He says about this oversight, "I'm inclined to believe that absent-mindedness on my employer's part, rather than poor work on mine, was why I was never paid ... but I never ventured to complain.

"[5] Regardless of why he wasn't paid, Metcalf greatly enjoyed what he did and he knew he had found his life's work in librarianship.

After graduating high school, Metcalf attended Oberlin, once again working in the library under Root's tutelage.

While working at the library, he served in many capacities, including the Chief of Stacks for three years [8] and Assistant to the Director starting in 1919.

[13] Metcalf's mandate was to design a system that would meet the space needs of the library until the end of the twentieth century.

He became convinced that students could be well served by separate libraries, as long as each building was organized around a single topic or, in some cases, audience.

Besides building new facilities, he also proposed splitting up Widener's collection to libraries focused on the subject matter of the material.

[17] In the case of Houghton, the building that was to house the rare collections at Harvard, many features were designed into the air conditioning and plumbing systems that were meant to mitigate the risk of damage.

Metcalf's experience at Harvard made him and his staff experts in the problems that were facing many research libraries at the time.

[21] His participation in the ALA may have contributed to Metcalf being among the first of Harvard's staff to be targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy in his search for communists.

As chair of the ALA's International Relations Board, Metcalf was asked to participate on a government committee that selected books to be included in US libraries abroad.

McCarthy sought information from Metcalf on whether he had approved of the selection of a book written by Howard Fast, a Communist.

In his response to McCarthy, Metcalf endorsed freedom of information in all libraries, including those managed by the government, and stated plainly that if the opportunity arose, he would select Fast's book again.

[24] He taught classes and seminars, including a stint as an adjunct faculty member at Rutgers University.