Chapter 33. Daniel J. Boorstin Retires and is Succeeded by James H. Billington

The year 1987 was marked not only by the closing of the Main Reading Room but also by the retirement of Dr. Boorstin as Librarian of Congress and his assumption of the role of Librarian Emeritus. His successor was Dr. James H. Billington, again a scholar like Boorstin. As the thirteenth Librarian of Congress, Dr. Billington took the oath of office on September 14, 1987, after having sailed through a Senate confirmation hearing unlike Boorstin whose appointment had been opposed not only by the American Library Association speaking for the professional librarians of the country, and by members of the staff organizations of the Library of Congress. This time there were no strong voices questioning the appointment of a non-professional librarian to head the nation’s library as there had been not only with Dr. Boorstin’s appointment but also years earlier when poet Archibald MacLeish was appointed in the late thirties.

Apparently the American Library Association, the nation’s professionals, and the Library of Congress staff had decided that it was no longer important for a professional librarian to be the Librarian of Congress or that it was useless to object to the appointment of a non-librarian to administer the nation’s top library even though well known, well qualified top professional library administrators could be found in various parts of the country. No one in the professional library community raised the question”Would the President of the United States appoint and the Senate confirm a non-surgeon to be Surgeon General or a non-lawyer to the Supreme Court of the United States?” In fact, some representatives of the American Library Association and representatives of Library of Congress staff organizations made statements favorable to Billington’s appointment. The staff of the Library of Congress welcomed the new Librarian of Congress, respecting him for his reputation as a scholar, for his drive and for the future that he envisioned for the library.

History seemed to be repeating itself. During his time, MacLeish had used the phrase, “the reference library of the people” to describe the nation’s library. Boorstin in his time referred to it as “the people’s library.” Billington on the other hand coined the phrase, the “living encyclopedia of democracy.” Like Boorstin, Billington immediately began to plan to reorganize the Library.

By this time we had gotten used to being reorganized from time to time, so when Billington made his announcement, we were ready to bite the bullet. Some of us in the Research Services Department were pleased when Ellen Hahn, the Library’s highly competent and hard working chief of the General Reading Rooms Division was selected by Billington to head his Management and Planning Committee which was to work with a private consulting firm to mastermind the reorganization. After going through a couple of phases, the structure of the newly reorganized Library had not only seen changes in the organization of the units that had been traditionally responsible for reference and collections services but also in personnel. The Research Services Department had been replaced by two new departments, Collections Services and Constituent Services. In 1988, while the reorganization was in progress, the Research Services Department had lost Dr. John Broderick as Assistant Librarian for Research Services, to retirement and Billington had appointed Dr. Warren Tsuneishi Chief of the Asian Division as Acting Assistant Librarian for about a year. Also Dr. Billington had created the position of Associate Librarian for Management Services and placed Don Curran in that position as Acting Associate Librarian for Management Services while still holding the position Associate Librarian of Congress. The department in its last year (1989) as Research Services saw Don Curran back as its Acting Assistant Librarian again. He had been replaced in the position of Associate Librarian for Management Services by Rhoda W. Canter who had been one of the principal officers of the Management firm that Dr. Billington had brought in to survey the Library for its reorganization. With the birth of Constituent Services in 1990, Don Curran’s title changed to Acting Associate Librarian for Constituent Services. At the same time he lost his title as Associate Librarian of Congress and was named Associate Librarian for Operations. As Dr. Billington’s reorganization continued Mr. Curran’s titles continued to change. By 1991 Curran had been changed from Acting to Associate Librarian for Constituent Services and had lost his position of Associate Librarian for Operations. That position had been abolished from the Library’s table of organization. In its place, Dr. Billington had created a job known as Associate Librarian for Science and Technology Information and placed William W. Ellis in that slot.

The position of Associate Librarian for Operations had disappeared as quickly as it had come into being, however, by 1993, Dr. Billington had added another top level position to his immediate office staff, and that was the position of Chief of Staff. He filled that position by appointing Suzanne E. Thorin, who had rapidly risen in the administrative ranks in about a dozen years. She had come to the Library as an assistant in the Library’s Division for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. After a short time had joined the staff of the General Reference Division where she had quickly risen to the position of Chief of the Division. Billington was impressed by her brightness, enthusiasm and ability and tapped her for his immediate staff. I fortunately continued to serve as Mr. Curran’s Special Assistant for Planning Management in Constituent Services.

One of the greatest changes wrought by this reorganization occurred in the department’s General Reading Rooms Division which was the Library’s basic provider of service to readers. Formerly the division’s reference librarians had been assigned to and served in sections such as the Main Reading Room Section and the Social Science Reading Room Section. With the reorganization, reference librarians were assigned according to their reference specialties, into subject oriented teams, such as History, Arts and Humanities, Business, Social Sciences, Genealogy, etc. With the exception of Genealogy and Business, all the other teams were to serve in the Main Reading Room, when it reopened. The Genealogy specialists continued to serve in the Local History and Genealogy Reading Room, while those in Business served in the.Social Science Reading Room. When the Main Reading Room closed for renovation on December 9, 1987 we knew we were going to lose 200 seats for readers. Initially we planned to make available space in the pavilion of the Local history and Genealogy Reading Room, and to make available the European and Hispanic reading rooms on Saturdays, and the Manuscript Reading Room on Sundays for the displaced Main Reading Room readers. When these arrangements did not work out, staff was moved over to the Social Science Reading Room on the fifth floor of the John Adams Building, where a renovated adjacent room equipped as a Computer Catalog Center with sixteen computers, an enlarged Photocopy Center, and a new service desk helped to make the Social Science Reading Room a suitable substitute for the Main Reading Room while it was closed.

I can recall working with the supervisors and staff of the General Reading Rooms: Division helping to solve the problems that occurred from time to time when readers missed the accommodations of the Main Reading Room, and as they tried to get used to the physical dislocations caused by some of the temporary service arrangements in the Social Science Reading Room. As a former reference librarian, I could personally feel the discomfort experienced by the reference librarians who also missed the Main Reading Room as much as the readers did. I did all that I could to expedite their requests for equipment, supplies, physical adjustments and other needs to help them cope more easily with the deficiencies of their temporary work stations. To this day I treasure a seventeen word note written to me by reference librarian Judith Farley on the reopening of the Main Reading Room in 1990. She wrote as follows”

To Eddie-

Your support over the years has been invaluable to all of us in the Main Reading Room.
Love,
Judith

Just as the new library administration had lost no time in reorganizing the library, it also lost little time in making changes in the architectural plans and specifications for renovating the Thomas Jefferson and the John Adams Buildings that had been completed by the Associate Architects Arthur Cotton Moore and the Architect of the Capitol, and approved by the previous administration. Enough major changes were requested, especially in the completed plans for the European, Asian, African and Middle Eastern Division reading rooms that made it necessary for the Architect of the Capitol to require Arthur Cotton Moore to go back to the drawing board. Those of us who had worked with the architects were told by representatives of the Architect of the Capitol that this would push back the completion date of the entire renovation indefinitely and increase costs which they did not care to estimate and which would have to be met by cutting out some of the previously planned architectural features required for readers and the staffs. Nevertheless Reading Rooms that had been designed and approved by the Chiefs and the staffs of the divisions involved, and the previous administration, after many months of work by” all concerned were redesigned to incorporate the new administration’s changes. In addition to changes in design, there were also changes in the location of two divisions and their reading rooms. The African and Middle Eastern and the Asian Division Reading Rooms which had been located in the John Adams Building for years in proximity to the bookstacks housing their large collections were to be moved according to the new administration’s plan into the Thomas Jefferson Building, where there was not enough space in the
bookstacks adjacent to their proposed new locations to accommodate the majority of their collections. Although the staff, Division administrators and those of us in the department office advised against separating a staff from its collections for obvious reasons, the plan to do so was still go as far at the top administrators of the Library were concerned up to the day, that I retired.