The Administrative Structure of the University Library

The typical large university library is a highly decentralized structure composed of numerous divisions and/or departments and departmental libraries. The popularly accepted notion that the university library usually comprises the two divisions of technical and public services, each administered by a division head who is responsible for the coordination of all such services, is more apparent than real. There are an average of seven librarians with line authority reporting to the library director. There appears to be a need to reduce this number and to place this responsibility in two or three officers on a secondary level. ON DECEMBER 28, 1967, a questionnaire regarding the administrative structure of the university library was sent to the library directors of the forty-one universities with collections totalling more than one million volumes. Replies were received from thirty-nine. A cursory analysis of the replies reveals that the "conventional" two-division structure—i.e., public services and technical services—is found in twenty-two of the libraries in this study. In twelve, there are separate heads of both public and technical services. In ten libraries , there is a head with the appropriate title of either public or technical services, with the other division lacking a head who is specifically designated as such by title. In these latter cases the director or the associate director assumes the responsibility for the coordination of the division lacking a separate head. Upon more careful analysis of the replies , it is found that in only five libraries are all the services sharply di-Mr. Kilpela is assistant professor of library science in the University of Southern California. vided into public and technical services, each headed by a separate officer responsible to the library director for its coordination. In another group of five libraries, the line of demarcation between public and technical services is obscured by the fact that one or more division head in each of these libraries is charged with the responsibility for supervising services of both a public and technical nature. "GENERAL" LIBRARY With the exception of two institutions, a "general" or "main" library forms a part of each university library system. The public services in twenty-six of the thirty-seven "general" libraries are organized on a "traditional" basis, being made up of reference and circulation. If a third department is found, it is usually maps or documents. The remaining eleven "general" libraries are organized on the divisional plan, that is by broad …