THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CENTER: A NEW DIMENSION

Because there has been particular interest in a report on the documentary work done in the Centre de Documentation at Laval University, and especially in its use of the Miracode machine, I will give a general account of our experience at Laval in setting up this documentation center which operates under the auspices of the University Library. The documentation center is designed to assist both teachers and those engaged in research. Its function is not, as some may imagine, primarily to collate documents not in the possession of the library, but rather to extract from books, periodicals, and other documents information which may be needed for purposes of teaching and research by the various faculties and institutes of the University. Before discussing the work of the center perhaps observations would be in order. some background In France, when a professional librarian attains a rank equivalent to that of a "senior librarian " in America, he is given the title of "conservateur " (i.e., conserver). I believe, whether we like to admit it or not, it is indisputable that a major, if not principal, function of the professional librarian has long been and still is the conservation of books. The first criterion of the quality of a library, for example, is still the over-all quantity of volumes it contains. Even in our day, this criterion takes precedence over most others. I know one university library that refused for three years to give up a collection of one hundred thousand law books which logically belonged in the library of the faculty of law, because by surrendering them, the general library would have fallen below its boasted one million volumes. Also, as a member of a study group on scientific and technical information in Canada, I have recently participated in public meetings held at a 1 number of Canadian universities, and conducted numerous interviews with faculty members, researchers, graduate students, librarians and directors of data processing centers. Since the official report of the group is not yet published, I am at this time in no position to offer any predictions concerning its findings and recommendations. But on the whole, the experience of the group appears to bear out Bonn's observation, as noted by Robert B. Downs

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