Library committee studies space shortage problem
By STAN STENERSEN
While workers, contractors and architects scramble over the grounds of the new law school and art museum, the man who perhaps has the biggest construction project at the University on his mind sits quietly in a high-ceilinged office in a corner of Watson Library while an FM radio plays quietly in the background.
He is Robert Malinowski, assistant director for reader services at the library and chairman of the library facilities committee. His committee's job is to recommend how the University should be furnished with $25 million on new library equipment and buildings
THE COMMITTEE'S WORK shows the paradox of having to plan the future by welding it onto the present and the past. One, hand plans, can visualize well on paper how you would equip equipment, cathode-ray tubes that catalogue books and computers that help
students find information. On the other hand, they must deal with the realities of old, inefficient buildings and the knowledge that they don't want to buy everything they would like to have.
Above all, however, there is the pressure of knowing that the library needs more information.
"Right now, our stacks are more than 90 per cent full," Malinowsky said last week. "In some places they're more than 100 per cent full, with books lying on top of books." He added that the room is not per cent full so that you have room for shifting and expanding the collection."
THE 13-MEMBER COMMITTEE began its work last February. Malinsky said most of its time had been spent looking at the needs of the University's library system and evaluating the solutions tried by other schools.
KU's own choices narrow to three, he said. One is simply to expand Watson and keep the problem simple.
campus. This choice is the least desirable, he said, because the University can't afford it. Such costly services as reference areas, reserve rooms and binders must be duplicated, and students must sometimes go to several branches to find books because the University can no longer afford to buy many books of needed books in more than one library.
A second choice is to build a new library big enough to combine several of the branches and spend the rest of the money renovating Watson Library. The new library would house the science, technology and engineering institutions; Watson would set most of the rest.
THE GREATEST PROBLEM with the second choice, Malinowsky said, is the difficulty of renovating Watson Library. In addition to the original bearings walls, he said, and some previous additions are so inefficient that they should be torn down before new additions are built.
libraries and build a new centralized one. Such a library would probably house all collections except those in Spencer College, the law and the law school library, he said.
A third choice is to abandon the existing
Malinowsky said that, ideally, the third choice was best, because it would eliminate duplication and allow the staff to work more effectively. However, what is ideal and which is not is a coincidence he said, and the choice of building a new branch library may be necessary.
"What else would you do with Watson if we abandoned it?" he said. "It's not an easy task."
MALNOWSKY SAID that even if the entire amount of money were put into a new central library, there would probably be no more total floor space than Watson Library has already. The difference, he said, is that a new library would use space more effec-
In part, efficiency means more extensive use of microfilm and computers.
Malinowski said that although the library would never rely totally on microfilm instead of books and periodicals, any new facility should use it more.
"Esthetically, I'm not that concerned about preserving the old, musty volumes in the library," he said. "What matters is what's on the paper. We've got a bit of Latin American material that that's printed on poor paper and is rolling on the shelves."
STUDENTS WHO associate using microfilm with the dreariness of the library's current microfilm room are mistaken, Mallowsky said, because microfilm readers have been developed and imbedded in well-lighted, pleasant surroundings.
Malmowsky said that simply to conserve existing space by microfilming more of the present collection wouldn't solve the problem. "The space was needed for more than books."
"It's the reader space we really don't
have. We should be able to accommodate one-fourth of the student body. Even with squeezing, we don't have space for more students. We can't — that's counting all our branches," he said.
Sites under consideration for recommendation for a new central or branch facility include the area around the Military Hospital, the east of Haworth Hall, Malmhousky said.
THE COMMITTEE HOPES to submit its recommendations to University administrators by the end of the year, Malinowsky said. Whatever the administrators' decision, however, they won't see the result. Detailed planning of any new facility will still be required, as will approval and funding by the legislature.
Malinowski said the earliest that any new facility could be ready was about 1860, and even that date would require a speeding-up University's current long-range goals.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
BLAZING
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Tuesday, July 8, 1975
No.157
Shakespeare meets machine
Cobb new College dean
See page 3
By STANSTENERSEN
Robert Cobb has been appointed Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Ronald Calgaard, vice chancellor for academic affairs, and Del Shankler, executive vice chancellor, announced last night.
Cobb has been serving as acting dean of the College since September 1974, when the former dean, George Waggoner, dismissed him for morpheme. Waggoner resigned in April to return to teaching in the English department and to become an adjunct professor of affairs in charge of international programs.
In making the appointment, Shankel said, "We feel confident that Bob Cobb will provide the leadership and initiative to maintain the high quality that has characterized the College during Dean Wagoneer's tenure."
A nine-member search committee was formed in April to recommend a new dean. The committee finished its work June 28 and submitted its recommendations to Chancellor Archie Dykes, Calgard and the Three then made the final selection.
Cobb had high praise for Waggoner, who had been dean of the College for 21 years.
"The prospects of filling his shoes are awesome," Cobb said.
Staff photo by DON PIERCE
Cobb, a long-time resident of Salina, joined the KU faculty as an assistant professor of English in 1957. He was promoted to associate professor in 1962 and to full professor in 1967.
He was chairman of graduate studies in the English department from 1960 to 1963 and was assistant chairman of the department in 1962.
He became assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1962, associate dean in 1968 and acting dean in when Waggoner took sabbatical leave.
He served as dean of international programs from 1968 to 1971, and as director of Numerical Systems for the University. He then co-raised the College to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as associate dean in 1973.
New head selected for English center
Michael M. T. Henderson, a linguist currently working at the University of Wisconsin, has been appointed as director of the Intensive English Center, Robert Cobb, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said yesterday.
Henderson will become director Aug. 1, succeeding Edward Erazmus.
Henderson, 32, is assistant editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English, a dictionary of American speech being compiled at the University of Wisconsin.
Cobb said that Henderson's background
Del Shakel, executive vice chancellor, adjusts his visor while shouting instructions to the del pere yesterday. Shankel takes second hand on the Rude Mechanicals, a University
Who's on second?
in teaching English to foreign students made him a "most imposing" candidate.
Henderson has taught English to foreign students in the United States as well, at the University of Pittsburgh in the summer of 1965 and at St. Louis University in 1968-69.
"He has a background of to deal with tough circumstances, as shown in his work in Laba and Afghanistan," Cobb said. "He has seen the range of problems here as well."
From 1965 to 1968, Henderson was the head of a language center in Afghanistan. During the 1972-73 school year, he taught English and directed the special courses division of the English Department at the University of Libya.
The Intensive English Center has been the object of a number of complaints and protests by foreign students in recent years, with the most important of the problems being exaggerated.
Henderson was selected from a field of about 40 candidates, said George Wedge, associate professor of English and chairman of the search committee. Wedge said Henderson was well qualified both as a teacher and an administrator.
David Dimeen, professor of French and Italian and a member of the search committee, said Henderson's record showed an ability to work with a variety of people. Henderson has an excellent background in both practical and theoretical linguistics, he
Henderson received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Wisconsin
Staff photo by DON PIERCE
Cobb
Continuing Ed gets federal grant
By STANSTENERSEN
At a dinner about 10 years ago in Washington, D.C., Howard Walker, dean of continuing education at KU, told a group of college officials that he thought the Federal government should be involved in funding some建筑工程, said Mr. Walker. KU received a Federal
Ten years later, KU received a Federal grant to plan of the first three.
The Department of Health, Education and Welfare last week awarded an $86,400 planning grant to the Division of Continuing Education. The grant will be used for architectural and engineering studies for a Bachelor's in continuing education center on the KU campus.
Walker said his proposal at the dinner was the start of a long effort to persuade the Federal government to fund continuing education for teachers in testimony before Congress by Walker and
by former chancellors Laurence Chalmers and Raymond Nichols.
Each center is to be a prototype of an approach to continuing education, Walker said. One center is to serve a region, one a community and one a state. KU submitted a proposal for the state-oriented center and was chosen over proposals from K-State and from schools in Pennsylvania and New York. Walker said.
Efforts to include appropriations for the centers under the Higher Education Facilities Act were unsuccessful until 1974, be said. In 1974, Congress appropriated $500,000 for architectural and engineering plans for three continuing education centers.
The center, whose cost Walker put at "a
million" in 1983, would hold
probably the following million.
Overnight accommodations for con-
tuning education students who travel to the campus for seminars and examinations
Meeting rooms for classes, seminars and conferences
—Such "media support" as television and films.
About 35 continuing education centers have already been built around the country, Walker said, but KU's facility will be unique in that it will bring together the best ideas of existing facilities and the innovations needed for the future.
A facilities advisory committee, which will help plan the building, will be appointed by the start of the fall semester, Walker said.
Money hasn't yet been appropriated to build the center after plans are completed. Walker said the committee would work on developing specific plans to present to Congress.
Parkwav funds caught in debate
By THERESE MENDENHALL
Kansas Staff Recorder
A bill appropriating $10 million in federal funds for construction projects, including Clinton Parkway is expected to come before the House of Representatives for a vote this Thursday, a spokesman for Ren. Larry Winn said yesterday.
House consideration of the bill follows a request made last week by President Ford
ANALYSIS
that Congress rescind the authority to appropriate the funds. If passed, the bill would, in effect, deny the request and make money available for the 4-mile road connecting the intersection of 23rd and Iowa streets to the Clinton Dam.
the out, reported to the House by the Appropriations Committee last week and now being considered in the Rules Committee, provides $10 million for the construction of "access roads to public parks" and provides a plan for Parkway was one of six such projects given priority when the lake access highways program was authorized.
The $10 million provided in the House bill is $15 million less than the $25 million limit set for this program in the authorizing legislation. The Senate's version of the bill, which may be marked up as early as next week, might provide the full $25 million.
If the House and Senate bills disagree on the amount, the matter will be settled in a hearing.
The appropriation of the full $25 million would increase chances that the local project would receive the requested $4.13 million, or 70 per cent of the $9.9 million needed to complete the project. The other 30 per cent will be provided locally.
A letter sent by Seens. Bob Dole and James Pearson last week to key members of the House Appropriations Committee requested that the full $2 million be appropriated or that $4.13 million be earmarked for Clinton Parkway.
Passage of the appropriations bill in Congress would settle a question about the source of the audits that followed. The Senate last two weeks ago when a local delegation presented its request for funding for Clinton Parkway to the transportation committee of the Senate
The Administration said that funding for the lake access highways program was
subject to the contract authority of the Department of Transportation, which would mean that funds actually became available for the program July 1, the first day of fiscal
Congress maintains that funding for the lake access highway programs is subject to a fee. Congress wants that
Ford's request last week that Congress rescind the authority to appropriate the funds expressed the administration's opposition to funding the program, Winn's
a bill appropriating the funds must be passed by both the House and Senate.
mans aide said the bill to come before the House this week revokes the contract authority of the Department of Transportation, if it ever existed, and appropriates funds through its own budget authority.
The Congress probably won't prepare a separate bill to respond to the President's rescission request because the appointee will still settle the question, Winn's aide said.
The Regents requested that the redrafting
Visual Arts bids sought
However, the architect hasn't yet given specific data to the Regents, said him.
Bids for the University of Kansas' new visual arts building should be received by about October 1, Warren Corran, facilities manager, Kansas Board of Reserves, said last week.
A first set of bids accepted early last spring yielded a low bid that was $900,000 more than available funds, making redesign necessary.
The planned changes involve construction details such as windows and finishes, he added. "They'll be a lot more expensive," he said.
be done in time for July 1 bids, but the deadline could not be met, Corman said.
he did not the amount of floor space allotted. He said that bidding competition wasn't particularly intense on items such as
Last Monday the Regents requested a state appropriation of $1,033,000 to complete the state financing of the project that has occurred over the past two years.
Construction should take two years.