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Jens NyholmJens Nyholm was appointed university librarian on September 1, 1944, a position he was to hold for the next 23 years. A graduate of the University of Copenhagen and the State Library School in his native Denmark, he also held an M.A. from George Washington University, and had served as assistant librarian at the University of California at Berkeley. Nyholm inherited a library administration replete with confusing and contradictory organizational and jurisdictional procedures and practices. The main library was in fact responsible for the ordering and cataloging of books for all the libraries of the Evanston campus, but this was misleading. Although the revised university statutes of 1912 stated that the libraries of the Colleges of Liberal Arts and Engineering, the Schools of Music and Commerce, and the Evanston Academy should function as a single unit known as the University Library, the lack of an adequate central building, combined with insufficient funding and staff, meant in practice that a number of components of the old departmental library network still survived. Under the departmental system in effect until 1917, each department's faculty controlled book funds for the department's subject area. This situation placed the university librarians in an uncomfortable position since they hoped to involve faculty in collection building yet at the same time wished to avoid the costly duplication of holdings which the departmental system proliferated. Moreover, control of books in the departmental libraries was unfeasible. Books sent from the main library to the departments after cataloging circulated from the department offices under the aegis of the departmental secretaries. When called for by the main library, the books often could not be located. A strong centralized system was clearly necessary. Although Lichtenstein had been instrumental in effecting a revision of the university statutes, and Koch and Keith had effectively consolidated department libraries in both Deering and the Technological Institute Library, nonetheless Nyholm faced a formidable challenge in centralizing the remainder of the system. After reviewing the advantages of a strong centralized library system with its economy, efficiency, and improved service, Nyholm successfully won support for his reorganization proposals from University President Franklyn Snyder. In quick succession several libraries were merged with the main library. The 3,000-volume Music Library, begun in 1918, was incorporated in the main system in 1945, and later that year administrative responsibility for the Technological Institute Library was transferred from the dean of the institute to the university librarian. In 1946 the Curriculum Laboratory, established in 1936 by Dr. Samuel Everett of the School of Education, became a part of the library. Also that year a room staffed by library personnel was acquired on the ground floor of University Hall to house the thousands of maps received as a consequence of the war. In 1947 the Botany and Zoology departmental libraries were combined as the Life Sciences Library and moved to Deering. The Mathematics Library in the Lunt Building and the Geology Library in University Hall were designated branch libraries. Nyholm's reorganization left Astronomy as the single departmental library. A significant internal reorganization was also implemented under Nyholm. The library's technical operations were centralized in 1947 under a chief of technical processes responsible for the administration of the Order, Gifts and Exchanges, Serials, Cataloging, Catalog Maintenance, and Mechanical Processes division. A science librarian was appointed to administer the branch libraries in the sciences and the Map Library. A curator of special collections was appointed in 1949 to head the department of rare books, then called the Treasure Room. A position of chief of reference and special services was created in 1950 bringing the Commerce, Curriculum, Documents, and Music collections; and the Browing Room, Periodicals, and the Treasure room together under one administrative officer. Later in the year the Circulation Department was assigned responsibility for administering the remaining departmental libraries. Largely for reasons of economy, a transition from closed to open stacks also occurred. Through building the collections, Nyholm exhibited his considerable knowledge of books and curriculum needs. Several major collections were acquired en bloc including a 6,000-item collection on economic history and 3,500 English and American plays in 1945, and comprehensive Danish and Greek World War II underground collections in 1946. Eight thousand five hundred Spanish plays and a 900-volume Boswell and Johnson collection were added in 1947, a 2,400-volume collection on the expansion and development of the West was purchased in 1949, and a political science collection of 7,200 items and the valubable N. F. S. Grundtvig collection of 200 volumes were acquired in 1952. In 1954 a collection of 7,300 pamphlets and tracts and 150 manuscripts written during the French Revolution was accessioned. The Horace Collection encompassing 1,800 volumes, 5,000 volumes of Western Americana, and the Lew Sarrett Collection of manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia were acquired in 1956. A 1954 decision to actively collect in the areas of Expressionism, Dadaism, Futurism, Imagism, Symbolism, Cubism, and Surrealism led to the development of a significant collection relating to 20th- century movements. From the first, Nyholm was necessarily concerned with space requirements. His first annual report noted that the Deering Library's stacks were 90% filled. As early as 1947, pressing space problems necessitated extensive weeding and tranfers to branches. In 1952 additional storage space for 26,000 volumes was obtained in basements of nearby classroom buildings, and in 1956 the library secured the use of an underground storage space, the "Annex," which provided room for over 500,000 volumes by 1969. Eventually the main building became so crowded that in 1964 the Catalog Department reported that there was no space for the addition a single new staff member. By 1965 the rare book collection was using the Browsing Room for stack space. Working in cooperation with the other university librarians, Nyholm played a key role in 1946 in the creation of a Library Council comprised of the university librarian and the librarians of the four libraries on the Chicago campus. The initiation of a weekly news bulletin, the Northwestern Library News in September of 1946, which carried brief articles about library activities on both campuses, did much to improve communication. In 1949 Nyholm secured an institutional membership in the Library of International Relations, which provided faculty and students with access to an extensive collection near the Chicago campus. That same year Northwestern became one of the 10 charter members of the Midwest Inter-Library Cooperative, later the Center for Research Libraries, established in order to maintain a cooperative storage and service center for less frequently used research materials. Over the years, in order to alleviate the overcrowded condition of the stacks the library transferred literally tons of material to the center. In 1950 the combined holdings of the Northwestern University libraries on the Evanston and Chicago campuses passed the 1 million mark and a ceremony marking the acquisition of the one-millionth volume was held July 26. Ironically, inflation in the early 1950s made growth impossible, since the budget remained stationary. Other advances during Nyholm's administration included the extension of the faculty TIAA retirement to a number of the professional library staff and the installation in 1952 of a teletype connecting all Midwest Inter-Library Cooperative members. A minor change in the administrative structure occurred in the fall of 1958, when a Geology Library was established in the department's building, Locy Hall, and the geography volumes moved to Deering. Annual increases in the late 1950s and the early 1960s in the book fund helped the library keep up with the inflationary trend. In 1959 the University Archives became an integral part of the NU Library, forming a unit of Reference and Special Services. The University Archives had been established in 1935 through the efforts of Professor James Alton James, a member of the faculty from 1897 to 1935. Assigned to write a definitive university history, he found that required source materials were not readily available and he therefore proposed to University President Walter Dill Scott that a room be set aside in Deering to be known as the University Archives, where all the material about the development of the university could be gathered. A faculty committee on archives and history was apointed July 2, 1935, and Professor James, as chariman of the committee, served as de facto archivist, assisted by Florence Stewart, formerly the secretary-registrar of the Graduate School. When James relinquished his position, Stewart continued to direct the archives. In 1961 the last departmental library, the Astronomy Library, was designated a branch. Although it was the last to be incorporated into the system, it is one of the oldest branches, tracing its origin to a collection begun shortly after the Chicago Astronomical Society built the Dearborn Observatory in Chicago in 1865. In 1888, when Northwestern purchased the telescope from the Chicago Astronomical Society and moved it to the Evanston campus, it also acquired the library. The handwritten Catalogue dated February 29, 1885, shows that the collection of 1,300 volumes was a general library containing books on all subjects -- not only the sciences. In 1966 Nyholm created the position of associate librarian with responsibility for automating library functions, and a Library Automation Pilot Project was initiated at the Technological Institute Library. In 1960 the university Committee for an Expanded Library, consisting of faculty members and librarians, recommended that a new university library be built. The Library Planning and Building Committee was appointed by President J. Roscoe Miller in 1961. Its membership included Professor Moody E. Prior, dean of the Graduate School; Professor Richard Ellmann of the English Department; Professor Robert Strotz of the Economics Department; Jens Nyholm, univeristy librarian; David Jolly, assistant university librarian; John C. Sanderson, Jr., director of plant properties; and Professor Clarence L. Ver Steeg of the History Department as chairman. From extensive interviews with faculty and students in every department and school came the basic concepts and goals which the committee sought to include in the new library; for example, all the library resources and services should be open to undergraduates, graduates, and faculty alike in one community of scholars. Recommendations were also made that set standards and criteria for the transition from the physical environment of the present campus to the new campus which was being created. The committee's report, submitted to President Miller in 1962, was adopted. By January 1964 preliminary plans and drawings were developed and the following year the final drawings were approved. Groundbreaking took place August 9, 1966. Throughout the long planning period the committee worked closely with the architect Walter S. Netsch, Jr., general partner of the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Nyholm spent the last years of his administration largely occupied with planning the new library. At the same time more and more volumes had to be placed in storage. But in 1968, at the close of his 23rd year as librarian, Nyholm could look back on many major accomplishments: the combined libraries of Northwestern had during those 23 years grown from 736,000 volumes to 1,196,000; a staff of 60 had expanded to 170; and the budget increased from $200,000 to $2,000,000. The Evanston campus libraries operations were transformed into an efficient, centralized, and well- coordinated system. The collections increased in quality as well as quantity, due in large part to Nyholm's manifest interest in book collecting. Since retiring from Northwestern, Nyholm has served as bibliographical consultant for the University of California at Santa Barbara.
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