PROBLEMS OF A HALL OF RESIDENCE LIBRARIAN

Abstract

IT WOULD BE GENERALLY ADMITTED that among the various amenities of a university hall of residence, the library performs a very important function. It is that part of the building where students can be sure of finding quietness and the atmosphere in which calm relaxation can be enjoyed away from the more restricted scope of the private study‐bedroom. Yet the successful organization of such a library presents certain difficulties which do not occur in other institutions offering library facilities. For one thing, it is virtually impossible to enforce regulations with the same degree of strictness as obtains in, say, a public library: in most cases the hall library has to be staffed by voluntary helpers, and this rules out the introduction of an elaborate checking‐out system. The library can, of course, be locked and unlocked at the discretion of the tutor in charge: but students always resent what they take to be restrictions on their liberty, and any recourse to prohibitive measures is distasteful in a community where a fair degree of individual responsibility is taken for granted. A certain number of regulations are obviously essential; but they can seldom be observed with absolute punctiliousness. Apart from purely technical details, however—such things as hours of opening, general access to books, and so on—there are several other matters which the hall of residence librarian has to face up to, if he is going to make the library a congenial centre of enlightenment rather than a mere storehouse for a growing accumulation of volumes.