Tuesday, April 28, 1998
Stacks of Time
HISTORICAL: The six university
librarians have toiled
for decades to create the spine of Powell Library
By Michelle Navarro
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
At the heart of the UCLA campus proudly sit the university’s
first buildings, boasting an aura of importance and greatness. And
it is there where Powell Library, that building both loved and
hated, may be found.
Hated, because it is a reminder of sleepless nights and endless
hours spent inside a claustrophobic nerd-box. Loved, because it is
a part of the roots from which UCLA has grown, serving as a
reference point in history.
But the creation of the college library and all of its offspring
didn’t happen with a wave of a magic wand. In fact, there is a
legacy of librarians who helped make the UCLA library what it has
become today.
The origins of the library began years before UCLA even existed
with the birth of the Los Angeles State Normal School in 1881, a
teachers training school. The book collection within the following
decades grew to around 15,000 volumes. After 33 years, the Normal
School was forced from its downtown location to Vermont Avenue in
order to accommodate the growing campus.
In 1919, the State Legislature and the school board for the
Normal School voted to transform the campus into the southern
branch for the University of California. Included in this
metamorphosis was a new interest in expanding and improving the
library.
It was then that donations were made, even from UC Berkeley,
which was big sister to the budding university. At the time, the
library owned not one work from Chaucer or Shakespeare. It didn’t
even possess a dictionary until the graduating class of 1922
donated $164 to purchase an Oxford English Dictionary.
In 1923, when the full-time library staff totaled a mere 12 and
the number of volumes was only at 42,000 UCLA received its first
university librarian, John E. Goodwin.
Previously the librarian for the University of Texas, Goodwin
brought several desperately needed changes and ideas to the new
campus. He tried to allocate a yearly budget of $75,000 for books
and bindings, but the plan was not approved. In fact, that amount
of money was not approved until 1940.
Goodwin also reclassified the library under the Library of
Congress classification system rather than the outdated Dewey
Decimal System. He also opposed the proposal to keep UCLA’s library
under the wing of Berkeley so that the northern campus would
possess the only university research library.
UCLA’s first librarian’s ideas and plans were just in time for
yet another major change – the school would be moving again, this
time to the hills of Westwood.
Initially, the Regents had decided to split the school between
the two locations, leaving the teacher’s school at the Vermont
location and taking the other academic divisions to the Westwood
locale. Goodwin strongly opposed the idea because he felt splitting
the library into two weak parts instead of keeping it whole would
be a terrible idea.
He fought this proposal, along with Dr. Ernest Moore and Regent
Edwin A. Dickson, for three years until the decision was reversed,
and the whole school made the move.
In Westwood, Goodwin started to expand the collection and even
went so far as to purchase private collections and manuscripts. He
also got involved with the planning for the building of the present
Powell Library.
Major growth and development slowed, almost to a screeching
halt, when the Depression hit. Salaries were cut, as well as
funding for books and binding. The beginning of World War II also
made library expansion difficult since necessary resources, like
the wood and steel for shelving and stacking, were rare. The east
wing addition was put on hold, and sometimes the U.S. armed forces
took over parts of the library for their own means.
When Goodwin retired in 1944, Lawrence Clark Powell took over.
During the Powell era, there was a huge period of expansion. New
schools – for example, engineering, medicine, law, nursing and
public health – began emerging and each demanded a much more
diverse and specific subject collection within the library.
Externally, the library also grew with the completion of the
four-story east wing two years later. This opened up a book
collection for undergraduates, who hadn’t been able to use the
stacks since 1926.
Powell earned his masters from Occidental College and his
doctorate from the University of Dijon in France. When he returned
to the United States, he attended the School of Library Service at
UC Berkeley and then later received a job at UCLA.
It is said that Powell kept a little notebook with him in which
he jotted down all the things he would do if he ever became head
librarian.
"Fortune and friendship brought me there at the precise time a
librarian of my temperament was needed," Powell said in a former
interview. "If it was made for me, I was made for it."
In the 1950’s, the library’s collection continued to grow to
over 1.5 million volumes, making it the 12th largest in the
nation.
Powell bought collections, increased archival resources and
trained librarians like Robert Vosper and Page Ackerman, who were
to later succeed him in his position as university librarian.
Powell resigned as librarian in 1961 to become the dean of the
new Graduate School of Library Service.
Vosper, the former librarian for the University of Kansas, was
then hired as the head of the library after Powell. His timing was
excellent since the Regents had just endorsed a 10-year plan for
development of the UCLA libraries. This aided in the doubling in
size of the library’s collection to 3 million and the building of a
new research library in the north side of campus.
In 1966, the main library building was named after Powell and
was dedicated to providing books and services to
undergraduates.
Vosper remained the head librarian until 1973 when Ackerman
served for five years. Russell Shank succeeded her until 1989,
followed by the current university librarian, Gloria Werner.
"Being university librarian now is very challenging," Werner
said. "I am very proud of what has been accomplished over the
years. Even though it’s still relatively young, the library is very
highly ranked nationally."
University Archives
Lawrence Clark Powell (center) was university librarian from
1944-61. His successors were (left to right) Russell Shank
(’77-’89), the late Robert Vosper (’61-’73), Page Ackerman
(’73-’77) and Gloria Werner (’89-present).
DERRICK KUDO/Daily Bruin
Powell Library has had six university librarians in its storied
existence.
University Archives
John Goodwin acted as Powell’s first university librarian.