Watson Library’s Impact on Students and Faculty
In October 1950, KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences appointed a Special Committee on the Library. Its report, issued five months later, proposed a “statement of broad aims” for Watson Library specifically and KU Libraries more broadly:
“The university library should be thought of as a true laboratory of the mind, its collections as tools essential to learning and research. The Library of the University of Kansas should be devoted to the needs of scholarly research no less than to the demands of undergraduate reading.”
“Academic scholarship is founded upon research. Increasing emphasis should thus be given to the basic needs of scholarship. The procurement of library materials should be increased and accelerated. Personnel and machinery should be such as to render maximum service at all levels of scholarship and learning….”
While rooted in a specific postwar context, these words could be used to describe the “broad aims” of — and challenges faced by — Watson librarians throughout the building’s history. This is true even as the meaning of “collections,” “learning,” “research,” “scholarship,” “personnel,” “machinery,” and “maximum service” has changed dramatically over the last century.
Shown here are three vignettes from Watson’s history of supporting and engaging with KU’s community of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty.
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Expanding Space: Watson's New Reading Rooms, 1924
“The opening of Watson hall Thursday should mark…a new attitude towards books” at KU, declared the University Daily Kansan on September 9, 1924. “For several years, even those who were most interested in reading and studying have found it difficult to get much pleasure from it in Spooner library because of the crowded condition of both the stacks and the reading rooms.”
In Spooner, “250 readers filled every chair and formed a waiting line in corridors and hallways.” By contrast, Watson could accommodate over 800 readers:
- The philosophy/education and periodicals reading rooms, located on each side of the first-floor entrance hallway.
- The reserve or undergraduate reading room, located in the basement. Running the entire length of the building, it contained 25 long tables, seats for 268 readers, a “delivery desk,” and books reserved for class readings.
- The main reading or reference room, located on the second floor. Nineteen long tables accommodated 174 readers. The main delivery desk for “home use” books was outside the reading room in the corridor.
Public services in Watson got off to a rocky start. Materials from departmental libraries and most – but not all – Spooner collections had been moved into a building that still lacked bookstack shelving and a considerable quantity of furniture and equipment. Readers thus experienced delays and confusion from makeshift collection storage, temporary service desk locations, and librarians bringing books to and from Spooner. “Small wonder that certain books are not always obtainable,” noted the Kansan on September 22, 1924. “Librarians are but human. Let us be patient, and in the end we shall be rewarded.”
The “Room” column appears to tally books checked out for use in Watson’s reading rooms, excluding reserve books. The “Student” and “Faculty” columns appear to count books checked out for home use.
Left: Watson Library circulation statistics for the first month the building was open in September, 1924 (Call Number: RG 31/1/2).
Library Director Earl M. Manchester called this space “the most beautiful room of the building.” Large windows gave “ample light during the day and at night form[ed] one of [Watson’s] most striking architectural features.” Seven-foot bookcases filled with reference works lined the walls. Alcoves on each end held individual desks for graduate students — although one alcove was soon turned into a comfortably-furnished browsing room for general interest reading. Lighting fixtures were “concealed in the tops of the book cases.” According to Manchester, “at night the light is thrown to the ceiling by means of reflectors and is deflected down into the room, affording a soft even light with no shadows. Perhaps no feature of the library is more commented upon by visitors than this lighting arrangement.”
Right: Librarian Carrie Watson (far left) with students in the second floor reading room, circa 1928 (Call Number: RG 32/32 photographs).
Faculty members could check out an unlimited number of books for a semester. By contrast, students and other patrons with special library privileges could borrow three books for home use for a period of three weeks. Class reserves could only be used in the library, and stacks access was limited to faculty members and some graduate students. “In the interest of all readers,” this document declares, “quiet and order is required of all persons using the library.”
Left: Library Regulations, 1927 (Call Number: RG 32/1/2).
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Expanding Collections: "The House that Vosper Built," 1952-1961
In the context of KU’s post-World War II boom, a 1951 report by a Special Committee appointed by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences remarked that the library “has seen considerable expansion in recent years.” Nonetheless, the Committee bemoaned the relatively small size of the library’s collections, their low rate of growth, and a lack of personnel.
Luckily, incoming chancellor Franklin Murphy believed that “all great universities must have great libraries.” To that end, he hired UCLA librarian Robert Vosper (1913-1994) as Director of Libraries in 1952. Introducing himself to the faculty via the new Books and Libraries newsletter, Vosper promised that “every possible step will be taken…to make the Libraries, and for undergraduates the main Watson Library in particular, friendly and inviting and bookish places, genuine centers for reading and learning.” Elaborating on this idea in his first biennial report, Vosper argued that “we are a long way from the great libraries of the East Coast, the West Coast, and Chicago. Thus, we have a special responsibility in this area to provide imaginative encouragement for research and teaching, for general reading, and for an understanding of the meaning of books.”
With Murphy’s support and encouragement, Vosper led the Libraries through remarkable growth before returning to UCLA in 1961. Collections, staff, hours, and services all expanded greatly — especially at Watson. The Libraries’ collections surpassed 500,000 volumes just before Vosper’s arrival and doubled to one million over the next decade. Moreover, “the books [were] being used,” according to an Alumni Magazine article. “Vosper is proud of the heavy use of books at KU; in fact, he prefers to judge the library by its circulation figures rather than by the number of books in the stacks.”
Above: Robert Vosper in his office at Watson Library, circa 1953-1960 (Call Number: RG 41/0 Vosper, Robert, photographs).
Robert Vosper acquired several substantial collections during his time at KU. These materials were cataloged and mostly available at Watson Library, although many were relocated to the new Spencer Research Library in 1968.
The single largest acquisition during Vosper’s tenure — and possibly in the history of KU Libraries — came from Chicago’s John Crerar Library in 1953. Vosper was alerted to this opportunity by long-time KU economics professor and library representative Richard S. Howey (1902-1993). Describing the Crerar acquisition in his 1952-1954 report, Vosper wrote that “our total holdings of about 80,000 volumes [now] form one of the country’s major libraries in economics.” Additionally, the Crerar books had already been cataloged and arrived with their catalog cards. Thus, “with only minor manipulation the books can be integrated among our existing collections.”
The following year (1954), the Libraries purchased additional volumes from the John Crerar Library: 10,000 volumes on political science, sociology, and architecture, and the 4,000-volume Gerritsen Collection on the economic, intellectual, and social history of women.
Above: Robert Vosper to Chancellor Franklin Murphy about purchasing 30,000 volumes from the John Crerar Library, April 14, 1953 (Call Number: RG 2/11/5).
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Expanding Access: A "New Computer Catalog" at Watson, 1987
KU Libraries first automated a principal function with a punched card circulation system in Watson Library in 1967. By the mid-1980s, the Libraries had four components of an automated library system: locally-developed systems for circulation, cataloging, and serials control, plus a vendor product for acquisitions.
In 1986, staff within the Libraries and KU Computing Services began work on the remaining fifth component: an online public access catalog (OPAC), or a publicly available database of the library’s holdings. Development — including prototyping and programming — was accomplished in about one year. According to KU’s Alumni Magazine in March 1988, the “chief concern” of library automation specialist John Miller was to “design a program that was friendly to a fault.”
KU’s new OPAC debuted at Watson Library on Friday, November 6, 1987, when six IBM 3164 dedicated terminals opened in the reference area. By the following Monday, the University Daily Kansan reported that the “new computer catalog is proving so popular with students that some have had to wait for a chance to use” it. Six additional public terminals were installed at Watson within a month.
Fifty-four terminals — forty-five public and nine staff — were in place across the Libraries by early 1988. Jim Neeley, head of Watson’s reference department, said in KU’s Computing Services newsletter that “it is so much easier and fun doing the research” with the new OPAC, compared with the card and microfiche catalogs. “People are doing a lot more searching and are finding more things. It really encourages people to do more searching.”
The Libraries’ systems — including the OPAC — were replaced with a commercial integrated system in 1999. That product, Voyager, is still used today.
With an eye toward an eventual online catalog, the cataloging department began producing machine-readable records in 1976. The temporary next step was a computer output microfiche (COM) catalog that was installed in 1984. The COM catalog eventually contained records for the roughly 400,000 books cataloged after 1976. Updates for newly cataloged books were issued monthly. The remaining 1.5 million titles could only be found via the card catalog.
One benefit of the COM catalog was its compactness. Microfiche is a flat piece of transparent film used to store printed information in miniaturized form. Each piece of microfiche in the Libraries’ COM catalog listed hundreds of books. As a result, the complete COM catalog was available – with microfiche readers – at all KU libraries, something that was impossible with the dramatically larger card catalog. A major drawback, however, was cost. By 1986, the Libraries were paying $40,000 a year to produce new microfiche.
Left: The last issue of microfiche catalog prior to the introduction of the online catalog in September, 1987 (Call Number: RG 32/63).
Like the microfiche catalog it replaced, the OPAC contained records for books cataloged after 1976 – about 20% of the Libraries’ roughly two million volumes. As a result, the card catalog remained critically important for researchers.
Reporting on the OPAC in March 1988, the Alumni Magazine noted that “the menu screen offers six options that explain how to search (users can employ 400,000 cross references and can jump from a record to its spot in the author, subject, or call number index to “browse”), how to cry for help, how the catalog works and which holdings it contains.” Catalog users could also request book purchases. “The initial spate of obscene titles, none very original, has tapered off,” observed librarian Rich Ring in February 1988.
Despite praise for the OPAC, librarians also noted its deficiencies. For example, it lacked keyword and Boolean (AND, OR, and NOT) searching capabilities; searches could not be limited by date, format, branch location, or language; and catalog terminals were not initially connected to printers.
Above left: KU’s first online public access catalog in use, 1987-1988 (Call Number: RG 32/0 photographs).
Above right: Online catalog instructions, 1987 (Call Number: RG 32/63 box 7).