Buying Books for 92 Junior Colleges

T O U R I N G the years 1925-28 the Carnegie Corporation made a number of exploratory grants for the development of college libraries and in the fall of 1928 it set up an Advisory Group on College Libraries with Dr. William Warner Bishop, librarian of the University of Michigan, as chairman. A few years later it set up an Advisory Group for Junior College Libraries, also with Dr. Bishop as chairman. Both groups were concerned with book purchases for a selected group of academic libraries. It was decided at an early date that it would be best to set up a central purchasing office to handle the expenditure of the book funds. A few of the older and larger four-year colleges had well-established order departments and in these instances the grants were expended directly by the colleges and not through the central purchasing office. In the vast majority of cases, however, the placing of orders was handled by the central office. There were thought to be several advantages in this procedure. In the first place, better discounts should be obtainable through centralized purchasing. Individual colleges would be spared much of the keeping of records and correspondence with dealers. Placing the office in Ann Arbor, in the general library of the University of