College and Research Libraries


A Military College Initiates 
A Library Instructional Program 

BY S I D N E Y E. M A T T H E W S 

TH E V I R G I N I A M I L I T A R Y I N S T I T U T E i n 1959 radically changed its concept as 
to the role of the library in a twofold 
e d u c a t i o n a l p r o g r a m — a c a d e m i c and 
military. T h i s combination, in the words 
of its originators, is designed to provide 
"practical utility, through discipline and 
formative training," and to produce men 
of "energy, efficiency and reliability." 

T h e Virginia Military Institute is or-
ganized under the laws of the Common-
wealth of Virginia and is governed by a 
board of visitors appointed by the gov-
ernor and subject to confirmation by the 
state senate. In accordance with provi-
sions of the Code of Virginia, the cadets 
constitute a military corps and officers 
at the Institute are commissioned by the 
governor in the Virginia Militia, un-
organized. Although V.M.I, requires 
rigorous military training for its entire 
student body, the Institute always has 
placed its first emphasis on its academic 
program. Colonel J. T . L. Preston, a 
prime mover in the founding of V.M.I., 
proposed that "the object is to prepare 
young men for the varied work of civil 
life . . . the military feature, though es-
sential to its discipline, is not primary 
in the Institute's scheme of education." 
T h e Institute has followed this concept 
since 1839 when it was founded as the 
first state military college in the nation. 
V.M.I, offers nine degree-granting cur-
ricula—one each in civil engineering, 
electrical engineering, chemistry, physics, 
biology, history, and English, and two in 
mathematics. 

When it was decided to alter the li-
brary's role, three major changes were 
made: (1) the library was made an aca-

Lt. Col. Matthews is Director of Preston 
Library and Associate Professor of Library 
Science at Virginia Military Institute. 

demic department with the librarian 
reporting directly to the dean of the 
faculty, (2) the librarian was given aca-
demic rank and made a member of the 
Institute's Academic Board, and (3) for-
mal and informal courses in library sci-
ence were officially entered in the cur-
riculum. T h e formal library science 
courses as described in the catalog issue 
of the Institute's bulletin embrace two 
areas: (1) "Library Science 101—Litera-
ture of the Natural Sciences. Reference 
materials, bibliographical methods, and 
use of the library in study of the natural 
sciences. T h i s course is given in the fall 
semester and required of all biology ma-
jors." (2) "Library Science 301—Reference 
Materials and Bibliographical Methods. 
Basic bibliographical methods and refer-
ence materials used in the various fields 
of the liberal arts, science, and technol-
ogy, with problems and practice. Prob-
lems will be adapted to needs of indivi-
dual students and may be developed in 
conjunction with work on a senior thesis. 
T h i s course is offered both semesters." 

T h e informal freshman program of 
the Institute's library program consists 
of two parts: (1) a tour and (2) three 
one-hour lectures with problems on use 
of the library. T h e former is under the 
supervision of the commandant of cadets 
and professor of military science and 
takes place either during the cadre pe-

482 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S 



riod or during R . O . T . C . class periods the 
first week of classes. All academic de-
p a r t m e n t s c o o p e r a t e fully w i t h the 
R . O . T . C . instructors in conducting these 
tours so as to give the freshmen a thor-
ough examination of the academic facili-
ties of the various departments. Any 
more than a cursory tour at this point 
would be unnecessary as the cadets are 
confused by various tests and by the ad-
justment to a rigid military way of life. 
T h e informal program of lectures with 
problems is part of freshman English 
101. These lectures are usually given the 
first week in November, immediately 
preceding the cadet's term papers, and 
coincide with that part of the freshman 
English course in how to prepare a term 
(research) paper. It is usually at this time 
that the cadet is searching for book re-
views for his history course and begins 
to realize how necessary it is to know 
how to locate materials in the library. 

Instruction in the formal courses is 
given entirely by the librarian, and the 
informal course is given by the librarian 
with the assistance from the two other 
professional librarians on the Preston 
library staff. All library instruction is 
given in the library's auditorium or in 
its classroom. 

T h e three one-hour lectures and prob-
lems on each in the informal program 
are designed to: 1) acquaint tbe cadet 
with the physical arrangement of the 
seven-story library building (the build-
ing is on a slope and the front entrance 
is located on the fifth floor which is also 
the first stack level) and location of col-
lections, 2) develop the cadet's ability in 
locating information and to make him as 
self-sufficient as possible in the use of the 
card catalog and other reference tools, 
and 3) to introduce the cadet to various 
types of sources available to him and not 
to overwhelm him with too many titles. 

T h e three lectures emphasize the dic-
tionary catalog, reference books, and in-
dexes. T h e lectures are illustrated with 
two filmstrips series. It is planned to 

produce local slides of Preston library's 
floor plan and reference items not in-
cluded in the films. As supplementary 
material the cadets use their English 
textbook and appropriate titles from the 
library. 

Problems are passed out at the end of 
each lecture and the cadets have a two-
week period to complete them. T h e 
problems are designed to direct the cadet 
along subject lines which are of interest 
to him and to use his own family name 
or, if his is not found, to select another 
beginning with the first three letters. By 
using this procedure, some of the usual 
difficulties of freshman library problems, 
i.e. each cadet using the same part of a 
book, set, or the card catalog and passing 
answers, are avoided. These problems 
are graded by the librarian and the pro-
fessional staff and the grades are re-
corded by the English department as 
three units of the cadet's grade in Eng-
lish 101 for that grading period. As a 
follow-up, most of the instructors in the 
English department include library ques-
tions of a general nature covered in these 
lectures as part of one of their regular 
English tests. 

T h e cadet reaction to these lectures 
and problems has been largely favorable. 
T h e few unfavorable comments usually 
center on the amount of time required. 
Statistics were not recorded the first year, 
but this past year out of a total of 250 
questions, seventy-four cadets missed 
twenty-five or less, 163 cadets missed 
thirty-seven or less, and 242 cadets missed 
fifty or less. No cadet has ever been pro-
ficient enough to obtain a perfect score on 
all three sets of problems. A check of the 
ten cadets achieving the highest grades 
on these problems with their grades in 
other subjects showed that they were 
proficient in their other freshmen courses. 
Conversely the cadets receiving an ex-
tremely low grade on the library prob-
lems were failing one or more freshman 
courses. No valid inference should be 
drawn from this, but next year a large 

N O V E M B E R 1 9 6 2 483 



number of library grades will be com-
pared with the cadets' grades in other 
courses. 

English faculty comments have been 
extremely favorable and in agreement 
with the type of problems presented. Re-
quests for one or two hours of library lec-
tures with problems have also come from 
other instructors in the liberal arts pro-
gram and in engineering. A condensed 
version of the lectures, with emphasis on 
the particular subject area involved, has 
been given in electrical engineering, civil 
engineering, economics, American gov-
ernment, and geopolitics classes. 

T h e inherent difficulties of the pro-
gram include: (1) scheduling nineteen 
sections of freshman English, usually 
350 freshmen, for three different one-
hour lectures in one week, (2) lack of 
any type of local library handbook, (3) 
large number of papers to grade in which 
there can be no "key" for the answers 
since each cadet has worked with sub-
jects of interest to him, (4) having to 
schedule too many cadets at one period, 
(5) no opportunity to discuss and go 
over the papers with the cadets after 
they have been graded, (6) no oppor-
tunity for the librarians to give each 

cadet individual help and attention, and 
(7) extremely heavy use of the library's 
reference room and card catalog at this 
period of the academic year. 

In spite of these difficulties there is 
general approval of the program, and 
for V.M.I.'s program it is highly de-
sirable to integrate this instruction with 
freshman English classes. T h e cadet is 
introduced to the tools and research 
methods at the time he is ready to begin 
serious library use. T h i s introduction is 
more thorough than the usual library 
orientation program that is often used 
in "freshman week" and is much more 
helpful. Several items indicate a degree 
of partial success. T h e cadets do not ask 
as many elementary questions, seem 
more at ease in the library, and have a 
clearer understanding of how to go 
about their work; and perhaps the 30 
per cent increase in circulation over the 
last two years received some impetus 
from this program. 

T h i s joint instructional program has 
proved of value not only to English 101 
but in subsequent courses requiring the 
use of the library. It has done much to 
make the library meaningful to the 
cadets of V.M.I. 

Military Librarians Workshop 
M i l i t a r y l i b r a r i a n s met on S e p t e m b e r 26-28 at W h i t e Sands Missile R a n g e 

in New M e x i c o f o r t h e i r sixth a n n u a l workshop. M o r e than o n e h u n d r e d 
l i b r a r i a n s from sixty installations a n d representatives from C a n a d a and B e l g i u m 
were in a t t e n d a n c e . P a n e l a n d g r o u p discussions c e n t e r e d a r o u n d the workshop 
t h e m e — " P e r s o n n e l Practices in M i l i t a r y L i b r a r i e s . " S u b j e c t - c e n t e r e d programs 
covered t e c h n i c a l a n d research libraries, a c a d e m i c libraries, a n d special services. 
N e x t year's m e e t i n g , o f which D w i g h t L y m a n , U . S. U n d e r w a t e r S o u n d L a b o r a -
tory, F t . T r u m b u l l , C o n n . , is program c h a i r m a n , will be at the U . S. Naval 
O r d n a n c e L a b o r a t o r y , Silver Spring, M d . T h e workshop is held a l t e r n a t e l y 
by the U . S. Army, Navy, and A i r Force, with C a n a d a acting as host in odd 
years. 

484 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S