Outside Funding of Academic Libraries

THEP A S T DECADE has been one of burgeoning budgets in academic libraries. During 1950-51 a random sample of 25 college and university libraries spent a total of $7,318,000 for general operations; in 1960-61 the same libraries spent $18,135,000-an in-crease of almost 250 per cent. The total institutional operating ex-penditures of these same colleges and universities, however, increased so phenomenally during the period that the average percentage of their expenditures devoted to the operation of libraries moved almost imperceptibly from 4.01 per cent to 4.08 per cent. When the increase of costs during the period, especially for books and journals, is also taken into account, the apparent affluence loses some of its lustre, and it begins to appear as though academic libraries have come a long way to stand still. Yet there are probably few among us who would not feel that these libraries are coming closer to accomplishing their func-tion today than they were a decade ago and that much of the progress has been due largely to these new dollars. It is not the purpose of this paper to study the uses which have been made of these increased funds. Recent trends in that aspect of aca-demic library finance are being examined and reported elsewhere in this symposium. Rather the present paper will survey the sources whence these funds have come into library budgets-especially those which lie outside the parent institutions-and will examine the effects which they have had upon library operations and activities. These sources include private donors, foundations, and government agencies. Private Donors. It is a matter of record that since the beginnings of institutional libraries, private philanthropists have played a major role in their development. In the United States such names as Widener