In the course of my scholarly career I have probably done research at more than 200 libraries and archives. The majority of these were in American universities and colleges. Each of these libraries had a distinctive "personality." That personality was part and parcel (not simply a reflection) of the culture of the institution.

In my own experience there is no university which has the real concern for the life of the mind which the University of Chicago has always had. When I was an undergraduate at U of C there was nothing like a student union, and the common report of outsiders was that there was no social life.

But there were intellectual enjoyments everywhere, an incredible vibrancy, and a seeming universal concern for discovery. There were several different weekly film showings (Doc Films being the best known), aand lectures by many of the notable and even great thinkers of the day-- I think of Martin Luther King preaching at Rockfeller chapel, Raymond Aron at the law school, Alan Paton and Saul Bellow at the Oriental Institute, and on and on. And in the dorms, there were debates going on throughout the night.

When I was a student, the Regenstein Library had not yet been built. In the roughly two years I lived in Chicago a quarter of a century after my A.B. was granted, I spent much time working in "the Reg." It was the center of campus life. It did not surprise me that there was a small coffee shop on one of the lower floors. It was used simply as a basic provider of necessities during the long hours many put in at the library. I would suggest that the whole floor could have been turned into a restaurant, bar and grill, and whatever, and it would have had no effect to speak of on the culture of the U of C. On the other hand, there are institutions where even a small shop in the college or university library would destroy any semblance of the life of the mind which might yet have managed to survive.

Chicago faculty and students have greater concern with ideas as such than any group of people I have ever known. One former Chicago professor who has taught at five important universities told me of the weekly departmental curriculum meetings, which impressed him and was unique to departments he has been in.

When the new undergraduate curriculum was proposed a few years ago, hundreds of Chicago alumni rose to criticize the administration which brought the changes, which were widely perceived as being connected to fiscal matters. Marshall Sahlins was a leader of a teach-in, where he said, roughly: "Chicago has a mission. As long as we have the resources to fulfull that mission, what difference does it make whether we are number one or number sixteen or whatever in the size of our endowment"

In various places I have criticized Sahlins, but not about the nature of his scholarship per se, or his shifts in research models. Rather, my criticism has been aimed at the vehemence with which he has attacked views akin to his former beliefs. These have struck me as somwhat akin to the views of "the True Believer" outlined almost half a century ago by Eric Hofer-- and not really Chicago-like. But when I heard of Sahlins' great statement on endowment, I sent him a note (although we are unacquainted) expressing my joy that an anthropologist had been in the forefront of emphasizing the mission of Chicago.

I do not claim more than the mystique of ideas for Chicago people, the degree to which this view is passed through the culture of the Univesity, and the degree to which people of this stamp are "committed" people in the usual meaning of that term. Most seem to take seriously the view that the role of the educated person should be for the betterment of society and the world. When they fail to be concerned with this, however, it is sometimes spectacular failure--as in the case of my first college roommate who was in headlines around the world for a month or more.

Undoubtedly, should the world system not be greatly altered, electronic media will become ever more important. So the whole role of the library must be rethought in connection with the great transformation at hand. But the connection of new media with existing libraries is precisely the same as the connection of coffee shops with libraries. The shape of the institutional culture is the thing that matters when one thinks about how new things are to be integrated into the mission of a particular institution.

-- Melburn D. Thurman (posted 11/16, 4:15 p.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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