Computerization: The Advent of Humanization in the College Library

Abstract

I N 1964, PHILIPMORSEastutely observed of libraries that, "When the collection grows beyond a certain size, or the users increase in number and range of interest beyond a certain degree, there seems to be a sudden change in the character of the library and of its service.The larger mass of material makes it hard for the user to find what he wants and hard for the librarian to keep track of the material, and the larger number of users and their wider variety of interests decrease the personal contact between librarian and user."This paper is concerned with those college libraries whose numbers of volumes and users have enlarged to the extent that personal contact between librarian and user has ceased to exist for a high proportion of users.Indeed, this circumstance does or will exist for every library whose community of users continuously grows and changes.As size of collection and user group enlarges, college libraries become monolithic arrangements of volumes, catalogs, and indexes.Ideally, books and journals should be arranged, cataloged, and indexed for an individual user, but as the number of users expands, it becomes increasingly W c u l t , and then impossible, to classify, catalog, and index for individuals.Instead, volumes are processed on the basis of content rather than for use and, except in the smallest of libraries, it is difficult to see how the collection could be handled otherwise, Nevertheless, this enforced disregard of individual users yields an intractably monolithic arrangement of materials that is depersonalized.Fortunately for users, the electronic digital computer has immense potential for individual treatment of people and events.One major ultimate goal of computerization of college libraries must be the recapturing of humanization lost when libraries grew beyond the stage