Features
Knowledge discovered among quiet of stacks
By James Fitzroy
"Libraries tend to be a little
hard to talk about," said Dr. •
Charles Townley, Head Librarian
of Capitol Campus' Heindel
Library, with a touch of
understatement.
"Simply stated," he explained,
"the primary mission of any
library is to provide access to
recorded information needed by
the people it serves.
"We go about doing that by
acquiring material, organizing it,
cataloging it. We also provide
assistance in delivering that
material. We constantly evaluate
ourselves and make plans to im
prove ourselves. That's the role
of a library."
The reality that underlies this
definition is studded with com
plexities. Funding and physical
space are continuing problems - for
the library faculty.
"One simply, finally, has to
make the decision of what you're
going to spend your money on,"
said Townley. "In our case we
have accreditation to worry
about, both in Business and
Technology. So we've been spen
ding money there and those col
lections have been improving. The
technology section his to be con-
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"What has not been improving
is that each year since I've been
here we've ended the year less
able to meet the needs of the peo
ple we serve. Though I can say
that this year we'll end up at least
as well as we started," he added.
"That's in the book area. We're
still way behind in periodicals."
Heindel Library, "does well
budget wise within the University
library system," according to
Townley, but "our collection is
becoming increasingly anti-
quated."
- He sees hope, though, of help
from University President Bryce
Jordan.
"For example, with some funds
that turned up unexpectedly un
spent in the budget--"whoopie
money," it's called--he used it on
the libraries. previous presidents
had never done that."
Townley expects this trend to
continue.
"The new president is very aware
that the budget allocations have to
change. He is serious about it. I
believe he's going to put more
money into computers and all
those things you have to spend
money on if you're going to call
yourself a research university.
"We ended up with a fair ad
diton of monies this year," he
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added, "a substantial amount for
recorded information."
Recorded information means
books, articles, documents and
technical reports, according to
Townley. It also includes
microfilm, microfiche, audio
tapes and recordings.
"Libraries used to be people,
money and books. Now we have
automation, people, money and
recorded information; the formula
has changed. Automation is a
great resource of great
assistance."
The use of microcomputers and
the various microforms is a tem
porary answer to the problem of
space at Capitol's library.
During the 1982--1983 fiscal
year, the Online Database Infor
mation Network (0.D.1.N.) was
established, with the Heildel
Library joining in a local network
of eight libraries, enhancing the
library's ability to provide access
to information, according to that
year's annual report.
"We have access to over 300
machine-related databases,"
Townley said. "These include
Dialog, CompuServe and The
Source. The use of these on-line
services are valuable in locating
material that might otherwise re
main unknown.
"If things go according to plan
this library will be fitted with the
Library Information Access
System (L.1.A.5.) within two
years. There is a lot of automa
tion coming into the library and
there's more and more digital in
formation becoming available."
Heindel is the only library in
south central Pennsylvania to own
"Envirofiche," a collection of
75,000 articles and technical
reports covering all aspects of en
vironment and pollution control.
A similar database,"Energy
fiche," contains 25,000 peices
covering all trends in energy
research and development.
The library stores over 700,000
microforms available to students,
along with the equipment to read
and copy the material recorded
on them.
Page 11
But wht's a library without
books? Well, Heindel has 170,000
of those in its collection, 6,300 of
which were cataloged last year.
Despite these numbers, Townley
reports that the collection is
"continuing its slow slide into ob
solescence." To offset this, his
1982--1983 fiscal report states that
the Heindel budget would have to
be increased 60 percent.
"Problems remain in using the
existing facility to meet library
and information needs. Shelving
is at a premium and unless more
is provided we shalll soon have to
begin discarding books," accor
ding to the report, and, "all of
this points to the critical need for
a permanent library facility ready
for occupancy in 1988/1989."
In accord with the staff's em
phasis on "people services"--of
guidance to the library's
resources--they have designed
what Townley described as
"mimicking things" in order to
improve the reference service.
These include formulating a list
of "the 150 most asked questions,
along with their answers," to be
referred to by student assistants
when there area no faculty
members around to answer them.
The questions and answers will
soon be available at the circula
tion and periodicals desks.
The staff has also prepared
printed instructions .on how to use
some of the basic reference
material. These will be glued in
side the front covers of the guide
to the use of the library.
In a year or two, Townley
hopes to have complete
bibliographies stored in a
microcomputer for student use in
a self-teaching format.
"Again, all we would be doing
there would be the mimicking of
a refernce librarian--in effect, ad
ding to the faculty."
Libraries may tend to be hard
to begin talking about, but when
the conversation and exploration
begin--when the noise of the
knowledge is discovered among
the quiet of the stacks--it's even
harder to stop talking about them