
T = 3
G = 1
W = 3
TD = 3
TA = 0
calculated 2008-02-03 16:39:59
Advisors and Advisees Graph
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