The library is celebrating its 200th year of service to North Carolina this month.
Since its inception, faculty and staff have been instrumental in developing the University library.
From a bookshelf in President Caldwell's house 200 years ago to a nationally ranked institution today, the library--as the Academic Affairs, Law and Health Sciences libraries are known collectively--has grown through the generosity of those from within the University, from private donations and, in this century, from state support.
"We have a strong, strong tradition here of faculty participation in building libraries that goes back to the 19th century," said Larry P. Alford, senior associate university librarian. "For instance, the beginnings of our scientific collections came from Professor Elisha Mitchell."
The University acquired the 1,897 volume collection of Mitchell--renowned botanist, chemist, geologist, engineer and mathematician who taught at Carolina in the early 19th century--when he died in 1858.
More recently the library has benefited from private collections donated by professors Alfred Brauer (mathematics), Federico Gil (Latin American studies) and Alfred Engstrom (French).
"Many professors also served as bibliographers who built some of the library's strongest collections," Alford said.
For example, he said, anyone doing research today on areas below the Mason-Dixon Line would use the library's Southern Historical Collection, the nation's largest repository of primary source material about the South.
"That strength dates back to the 1920s through the 1940s when Professor J.G. deRoulhac Hamilton (history) scoured the South for materials at a time when others were not doing so."
Hamilton, for whom Hamilton Hall is named, taught history from 1906 to 1948 and founded the Southern Historical Collection in 1930. According to lore, he was not shy about gathering letters, diaries, ledgers and other records for the collection largely by rummaging through attics in households across the South.
Specially trained staff
One invaluable resource the library offers the people of the state and the nation is its personnel.
"Without our qualified staff, we would not be able to maintain the library's various collections, which range in scope from the language and history of various foreign countries to scientific fields to very specific information about the South," Alford said.
The top 30 to 40 university libraries in the country support a high level of collection building, where they try to acquire most of the materials about a particular discipline, Alford said. Maintaining such comprehensive collections requires language and rare book specialists as well as bibliographers--expertise that isn't necessary in many other college libraries, he said.
"Working with Duke University, we try to assign responsibilities for our respective collections so we can cover the world," he said.
For instance, Carolina's library collects Chinese language materials, while Duke's collections focus on those in Japanese language.
Through the Triangle Universities Library Network, collections at Carolina, Duke, N.C. State and N.C. Central universities are shared and can be accessed from any on-line catalog.
Having such specialized collections calls for collection bibliographers to be fluent in the various languages, cultures and book trades. In the case of Slavic bibliographer Nadia Zilper, that means visiting Russia to purchase books--as she has done three times in recent years to buy books and establish exchange agreements.
"As part of our commitment to research and scholarship and to North Carolina, we truly are a resource for the entire state," Alford said. "We support professionals in many areas as well as faculty, staff and students at other colleges and universities throughout North Carolina."
He cited as an example one faculty member in Latin American studies at UNC-Charlotte who consistently relies on the Latin American collection here.
"He has said we are the major resource for his research and teaching," Alford said. "And that's how we view our role. We are a resource for the people of this University, those in other universities across the state, and people in various professions--anyone who needs information."
Budget woes
University employees consistently have rallied behind the library when it's hit with financial problems. Their support was evident some six years ago when the University in general, and the library in particular, faced one budget crisis after another.
Beginning in the late-1980s, the state experienced an economic downturn and appropriations from the General Assembly were not sufficient to offset the rapidly increasing cost of acquisitions. This, combined with the declining value of the dollar in purchasing needed foreign publications, took its toll.
From fiscal 1986 to 1990, state allocations rose 4.9 percent, yet book prices climbed 29.9 percent and journal prices 41.3 percent. In addition, the dollar's value was dropping overseas, where the library purchases more than one-third of its materials.
"What happened to us also happened to other institutions," Alford said. "It was kind of a dual whammy of extraordinary inflation in the cost of producing scholarly journals coupled with lack of funds to purchase needed materials."
The budget crunch also affected the library's ability to purchase needed technology and information in electronic form, such as CD-ROM indexes, abstracts and other reference materials.
Recently, budgetary constraints have begun to ease somewhat, and the library slowly is beginning to climb back to its former status.
That comeback is a result of several factors: recent legislative boosts to the budget, a pan-University library allocation and the University's successful Bicentennial Campaign.
Faculty works to overcome deficit
To tackle the budget problem, in 1990 then-Chancellor Paul Hardin formed the nine-member University Libraries Task Force. Headed by E. Donald Kennedy, English professor and comparative literature chair, the task force was charged with recommending ways to restore the ability of the Academic, Health Sciences and Law libraries to meet the teaching and research needs of faculty and students.
"I first became aware of the problem in 1987 when I chaired the Administrative Board of the Library," Kennedy said. "The number of monographs the library could purchase dropped to the level of an undergraduate college, rather than that of a major research university.
"This had a direct effect on research capabilities and the University's ability to recruit new faculty, as well as an impact on our overall reputation. Essentially, if the quality of the library goes down, the quality of the school does also."
During this period, the library's reputation suffered. From 1986 to 1991, it dropped from 15th to 22nd in a national ranking of the 107-member Association of Research Libraries. In 1986, the library was rated 10th in expenditures for monographs, but by 1990 it had dropped to 51st.
"We on the task force felt the faculty had to be alerted to the problems of the library, because the University was neglecting it," Kennedy said.
Then began the process of information gathering, he said. The task force conducted interviews with people in the Academic Affairs, Health Sciences and Law libraries to get specific information about the problems they faced and held conversations with administrators about funding sources.
"Not only were we falling behind in technology, our library employees were among the lowest paid in the area," Kennedy said. "We lost people to Duke or the Research Triangle Park."
In response, the University community rallied.
University administrators gave the library priority in the change budget request to UNC General Administration and in pan-University allocations when the legislature granted Carolina budget flexibility in 1991.
University solicits help
University and library administrators asked for help from outside the University as well. External fund raising for the library became a priority under the leadership of James Govan, university librarian from 1973-92.
In 1990, the Academic Affairs Library was given a boost from the National Endowment for the Humanities. NEH gave the library a $750,000 Challenge Grant, which meant every $100 the library raised the next four years would be matched with a $25 NEH contribution. To be eligible for the $750,000, the library would need to raise $3 million in private support.
Since the library had no specific alumni constituency on which to draw for fund raising, Govan enlisted the help of Hardin and others in identifying groups that might lend their support.
In 1991, the Development Office started the Parents Fund Campaign, where parents of undergraduates were asked to contribute toward a $100,000 goal for academic programs--including the library.
In that first year, close to $20,000 was allocated for the library, and during the next few years the library gained an additional $30,000, including $20,000 specifically toward the NEH Challenge.
The students did their part as well. The 1994 senior class pledged $325,000 toward technology upgrades to make undergraduate library materials more accessible on-line and to provide for new electronic data bases and services. This money joined the $660,000 in pledges from the classes of 1991 and 1993, making the total student pledge to the library nearly $1 million.
At this time, the University's Bicentennial Campaign was in full swing, and the Academic Affairs Library raised $11.6 million, the Law Library $1.37 million and the Health Sciences Library close to $650,000.
"In many ways, the library's budget crisis combined with the NEH Challenge helped fund-raising efforts, because the library's plight was brought out in a way that might not otherwise have been possible," said Michele Fletcher, director of development for the library.
"We could offer donors the opportunity to help stop the slide in rankings by encouraging them to match the Challenge Grant, which was earmarked to boost collections."
Faculty and staff support campaign
To garner faculty and staff participation in the Bicentennial Campaign, the University asked Barbara DeLon, library personnel officer, and Douglas Eyre, professor emeritus of geography, to help.
"It was a matter of going to the hard-core campus workers, those who always are willing and able to take on leadership roles," Eyre said. "We built an advisory board, then took a personal approach, handing out promotional literature to employees, sending letters and making phone calls."
Although faculty and staff faced budget constraints of their own, with little or no salary increases during this period, Eyre said, they donated a total of $10 million for the University.
Of the money raised, Fletcher said, the Academic Affairs Library gained the largest number of donors in the faculty-staff campaign. More than 4,300 faculty, staff and retirees gave, she said.
DeLon said the campaign's success was attributed to employees' positive feelings for the University.
"I believe, and it was reflected in the staff's participation, that people feel such a love for the University," she said, "it was an opportunity to show their feelings.
"It was an `if you build it, they will come' kind of thing. There was no pressure or competition. People made contributions in every way they could. It comes down to the fact that people just love this place."
Other support
Throughout the budget crisis, donations from the Department of Athletics and the Educational Foundation, Inc. helped library operations.
For instance, in 1989, library programs and services benefited from a $100,000 contribution from the athletics department's post-season basketball tournament revenues.
The next year, the Educational Foundation donated $50,000 to prevent the library from having to reduce its operating hours and another $300,000 for the NEH Challenge, marking the second largest gift made to the challenge.
The next year, $10,000 pledges were made by both the men's basketball coach Dean Smith and his wife, Linnea, and the assistant coach William Guthridge and his wife, Leesie.
Many faculty members, retired faculty and their families also have helped the library.
For example, last year, Hildegard Brauer set up a $10,000 fund to support the Brauer Math-Physics Library in memory of her late husband, Alfred Brauer, Kenan professor emeritus of mathematics.
Private donations played a significant part in keeping the library afloat as well.
In 1993, alumnus Ben Jones III set up a charitable remainder annuity trust with $1,066,000, stipulating that after his death the trust's assets would start a permanent library endowment called the Thomas Wolfe Library Fund.
Several years ago, University benefactor Walter Royal Davis, for whom Davis Library was named, gave a total of $1.5 million to the Academic Affairs Library. Of that, $250,000 went to support the Southern Oral History Program and the remaining money was used to purchase books for the general collection.
Friends of the Library provides support
All library fund raising falls under the umbrella organization, Friends of the Library, which was founded in 1932 by Louis Round Wilson and now boasts more than 6,000 members. Wilson was university librarian from 1901 to 1932 and founded the School of Information and Library Science.
Donations to Friends of the Library help buy books and provide services not covered by state funds, said Liza Terll, secretary for the group. For instance, money raised supports special community programs and underwrites exhibitions and literary collection acquisitions, such as the papers of novelist Walker Percy and historian Shelby Foote.
Other uses include refurbishing a classroom in the undergraduate library to incorporate updated technology or preserving the library's many special collections.
The Friends of the Library took on an active fund-raising role in the early 1980s.
Sparked by an unexpected $108,000 bequest from alumna Mathilde Parlett of California, in 1983 the group launched a drive to find at least 100 people to donate $1,000 each for the library. The campaign was successful, and more than $110,000 was raised.
Eyre, who headed the Friends of the Library from 1982-91, recruited the help of several Carolinians to combat the money problems, including Fran Weaver, the group's secretary; the late Provost Charles Morrow and his wife, Mary; Gladys Coates, who worked with her husband, Albert, to found the Institute of Government; and Charles Shaffer, retired director of development.
"We realized that library budgets were stagnant and it was time to do something about systematic fund raising, which had not been done formally," Eyre said.
The tradition of successful fund raising continues.
"Since fiscal year 1993, the library has averaged $1 million to $2 million in annual gifts and hopes to continue that level of giving," Terll said.
Fletcher said fund-raising goals for the near future include providing for the library's general and special collections, resources to upgrade and acquire new technology--especially for library services for undergraduates--and gifts to support the preservation of library materials.
To find out more about helping the library, contact Terll at 2-1301 or Fletcher at 2-3437.
Celia Pratt, map collection librarian, shows a facsimile map of the 17th century British Isles. The map was purchased recently with gift money.
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