JANE E. ROBERTS
Librarian
1913 – October 1922
Jane Roberts was an assistant cataloger in 1906, becoming head cataloger in 1910. She had attended library school at Western Reserve in 1905-06. Roberts experienced a great increase in work in cataloging, ordering, reserve and reference during her tenure. She notes in her annual reports to the Regents that she is unable to lecture to freshmen English classes, as Wyer had done; that more and more staff were needed; the dependency on student help increased; and the volume of her work increased to where she requested a secretary who could do routine office work.
Due to increasing size of the collection, Roberts was forced to close stacks to all except librarians, faculty, and graduate students. This decision was also made due to increased vandalism and disappearance of books. Space problems for the collections continued, and Roberts finally resorted to boxing up books for storage. By June 1922 there were an estimated 3,500 volumes in storage.
Roberts retired from the Akron, Ohio public library in the summer of 1947.