struction, which will extend the present stack floors, is the only way in which the
active book collection can be made readily accessible to the students.

The rough plan for this extension was approved by the state architect in 1932.
The construction cost for the outer walls, footings, and one half the steel stack
should be estimated at $160,000.

TRAINED STAFF

Next to more stack space, the library needs more trained librarians on its staff.
By trained librarian I mean a person with an A.B. degree and at least one year of
graduate training in an accredited library school. Such a trained person brings to
his task a comparative knowledge of library methods which he can apply to local
needs. Besides this, he can give a much higher grade of assistance to the students
and faculty members. Not only with the other University libraries, but with those
of other Kansas colleges, this library makes a poor showing in this respect. Two
state colleges have staffs 100 percent and go percent trained. That of the University
is only so percent trained.

It is only reasonable that, serving over 400 graduate students, the staff of the
University library should be expected to furnish more exacting service in reference,
bibliography, and cataloging than is the case in the other institutions. I recom-
mend that all vacancies in the regular staff be filled with trained librarians.

SALARIES

The median salary of this University library staff is still $1,200 for eleven months
service. This is several hundred dollars below the median of the library staffs of the
other Kansas state institutions. It would seem that a university that emphasized
professional training should be willing to reward it with an adequate salary.

STUDENT ASSISTANTS

A comparison of college and university libraries shows that while the average
tatio is 1,000 hours of student help to every full-time staff member, the University
of Kansas employs 2,200 hours of student labor to each staff member, the largest
amount, so far as can be ascertained, for any library in the country. This simply
means that far too much of our staff time that should be devoted to technical work
is spent supervising untrained, ever-changing student help that works when class
schedules permit. As soon as possible part of the student assistant hours should be
replaced by full-time staff members. A much greater library efficiency would result.

MORE STAFF

An assistant director is needed to relieve the director of the administrative
detail and to give much needed supervision over the seven branch libraries. With
the present duties it is physically impossible for the director to give adequate atten-
tion to the major problems of the library.

Another trained cataloger should be added to the staff to reduce the time re-
quired to send books through the preparation room.

If it is decided to offer a course in library methods this new cataloger might
possibly devote part time to teaching. It should be noted, however, that people
competent to teach library courses command high salaries.

The Engineering and the Geology Libraries need full-time trained librarians at
adequate salaries to insure continuity of management in place of the present rapid
turnover.