ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News From the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• The University of Denver libraries have recently acquired the 10,000-volume personal library of Rabbi I. Edward Kiev, Chief Librarian of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Many areas and all periods of Judaica are included in the collection: history, religion, philosophy, mysticism, law, sociology, linguistics, and Hebrew literature from early post-Biblical times to our own. Most of the basic reference and bibliographical works available in the field are included in the collection, besides a substantial number of rare books. Also included are many periodicals and thousands of unavailable scholarly works in practically all modern languages in which Jewish scholarship was cultivated. The University of Denver feels this addition to the library collections will greatly enhance and contribute to the newly created Chair of Hebraic Studies in the University’s Department of History.

• Olin Library of Wesleyan University was recently presented with eighty-two manuscript notebooks belonging to the poet David Ignatow of East Hampton, Long Island. The notebooks cover the working career of the poet from 1933 to the present and constitute an intimate record of his life and thought and also reveal the development of individual poems. Xerox copies of the fragile originals are available for consultation at the library.

Ignatow was born in Brooklyn and has lived most of his life in the New York metropolitan area. His poems reflect the varied aspects of his life involving his business, writing, and academic careers. For ten years Ignatow served as editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal besides serving as poetry editor of The Nation. Since 1968 the poet has been co-editor of Chelsea. As a teacher or poet-in-residence he has been associated with the New School, Southampton College of Long Island University, Columbia, Vassar, and the Universities of Kansas and Kentucky. Currently he is in residence at York College, City University of New York. Poems written by Ignatow have been published in Abraxas, The New Yorker, Poetry, and the Yale Review. His published volumes include Poems (1948), The Gentle Weight Lifter (1955), Say Pardon (1961), Figures of the Human (1964), and Rescue the Dead (1968). His last three volumes were published by the Wesleyan University Press. Scheduled for completion in March 1970 is an omnibus volume titled Poems 1934-1969 that includes the major portion of his lifetime work and contains more than 380 poems, of which at least 160 have not previously been printed in book form. For his work Ignatow has earned the Poetry Society’s Shelley Memorial Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters “for a lifetime of creative effort.”

• The EasternMichigan University library has received the collection of correspondence, papers, and notes of Mark Sylvester William Jefferson (1863-1949), noted geographer, chief cartographer for the American delegation for the 1919 Paris Peace Conference delegation, and Professor of Geography at Michigan State Normal College from 1901 to 1939. The papers were used by Jefferson’s biographer Geoffrey J. Martin in his Mark Jefferson: Geographer (Ypsilanti: Eastern Michigan University Press, 1968). Included in the collection are letters, course notes, the Paris Peace Conference Diary, and several manuscripts of books and studies. The papers were presented to the university by his daughter, Mrs. Sally Jefferson Robinson.

• A geographic monument of greatest importance has been acquired by the library of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Instituteof Religion in Cincinnati, Dr. Nelson Glueck, president of the college, announced. The document is a drawn and color-illuminated map of the Mediterranean World, created in1500 by Judah Abenzara, a Jewish cartographer. Through the acquisition of this Renaissance map the College-Institute has become the owner of the only specimen existing in America of the great school of medieval Jewish map-makers which had the peak of its reputation in the Balearic island of Majorca in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and was considered for awhile the cartographers of the European World par excellence. Only one other work by Abenzara has survived, a nautical chart preserved in the Vatican Library in Rome. However, the map acquired by the College-Institute covers a wider area, including Asia Minor, Syria, the Holy Land, and Egypt. The inclusion of this area is of particular significance since Abenzara was a resident there when he created his map.

Abenzara most probably came from Spain, where he learned the art of map-making and illumination. Presumably he left Spain on the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. Very possibly, like so many more of the exiles, he found his way first to Italy, which explains the fact that he uses the Italian language for the legends in his maps. From Italy he made his way to Egypt, where the European art of map-making was barely known and correspondingly prized. He made the Vatican map in 1497 in Alexandria, perhaps for some member of the Venetian trading colony. He continued active here for some time, until he executed in 1500 the map now at the College-Institute. Thereafter, he migrated like so many other people to the Holy Land, where he lived in Safed.

There are many interesting points to this map. The name of the mythical island of Brasil, for example, which was to be discovered only some little time later, appears twice, off the western coast of Ireland and in the region of the Azorés. But its most important feature is Abenzara’s interest in Palestine which was strong even before he settled in that country.

The Cincinnati Library of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion contains over 200,000 printed volumes and almost 6,0 manuscripts. In making the announcement, Dr. Glueck said that it would have been impossible to acquire this unique and precious map without the financial help of Philip D. Sang, a member of the Board of Governors and chairman of its Library Committee.

• A cache of Edwin Booth memorabilia originally in the possession of Booth’s daughter, Edwina Booth Grossmann, was recently acquired by The Walter Hampden Memorial Library at The Players, New York. The collection consists of over 400 ALS (autograph letter signed), a Mary Devlin diary, scrapbooks, photo albums, cylinder recordings, costumes, and costume accessories. Of special interest are the more than one hundred letters by Booth to Adam Badeau, Launt Thompson, and other contemporaries, letters from Mary Devlin (Booth’s first wife) to Booth and Charlotte Cushman, and an autograph album dated March 1866 accompanying a gold medal for Booth’s one hundredth consecutive performance of Hamlet at the old Winter Garden in New York. Excerpts of some of the abovementioned letters were published in Edwina Booth Grossmann’s book of recollections entitled Edwin Booth (Century, 1894).

• Microfilm copies of the complete papers of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, will be available at Syracuse University early in 1970. P. T. Marsh, chairman of the university’s history department, said he believes the microfilms will be the only collection in North America of the complete papers of a British prime minister. Marsh, who made arrangements with the British National Trust to copy the collection, said it includes family, domestic, and personal papers, copies of speeches, royal and general correspondence, papers on domestic and foreign affairs, correspondence on honors and titles, Mrs. Disraeli’s papers, manuscripts of Disraeli’s novels and proofs, and notices and correspondence about the novels. The collection also includes the papers of Disraeli’s father, Isaac D’lsraeli, his grandfather, Benjaman D’lsraeli, and Disraeli’s official biographers, Monypenny and Buckle.

The original papers in England are at the Disraeli family home, Hughenden Manor, Marsh explained, and are not easily accessible to scholars. They are important to historians, he said, and also to other scholars on the American continent. “As a novelist Disraeli is of great interest to students of Victorian literature; and his role as the inspirer of ‘the new imperialism’ in Britain after 1875 attracts the attention of political scientists and those concerned with the ex-colonial world,” Marsh said. He also said Disraeli (1804-1881) is famous in Jewish circles as the most illustrious Jew in the annals of the English-speaking world.

The collection will include about 200,000 frames of microfilm. Marsh said the agreement with the National Trust includes providing it with a negative and one positive copy of the microfilm with assurances that anyone citing or quoting from the papers obtain the permission of the National Trust. The user must also acknowledge the ownership of the papers in any publication he might prepare and send one copy of the publication to Hughenden Manor. A friend of the Syracuse University library, Mrs. Lawrence L. Witherill of Cazenovia, New York, provided the university with funds to pay for the microfilm copies. Marsh also credited former Syracuse University Vice- Chancellor and Provost Frank P. Piskor with helping to obtain the papers. Piskor left Syracuse September 1, 1969, to become president of St. Lawrence University.

Speaking of the collection, Marsh said: “Because the United States is in the midst of international and social problems with some of which Britain has a long acquaintance, American students are demonstrating a greater and less prejudiced interest in Britain. The Beaconsfield papers, reflecting as they do Disraeli’s involvement in the problems created by Victorian England’s industrialization and international power, are uniquely suited to stimulate this interest.”

• The University of Washington library (Seattle) has recently received the files of Guy C. Myers, the key financier in the development of the public power districts in Nebraska and the public utility districts in Washington State. Myers, who died in 1960, served also as the major fiscal agent negotiating the sale of private power holdings to public organizations through the sale of revenue bonds.certain issues. A draft of Williams’ letter of inquiry is included in the papers just received, as well as Harrison’s twelve-page letter of reply.

The Papers of Justice Felix Frankfurter have recently received a significant addition which approximately doubles his papers available at the Library of Congress. The collection now consists of over 70,000 items, and significant among the recent addition are a good many family letters, particularly between Justice Frankfurter and his wife. Another important addition to the resources for the study of Frankfurter has just come to the Library with papers of Herbert Feis, the noted economist, author, and public servant, and consists of approximately 200 items of correspondence between the Frankfurters and the Feises, who were very good friends over many years.

A Jules Laforgue notebook has been donated to the manuscript collections by William Jay Smith, Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. The notebook of about 200 pages, kept by the French symbolist poet Laforgue in 1884-85 during his Berlin period, was acquired some years ago by Smith from Isabelle de Wyzewa, daughter of Teodor de Wyzewa, to whom it apparently had been given by Laforgue’s widow in 1887 because of Smith’s close friendship with Laforgue during the last years of his life. In addition to numerous pencil notes, mostly in French, on various topics, there are many pencil sketches scattered throughout the notebook such as people observed in the street, a lamp, ducks, and a street sweeper in front of a tobacco shop. There are also drawings of animals obviously made during his visits to the zoo.

Philip Roth, noted novelist, has recently given his papers to the Library of Congress. Included in the first installments are manuscripts of all four of his books, Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories (1959, winner of the National Book Award), Letting Go (1962), When She Was Good (1967), and Portnoy’s Complaint (1968), and manuscripts of many articles, stories, and plays, both published and unpublished. His entire writing career is fully documented, from his days as editor and writer for the student literary magazine at Bucknell University through his latest book. Roth revises extensively, and for many of his writings there are numerous drafts.

The Library of Congress has a continuing program of microfilming certain of its manuscript collections which may be often consulted or which for preservation purposes need to be withheld as much as possible from direct use. New microfilm which has not previously been reported includes the papers of the following: Phineas P. Quimby (1802- 1866), physician who influenced Mary Baker

Eddy; Edmond C. Genet (1763-1834), French-American diplomat, including his American and some of his Russian years; and John Holker, French-American diplomat and merchant of the colonial and national periods. Existing microfilm of the Library’s manuscript collections may be borrowed through interlibrary loan, or copies may be purchased from the Library’s Photoduplication Service.

The October issue of The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress (pages 234-269) contained a comprehensive report on acquisitions of the Manuscript Division for the 1968 calendar year, both new collections and additions.

• The papers of the late Dr. Charles E. North (1869-1961) have been deposited with the National Agricultural Library, John Sherrod, library director, has announced. Dr. North served as bacteriologist and consultant on clean milk and pollution to state and local governments; he was a pioneer in the dairy industry and a leader in gaining public acceptance of milk pasteurization. He invented processes and machines for dehydration and reconstitution of milk products and wrote numerous reports and papers on bacteriology, public health, and sanitation. The collection contains patents on processes and devices, notes of research, and letters dealing with a variety of subjects spanning the first half of the twentieth century. Formal presentation of the collection to Sherrod was made by Miss Jean North, daughter of the late Dr. North, on behalf of the North family. Presentation ceremonies and signing of the Instrument of Gift took place at the new National Agricultural Library building, Beltsville, Maryland.

• The University of Pittsburgh libraries have acquired the papers of the Spanish writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna (1888-1963), together with an important selection of material published by and about him. With the exception of one manuscript purchased from the author’s brother, the collection was purchased from his widow, Sra. Luisa Sofovich de Gómez de la Serna. The collection includes all the existing papers of Ramón, as he is usually known. Among them are the unedited manuscript of his novel Las Tres Gracias, notes for revisions of eight published works, manuscripts of seven unpublished works, and manuscripts of eight projected or incomplete works. Published material in the collection includes the only known copies of several of his books, first editions of all but two, and many later editions now out of print. Also in the collection are offprints of essays and articles which he published only in reviews and newspapers, and more than 500 articles about Ramón which appeared at the time of his death. Though the University of Pittsburgh libraries have the publishing rights to the unpublished papers, there are at present no plans to use them. The Gómez de la Serna collection is available to qualified researchers in the Special Collections department of Hillman Library.

MEETINGS AND INSTITUTES

Mar.14: The University of Michigan is offering a seminar for library school faculty on computer-assisted instruction in the education of reference librarians on March 14, 1970. Contact Thomas P. Slavens, Associate Professor, School of Library Science, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104.

Mar.15-17: The Alaska Library Association will hold its annual meeting at the Anchorage Westward Hotel, Anchorage, Alaska. The theme will be “Partners for Progress: People—Information—Government.” Program chairman is Francis M. Leon, 332 ‘L’ Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501.

Mar.16-17: The Information Science and Automation Division of the American Library Association and the Information Systems Office of the Library of Congress will sponsor a two-day MARC II Special Institute. This is the second in a continuing series of MARC II Institutes and it will be held March 16-17, 1970, at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. The Institute will be limited to 160 persons. The $45.00 registration fee includes two luncheons and textual materials to be handed out during the sessions. During 1968 and

1969,over 1,300 attended ISAD/LC Institutes based upon the original MARC format. They heard the latest developments from the staff members of the Information Systems Office of the Library of Congress who are working with MARC everyday. They also heard from librarians who were experimenting with the early Pilot Project tapes. Attendees at this MARC II Special Institute will hear and see the latest work of the staff at the Library of Congress on the MARC II magnetic tape service. Already there are over seventy subscribers to the MARC tape service and many librarians need detailed assistance at an advanced level. In addition, there are many who need a basic foundation in MARC practice, similar to that offered in the previous sessions. Because this dual need exists, two separate sessions will be offered on March 16 only.

A regular session will be offered describing the MARC System, including input procedures, codes, format, character set, and a short description of the computer programs at the Library of Congress. Little familiarity with automation, the MARC format, or the MARC System will be assumed. The advanced session will give full attention to the workings of the MARC System. This will include sorting programs, print programs, retrieval programs, the project to transfer work of the MARC editors to machine processing and the RECON Project. Some knowledge of library automation and familiarity with the bulk of the published literature will be assumed. On Tuesday, March 17, the regular and advanced sessions will be combined to hear librarians who have had experience using the MARC II format and tape service in their everyday operations. At least three such presentations will be made.

Applications will be accepted in the order in which they are received in Chicago. To apply, send either a printed registration form or a letter containing name, position title, organization and mailing address, along with an indication of which session you wish to attend and a check for $45.00 made out to the American Library Association to: MARC II Institute —Washington, American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, Illinois 60611.

Mar.16-18: Space age requirements of colleges and universities, in areas of administrative structure, physical environment and financing of new programs, will be the focal points of the 1970 International College & University Conference & Exposition to be held March 16-18, 1970, at the Atlantic City, N.J., Convention Hall, according to Georgette N. Mania, ICUCE program director and editor of American School & University, sponsoring publication.

As in 1969, the conference format will include morning plenary sessions, afternoon workshops and an exposition of the latest and most interesting developments in equipment, office machines, furnishings, maintenance items, food service systems and other products and services for educational institutions.

Mar.19-21: The Fifth Annual Conference on Junior College Libraries will be held at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois. The theme will focus on the impact of technology on the media center. Speakers include Lucille Rather of the Library of Congress who will discuss the MARC project and Dr. Earl Farley who will address the conference on the topic of library automation. Further information can be secured from Deane Hill, Chairman of Library Services, Lincoln Land Community College, 3865 South Sixth Street, Springfield, Illinois 62703.

Mar. 31-Apr. 3: The International Association of Technological University Libraries will hold its fourth Triennial Conference at Loughborough, England. The theme of the conference is “Re-educating the Library User: Present and Future Needs in Technological Universities.” Information about this meeting may be obtained from Dr. Anthony J. Evans, Librarian at the University of Technology, Loughborough, England.

Apr.2: “Libraries for the 70s” is the theme of the 1970 institute of the Library Association of the City University of New York. To be held at Queens College on April 2, the meeting will be concerned with students, library services, and library facilities and will attempt to synthesize the problems academic librarians will encounter during the next decade as well as to explore their possible solutions. For further information, contact Miss Betty Seifert, City College Library, 135th Street and Convent Avenue, New York, New York 10031.

Apr.3: William P. Cumming will present the second series of the Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr., Lectures in the History of Cartography April 3, 10, 17, and 18, 1970, at The Newberry Library, Chicago. The lecturer is professor emeritus of English at Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, and is well known for his extensive work of carto-bibliography entitled The Southeast in Early Maps (1958). Dr. Cumming’s theme will be the ways in which the contemporary cartographic record reveals the history of British North America in the eighteenth century. In addition to the better known maps of the time, Dr. Cumming will also introduce several sources of eighteenth-century manuscript maps hitherto untapped by historians.

Further details of the lectures may be obtained from the Office of the Director and Librarian, The Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street, Chicago, Illinois 60610.

Apr. 24-25: The Annual Conference of the Ohio Valley Group of Technical Service Librarians will convene at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

May1: A one-day conference on the manpower aspects of librarianship with particular reference to Africana will be held at Northwestern University library on May 1, 1970. For details contact Hans E. Panofsky, Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Illinois 60201.

May5-7: The 1970 Spring Joint Computer Conference will be held in the Convention Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey, from Tuesday through Thursday, May 5 through May 7. Harry L. Cooke of the RCA Corporation’s David Sarnoff Research Center has been named general chairman of the conference.

The conference will be the thirty-sixth event of its type sponsored by the American Federation of Information Processing Societies. The theme of the conference will be “The Computer: Gathering Force of the Seventies,” reflecting the growing impact computers will have on all forms of business and society in the next decade.

Attendance is expected to reach more than 40,0 people drawn from business, education, science, and government, making it the largest computer conference ever held in the United States.

May7-8: Sponsors of the Seventh Annual National Information Retrieval Colloquium have announced the theme for the 1970 meeting and a call for presentations. To be developed around the “Social Impact of Information Retrieval Systems,” the program will include feature sessions focusing on important contemporary issues of the field including the future of media such as journals, books, proceedings, microforms, display consoles, etc., and questions of information ownership, protection, and reliability and whether customers will pay for information. Papers judged less controversial will be presented in parallel technical sessions. Continuing a highly successful experiment in information exchange started last year, the meeting will include the “Information Bazaar” event at which operating systems will be demonstrated, films shown, and provision made for discussion sessions. To get complete details on how to participate in the meeting, whether you want to present a paper, moderate a discussion, demonstrate a system, or provide an exhibit, write Mr. Philip Bagley, President, Information Engineering, 3401 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The program will be arranged around presentations for which 500-word summaries of papers and short descriptions of other information exchange activities have been received by the end of January 1970. The meeting will be held at the Sheraton Hotel in Philadelphia on May 7 and 8. It is jointly sponsored by nearly a dozen local, regional, and national nonprofit organizations interested in information retrieval.

May8-9: Fifteenth annual Midwest Academic Librarians Conference at Drake University and Grand View College, Des Moines, Iowa.

June22-July 3: The School of Librarianship at Ealing Technical College, London, England, is offering a summer school for librarians from the United States and Canada. The course will cover the “Scene in British Librarianship.” There will be lectures and seminars in the mornings followed by visits to selected libraries in the afternoons. Some fullday visits to Oxford and Cambridge to see the university libraries and particular college libraries will be arranged, and the library of the British Museum will be seen. The course fee will be $100.00. Further information and application forms can be secured from the office of L. C. Guy, F.L.A., Course Secretary, School of Librarianship, Ealing Technical College, Ealing, London, W.5, England.

June 22-July 31: A six-week institute on the “Development and Administration of Slavic and East European Library Resources” will be held at the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science from June 22 to July 31, 1970. The institute, which is funded by the U.S. Office of Education, is the first opportunity for library training in this vital and growing area. Additional information as well as application forms for admission and fellowship support may be obtained from Laurence H. Miller, Director, Slavic Library Institute, 225 Library, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801.

June 28-July 1: Annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries, Washington, D.C.

June 28-July 4: American Library Association Annual Conference to be held in Detroit, Michigan.

July 19-31: The School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, is planning the fourth annual Library Administrators Development Program to be held July 19 to July 31, 1970. Dr. John Rizzo, Associate Professor of Management, Western Michigan University, will serve as the director. As in the past three summers, participants will include senior administrative personnel of large library systems—public, research, academic, and school —from the United States and Canada. The faculty is made up of well-known scholars, educators, management consultants, and lecturers drawn from universities, government, and consulting fields. Seminar sessions will concentrate on the principal administrative issues which senior managers encounter. Leadership, motivation, communication, personnel policy, decision-making, problem solving, financial planning and control, performance appraisal, the impact of technology, and the planning of change are among the issues considered in lecture, case analysis, group discussion, and seminar. The two-week resident program will again be held at the University of Maryland’s Donaldson Brown Center, Port Deposit, Maryland, a serene twenty-acre estate overlooking the Susquehanna River and offering a variety of recreational facilities and an informal atmosphere conducive to study, reflection, and discussion. Those interested in further information are invited to address inquiries to the Library Administrators Development Program, School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742.

July 27-Auc. 21: The University of Denver Department of History and the Graduate School for Librarianship in cooperation with the State Archives of Colorado will conduct its Ninth Annual Institute for Archival Studies and Related Fields, July 27-August 21, 1970, under the direction of Dolores C. Renze, State Archivist of Colorado and adjunct professor, Department of History, University of Denver. Designed for those employed in archival, library, or related professions and also for advanced students of history or related subjects. Presents theory, principles, and methodology of archives administration, resources, and related manuscript source materials, with lectures and discussions by specialists in the profession. Field trips to archival agencies, departments or institutions nearby, and historical places in the area. For those especially interested in manuscript administration, arrangement, and methodology, specific assignments will be made. Credit: up to five quarter-hours, with University Institute Certificate upon completion. It is also possible to coordinate a combined certificate with the M.A. program for American Studies in the Department of History or cognate with the M.A. or M.S. program in the Graduate School for Librarianship in accordance with conditions established by these departmental graduate programs. Graduate credit for institute work transferable to another university will require approval of the Dean of Admissions; for those who do not desire credit but certificate only, the institute will be designated as “continuing education.” Tuition: $190; living accommodations available in the Centennial Conference Center at additional cost. Apply to Prof. D. C. Renze, Institute of Archival Studies, 1530 Sherman Street, Denver, Colorado 80203.

Aug.4-14: The School of Library Service, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, will sponsor an Institute on the History of Library Education. It is to be conducted by Dr. Paul A. Winckler, visiting professor of library science. Enrollment will be limited to thirty students. Complete details can be secured from Miss Shelagh Keene, Administrative Assistant, School of Library Service, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Sept. 14-24: 35th FID Conference, Buenos Aires. The Conference will be organized by the FID National Member in Argentina: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas, Rivadavia 1917—R. 25, Buenos Aires, Argentina, attn: Mr. R. A. Gietz.

Oct. 4-9: 33rd annual meeting of ASIS will be held at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Convention Chairman for the 1970 meeting is Mr. Kenneth H. Zabriskie, Jr.; Biosciences Information Services of Biological Abstracts; 2100 Arch Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

MISCELLANY

• Funds permitting, Stanford University libraries hope to have university-wide computerized information retrieval in service by the fall of 1971. Development cost may be as much as $1.5 million over a five-to-eightyear period, Librarian David Weber estimated in his annual report for 1968-69. Much of the financial support for the changeover comes from a U.S. Office of Education grant to the Libraries’ Project BALLOTS (Bibliographic Automation of Large Library Operations using a Time-Sharing System). Weber indicated that the university plans to cover the basic operational costs at start-up time, but “a major infusion of research and development dollars” will be necessary to develop the system, providing the hardware and communication lines, writing the programs and training the necessary staff. With a half-million dollars budgeted for annual operating expenses by 1971, Weber said he hoped to install “on-line inquiry” visual service terminals for the library staff. Terminals at selected service points for the general public will come later.

With the “profitable coordination” of Project BALLOTS with Communication Professor Edwin Parker’s Project SPIRES (Stanford Public Information Retrieval System), bibliographical service can be extended to all university departments, Weber’s report said. Instead of today’s “fragmented and uncoordinated congeries of services and files,” Weber wrote, Stanford library systems could become the envy of other U.S. universities. The proposed system could become “an integrated, rationalized” network which will make it possible for a scholar in his office or laboratory “to determine the existence and location of a particular current acquisition anywhere in the university, whether it is now on order or recently cataloged, where it is located on the shelf, and whether it is presently in use”—by keying a coded phrase into a remote computer terminal. Weber praised the assistance of Professor William F. Miller, associate provost for computing, and Paul Armer, director of the Stanford Computation Center, for their assistance in planning the program.

The economic justification for switching over to computerized bibliographical records and printouts, Weber’s report said, lies in future library growth, labor requirements and salary trends, and the overall economy gained from utilizing the Library of Congress’ already-prepared machine-readable cataloging data, which have been available since April 1969.

“Through use of centrally distributed bibliographic data, Stanford can lead the way in national standardization, a much-needed goal if the nation’s libraries are to cope successfully with increased publications and ever-growing demands for service,” Weber said.

• Western Michigan University library recently inaugurated a novel program of research library service to public, academic, and special libraries in a sixteen-county region of Southwestern Michigan. Called SWELP (Southwestern Educational Library Project) ‚ the program is designed to provide reference services and rapid delivery of research materials to a hundred participating libraries. Requests are made via collect telephone or TWX to the WMU library. Photocopies of journal articles are mailed directly to the requesting patron, at no charge. Books are sent on loan to the requesting library via United Parcel Service, and reference queries are answered by telephone or TWX. Service requests of all kinds are filled within twenty-four hours. Requests for in-print books not owned by the library are filled by placing a telephone order with the library’s principal jobber. When items are requested that cannot be supplied by the library, the SWELP staff consult various bibliographies and notify the requesting library of the location of the desired item. (The request is not referred directly to another library because of the delays and complications involved.)

Requests are currently being made at the rate of about 400 a month, and 75 percent of them are filled immediately. Participants in SWELP have been well pleased with the quality and promptness of the services, all of which are provided to them at no charge. The project is fully funded through the WMU library’s budget. Presently budgeted to run through June 1970, SWELP will probably be extended for at least another year because of the enthusiastic response of the hundred participating libraries. Service costs appear to be running substantially below those reported in other types of interloan systems. At the conclusion of the Project’s first year of operations, a detailed analysis of costs, delivery performance, and other service aspects will be published. For further information, contact Peter Spyers-Duran, Director of Libraries, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.

PUBLICATIONS

• Copies of the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ new 165-page analysis of the Southern California market, with its significant differences from other population centers, are being made available expressly to public, college, school, and corporate libraries throughout the country following numerous inquiries from librarians. A project of the Southern California Council AAAA, the report was prepared over a two-year period by a team of research experts under the direction of Roger M. Johnson, primarily as an aid to advertising agency media buyers. However, demand has proved much broader in scope than originally contemplated.

The report is the first of its kind ever developed by AAAA, the national trade association for advertising agencies. It focuses on the 10,000,000 population area located within a 75-mile semicircle extending from the center of Los Angeles. This five-county area, the analysis says, accounts for over half the entire California population and 30 percent of the population west of the Rockies. People who make up the market are themselves different, the analysis continues. For the most part they are emigrants. Unlike New York and Chicago where, respectively, 74 percent and 67 percent of the residents were born in the state, only 38 percent of Los Angeles’ population are natives of California. Such uprooting and transplantation, the analysis says, is responsible for a unique marketing behavior.

The report is available at $5.00 each for up to ten copies through Southern California Council AAAA, Box 1451, Glendale, California 91209. A check is required with each order. Discount prices are available for larger quantities.

• The Iranian Documentation Centre has announced the publication of a new scanning service, Contents Pages of Iranian Science and Social Science Journals. This monthly reproduces by photo offset the tables of contents of the more significant Iranian journals in all fields, except history and the humanities. It provides quick service for readers who wish to scan tables of contents and select articles to read. One of the first Asian serial scanning services, the Contents Pages covers primarily Persian but also other languages. In all, seventy-five periodicals will be covered each year. Volume 1, number 1, is dated Shahrivar, 1348, or September, 1969, the editor is Mohammed Rahbar. The Iranian Documentation Centre encourages readers to request photocopies of the articles in which they are interested. For a sample copy or subscription rates, please write Contents Pages, Irandoc, P.O. Box 11- 1387, Tehran, Iran.

• The largest number of current publications—more than 53,000—ever listed within the covers of a single book has been published by Oxbridge Publishing Co. The book, weighing nine pounds and totaling more than 1,550 pages, is The Standard Periodical Directory

1970,listing names, addresses, telephone numbers, personnel, advertising and subscription rates, circulation, and an editorial description for every publication published in the United States and Canada. Defining a periodical as any work regularly published at least once every two years, the Directory’s listings include magazines, journals, newsletters, government publications, house organs, bulletins, yearbooks, transactions of professional societies, advisory services, literary and underground publications, and 325 major city dailies (suburban, weekly, and small daily newspapers are excluded). The Directory, widely used by education, research, media, and business organizations, sells for $25.00.

• For the past sixteen years the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion has been publishing Studies in Bibliography and Booklore. This periodical, the only one of its kind, has been acclaimed by librarians and bookmen in America and abroad as a major achievement in the field of Judaic and Hebraic bibliography. Its special issues devoted to one subject, for example, the issues on the Pessach Hagadah and Judeo- Persian literature, have received particularly wide attention. The special value of the Studies lies in the fact that, although not limited to the holdings of the College-Institute library, the periodical has established the Klau Library as a center of bibliographical research and helped to acquaint the scholarly world with its rare treasures—books and manuscripts.

The Klau Library has now launched another series of publications, called Bibliographica Judaica. The first volume in this new series, jointly published by the Hebrew Union College Press and Ktav Publishing House, is Budolph Glanz’s The German Jew in America: An Annotated Bibliography. Herbert C. Zafren, Professor of Jewish Bibliography and director of the College-Institute libraries and editor of the new series, says: “We are proud to initiate the series with Dr. Glanz’s The German Jew in America. Dr. Rudolf Glanz has attained an enviable reputation for his work in many areas of American Jewish history. He has, we believe, compiled and organized a body of references that must be useful, if not indispensable, to those who are interested in the German- Jewish immigration of the nineteenth century.”