Harvard Forms a Corporation With Three Eastern Libraries

Harvard's mammoth library system will join with three other major eastern research libraries to form an independent corporation, Douglas W. Bryant, University librarian, said yesterday.

At a meeting January 3, Bryant and the directors from the New York Public Library and the Yale and Columbia libraries committed funds to a bibliographic information center at Yale that the libraries will share.

First Step

The Research Libraries Group, made up of members of the four libraries, announced Friday that the information center would be the first step in "one of the most important cooperative undertakings to occur in the research library field in decades."

The announcement cited long-range plans to incorporate and--"through cooperative organization"--to promote the joint development of collections and "more flexible reciprocal access of resource material."

Two-Year Negotiations

Bryant said that the libraries had negotiated for two years, but that "it's a complex issue in financial, administrative and political terms."

The libraries will fund the bibliographic center, he said. The additional $10-15 million needed for further development will depend on the availability of government and foundation grants.

"The program is still very much in the planning stage, but it's set up so that we can put it into effect by degrees," Bryant said. "Our next move will be to appoint a director who can coordinate our effort."

In a summary of a study done for the Research Libraries Group, Edwin E. Williams, associate University librarian, concluded that "technological developments are now providing means for libraries to work together far more effectively than ever before."

Cooperative Effort

Williams added that such "cooperative effort can now achieve major improvements in resources and services and a reduction in the rate of increase in library costs."

However, actual incorporation is still a long way off, Bryant said yesterday. "There are tremendous complexities in dealing with four large institutions--especially at Harvard's end, where there's a federation of more than ninety libraries," he said.

Bryant stressed that the proposed union would increase services to libraries outside the Research Libraries Group and that the four directors are planning on increasing the membership of the group.

"Other major libraries are very much interested and are keeping in close touch," he said. "The idea has been in the wind for a long-time, and we're finally getting it off the ground."