There is a French idiom, “plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.” The more things change, the more they remain the same. The history of John Vaughan Library bears out this proverb.
From time to time the ghost of John Vaughan, ninth president of Northeastern State University (1936-1951), emerges out of hiding to haunt us out of our daily routine. I suspect that President Vaughan is just curious to know what’s going on in the building that received his name as a memorial to his vision of a new library in 1949. Satisfied that we’re not dishonoring his name, he disappears back into his photograph and looks smugly down upon us from his perch in the hall of presidents in the library’s south wing.
Through the years, rumors of John Vaughan’s ghost have surfaced, and my best source was a temporary night building custodian with a wonderful imagination and the ability to tell a good ghost story. It was in the 1980's that he told me of mysterious happenings such as books falling off the shelf on their own (Was President Vaughan censoring our selections?), exit turnstiles turning on their own, and finally, the shadowy figure of Vaughan bobbing up and down the south hallway and disappearing into the west wall. Our custodian knew it was John Vaughan because he claimed that a book that fell off the shelf opened to a photograph of President Vaughan.
The library hasn’t always been John Vaughan’s, and it hasn’t always been housed where it is today. The Annual Catalogue of the Northeastern State Normal School for the year 1909/10 described the reading room as “pleasant and commodious...[which is] open to all students every day except Sunday.”
A photo from the, Winter, Spring, Summer 1914 Bulletin of the Northeastern State Normal School in the library’s archives captures the students in a room apparently in Seminary Hall, the original Cherokee Female Seminary, reading by the dim light coming from a single chandelier and four tall windows with shades half drawn.
Sitting in high-backed chairs and feet resting comfortably on a support beneath the table, the students don’t seem to mind the paucity of the library collection. The 1909/10 catalogue proudly proclaimed, “There is now being installed in the institution a carefully selected and well equipped library. The books are all new and have been chosen with special reference to the needs of the students in the several departments of the school. The library is conducted on the most modern and approved lines and is in charge of a competent librarian who undertakes and instructs students in library science.” That first librarian was Eliza Rule, 1909/10, according to the catalogue.
Even as we try to lure student workers today with enticements such as free copies, the 1914 library offered something more enticing: college credits. The November, 1914, Bulletin announced, “A limited number of students may work one hour each day during the year in the library, and receive one unit credit, as an elective, towards graduation.” Perhaps this innovative idea came from Emmet Starr, noted historian, who was the librarian in 1914/15 and 1915/16.
Since the library’s accession list was not dated when the first acquisition was recorded, it’s hard to tell when it was acquired. Not many books in NSU’s 1909 library are still around today, but surprisingly the first book recorded in that accession list is in the library archives: E. F. Andrews’ Botany All the Year Round published by the American Book Company of New York in 1903 and donated to the library. The 30th book recorded in the accession list is also available in the archives: Froebel’s Mother Play Songs, published by Sigma Publishing Company in Chicago in 1895 and “dedicated to the young ladies of the Chicago Kindergarden College.” Since a price was not listed, it is assumed that it also was a gift.
Maybe in 1909 as now, retiring professors, reluctant to toss the books they’ve collected over a lifetime, found it easier to let go by donating them to the library. The practice of donating books to the library has continued to the present, and in lean budget years, the gifts have surpassed the purchased books in acquisitions.
However, the 1914 Bulletin recognized the importance of the library “as supplementary to the matter of instruction,” an idea which we still try to impart to the students, in somewhat less elevated language. “A good working library,” it stated, “ is essential in any school. Next in importance to knowing a thing is the knowledge of where information concerning it may be found...Approximately 500 volumes will be added each year.”
“...Twenty of the best magazines are subscribed for and about the same number of newspapers, daily and weekly,” according to the December 4, 1916- March 2, 1917 Bulletin. In addition, the library’s materials were speedily processed and dispatched to the stacks and reading room: “By the use of the Dewey Decimal System of library classification all new material, books bulletins, etc. is made available to the students as fast as it is received.” Now this is a feat which even our age of technology can’t surpass.
In 1949, “a modern building...designed to accommodate a collection of 150,000 volumes was occupied. On the first floor was the Cherokee Museum, the Art Display Room, seminar and faculty reading rooms and a model children’s library. The second floor provided space for the library offices, the Cherokee Book Room, and the main reading room. Books were shelved in closed stacks and had to be retrieved for the library’s users. A 1962 TSA LA GI photo shows students in the Main Reading Room. The librarian who presided over the building of this modern edifice was Sue B. Thornton, who also taught in the Music Department in 1926/27, according to the catalog. She served as Head Librarian from 1933-1964, surpassing all others in longevity.
Still standing today, the 1949 vintage Cherokee Book Room, better known as the library’s Special Collections, is in the same location on the second floor. Adjacent to it is the Curriculum Materials collection, and below on the first floor are the student lounge, technology support services and the “television studio” as well as the Ballenger Reading Room’s genealogy collection.
The library handbook of 1957 provided the library hours which are similar to the current hours. However, the library was much more genteel than it is today. It closed during the dinner hours from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Just as we do today, the library closed at 5:00 p.m. on Friday and opened for a limited number of hours on Saturday. It was closed on Sunday.
By the 70's, college students, having been through at least a decade of activism, were quite vocal about their expectations regarding library hours. The Student Senate passed a resolution “requesting an extension of library hours on the weekend,” according to a letter written by Dr. Maxwell White, Acting Head Librarian from 1970-75. His December, 1970 letter, addressed to Harry E. Hewlett, Student Senate President, in a conciliatory gesture, submitted three proposals through Student Senate Representative Brenda King, and pledged to “accept whichever one the Senate selects...on a trial basis.”
The plan apparently did not work, or more likely, the energy crisis and institutional debts intervened. A letter from Dr. White to the college faculty dated January 23, 1974, explained that “as a result of both the need to conserve energy and the need to reduce costs, the library...hours are being reduced by 13 hours per week...Periods when the library has only a handful of students and faculty using its facilities is a luxury the college can no longer afford.”
By April, 1974, President Robert E. Collier bowed under pressure of Senate Resolution 304, riddled with misspelled words and typographical errors. The eighth Whereas stated, ironically, that “the only possible ramification of the reduction of library service is to lower the already much maligned academic standards of the institution.” Could those standards have included the ability to write well? The resolution stated that the John Vaughan Library was “depriving Northeastern State College students the opportunity to study on weekends...closing at nine p.m. on week nights, thus depriving evening students the opportunity to use the library to check out materials after their classes adjourn.” Moreover, “the student body of Northeastern State College was not consulted no even warded (sic) [nor even warned] that the library hours were being reduced.”
The library hours remain an issue which comes up almost every year, in the Student Senate or in focus group meetings with library staff or with President Larry Williams. And we still try to discuss “the limitations which affect the feasibility of library schedules,” as Dr. White expressed it.
The faculty library committee was a force to be reckoned with in the fifties, and rightly so, when they discovered that many faculty requests for duplicate copies of books had an ulterior motive. A memo from the library committee accompanying the 1951-52 book budget asked faculty to keep their requests for duplicates to a minimum as “the practice of expecting the library to purchase enough copies of some books so that instructors may use them as textbooks in a particular class tends to leave the library with excessive duplicate copies as soon as a different book is selected for use in that class.”
Libraries generally pride themselves on freedom of information and promoting the students’ right to read whatever materials they need. A library director in 1964/65, Paul Parham, apparently felt differently about Masterplots and other synopses. In a 1964 memo to the library staff Parham wrote, “The Communications and Fine Arts Divisions have agreed that Masterplots and other similar synopses should be completely noncirculating. They may be used by students only with a note (signed by rubber stamp only) from the faculty member. These books have been placed in the Cherokee Room and should be used there. The privileges in use of these books have doubtlessly been vastly abused. Naturally, we would not want to be a part of any instruction program which would deprive the student of the best reading opportunities.”
Just as students in former years used Masterplots or Cliff’s Notes in lieu of reading the literature, and some librarians felt that it corrupted the students’ education, we present-day librarians sometimes feel that we’re catering to a generation of users who perceive the World Wide Web as the sole repository of useful information. Perhaps we won’t go as far as Parham by requiring a “note signed by rubber stamp only,” but we do point out the pitfalls of relying on the Web rather than using some of the library’s other vast resources.
The new three story structure completed in 1968 and attached to the 1949 building has obviously always been plagued with water and environmental problems and was a haven to bats and other flying intruders. On October 19, 1967, during renovation of the old building and construction of the new building, the card catalog, due to a natural or unnatural catastrophe, had been “soaked in water.” Gilbert Fites, Head Librarian from 1965 to 1970, sent an appeal to the Mid-Continent Casualty Company, to replace the card catalog, rather than repairing it. The insurance company investigator, Mr. Graves, “was not too certain what the card catalog was for,” according to Fites’ letter, “and his immediate suggestion was that we have our present one refinished and plane down the drawers so that they would fit, again.” In his own words, Fites “was not enthusiastic.”
In January 1969, shortly after the new building was occupied, Fites, reported a new leak, and in a January 16 letter to President Harrell Garrison reported an air filter problem:
President Garrison:
We have watched the air filters in the library for two weeks. One has not moved. The other had reached the end of its roll and did not readjust itself.
On February 5, the air filters were still a problem:
To: President Garrison
From: Gilbert Fites
Re: Air Filters
We are continuing to watch the air filters in the library. Neither air filter has moved since January 16.
Ironically, the staff in Special Collections continues to check the ceiling air vents to determine if the air is moving. If a piece of tape attached to the vent flutters, staff can tell if the air handling unit is working.
One of the most explosive issues in John Vaughan Library’s history was the security procedure initiated in 1981. According to a March 18, 1981, editorial in The Northeastern, the library had a loss of 8.2 percent of its collection between July 1977 and June 1978. To prevent further loss of library materials, the north entrance/exit was closed, and students were asked to present purses and briefcases for inspection before exiting the building. One irate student wrote a letter to The Northeastern, student newspaper, protesting the practice and ending with this dire warning: “...if this system doesn’t work and you suspect students are hiding books under their coats and sweaters, will you then ask us to remove our coats and sweaters before we leave? Perhaps a brief frisk or a disrobing should be expected if you suspect that bulge under our blouses is War and Peace and not an unborn baby.”
More probably that bulge was a film take-up reel. As recently as 1982, the library’s 16mm motion picture collection was heavily used, but it wasn’t the films which posed an “items missing” problem. In an April 23, 1982 memo to university faculty, John Ault of the AV Services department wrote a memo on the subject of take-up reels:
“In excess of 75 16mm motion picture take-up reels of various sizes are missing. These have been sent from this office to the classroom buildings with films which have been requested for use by faculty members. While the motion pictures have been returned, in many cases the empty reels have not. This occurance (sic) has now compounded to a serious problem level.” This year those 16mm films are being phased out, reels and all.
Needless to say, the stringent security system was also quickly phased out, and the library exits were entrusted to the electronic Checkpoint System. Some students have always been able to figure out a way to cheat the system, but it usually catches them in the act.
If President John Vaughan’s ghost could talk, it would, no doubt have many more interesting anecdotes to share during this 90th anniversary year. One last note: every year we receive numerous telephone calls and letters addressed to John Vaughan. Maybe the callers feel his presence here, too. He hasn’t been sighted lately, so perhaps he’s satisfied with the way we’re
running his library.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Victoria Sheffler and the staff of the University Archives for their assistance in providing the following references:
Annual Catalogue of the Northeastern State Normal School, Tahlequah, for the year 1909-1910.
Ault, John. “Take-up Reels.” Memo to University Faculty. 23 Apr. 1982.
Bulletin of the Northeastern State Normal School, November, 1914.
Bulletin of the Northeastern State Normal School, Winter, Spring, Summer, 1914.
Bulletin of the Northeastern State Normal, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Annual Course of Study and Winter Term Announcement, December 4, 1916-March 2, 1917.
Collier, R. E. “Student Senate Resolution #304.” Memo to Earl Sears, President Student Senate. 19 Apr. 1974.
Corn, Bill. “A Resolution to Increase Library Hours.” Resolution #304, n. d.
Fites, Gilbert. Letter to Mr. Charles C. Campbell. [Repairing a card catalog]. 19 Oct. 1967.
Letter to President Garrison. [Air filters in the library]. 16 Jan. 1969.
Memo to President Garrison. [Continuing to watch the air filters]. 5 Feb. 1969.
Kochan, Coleen. “Student Irate.” Letters to the Editor. The Northeastern 25 March 1981: 2.
Letter to Mr. Harry E. Hewlett, Student Senate President. 1 Dec. 1970.
“Library Security to Be Tightened.” Editorial. The Northeastern 18 March 1981: 2.
1957 Library Handbook, Northeastern State College, John Vaughan Library.
Parham, Paul. Memo to Library Staff, September 30, 1964.
White, Maxwell O. “New Library Hours Schedule.” Letter to College Faculty. 23 Jan. 1974.
[The above article appeared in May/June 2000 issue of OKLAHOMA LIBRARIAN, p. 23, 32-33]
Phythian, B. A. A concise dictionary of foreign expressions, Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble Books, 1982, 107.
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