Compared to other Big 10 universities, Penn State's library system falls short in its number of staff and volumes per student, and the lack of personnel and resources hinders education, employees and students say.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary with a Penn State Room display of pictures and plans of the library's history and construction, the library has grown from 200,000 volumes in 1939 to more than three million now.

But with 45 volumes per student, Penn State's library system compares poorly with other research institutions, said Nancy Cline, dean of the University Libraries.

Among Big 10 universities, Penn State houses the lowest number of staff and volumes per student, said Carol Wright, acting head of general references.

Penn State's 45 volumes per student falls behind Purdue's 60, Michigan State's 75, Indiana's 120, University of Illinois' 203 as well as the six other Big 10 Universities, according to a 1987-88 report by the Association of Research Libraries.

The University must update and expand the library's collection to attract faculty and students, Janyne Althaus, Undergraduate Student Government president, said during the University Board of Trustees' March meeting.

"The problem may seem moderate now, but five or 10 years from now it's going to put Penn State in a deep hole that will be very tough to dig out of," Althaus said during an interview.

Because fewer people are receiving doctorates, faculty recruiting pools are shrinking, Althaus said. With such competition, potential faculty members lacking the opportunity for research sources may turn to another institution, she said.

Also, student access to up-to-date materials is as important for them as for professors, she said.

Among the Big 10 schools, Penn State's ratio of one staff member for every 590 students falls behind Michigan State's one to 550, University of Michigan's one to 250, the University of Illinois' one to 246 as well as the seven other schools, according to the report by the Association for Research Libraries.

"There is never enough personnel," said Diane Garner, head of government documents and maps at Penn State.

While enough personnel exist to staff the information desks and to operate services, much background work remains undone, Garner said. For example, not enough personnel exist to teach students how to use the library's legal access base. Consequently, whenever a student needs to use the base, a staff member must perform the search.

Employees in her department usually work more than 40 hours a week to compensate for the staff shortage, Garner said.

"It's a factor of the limited budget that the University has for the library and that is related to state support," Cline said.

Although the University library's ratio of volumes and staff per student falls behind other Big 10 Universities, Penn State places additional funding for the library as the University's highest priority, said P. Richard Althouse, University budget officer.

While the University has increased the library's acquisition fund by $500,000 a year for the past three years, the state has not granted a three-time request for $1 million dollars per year in additional state funding, Althouse said.

If the state grants the $1 million-dollar request, again a part of this year's budget request, it would be used for acquisitions, services and staffing.

Since 1972, when the University added Pattee Library's east wing, future expansions have been regularly discussed, Cline said. In the fall of 1988, the state legislature authorized funding for the expansion, but the governor's office has not released the funds, she said.

"It's very, very high up on the University's priority list of capital projects and we're working very hard to get that funding released," Althouse said.

The library needs the expansion because it lacks the space to expand its collection, Cline said. The planned wing would expand the humanities, social science, business, and life and health sections, she said. It would also allow improved reference services, instruction and telecommunications equipment.

The library system, which includes the Commonwealth campuses, averages as much traffic per year as the Library of Congress, Cline said. Because of the limited budget, University libraries work closely with academic departments to ensure book availability for students, she said.

However, while some students said they have never experienced problems with locating materials, others said needed books are often unavailable and popular works are hard to locate. Because the University often houses only one copy of a book, popular books may be out for a semester at a time, said Michael Sontchi (freshman-philosophy).

Due to the library's limited budget, duplicating volumes is difficult, Cline said. The library must balance the books it acquires among all of its departments, she said.

"If it's a choice between having two of the same art books or a book in art and a book in history, and you're a history major, you would want a book in each area," Cline said.

While the library shows a small ratio of books and staff per student, Cline said because of the LIAS system, data bases and other computer resources, the library continues to be a strong recruiting tool.

"Students graduating from Penn State have excellent information seeking skills," Cline said.

But other information systems still need funding, Garner said. Because the library has not received funding for its legal access base, people who use it must pay about $50 for an average search, Garner said.

"We try to make the search as abbreviated as possible to save the users money," Garner said. "But many people who need it can't use it because they can't pay for it."

Because they have greater access to grants, graduate students and professors find money to pay for the system more easily than undergraduates, Garner said.