I Remember Laurier: Reflections by Retirees on Life at WLU

17. The Library—Growing with a Growing University

As an alumnus of waterloo lutheran university (1964), it was something of a homecoming to join the library in 1967 after earning my B.L.S. from the University of Toronto.As a student, and later as a librarian, I was privileged to be part of the library’s expansion, serving as head of information services, of collections management, and finally of acquisitions until my retirement in 1998. There are four periods in the development of the library. Each period includes the holdings and acquisitions of the seminary as well as those of the college and the university. The first and longest period is that of 1911 to 1959—the barest beginnings on into the Waterloo College era. The second is the era of Waterloo Lutheran University, from 1960 to 1973—a period of moderate growth and space challenges. The third, 1973 to the 1990s, was a period of increased funding, growth, and development of automated services. The fourth, the 1990s to the present, was a time of library cooperation, joint electronic services, and collection building. When the Waterloo College Associate Faculties became the new University of Waterloo in 1959, change came to Waterloo College and its library. Librarian Doris Lewis departed for the University of Waterloo leaving behind a library staff and a collection that were both small. The Rev. Erich Schultz, a young librarian with a theological education, was hired as the chief librarian of Waterloo Lutheran University and Waterloo Lutheran Seminary. Erich related many times that he was told by the Chapter 17  The Library—Growing with a Growing University john arndt 90 president of the time to be diligent in not allowing any of the collection to be transferred to the new school down the street. There were nine staff members in the library at that point, two of whom remained with the library to retirement: Margaret Wettlaufer and Norma McClenaghan, both still active in WLU affairs. There was no formal relationship between the two libraries until 1970, when a cooperative lending policy allowed direct borrowing between the University of Waterloo and Waterloo Lutheran University libraries for faculty, graduate students, and cross-registered students, and soon thereafter for undergraduate students. Following in the footsteps of former library instructors, Mabel Dunham (the long-serving librarian of the Kitchener Public Library) and Doris Lewis, the new chief librarian, offered a compulsory (pass/fail) library instruction course, which was a requirement for graduation. Erich learned, years later, that the registrar allowed some students (including me) who had transferred from other universities to be exempted from taking the course. It was difficult for Erich to believe that anyone could have slipped through his net. A major undertaking early on was the conversion of the collection from the Dewey Decimal classification to the Library of Congress classification , which, when completed in the early 1960s, put the library’s classification system in harmony with that of most North American academic libraries. The library had been in Willison Hall since 1914, and by 1961 the collection of about 23,000 items occupied two floors, with books in the old gymnasium on the bottom floor, and reserve, government publications, interlibrary loans, and serials on the main floor. Because of the meagre collection, young history students had to be creative in following the policies of professors such as Loren Calder and Welf Heick, who insisted on the use of primary sources. Of course, there was interlibrary loan, but, unfortunately, it took six to eight weeks for the material to arrive, if it came at all. It was soon evident that Willison Hall was inadequate for an expanding library collection and a rapidly growing student body. In 1960 there were 640 full time students, but by 1965 the students numbered more than 2,146. A new library building officially opened in September 1965 with initial plans of three floors to house 150,000 volumes to serve 600 john arndt 91 students. However, financial restraints limited construction to two floors with the main and second floors sitting on what appeared to be stilts. Finally, sensitive to the growing need for student space on campus and in the library, the Board of Governors gave permission to enclose the lower floor of the library to create additional classrooms and to provide space for library receiving and storage. This was the beginning of the university’s “tradition” of providing much-needed space for the library but requiring it...