ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News From the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• The University of Nothe Dame and the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Philadelphia announce the purchase, by the university, of books and bound periodicals from the William Bacon Stevens Library of the Divinity School.

Approximately 20,500 titles in about 29,500 physical volumes are involved in the transaction, which will enhance the University of Notre Dame’s holdings in such areas as American Protestantism, Anglicanism, church history, ecumenism, and liturgies. This acquisition will bring Notre Dame’s holdings in religion and church history to approximately 130,000 volumes, and represents the largest single increase in the university’s religion collection in recent years.

The sale of the books by the Divinity School was prompted by the merger of the Philadelphia institution with another seminary of the Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The institution resulting from this merger will be located at Cambridge and will be named the Episcopal Divinity School. The approximately 30,000 volumes retained by the Divinity School and to be moved to Cambridge will provide a greatly strengthened library resource for Episcopal theological education in Cambridge as well as contribute to the area library resources of the Boston Theological Institute.

The books from Philadelphia destined for both Notre Dame and Cambridge will be cataoged into the collections at their new locations and in due time will be reported as holdings in the appropriate regional union catalogs.

• The American Antiquarian Society has acquired a rare collection of 134 of the earliest laws of the United States enacted by the first four congresses between 1790 and 1796. Acquisition of these documents was made possible by a gift of $6,800 from the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Worcester.

In 1789, individual laws were first printed immediately upon enactment: one copy each for the president, the secretary of state, each senator and representative, and two for each state. Additional copies were printed later for distribution to state officials and government agencies, so that the total printing for an important law might run as high as 300 to 400 copies. These slip laws were not intended for public dissemination and government officials seldom filed them for long. They were rare even one hundred years ago and are even more so today.

The laws in this collection fall within the period 1790 to 1796. Of the First Congress, second session, the collection consists of about half the laws passed; of the Second Congress, first session, about three quarters; of the Third Congress, both sessions, virtually complete; and of the Fourth Congress, first session, nearly complete. All these acts of Congress were printed by Childs and Swaine, first in New York and later in Philadelphia when the government moved there in 1791. In all but a very few cases the laws are in surprisingly good condition. Most of them were never bound and all are uncut, just as issued.

Examples of some of the most significant of these laws: the first American copyright law (May 31, 1790); Hamilton’s act providing for the debt of the United States (August 4, 1790); an act to regulate trade and intercourse with Indian tribes (July 22, 1790); the first law establishing a uniform rule for naturalization (March 26, 1790); the act authorizing the president to call out the militia (May 2, 1792); and the act establishing a federal mint and regulating coins of the U.S. (April 2, 1792).

• With the receipt of the original illustrations and manuscripts for Edwin Tunis’ last book, Tavern at the Ferry, the University of Oregon Library is pleased to announce that the entire working collection of this outstanding American author and illustrator of books for children and adults is now available for research. The collection is a bequest of the late Mr. Tunis, who died in August of 1973.

Tunis was one of those rare authors and illustrators who saved all his notes, sketches, and working files in addition to the finished drawings for the book illustrations and the final publisher’s manuscripts for eleven books, his entire output. The collection includes about 2,085 original drawings plus the working material for each book and was organized and inventoried by Nancy Farmer of the library staff.

• New collections in the Urban Archives Center of Temple University Library include local records of the Big Brother Association (1915–1970), Citizen’s Committee on Public Education (including the Public Education Association) (1907–1967), Pennsylvania Child Labor Association (1905–1915), Defender Association (1968–1974), A Modem Constitution for Pennsylvania, Inc. (1965– 1968), Citizen’s Council of Montgomery County (1965–1968), and Penn-Jersey Transportation Study (1958–1965). The last collection includes the complete raw data from the massive surveys and home interview series done in 1960. The Archives also acquired scrapbooks of local political figures H. W. Salus, Sr. (1924–1930) and R. W. Pitman (1945– 1949), and early records of the Philadelphia local of the American Federation of Teachers (1934–1941). Major additions to existing collections include case records and office files of the Philadelphia American Civil Liberties Union (1950–1970) and bound minutes and ledgers of the local YMCA (1854–1939).

• The Loyola-Notbe Dame Library in Baltimore has announced the opening of a permanent exhibition of some 300 rare fore-edge paintings donated to the institution by Marion and Henry J. Knott of Baltimore.

The collection of volumes, most of which date back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is one of the largest of its kind in the country and features the fore-edge art which has all but disappeared from bookbinding today. Fore-edge painting is done, usually in watercolors, on the inner edges of a book while the pages are fanned open. When the book is closed, the painting is invisible under the decorated gilt edges.

Valued in excess of $150,000, the Knott collection is the largest of the special collections housed in the library which serves the Charles Street campuses of Loyola and Notre Dame of Maryland. Owing to the fine care and concern of Mr. Knott, the books remain in excellent condition and are doubly valuable for their fine bindings, most all of which are in leather.

A number of the Knott books contain up to six paintings on their edges, and the painted scenes depict landscapes, religious scenes, seascapes, sports, or messages. The newest book in the collection, painted in 1953, depicts the coronation coach of Elizabeth II leaving Buckingham Palace, while one of the oldest, dating back to 1556, bears a portrait of Erasmus.

GRANTS

• The Navy is lending Texas A&M University’s Library and Oceanography Department a $250,000 data storage and retrieval system which will serve as the nucleus for a project to cope with the “information explosion” in marine-related fields. In addition to serving TAMU’s own oceanographers and other researchers interested in marine data, the system —dubbed “File-Search”—will be available to qualified representatives of other institutions, government, and industry.

The new system stores the data from scientific books or journals in its memory drum. “File-Search” is capable of accommodating an unlimited number of reels of film, with each reel containing 32,000 pages of data. Each page of data is coded according to content. The machine can search its memory for materials on any of thousands of specific oceanographic topics. The system is expected to be operational in the library during the fall semester.

In making the equipment available, Rear Admiral J. Edward Snyder, Jr., oceanographer of the Navy, said he viewed the loan as a continuation of the long and fruitful cooperation between the Navy and TAMU in working toward common goals in ocean research and development programs. TAMU’s Oceanography Department has received approximately $1.1 million from the Navy this year in support of its research programs and ship operations.

• The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded a grant to the Film and Television Study Center of Southern California to compile a union catalog of motion picture and television manuscript and special collections throughout the eleven western states.

The Study Center is a consortium of USC, UCLA, Loyola, the Motion Picture Academy, the AFI, Cal Arts, LA County Museum of Art, Television Academy, and FILMEX. The grant will make possible for the first time data on all film and television manuscript and other collections in California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Idaho, and Arizona. By means of this union catalog a film student or historian will be able to determine easily where his source materials are located, if they are within the purview of this catalog, without lengthy preliminary investigation. It will also establish precisely what source materials are now held in this area.

Anne G. Schlosser, librarian at the AFI’s Charles K. Feldman Library and vice-chairman of the Study Center, will be project director for the catalog and Linda Harris Mehr will be bibliographer.

MEETINGS

October24–26: The Kentucky Library Association Annual Conference will be held at the Ramada Inn in Louisville. The main speakers will be Dr. Jean Lowrie, the immediate past president of ALA, and Frances Neel Cheney, the associate director of the Peabody School of Library Science. Other featured speakers will be Elaine Konigsburg, author of A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and the team of Myrl Ricking and Dr. Robert E. Booth, authors of the recent book, Personnel Utilization in Libraries: A Systems Approach. For further information contact: Tom Sutherland, KLA Executive Secretary, 555 Washington St., Paducah, KY 42001.

October27–29: Drug Information. The Drug Information Association will sponsor a symposium on unusual and underutilized drug information resources. It will be held at the Hilton Inn 1776, in Williamsburg, Virginia. Registration is limited to the first 200. Registration information can be obtained from: Dr. Fred Salter, VADICS Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, VA 23298.

November 2: Potomac Technical Processing Librarians. Annual meeting to be held at the Sheraton-Park Hotel & Motor Inn, Washington, D.C.

November 3–6: The 1974 Mountain Plains Library Association’s Annual Convention will be held at the Sahara Tahoe Hotel, Lake Tahoe, Nevada. “A New Direction” will be the theme. Those interested in receiving further information concerning the convention should contact Mr. Joseph Edelen, I. D. Weeks Library, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD 57069, in order to be placed on the mailing list. All of those interested in exhibiting at the convention should contact the local arrangements chairman, Dr. Larry W. Crandall, Learning Resources Center, Western Nevada Community College, 813 North Carson St., Carson City, NV 89701.

November 6: Bibliography. The Graduate School of Library Service at Rutgers University has announced its fourth annual Richard H. Shoemaker lecture on bibliography. The lecture, “Priorities in Bibliography,” will be delivered by Mr. Daniel Melcher. It will be given at 8:00 p.m. in Lecture Hall 114, Hill Math Statistics Center, Busch Campus, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

November 10–13: Collective Bargaining in Libraries will be the topic of the twentieth annual Allerton Park Institute of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science. The institute will be held at Allerton House, the university’s conference center at Robert Allerton Park, near Urbana. The conference will include papers and discussions both by librarians and by experts from the field of industrial relations, including arbitrators, union representatives, lawyers, etc. The trend toward unionization and collective bargaining has been pronounced in American libraries in the last few years, and the institute topic is therefore of particular current interest to librarians.

The institute is co-sponsored by the Illinois State Library and the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science. The institute chairman is Frederick A. Schlipf, assistant professor of Library Science. Further information may be obtained from Mr. Brandt W. Pryor, Institute Supervisor (OP–003), University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education and Public Service, 116 Illini Hall, Champaign, IL 61820.

November 14–16: The Virginia Library Association Annual Conference will be held at The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia. For further information contact: Sylvia E. Dawson, Local Arrangements Committee, Charles Pinckney Jones Memorial Library, Inc., 406 West Riverside St., Covington, VA 24426.

November 16–23: National and International Library Planning is the theme for the first IFLA General Council Meeting to be held in the United States. The meeting will be the 40th General Council Meeting of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). The theme is related to the UNESCO International Conference on Planning of National Overall Documentation, Library and Archives Infrastructures to be scheduled for Paris in late September 1974.

The IFLA 1974 Conference will be held in Washington, D.C., at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Overall conference chairman is Robert Vosper, vice-president of IFLA and professor of library service at the University of California at Los Angeles. Speakers at the plenary sessions will include Dr. Frederick H. Burkhardt, chairman, National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, and Dr. Harry T. Hookway, executive director, the British Library, London.

For further information, contact: IFLA 1974 Conference Secretariat, c/o Association of Research Libraries, 1527 New Hampshire Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036; (202) 232-2434.

November 22–24: International Documents. The International Documents Task Force of the American Library Association has announced a workshop on “International Documents and the Depository Library” to be held in Philadelphia on 22-24 November 1974. The workshop has been planned to coordinate with the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations, and it will cover, through speakers and panelists from international libraries, and group discussions, the following topics:

1. international documents in the research library;
2. the sources, information practices, and policies of intergovernmental organizations;
3. acquisition and organization of international documents;
4. utilization of international documents;
5. the depository system, its history, and evaluation; and
6. the depository relationship, its effect and its meaning for the library.

For that part of the workshop concerned with “International Documents: The State of the Art,” Sources, Organization, Utilization of International Documents is recommended as background material. This publication contains the proceedings of the International Symposium on Documentation of the United Nations and Other Intergovernmental Organizations, held in 1972 in Geneva, and has been published by FID. Copies are available from the Sales Department of the Federation Internationale de Documentation for $20.00 (FID 506).

Further information about the workshop is available from Carolyn Kohler, Government Publications Department, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, IA 52242. A registration fee of $45.00 covers luncheons and dinners.

MISCELLANY

• The Heinrich H. Fick Collection of German-Americana has been established in the Special Collections Department of the University of Cincinnati Library. It is one of the largest collections of German-American prose and poetry in the U.S. The library acquired the collection from Dr. Fick in the 1930s. Fick was the editor of several German-American journals and a well-known German-language poet. His book collection contains most of the Cincinnati German imprints and many rare German-American books such as the first anthology of German-American poetry, Deutsch-Amerikanischer Dichtenυald (Detroit, 1856). Also in the collection are the unpublished autobiographical and literary manuscripts of several German-American poets. One scrapbook contains the autographs and pictures of hundreds of German-American authors. The checklist of the collection was published in German-American Studies (1969–70). An exhibition of these rare materials will coincide with a symposium at the University of Cincinnati in 1975 on Emigrant Literature.

Don H. Tolzmann, reference librarian and bibliographer in Germanic languages and literature, has assembled and organized the Fick Collection. Mr. Tolzmann has compiled some bibliographies from this collection of Cincinnati German imprints and they are available on request.

• The Peoples Bicentennial Commission has produced a complete Bicentennial display package to books on the American Revolution, “In the Minds and Hearts of the People.” The display, especially suited to library and school use, contains eight large posters based on quotes from the founding fathers and mothers, thirty reproductions of revolutionary era engravings, captions and headlines describing the major events and themes of the American Revolution, and a syllabus and study guide compiled by Dr. Page Smith, PBC senior staff historian and a Bancroft Award-winning author. “In the Minds and Hearts of the People” can be ordered for $20.00 from the Peoples Bicentennial Commission, Washington, DC 20036.

The Peoples Bicentennial Commission has also published material on the American Revolution and the Bicentennial. PBC publications include guides to: “Community Programs for a Peoples Bicentennial”; “Student and Teacher Programs for a Peoples Bicentennial”; religious participation in the Bicentennial; and a special youth activity guide for the Bicentennial. All four guides contain scores of program ideas, activities, and suggestions, as well as historical material about the Revolution and its implications for today. Also included in the kit are study guides, a quote book from the founding mothers and fathers, an American history magazine, and posters and buttons. The complete PBC kit, along with a one year’s subscripton to the PBC newsmagazine, Common Sense, costs $10.00. Write to the Peoples Bicentennial Commission, Washington, DC 20036.

• The British Library Board has appointed Mr. Maurice Line as director general of its Lending Division at Boston Spa near Wetherby in Yorkshire. Mr. Line has also been appointed by the secretary of state for education and science as a full-time member of the Board.

Mr. Line served in Glasgow, Southampton, and Newcastle university libraries on his way to Bath, where he was the university librarian from 1968 to 1971. He then became librarian of the National Central Library. When this library was incorporated into the British Library’s Lending Division in 1973 he moved with it to Yorkshire, becoming deputy director general under Dr. D. J. Urquhart, who now retires.

Mr. Line was a member of the committee set up in the planning stages of the British Library (the British Library Organising Committee), and is a member of the Aslib Council, the Library Association Council, and the Library Advisory Council (England). He has a particular interest in user surveys, reader instruction, and automation and information services, and has published numerous papers on these and other subjects. He is the author of three books.

On its formation in July 1973, the British Library acquired the library departments of the British Museum as its Reference Division, and, as its Lending Division, (1) the National Lending Library for Science and Technology, which started life in the early 1960s and built up an international reputation for rapid postal supply by loan or photocopy of scientific journals and books, and (2) the National Central Library, which brought with it the important facility of access to the holdings of other libraries and a large stock of humanities and social sciences literature. Lending Division receives some 40,000 loan requests each week and demand is increasing at the rate of about 15 percent per annum. The staff numbers 500.

PUBLICATIONS

• The Library of Congress has recently published To Set a Country Free, an account derived from an exhibition commemorating the Bicentennial of American Independence which is scheduled to open at the Library of Congress on April 24, 1975. That day will mark the occasion of the 175th anniversary of the establishment of the Library of Congress, which the Sixth Congress created on April 24, 1800, with legislation containing authorization “for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress … and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them.”

The seventy-four-page softcover booklet on the history of the American Revolution contains more than one hundred rich illustrations, eight in full color, selected from the library’s Geography and Map, Manuscript, Prints and Photographs, and Rare Book divisions. To Set a Country Free is part of the library’s continuing series of publications designed to further the public’s acquaintance with both the story of the Revolution and the library’s extensive holdings in Americana. The title is taken from Thomas Paine’s American Crisis: “We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.”

To Set a Country Free,produced through the Verner W. Clapp Publication Fund, may be purchased for $4.50 by mail from the Library of Congress, Information Office, Washington, DC 20540.

• Available from the Columbia University Libraries is The Administrative Organization of the Libraries of Columbia University: A Detailed Description. This unit by unit definition of the functional structure of the libraries was developed by a majority of the libraries’ professional staff following a study conducted by Booz, Allen and Hamilton, Inc. and the Library Management Studies Office of the Association of Research Libraries. The primary objective of the study was to provide an organization which would respond more effectively to the changing university and library service environment. Each unit has been defined in terms of its objectives, functional responsibilities, reporting and working relationships, and performance criteria. The resulting unit definitions afford a documentary base for the periodic examination of goals, evaluation of progress or activity relative to those goals, and adjustment of resources as conditions or objectives change. Copies of the volume may be ordered from Mr. Alfred Lane, Columbia University Libraries, 535 W. 114th St., New York, NY 10027. The price is $5.00.

The report of the original study is recommended for the best understanding of the detailed descriptions. It is entitled Organization and Staffing of the Libraries of Columbia University: A Case Study, and has been published by Redgrave Information Resources Corp., 53 Wilton Rd., Westport, CT 06880.

• An index to the Library of Congress Cataloging Service Bulletins, no. 1-107, June 1945–December 1973, has been compiled at Mankato State College, Mankato, Minnesota, by Nancy B. Olson. The index is available for $5.00 from Mrs. Nancy Olson, Box 567, Lake Crystal, MN 56055.

• The papers of the conference on Special Black Collections and Archives, held at Alabama State University, April 12-14, 1973, are available for $2.50 from Institute for Training Librarians, Box 282, Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL 36101.

• The Hudson-Mohawk Association of Colleges & Universities has recently published Womens Periodicals, a bibliography of the resources available at academic and public libraries in New York state’s capital district. The publication is significant for both the locational information it provides and as a representative sample of the variety of publications which have been published for and about women.

Copies of the bibliography are available for $1.00 by contacting: Hudson-Mohawk Association of Colleges & Universities, 849 New Loudon Bd., Latham, NY 12110.

• A Bibliography of Legal Tapes and Cassetteshas been published by the Tarlton Law Library of the University of Texas School of Law as the eighth in its Tarlton Law Library Legal Bibliography Series. The new bibliography has more than 350 entries, compiled by Ann Beardsley, a student in the UT Graduate School of Library Science, from the holdings of the Tarlton Law Library and from many other sources. It includes author, title, date (when known), length of tape (time), price, speed, and descriptive annotations (if available). Addresses of publishers are supplied for the convenience of those wishing to order items.

Orders should be sent to Adrienne deVergie, Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas School of Law, 2500 Bed River, Austin, TX 78705. The publication price is $10.00, and checks should be made payable to University of Texas Law School Foundation.

• The Rasmuson Library of the University of Alaska has published a second edition of Joseph Drazan’s Picture Alaska, an illustration index to a select number of popular books and periodicals that reflect the history of Alaska and its people from its earliest beginnings to the present. This 206-page second edition, edited by Joseph A. Burke, is available for $5.00 from: The Director’s Office, Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK 99701.

• Several new publications are available from the International Federation for Documentation (FID). They include:

Sources, Organization, Utilization of International Documentation. Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Documentation of the United Nations and Other Intergovernmental Organizations (Geneva, 21–23 August 1972). The Hague: FID, 1974. 586p. $20.00. (FID 506)

The proceedings contain the full texts of the fifty-one papers presented at the three sections of the symposium: (1) sources of international documentation, (2) acquisition and organization of international documentation, and (3) utilization of international documentation. The proceedings furthermore contain the sixty-four recommendations, the reports of the rapporteurs of the three main sections, introductory reports, an author index, and a list of the participants with full addresses.

FID Annual Report—1973. The Hague: FID, 1974. 12p. free.

The annual report for 1973 contains a summary statement, the usual detailed report including the current program, and lists of national members, regional commissions, Council and Executive Committee members, and committees’ secretariats.

FID Publications Catalogue—1974. The Hague: FID, 1974. 48p. free.

Lists more than 500 FID publications in following subject areas: information science, documentation, reproduction, mechanization, linguistics, education and training, classification, information resources, and the Universal Decimal Classification—reports and schedules.

The publications are available from: The International Federation for Documentation, 7 Hofweg, The Hague, Netherlands.

• Volume 1, number 1 of the CaDocS Manual of U.S. Government Series, Pseudoseries and Subscriptions has recently been released. Edited by Maria Broadbent, manager of Capital Documents Service, and her husband, Marv Broadbent, who is head acquisitions librarian for the Organization of American States, the CaDocS Manual brings together under agency author the saleable publications of the U.S. government. More important is the indexing of these series four times per year on a cumulative basis. The cumulation is promised to extend for a period of five years. Since the issues are cumulative many small libraries might wish to purchase only one number per year. Single numbers are $3.00, annual subscriptions $10.50. Volume 1, number 1, however, is free from the publishers, Capital Documents Service, 4410 Josephine Ave., Beltsville, MD 20705.