ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News From the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• The library of the late Willy Ley, one of the best known authors of books on rockets and space travel, has been purchased by the library of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Consisting of about 4,500 volumes, it forms one of the largest collections of books and journals on the history and development of rocketry and space travel in existence. (Ley’s correspondence, clipping files, and manuscripts were simultaneously acquired by the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.)

A scientist-author, Ley was instrumental in the formation of experimental rocket groups in Germany during the 1920s and was a founding member of the German Rocket Society (VfR). His interest in rocketry helped lead to the development of the V-2. He became an early member of both the American Rocket Society and the British Interplanetary Society, with which he maintained close contact prior to his departure from Germany in the mid-1930s.

Ley was born in Germany at the turn of the century, came to the U.S. in 1935, and obtained his U.S. citizenship in 1944. A free-lance writer off and on during his lifetime, he also worked as a science editor of a New York daily, a research engineer for the Washington Institute of Technology, a part-time professor of science at Fairleigh Dickinson University, a consultant to the Office of Technical Services of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and public lecturer and consultant on astronautics and space research to industry and film makers. At the time of his death in June 1969, Ley and his wife were residing in New York City.

• A recent acquisition of 312 volumes published by Thomas Bird Mosher of Portland, Maine, during the period 1891 to 1923 has been donated to the Arizona State University library by his son, Thomas Bird Mosher, Jr. Included are Stevenson’s Will o’ the Mill, one of twenty-five copies on Japanese vellum; Field’s Little Willie, of which Benton Hatch states in his bibliography of Mosher “no copy located,” as well as Whitman’s Memories of President Lincoln, one of ten pure Roman vellum copies. Also included are a number of post-1923 Mosher imprints, catalogs, seals, photographs, paper samples, and miscellaneous newspaper clippings and business papers. This contribution enhances greatly the Mosher Collection at Arizona State University.

• The Florida State University library has recently received a complete set of books published by the Kelmscott Press in its brief existence from 1891 to 1898. Mr. Howard A. Storrs, editor-publisher of the DeFuniak Herald-Breeze, DeFuniak Springs, Florida, is the donor of this generous gift. The set includes fifty-two titles in sixty-four volumes. Most of the books are bound in vellum, with only fourteen being in boards with linen spine. Since some of the titles were published in editions of only 150 copies, there can be only a small number of complete sets.

• A valuable collection of books, rare offprints, microfilms, and miscellaneous items on Portuguese and Brazilian history has been given to the University of Miami by an outstanding Latin Americanist on the faculty of Inter-American Studies in the UM Center for Advanced International Studies, it has been announced by Dr. Mose L. Harvey, director of the center. Dr. Bailey W. Diffie’s collection of more than 2,000 books includes both rare items and large sets of resource materials.

• The library of Washburn University of Topeka has been presented with the private library of the late Dr. Ray M. Lawless of Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Lawless was the editor of Folk Singers and Folk Songs in America pubished in 1960. His private collection contains early editions of the works of Joseph Conrad and Lafcadio Hearn, as well as a number of books dealing with folk songs and folklore.

• T. S. Eliot’s revised typescript of “Occasional Verses,” a section new to his Collected Poems 1909-1962, is part of an addition to the Washington University libraries collections of considerable textual interest. With it are Eliot’s typescript notes on the “Occasional Verses,” and a 1954 impression of the Faber edition of Collected Poems 1909-1935, with Eliot’s extensive revisions for the new edition. Two groups of letters, one from San Francisco poet Robert Duncan, the other from Cid Corman, American poet now living in Japan, reflect the interest of these writers in publishing and printing. Notes and literary manuscripts of Ellic Howe, contemporary English historian of printing, have recently been added to the growing Isador Mendle Collection on the History of Printing.

• On the occasion of its forty-fifth anniversary the Columbia College Class of 1925 has presented an important archive of John Jay letters and manuscripts to the Columbia College libraries, which increases immeasurably the research value and eminence of the libraries’ Jay Collection. Included in this most significant gift are the following groups of manuscripts: forty-five letters written by Jay to John Adams, George Washington, Edmund Burke, Gouverneur Morris, John Trumbull, and numerous other historical figures; thirty-two letters to Jay from the French Ministers, Lord Grenville, and others, relating to foreign affairs; more than one hundred Jay Family letters, most of which were written to Jay and concern personal matters; a receipt book kept by Jay and his father, covering the years 1789–1802; draft of a bill to Congress, 1779, in Jay’s hand, concerning the disputed borders between New York and Vermont; a report to the Committee of New York, 1776, on Jay’s efforts to procure cannon and other materials to defend the Hudson River; drafts of fifteen letters to Lord Jeffrey Amherst and his descendants, dated 1795–1819, concerning land purchases in New York State; and a letter book containing letters written by Jay as Governor of New York in 1795–1796. These letters and papers, when examined and published by scholars, should add much to our knowledge of the American Revolution and the development of New York City and New York State.

• A first edition of the first book of poems by Robert Burns, described as “exceedingly rare,” has been presented to Cornell University libraries. The uncut copy was printed in 1786 in Kilmarnock, Scotland. The poems are mostly in the Scottish dialect.

Two other rare books, the Revelations of St. Bridget and a first edition of The Compleat Angler, by Izaak Walton, also have been acquired by the university. The Revelations, printed in 1500, is one of the more famous illustrated books in the incunable period of printing. The Revelations of St. Bridget was presented by the Cornell Library Associates in honor of Felix Reichmann, professor of bibliography and assistant director of libraries at Cornell, who retired June 30. The two other books were gifts to the library by Arthur H. Dean, a Cornell trustee, in behalf of the Library Associates and in honor of Reichmann.

• Arna Wendell Bontemps, popular historian and biographer of American blacks, has presented the manuscript copy of Anyplace But Here, a documented history of black migration in the United States, to Syracuse University. The book was written by Bontemps in collaboration with Jack Conroy and published in 1966 (Hill & Wang). The manuscript is part of the Bontemps collection of correspondence, writings, and memorabilia in the George Arents Research Library. More than a hundred letters in the collection were written by men and women prominent in American literature, the black community, and the theater, among them Conroy, Ossie Davis, W. E. B. DuBois, LeRoi Jones, Carson Kanin, Walter Lowenfels, Florence Crannell Means, Jay Saunders Redding, Carl Van Vechten, Roy Wilkins, and Richard Wright. The letters reflect Bontemps’ literary interests and the progressive stages of his writings.

• Portland State University library has received a gift of a substantial collection of materials pertaining to Pacific Northwest natural resources and hydroelectric power, Ivan Bloch has donated to the library his entire working collection accumulated over many years during which he was an engineer and head of Ivan Bloch Associates, one of the Northwest’s most prestigious consulting firms. The gift comprises more than 180 cartons of papers and publications, tracing not only the development of power in the Northwest, but the character of the region’s business activity, resources, and population growth. The collection is particularly strong in federal, state, and local government documents on these subjects, and also includes many survey reports prepared by Mr. Bloch’s firm.

• The Rabbi Herman Hailperin Collection of Duquesne University library has recently acquired as a gift from the Pittsburgh Bibliophiles a rare edition of the Liber Cosri, a twelfth century work by the Spanish-Jewish philosopher and Hebrew poet, Judah ha-Levi. The book is an original 1660 edition of a translation into Latin by the famed Christian Hebraist, John Buxtorf, the Younger. Works of his, including the Latin translation of Maimonides’ Moreh Nebuchim (1629), and those of his equally famous father, John Buxtorf, the Elder, including his two volumes Biblia Rabbinica (1619), already form part of the Hailperin Collection. Originally written in Arabic, the Book of the Chazars, as it is called in English, was subsequently translated into Hebrew by Judah ibn Tibbon in 1167—editio princeps, 1506. It is this Hebrew version which Buxtorf parallels in the columns of his Latin Text.

• Recent acquisitions of the Urban Archives of Temple University in Philadelphia include the records of University Settlements (1913-1963), the Greater Philadelphia Federation of Settlements (1948-1967), the Philadelphia Association of Day Nurseries (1898- 1936), the Settlement Music School (1908- 1960), the Wharton Centre (1912-1965), the Philadelphia-Camden Social Service Exchange (1911-1970), and the Citizens’ Council on City Planning (1941-1965). Runs of two Italian language newspapers printed in Philadelphia have also been received; they are Ordine Nuovo, 1936-1951, and La Libera Parola, 1918-1968.

• The Brown University library has just received one of the finest sets of the double elephant folio edition of The Birds of America by John James Audubon (Edinburgh & London, 1827–1838). It was presented by Mr. Albert E. Lownes, the noted Providence book collector, whose Thoreau collection was presented to the library in 1967.

Several features distinguish the Lownes set from others. The 435 folio plates are bound in six volumes instead of the usual four since each volume is interleaved with protective sheets of fine, watermarked paper. Each volume has a specially printed title-page to identify the included plates. Also of importance is that the first ten plates are in the earliest state, differing from plates that were later retouched. The folio volumes were bound and gold stamped in half red levant morocco by F. Bedford of London. The five volumes of text which accompany the plates, printed in Edinburgh 1831-1839 under the title Ornithological Biography, are bound in full red morocco by Bedford. The bindings are in superb condition, and the hand-colored plates are strong and brilliant.

• An archive providing an intimate view of Carl Sandburg’s development as a poet has been acquired by the University of Virginia through the efforts of collector C. Waller Barrett of Charlottesville. The material, which includes extremely rare copies of the first four printed works by Sandburg as well as manuscripts and unpublished poems and letters, was made available to Barrett by Dr. Quincy Wright of Charlottesville, former professor of foreign affairs at the university. It will be known as the Quincy Wright Sandburg Collection and will become part of the Barrett Library of American Literature in the University’s Alderman Library.

AWARDS/ GIFTS

• The Library Association, London, has announced that entries are invited for the award of the Robinson Medal, 1970. The Medal is awarded every two years to reward the originality and inventive ability of librarians and other interested persons or firms in connection with devising new and improved methods in library technology and any aspect of library administration. Full particulars and forms of application may be obtained from the Secretary, The Library Association, T Ridgmount Street, London WCIE 7AE. The closing date for receipt of entries is 30th November,1970.

FELLOWSHIPS/ SCHOLARSHIPS

• Beginning in the fall of 1970, the School of Library and Information Services, University OF Maryland will offer a special program designed to equip professionals to work as information specialists with the informationally deprived in various settings, but, particularly, in the inner city and with the undergraduate in the university. The program, funded by the U.S. Office of Education, will be a thirty-six hour program, conducted at the master’s and post-master’s levels. Utilizing the “Floating Librarian” concept developed by Mary Lee Bundy and James Welbourne, the realization that the professional might best engage in his practice, apart or detached from the institutional base of libraries, will be explored and developed.

The instructional program is designed to follow three main paths. There will be a behavioral component planned to enlarge and expand the student’s understanding of the inner city and of the role of information and the information professional in this context, and a professional component emphasizing reference-information and information organization and dissemination. The third major ingredient will be a practicum where the student will gain field experience through a variety of placements' in various settings for information practice.

For the program, the school is seeking people who have an interest in translating social commitment into professional action. Individuals are invited to apply who have demonstrated ability in working in a black community or in nontraditional work settings, preferably with social action experience. Financial assistance is available to support students engaged in study in this program. Interested individuals should write immediately for application forms and be prepared to come to the school for a personal interview. Inquiries should be directed to Mrs. Effie T. Knight, Administrative Assistant, Urban Information Specialist Project, School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742.

• The Medical Library Association, U.S.A. invites applicants from abroad to apply for fellowships in two types of programs: (1) a oneyear program in which attendance at an approved library school is combined with a limited amount of travel and (2) a six-months program which provides for observation and supervised work in various U.S. medical libraries, sometimes with attendance at a sixweeks summer session course in medical libraries. A monthly stipend, tuition, and travel in the United States are provided. Candidates usually seek funds for travel to this country from other sources. Applicants should be working in or preparing to work in a medical library. They should be prepared to work in their own country for a period of two years after completion of the fellowship. Proficiency in the English language is required. For further information, inquiries may be sent to: Mr. John Balkema, Chairman, Committee on International Cooperation, Medical Library Association, Welch Medical Library, 1900 East Monument Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, U.S.A.

GRANTS

• Dowling College in Oakdale, Long Island. New York, has received a grant of $1,275,958 under the Higher Education Facilities Act from the U.S. Office of Education for the construction of a library and the rehabilitation of an existing building to provide a Performing Arts Instructional Center. The proposed Dowling College library will eventually house a collection of 250,000 books in a 93,000 square foot modem building designed to blend architecturally with the existing William K. Vanderbilt turn-of-the-century mansion, “Idle Hour,” presently the main building on the Dowling campus. The new library building will contain three floors, plus a penthouse auditorium seating up to 500. Library services will tenant the first two floors; classrooms and a multimedia instructional center will occupy the third floor.

• The National Book Committee has received a grant of $81,844 from the U.S. Office of Education to carry out Phase H of a nationwide Educational Media Selection Centers Program. The Phase II grant brings the total federal funding of the program to over $300,000. The four-phase program is designed to help develop media selection centers for use by classroom teachers, curriculum specialists, librarians, and other adults concerned with educating children and youth. In Phase II a guide will be prepared for establishing or developing such centers. This guide will be based on an analytic survey of existing centers made during the initial research phase of the program. The Phase I findings were accepted in final report form by the Office of Education early this year and transmitted to ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center). The abstract appears in the June, 1970, Research in, Education under the number ED 036 201. The American Library Association plans to publish this report in the fall of 1970, under the title: “Educational Media Selection Centers: Identification and Analysis of Current Practices.”

• An anonymous $25,000 grant for the acquisition of materials in varied disciplines has been made to the Texas A&M University library.

• A matching grant of $50,000 to Wabash College, planning an innovative, library-centered educational program, was announced today by the Council on Library Resources. The grant will be matched by the college in like amount. Under the five-year program at the Crawfordsville, Indiana, college, the library is expected to assume a more focal role in the instruction of undergraduates, thus contributing to the greater efficiency of the learning process. The program is also expected to lead to the identification of areas in which the overall resources and services of the library should be improved.

In the first year the emphasis will be on freshman seminars designed by faculty members to demonstrate the nature and the value of the liberal arts from the vantage point of a well defined topic which typifies their work. The seminars will show what the intellectual life can be like by letting the students live a part of it along with the professor. A group of upperclassmen will be trained to work alongside leaders of the seminars and to use their first-hand experience and their sympathy for the novice who faces new problems to make his investigations efficient and profitable.

The Council on Library Resources and the National Endowment for the Humanities recently announced joint grants totaling $200,000 to three other institutions of higher learning which are also planning innovative library-centered programs. These institutions are: Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island ($100,- 000); Dillard University, New Orleans, Louisiana ($50,000); and Jackson State College, Jackson, Mississippi ($50,000), They, too, will match the grants.

MEETINGS

Sept. 14-24: The 1970 Conference and Congress of the International Federation for Documentation (FID) will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 14-24, 1970. Participation in the Congress is open to all those who are interested in the problems of documentation and scientific information.

Additional information and preliminary registration forms are available from: U.S. National Committee for FID, National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C. 20418. For further information regarding the meetings and papers see July/ August CRL News, pages 218 and 220.

Oct. 11: The American Society for Information Science will hold its 33rd annual meeting Sunday, October 11, through Thursday, October 15, 1970, at the Sheraton Hotel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “The Information Conscious Society” is the theme. The Convention Chairman for the 1970 meeting is Mr. Kenneth H. Zabriskie, Jr., Biosciences Information Services of Biological Abstracts, 2100 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Oct. 21-24: The 1970 annual conference of the Pennsylvania Library Association will be held at the Sheraton Hotel, Philadelphia. More information is available from the Pennsylvania Library Association, 200 South Craig Street, Room 506, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15113. For complete information on the program see July/ August CRL News, pages 220.

Oct. 30: The Department of History of Notre Dame University, the Society of American Archivists, and the National Archives and Records Service (Region 5) are cooperating in the presentation of a symposium on using the resources of the Presidential Libraries. It will be held Friday, October 30, 1970, in the Continuing Education Center on the Notre Dame campus. An informal gathering of participants and those arriving the afternoon of October 29 is also being planned.

Those desiring to receive a program should send their requests to the following address: Regional Archives Branch, Federal Records Center, 7201 South Leamington Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60638. The program and cost of attending can be found in the July/August CRL News, page 220.

Nov. 11-14: The annual conference of the New York Library Association will meet at the Hotel Americana, New York City.

Nov. 12: The annual conference of the New York Library Association (see above) will include a conference-within-a-conference on the Preservation of Library Materials, November 12, 1970. In addition to the preservation of books the meeting will concern itself with nonbook materials such as phonodises, tapes, prints, maps, and special collections. The speakers and panelists include Verner Clapp, Carolyn Horton, Frazer Poole, Jesse Shera, Maurice Tauber, and many others. The meeting is open to nonmembers and per diem registration is available.

Nov. 13-16: The Oral History Association will hold its Fifth Annual Colloquium, November 13 through 16, 1970, at Asilomar, on the Monterey-Carmel Peninsula, California. Speakers include T. Harry Williams, Boyd Professor of History at Louisiana State University, and Francis C. Schruben, Professor of History at Pierce State College. Panels are scheduled on “Oral History and Black Studies” and “How to Make Oral History More Useful”; group sessions will be held on interviewing techniques, publishing, processing, public relations, legal and ethical considerations, and information retrieval as they relate to oral history projects. The all-inclusive cost is $100. A Workshop in Basic Oral History Methods will be held prior to the Colloquium, November 12 (4:30 p.m.) through November 13, for the benefit of new members. The all-inclusive cost is $25.

For registration information contact Mrs. Willa Baum, Regional Oral History Office, Room 486, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.

Nov. 28: The Fifty-sixth Annual Conference of Eastern College Librarians will meet at Columbia University. The Conference topic will be “Research Libraries and the Publishing Industry.” Inquiries should be addressed to: Mr. Basil Mitchell (Chairman of The Program Committee), Executive Director, Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, 103 Market Street, Poughkeepsie, New York 12601.

Jan. 6-12, 1971: Following on the XXVIIth International Congress of Orientalists Library Panel at Ann Arbor in 1967, Library Seminars will be held during the 28th International Congress of Orientalists, Canberra, 6-12 January,

1971. These may be regarded as the first major activities of the International Association of Orientalist Librarians set up at the Ann Arbor meetings.Apr. 23-24, 1971: Sixteenth annual Midwest Academic Librarians Conference at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

May 30-June 3, 1971: The 70th Annual Meeting of the Medical Library Association will be held in New York City, May 30- June 3, 1971.

A letter of intent to submit a formal paper for consideration, accompanied by a short abstract, should be sent by September 1, 1970, to: Alfred N. Brandon, Librarian, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Fifth Avenue and 100th Street, New York, New York 10029. The deadline for submission of completed papers is February 1, 1971. For information regarding the type of papers needed see July/August CRL News, pages 220 and 224.

Aug. 22-27, 1971: An International Conference on Information Science will be held in Israel on August 22-27, 1971. Papers will be presented in the following areas: (1) Information Analysis and Information Analysis Centers; (2) Retrieval of Information; (3) Selection, Education, and Training of Personnel; (4) Publishing and Reproduction. English will be the official language. Social activities will include reception by local officials; visits to educational institutions, libraries, and Israeli homes, and optional sightseeing tours. Proceedings will be published after the conference. The registration fee is $50 per person. Titles and summaries of papers are due not later than December 1, 1970. For further information contact: Conference Secretary, ISLIC—Israel Society of Special Libraries and Information Centres, P.O.B. 16271, Tel-Aviv.

Sept. 30-Oct. 2, 1971: The Indiana Library Association will meet at Stouffer’s Inn, Indianapolis, Indiana. Further information can be obtained from Jane G. Flener, President, Indiana Library Association, Indiana University Library, Bloomington, Indiana 47401.

MISCELLANY

• A study started four years ago as an experiment in speeding the purchasing and processing of library books for Colorado colleges and universities will go into full-time operation this year. Located at the University of Colorado, the Cooperative Book Processing Center will serve twelve Colorado colleges and universities and during the next year it will buy and process as many as 150,000 volumes for these institutions. Participating libraries are CU, Colorado State University, the University of Northern Colorado, Metropolitan State College, the Community College of Denver, the Colorado School of Mines, Fort Lewis College, Adams State, Western State, Colorado Mountain College, Temple Buell, and Regis College.

Overall goal of the cooperative center is to cut the red tape of ordering and cataloging educational materials, thus releasing library staff members to help library users. College and university libraries using the center send book orders to the center instead of to individual book vendors. The center orders the books and receives the books directly from the vendors, then catalogs and provides bibliographic information to the individual libraries.

Dr. Richard M. Dougherty, associate director of CU libraries, who has spearheaded the book processing center development, said the center has cut the costs of buying and processing books. For example, he said, the acquisition and processing cost for the average book in 1967 was $3.10. During the experimental period of the center last year, the cost was $2.70 for the average volume, despite inflation.

Dougherty said the Colorado center is the first operative one in the United States. Plans are under way in Ohio and the New England area to start similar centers, he said, but the Colorado center is the first one actually buying and processing books. He acknowledges that there are “kinks” in the processing center—some college and university libraries are getting faster service than others. But he adds that efforts are being made under the state legislative appropriation to start ironing out these rough spots.

The Colorado legislature this year provided $100,000 to support the cooperative center. Half the appropriation will be spent on developmental activities, including the programs for staff librarians on working with the center. The other half of the state appropriation will be used as an incentive for libraries not already in the system to start having books processed. Dougherty said $1.25 per volume of the first 40,000 volumes processed will be paid for by the state.

Operational status of the Colorado Cooperative Book Processing Center grew from a $126,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The grant covered a three-year period starting early in 1967 and consisted first in a feasibility study of a processing center, next in designing a center, and last year in a six-month experimental operation. In addition to the National Science Foundation grant, participating colleges and universities have provided $10,000 for costs of the trial phases of the center.

Editor’s Note: The following copy was submitted for publication by Mrs. Lynn Rosen, Columbia School of Library Service, Columbia University.

• The Cambodia crisis has had a profound impact on academic life in the United States. Previously, it was accepted that while many individuals in the university community took political action, the university as a whole should not act. Now, for the first time, the role of the university is being interpreted in a wholly new light. Academic libraries and library schools, as part of the university community, are forced to reexamine their own position. It was for this reason that on Thursday, May 14, 1970, the Columbia University School of Library Service sponsored a colloquium to discuss what the role of a university library should be during times of crisis. The colloquium took the form of a case study of Columbia University.

For this purpose, there was a panel representing the various factions at Columbia, including Warren Haas, Director of Libraries; Allan J, Dyson, representing non-union professionals; Professor Sidney Morganbesser, representing the faculty; Professor Alan Hazen, the library school faculty; Joe Popper, representing Local 1199; Brian Turner, representing the Student Strike Steering Committee; and Ed Jajko, representing the non-striking library students. Dr. Lowell Martin was chairman. The panel and audience considered the following questions: Should or can the library remain open if the university closes? What is the library’s role in a struck university? Considering the need for a functioning information and resource center, can or should the library remain neutral ground? If so, what are the workers’ rights? In the inevitable clash of ideology, how can a workable balance be achieved?

The answers to these questions are not simple, and there were diverse opinions. Much of the discussion concerned not whether the library should remain physically opened, but whether the library should “facilitate” certain actions over others on the part of the staff: whether, for example, the library should allow an acquisitions librarian to devote her time, during this crisis, to procuring literature distributed on campus, rather than performing her regular duties. There was an awareness that the failure to include workers in the two-day moratorium at Columbia had led directly to the workers’ strike on Friday. But there was disagreement over whether the workers did indeed have the right to strike at this time. More generally, it was suggested that the library staff could set up revolving duties to allow time for anti-war activities.

Professor Martin concluded the colloquium by saying: “We came together for communication and understanding. I think there’s been communication. I’m not so sure of the understanding.” We are hopeful that the colloquium will provide a basis for continuing discussion, and will lead to understanding. It is crucial in these critical times that the university library reevaluate its own position to meet the times.

• International cooperation in the sharing of information and translations has been formalized between the National Translations Center of the John Crerar Library and two groups outside the American hemisphere —the European Translations Centre in Delft, Holland, and the National Lending Library of Great Britain, at Boston Spa. The National Translations Center, operated by Crerar and partially supported by a National Science Foundation grant, is the principal U.S. depository and information center for unpublished translations into English from world literature of the natural, physical, medical and social sciences. The European Translations Centre concentrates on East European and Oriental literature—the so-called difficult languages, Budington explained. The National Lending Library of Great Britain collects translations into English from all languages.

Under the agreement with the two European centers, the National Translations Center of the John Crerar Library will provide distribution of NLL and ETC materials in the Western Hemisphere. The cooperating centers will exchange index cards and translations, including current materials and a backlog accumulated since the NLL discontinued sending copies of its translations to the U.S. Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information. As soon as the new acquisitions can be analyzed and processed, they will be cited in Translations Register-Index, the NTC’s semimonthly publication, which lists new acquisitions by COSATI subject categories.

The National Translations Center is a nonprofit enterprise which currently has nearly 150,000 translations cataloged in its collection. Translations prepared by government agencies, industries, professional societies, academic institutions and individuals are contributed to the Center where they are indexed and made available to others upon request. The Center also maintains records of translations available from other sources. Information on the availability of translations and copies of translations on file may be obtained from National Translations Center, John Crerar Library, 35 W. 33d St, Chicago, Ill. 60616.

• In a near-unanimous vote May 28, 1970, the Faculty Senate of the University of Rhode Island approved a proposal to give faculty status to librarians effective June 30, 1971, at the latest. The senate action will have to be approved by President Werner A. Baum and the Board of Trustees to take effect. The proposal was preceded by the following preamble:

The librarians of the University of Rhode Island are responsible for the development of our university library, the vital center of the university. In programs and policies, as an integral part of the university, they should be afforded faculty status. By full participation as faculty members, for example, by serving on university committees concerned with curriculum development and as representatives in the Faculty Senate, the librarians will certainly be better able to contribute to the development of the university. Librarians are an organic part of the university community and can best function as professionals as well as contribute more creatively to the university when they are thus rightly recognized as professional members of the university faculty.

The proposal itself recommended:

1. That full faculty status be afforded to all qualified librarians who have professional degrees in library service, in a subject area discipline or equivalent professional experience not later than June 30, 1971.

2. That qualified librarians who are eligible for faculty status receive all the benefits as well as assume all the responsibilities of full faculty members as defined in the University Manual.

3. With respect to salary, that librarians receive the same salaries for an academic year as do other faculty members in the same ranks and where librarians are offered twelve-month appointments, their salaries be adjusted on the same basis as other faculty members.

4. That librarians be eligible for appointment and promotion to higher ranks on the basis of merit. (The holding of academic rank shall be independent of the holding of administrative appointment in the library.)

5. That qualified librarians be eligible to hold additional academic appointments in departments other than the library and that it be possible for qualified members of other departments to be given appointments in the library.

6. That librarians shall have access to grants, fellowships, and research funds and be eligible to serve as principal investigators on extramural contracts and grants.

7. That librarians have access to the grievance, appeal and review procedures available to other faculty members.

8. That librarians presently employed receive the benefits and discharge the duties appropriate to their ranks. (All promotions subsequent to the granting of full academic recognition to the librarians shall be subject to the new requirements. No librarians currently employed shall be demoted or suffer loss of income through application of the new standards.)

9. The following rank designations: Current faculty—Instructor, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor; Librarians—Assistant Librarian, Assistant Professor in the Library, Associate Professor in the Library, Professor in the Library.

The proposal for faculty status for librarians originated in the University of Rhode Island chapter of the American Association of University Professors over two years ago and was referred by the Faculty Senate to its Library Committee. That committee, chaired by Dr. Lewis J. Hutton, was very concerned over the relative standing of the library compared to sister institutions. Aided closely by Abner Gaines, Associate Librarian, and later by George Parks, the University Librarian who came in August, 1969, the committee visited other university libraries. It worked carefully with the university administration to insure the feasibility of its proposals. It entertained suggestions from library staff and the University of Rhode Island Professional Librarians’ Association. Its research and its work with the faculty helped to create the favorable attitude which culminated in the vote taken today.

• The new Action Council of the American Library Association’s Social Responsibilities Round Table, meeting with its Clearinghouse Committee on Friday, 3 July 1970, at the close of the 89th Annual Conference of the Association, made some policy decisions that determine the direction that the Round Table will take in the coming year.

The council, sensing the increasing importance of direct action and exemplary behavior, is coordinating the work of a number of Task Forces based on specific projects or specific constituencies, rather than on open-ended themes. These 1970-1971 Task Forces include groups working on an Alternative Books in Print, Women’s Liberation and the status of women in libraries, a bibliography of the peace movement, the place of minorities in professional librarianship, gay liberation, new approaches to cataloging-in-source, and intellectual freedom.

Since local action by the SRRT Affiliates is to be emphasized, the Action Council assigned top priority to the maintenance of an extensive communications network for the Affiliates, the Task Forces, and the SRRT membership. When action is needed, the response can be called for quickly.

The Action Council’s third decision affects the national SRRT program at the 90th annual ALA conference at Dallas. Instead of planning and presenting a program of speakers or “entertainment,” the 1971 program will tentatively feature an environment for action. The Task Forces and Affiliates will present an open forum for the discussion of their actions and projects; librarians interested in these sample projects or in forming new local action groups to meet the specific needs of their communities and libraries will be welcome to join in small groups and round tables of SRRT members to focus in on the year’s experiences and plan specific new actions. For further information in the SRRT Task Forces, local Affiliates, Action Council, or Clearinghouse Committee, contact the new Action Council Coordinator: Patricia Schuman, 10 West 16th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011.

PUBLICATIONS

• Libraries and industrial users interested in indexes to the Arkansas Gazette, oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi, 1819–to current date, please contact Arkansas Indexing Committee, c/o University of Arkansas, Little Rock Library, 33rd and University, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204.

• The Continuing Dialogue is a special 150-page annotated bibliography of over 200 books (published mostly in the last three years) concerned with the interaction between the sciences, the humanities, education and society, and with the relationships between science, technology and society. Also included are books on philosophy, religion, sociology, and culture in general. Included are books by authors such as Jacques Barzun, Daniel Bell, George Boas, Harold Cassidy, René Dubos, Robert F. Goheen, Sidney Hook, Howard Mumford Jones, Edward H. Levi, Harlow Shapley, George Gaylord Simpson, and Howard Taylor. Individual copies may be ordered at $3.00 per copy from the Institute Libraries, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, 333 Jay Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201.

• A limited number of copies of the following title are available, as announced by the Chicago State College Library—Job Description and Certification for Library Technical Assistants (Proceedings of the Council on Library Technology (COLT) Central Region Workshop held January 23 and 24, 1970) edited by Noel R. Grego and Sr. M. Chrysantha Rudnik, CSSF. 68 pages. $3.00, including transportation and handling. Send requests to: Mrs. Noel R. Grego, Head, Catalog Department, Library. Rm. 311C, Chicago State College, Chicago, Illinois 60621.

• The Council of National Library Associations has just published a list of placement services that are available to librarians through library associations, library schools, and state libraries. This guide provides pertinent information both to librarians looking for employment and to employers seeking personnel. It was compiled by Dorothy Doyle, library consultant, Washington State Library, chairman; Carlyle Frarey, senior lecturer, Columbia University, School of Library Service; Helen Brown Schmidt, executive secretary, Medical Library Association; Katharine Stokes, College and University Library Specialist, U.S. Office of Education, Division of Library Programs. Copies are available at 10¢ each, from the Catholic Library Association, 461 W. Lancaster Ave., Haverford, Pennsylvania 19041.

• Details surrounding the earliest history of what is now Texas A&M University are covered in the publication, Getting the College Under Way, by Ernest Langford, university archivist. The 65-page pamphlet issued as “University Library Miscellaneous Publication No. 2” brings together the findings of several years of research. Copies of the publication are available in the Library Director’s office, Texas A&M University, College Station. The price is $3.00.

• Menckeniana, a quarterly publication issued since 1962 from the Mencken Room of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, Maryland, is devoted to the rambunctious world of H. L. Mencken, the needling influence of his ideas on his contemporaries, and the significance of these ideas in today’s world. Each issue contains one or more previously unpublished items by Mencken, such as his correspondence with Gerald W. Johnson while they were writing “History of the Sunpapers,” and items intended for another edition of Minority Report. Also included are original articles about him and a continuing bibliographic checklist of what has recently come to light, or been published, concerning him. Annual subscriptions to Menckeniana are $2.00.

• The newest title to be published by the Ohio State University libraries is a Natural Resources Bibliography, edited by Irene Braden Hoadley. Natural resources in this work have been limited to such categories as land and soils, minerals, forests, fish and wildlife, water and so forth, including the social context. There is an introductory discussion which elaborates the theoretical framework and rationale for a view of resource use which essentially indicates that “resources are not; they become.”

The organization of the bibliography and the material included are intended to further scientific thinking by including as special cases under broader headings topics normally receiving prime attention in natural resources literature. Both a subject and a title index are provided. The basic compilation of this work was done under the direction of the late Dr. Charles A. Dambach, Director, School of Natural Resources, Ohio State University. Copies are available for $5.00 from the Ohio State University Libraries Publications Committee, Room 322-A, 1858 Neil Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210.

• In recognition of the Dickens Centennial, the University of California at Los Angeles Library has published Richard A. Vogler’s An Oliver Twist Exhibition: A Memento for the Dickens Centennial, 1970: An Essay. Los Angeles: University of California Library, 1970. Copies are available at $1.00 each from the Gifts and Exchange Section, Acquisitions Department, University of California at Los Angeles Library, Los Angeles, California 90024.

• The American Translators Association (ATA) has recently published the second edition of its Professional Services Directory. The new edition supersedes the first edition, which was published in 1965 and is now out of print. The new, greatly expanded listing contains detailed information on over 350 members of ATA, who can translate from or into 46 different languages and specialize in one or more of eighty-eight different technical, scientific, or literary disciplines. The translators listed include residents of most areas of the United States and of sixteen foreign countries. The new directory, produced with the use of special “mnemonic profiles” and of new computer programs, enables any user to identify quickly those translators matching any specific professional requirements, by consulting any of four main Index Sections, which are arranged by discipline, by source language, by target language, and by geographical location of the translator. A directory section provides additional data of interest to users. The new Professional Services Directory is available postpaid at $15.00 from PSD-ATA, c/o 6900 Grove Road, Thorofare, N.J. 08086. Orders accompanied by payment and requiring no further billing receive a 20 percent reduction in price ($12.00 net).

• Seven new sections of the English Full Edition of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) have just been published by British Standards Institution. The classification is published in many different languages, and this volume is another stage in a program to provide a Full English Edition as BS 1000.

The new sections are as follows;

BS 1000 (31) Statistics covers statistical theory, population statistics and statistical bases for certain types of insurance. Price 19s by post.

BS 1000 (36) Social Welfare and Relief covers the theory and principles of social relief and welfare, general welfare organizations, public assistance, and social workers and questions concerning work, social movements, and societies. Price 19s by post.

BS 1000 (39) Ethnology. Ethnography covers national costumes and customs in public and private life, prescribed social forms, women in society, and folklore and has a special section dealing with primitive peoples. Price 19s by post.

BS 1000 (338) Production of Wealth. Production. Trend of the Economy. Economic Situation covers the concepts of production and productivity, home production, the artisan and factory systems, prices, price determination, costs, organization of production, private production monopolies, and trading agreements. Price 19s by post.

BS 1000 (339) Distribution, Conservation and Consumption of Wealth covers prosperity, poverty, livelihood, national wealth and income, consumption and conservation of wealth and natural resources, supplies, and the distribution of goods. Price 14s by post.

BS 1000 (622.1/.5) Explosives. Apart from explosives themselves, this section covers fireworks, pyrotechnic and related devices, propellant powders and gunpowders, detonators, and kindlers, matches, and lighters. Price 19s by post.

BS 1000 (622.6/.9) Fuels cover fuels classified according to whether they are natural, thermally or chemically produced, or mechanically produced, artificial and synthetic. Fuel economy and combustion engineering are also dealt with. Price 19s by post.

BS 1000 (687) Clothing Industry. Articles of Toilet. One part of this section deals with tailoring and industrial manufacture of articles of clothing such as outer garments, lingerie, underwear, knitwear, cravats, protective clothing and headgear, as well as tools, machinery, and accessories for the industry. Another part deals with beauty culture, coverings, wigs and hairdressing, manicure, pedicure, and accessories for beauty culture. Two final parts are concerned with artificial fur and brushes and brooms.

These sections are all provided with alphabetical indexes. The new sections of BS 1000 are obtainable from the BSI Sales Branch, 101/113 Bentonville Road, London N.1. Prices by post to nonsubscribers are given in the text.■ ■