De Gennaro Attempts Preservation by Change

The antique grandfather clock that stands in Richard De Gennaro's Widener Library office carries the weight of Harvard tradition.

In a spacious room that overlooks Weld Hall to one side and Tercentenary Theater to the other, where bound leather books, line the shelves, the clock is another relic from the past, symbolic of the University's-- and the library's--age and history.

With the passing of time, however, and the vast wave of new technology, high prices and expanding publications, that tradition is becoming more and more endangered. De Gennaro, who is Larsen librarian of Harvard College, says he leads the struggle on the one hand, to preserve it, and on the other, to bring Harvard into the future.

It's a difficult balancing act for this man, despite his years of experience in the field. Before coming to his present post, De Gennaro spent four years as director of the New York Public Library, 16 as director of the University of Pennsylvania Library, and 12 as an associate director at Harvard.

But De Gennaro says the challenge is worth the return to Harvard Yard. "I thought this would be a good place to come back to and spend the remaining years of my career here," he says. "It's an important library, and it's what I call worth doing. I consider it a privilege."

Shifting Books

The Harvard College Library that De Gennaro directs today is a far cry from 1958 to 1970. It is a far cry, even, form the library he found when he returned to Harvard in June, 1990.

The College Library--which contains 75 percent of the University's library holdings--was then in some ways a relic of the past. Of the world's five major research libraries--Harvard, he British Library, France's Bibliotheque Nationale, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library--De Gennaro notes that Harvard, with its open stacks, is the most accessible to scholars.

This unique accessibility may be short-lived, however. In the brief time since De Gennaro moved into his Widener office, he notes, "I've made an enormous amount of changes."

In February, De Gennaro released a Strategic Plan for the Harvard College Library detailed list of goals and objectives for the library's next five to 10 years. The plan reviewed the major challenges facing the library system, including a severe space shortage, the increasing cost and volume of new materials being published and technological changes in the outside world.

De Gennaro says his strategic planning report was important, in part, because it created a sense of consensus in the faculty for dramatic changes in the library.

"It gets everybody... focused on and thinking about the library," De Gennaro says. "It also creates a climate which is hospitable to change."

Among the objectives listed in the report are plans to move the Government Documents and Microtext Reading Room from its far-under-ground location to the first floor of Lamont Library.

Through a "recon," or "retrospective conversion," project, De Gennaro hopes to move all of the library's listings from the card catalog to the HOLLS database. Currently, only about one-third of Widener's holdings are on HOLLIS, he says.

Harvard is going to have to be come more selective in ordering books and periodicals. "Every year," De Gennaro explains, "we are paying more and more money to buy an ever-de-creasing percent age of the output of the world's publishers."

And in what is perhaps his most controversial plan among faculty members, De Gennaro has already moved books from the Yard altogether, and will continue to do so in the future.

Colossal Widener Library, which has stood in the Yard for most of the century, is too small for today's collection. At present, Widener holds 700,000 volumes beyond its working capacity.

Faculty members have in the past considered ways to compensate for the collection's rapid growth rate, currently at 120000 volumes per year. In 1989, a fierce Faculty debate erupted over the construction of the Inn at Harvard on a plot of land that could have held Harvard's next openstack library.

But a new library, many say, would be a bandaid rather than a cure--and an inadequate bandaid, at that. Indeed, when Pusey Library was built in the early 1970s, it was filled nearly immediately, and had to incorporate unpopular storage techniques like movable stacks.

"When people saw Pusey and what happened there, it was clear that building more libraries was not a solution," says Professor of English and American Literature Philip J. Fisher.

Enter De Gennaro and his solution, which had the added advantage of making use of a facility that had already been built. It was the Harvard Depository--a sophisticated, climate-controlled building in South-borough, Mass., about 35 minutes' drive from campus.

The depository unit, which had a capacity for two million volumes, had been used mainly for archival storage. De Gennaro built a second unit, which can also hold 2 million volumes. The Southborough facility has the capacity for eight more such buildings.

What began when De Gennaro arrived was the touchy task of determining which books should be sent to Southborough, and thus out of the immediate reach of scholars and students. Depository books must be ordered a day in advance, though library officials say that as depository use increases, the number of trips made there per day will also increase.

To help involve faculty members in the decision-making process, De Gennaro instituted what he calls the "dotting project." Prime candidates for the depository that hadn't been checked out in five years were marked with round, colored stickers, and professors were invited to pore through the stacks and remove the stickers from books they thought needed to remain on the shelves.

Since De Gennaro's arrival, 200,000 volumes have been sent to the Harvard Depository, he says. But because of the library's rate of growth and the overcrowding of Widener, the move only "bought us about a year or two year's time."

Over the next four years, De Gennaro says he plans to ship about a million volumes to Southborough.

Assistant Director for Research Resources Kenneth E. Carpenter spearheads the continuing project of selecting books for the depository, and works closely with faculty members to examine and identify candidate collections.

Faculty members have been very helpful, Carpenter says, and have even suggested books for storage that he would have hesitated to send away.

"I think initially there was some anxiety about it because everyone is worried that it's precisely the books that he needs that are going into storage, but that isn't the case," Carpenter says.

But Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Luis Fernandez-Sifuentes says he has difficulties coping with rapid changes in book availability.

"Right now perhaps 20 percent or more of the books I need are already in one of the depositories," Fernandez-Sifuentes says.

And the chair of the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures says a day or two of waiting for a book is sometimes unmanageable. "We work very tight schedules," he says. "We sometimes need it immediately."

In addition, Fernandez-Sifuentes says, "the new technology is not going as fast as the actual changes in the stacks."

The book listings of HOLLIS, he says, don't always provide all of the information they should.

And many faculty members also say the removal of books from the stacks will mean an end to browsing, and a further limit to resource accessibility. By wandering through the stacks, they say, scholars can find sources they wouldn't otherwise locate on an on-line catalog system.

Shifting People

De Gennaro's changes have not been restricted to books. In addition, the librarian has shifted people and departments, bringing sweeping administrative changes to a once-stagnant library.

For example, De Gennaro consolidated the library's three area studies departments--Judaica, Slavic and Middle Eastern--into a single department headed by Charles Berlin, formerly director of the Judaica section.

David Partington, director of the Middle Eastern division, says he oversees what may be the world's largest collection of Islamic material.

Now, Partington says, the policies he makes for his collection are subject to review by a Jewish scholar. "This is an interesting situation, politically and intellectually," Partington says.

While the situation could potentially affect fundraising for his collection, Partingon says that in fact he has actually seen an increase in donations to the library since De Gennaro took over.

Partington says he sees signs that "the changes Mr. De Gennaro is putting into effect are having a positive effect on our efficiency."

The departments are also under stricter control, Partington says, to follow through on the priorities De Gennaro has set.

"What has happened here," Partington says. "is a sort of change in the urgency of making our materials immediately accessible to scholars."

In De Gennaro's career, his former co-workers say, such moves--administrative consolidation, restructuring of staff positions--have not been unusual.

At the University of Pennsylvania, De Gennaro gained control of the university's biomedical library, which once reported to the dean of Penn's medical school, recalls H. Carton Rogers,associate director of libraries there. Rogersserved as De Gennaro's financial officer for 12years.

For De Gennaro, supervision of the biomedicallibrary was an "important political move," Rogerssays. And sweeping changes like that, he says,often create political rivals.

"I think it's probably safe to say that Dickprobably had as many enemies as he had friends atPenn," Rogers says.

But De Gennaro only made changes he considerednecessary, Rogers says.

"There were things that he did that madefaculty angry, but he did them because he felt heneeded to do them," Rogers says.

Joan I. Gotwals, who also worked with DeGennaroat Penn, agrees that his changes often made thelibrary run more smoothly.

"We in some cases merged libraries and closeddown some of the department libraries in order toprovide a better service," Gotwals says.

But Gotwals, herself vice-provost and directorof the library at Emory University, warns thatchanges involving personnel should be made verycarefully. It is important, Gotwals says, toretain the trust of staff members.

"Have a lot of discussions with your staff andwith your faculty, and work through these thingsin as gradual a way as possible," Gotwalssuggests. "Be very concerned and careful aboutmaking sure that no one really gets hurt."

Some observers say, however, that in imposingchanges on the Harvard library, De Gennaro washardly such a consensus-builder.

"I personally was a little bit disappointedwith his style," says Wolfgang M. Freitag. Lastyear, Freitag reached the age of retirement andstepped down from his post as Fine Arts librarian.

"I expected [De Gennaro] to be a modern managerwho would manage through a consensus with hisdepartment heads," Freitag recalls. Instead, hesays, the new librarian's management style was "alittle bit autocratic."

The result, Freitag says, was the alienation ofmany library staffers. Ironically, he notes, DeGennaro had every opportunity to build a consensusamong library workers.

Before De Gennaro came aboard, the librarystaff fought against two previous candidates forthe directorship De Gennaro ultimatelyassumed--candidates whom they considered mediocre."We wanted him to come," Freitag says. "We wantedhim to make the changes."

"Change" is a word De Gennaro uses frequently,a word he thinks embodies his role and hismission. He is proud of what he has done so far inthe library, and predicts that "we're going to bemaking even more changes in the future."

De Gennaro admits that change is difficult toimplement smoothly--especially at a conservativeinstitution like Harvard University. Director ofthe University Library Sidney Verba '53 says thatthe new adjustment to the library system is "onethat in a certain respect is painful."

Many faculty members seem to agree--20professors signed a letter to Dean of the FacultyJeremy R. Knowles outlining their concerns aboutthe use of the depository, the choice of newmaterials and the tradeoffs between staffpositions and expensive acquisitions.

At the last full Faculty meeting of the year,Knowles encouraged professors to serve on a moreactive committee to oversee the changes andincrease faculty involvement in the library.

De Gennaro says he welcomes a committee that iswilling to "meet more frequently and do a lot morework than the committee has been accustomed to inthe past."

Because like it or not, De Gennaro says, thechanges will keep coming. He notes a quotation byGiuseppe Di Lampedusa that he included in thestrategic plan report: "If we want things to stayas they are, things will have to change."

De Gennaro may be an autocrat, as Freitag says.He may be a visionary, as Gotwals says. He may bea little of both.

Unquestionably, he is an agent of change. Andagents of change are often unpopular. "De Gennarois not universally loved, but that's inevitable,isn't it?" Carpenter says.

When De Gennaro sets his mind tosomething--regardless of the consequences--it willprobably happen, Rogers says. "This is a guy whowasn't afraid to make a decision," he recalls,"and when he made it, it was full steam ahead.

For De Gennaro, supervision of the biomedicallibrary was an "important political move," Rogerssays. And sweeping changes like that, he says,often create political rivals.

"I think it's probably safe to say that Dickprobably had as many enemies as he had friends atPenn," Rogers says.

But De Gennaro only made changes he considerednecessary, Rogers says.

"There were things that he did that madefaculty angry, but he did them because he felt heneeded to do them," Rogers says.

Joan I. Gotwals, who also worked with DeGennaroat Penn, agrees that his changes often made thelibrary run more smoothly.

"We in some cases merged libraries and closeddown some of the department libraries in order toprovide a better service," Gotwals says.

But Gotwals, herself vice-provost and directorof the library at Emory University, warns thatchanges involving personnel should be made verycarefully. It is important, Gotwals says, toretain the trust of staff members.

"Have a lot of discussions with your staff andwith your faculty, and work through these thingsin as gradual a way as possible," Gotwalssuggests. "Be very concerned and careful aboutmaking sure that no one really gets hurt."

Some observers say, however, that in imposingchanges on the Harvard library, De Gennaro washardly such a consensus-builder.

"I personally was a little bit disappointedwith his style," says Wolfgang M. Freitag. Lastyear, Freitag reached the age of retirement andstepped down from his post as Fine Arts librarian.

"I expected [De Gennaro] to be a modern managerwho would manage through a consensus with hisdepartment heads," Freitag recalls. Instead, hesays, the new librarian's management style was "alittle bit autocratic."

The result, Freitag says, was the alienation ofmany library staffers. Ironically, he notes, DeGennaro had every opportunity to build a consensusamong library workers.

Before De Gennaro came aboard, the librarystaff fought against two previous candidates forthe directorship De Gennaro ultimatelyassumed--candidates whom they considered mediocre."We wanted him to come," Freitag says. "We wantedhim to make the changes."

"Change" is a word De Gennaro uses frequently,a word he thinks embodies his role and hismission. He is proud of what he has done so far inthe library, and predicts that "we're going to bemaking even more changes in the future."

De Gennaro admits that change is difficult toimplement smoothly--especially at a conservativeinstitution like Harvard University. Director ofthe University Library Sidney Verba '53 says thatthe new adjustment to the library system is "onethat in a certain respect is painful."

Many faculty members seem to agree--20professors signed a letter to Dean of the FacultyJeremy R. Knowles outlining their concerns aboutthe use of the depository, the choice of newmaterials and the tradeoffs between staffpositions and expensive acquisitions.

At the last full Faculty meeting of the year,Knowles encouraged professors to serve on a moreactive committee to oversee the changes andincrease faculty involvement in the library.

De Gennaro says he welcomes a committee that iswilling to "meet more frequently and do a lot morework than the committee has been accustomed to inthe past."

Because like it or not, De Gennaro says, thechanges will keep coming. He notes a quotation byGiuseppe Di Lampedusa that he included in thestrategic plan report: "If we want things to stayas they are, things will have to change."

De Gennaro may be an autocrat, as Freitag says.He may be a visionary, as Gotwals says. He may bea little of both.

Unquestionably, he is an agent of change. Andagents of change are often unpopular. "De Gennarois not universally loved, but that's inevitable,isn't it?" Carpenter says.

When De Gennaro sets his mind tosomething--regardless of the consequences--it willprobably happen, Rogers says. "This is a guy whowasn't afraid to make a decision," he recalls,"and when he made it, it was full steam ahead.