ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

News from the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• A rare book valued at $10,000 was presented as the one-millionth volume at dedication ceremonies of the five-story, multimillion- dollar John H. Freeman Wing of the M. D. Anderson Library of the University of Houston January 28 at the University Central Campus.

Written by Albrecht Dürer in 1525, the book, Underweysung der messung, mit dem zirckel und richtscheyt in Linien ebnen und gantzen corporen (The Instruction in Measures with the Compass and the Straight-Rule of Lines, Two and Three Dimensional Bodies), was the first comprehensive German text for sculptors, builders, and painters. It has 150 woodcut figures and two half-page woodcut illustrations and is bound in unornamented calf.

Volume number 999,999 in the Central Campus Library was given by UH President Philip Hoffman. It is a fifteenth-century edition of Nodes Atticae (Attic Nights) by Aulus Gellius, which was written in the second century. This edition was printed in 1474 by Nicolaus Jenson, who is considered one of the greatest printers of all time. He was the first to perfect the roman letter, the standard character for book printing.

• The personal papers, correspondence, scrapbooks, photo albums, and manuscripts of a World War I “flying ace” with the famed Lafayette Escadrille have been donated to the University of Texas at El Paso Library.

The collection belonged to the late Rear Admiral Edwin C. Parsons (1892-1968) and was given to the library’s Archives and Special Collections by the admiral’s widow, Mrs. E. C. Parsons of Hollywood, California.

Admiral Parsons was a pioneer aviator who learned to fly in 1912 and who served in Mexico (1913-14), flying in Pancho Villa’s Army of the North, and with the French during World War I in both the Lafayette and SPAD 4 (“Storks”) squadrons. He was credited with eight German aircraft shot down and ended the war with such decorations as the Croix de Guerre with eight palms, Belgian Croix de Guerre, Cross of Leopold, Medaille Militaire, and Legion of Honor.

The Parsons papers include several hundred photographs and negatives, mostly of the World War I era, scrapbooks, photo albums, and a large mass of historically valuable correspondence and documents. Many manuscripts of unpublished fiction and nonfiction works are included, as well as a complete set of the admiral’s own published writings—more than 100 magazines and excerpted magazine articles and various editions of his Great Adventure memoir. Another feature of the collection is a number of tape recordings of interviews with Admiral Parsons and a film taken of the last reunion of the surviving members of the Lafayette squadron.

The papers and materials have been designated the “RADM Edwin C. Parsons Collection (Lafayette Escadrille) ” and will be housed with the existing S.L.A. Marshall Collection on Military History.

• The University of Georgia Library has acquired from Georgia author Erskine Caldwell a 935-book personal collection containing a copy of every edition of Caldwell’s fifty books.

Caldwell presented the books to the library’s special collections department. They are displayed on the library shelves in the same order Caldwell kept them arranged.

Richard Harwell, special collections curator, said Caldwell’s books have sold 75 million copies in fifty languages—more than the works of any other living author. More than half the university collection is foreign-language editions, including books printed in Japanese, Russian, German, Spanish, Scandinavian, and French.

Robert Willingham, a staff member in the special collections department, said the Caldwell collection should help Georgians better know and understand one of the state’s most famous and admired authors.

Though best known for his novels of the Depression-era South, Caldwell wrote almost as much nonfiction as he did fiction. He traveled America during the Depression and recorded its victims in You Have Seen Their Faces, illustrated by photographer Margaret Bourke White. He wrote a similar book on Russia entitled North of the Danube.

His most recent book, published in 1976, is Afternoons in Mid America.

• John W. Warner, former secretary of the navy and former administrator of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, has announced that he will present to the University of Virginia his personal papers covering eight years of public service.

Warner said the Bicentennial papers “tell the history of the nation’s 200th anniversary and it seems appropriate that they be housed at the university founded by Thomas Jefferson.”

An alumnus of the university’s School of Law, Warner added, “It is a special honor for me as a former student to present papers reflecting a record of public service made possible by an education received at the university.”

In addition to the Bicentennial papers, Warner will deposit at the university’s Alderman Library the papers of his five-and-a-half-year tenure as undersecretary and secretary of the navy (1965-74). He was administrator of the Bicentennial from 1974 through 1976.

• The acquisition of a unique collection of family papers “which makes Vassar College one of the significant centers of Mark Twain scholarship” has been announced by Vassar president Alan Simpson.

Known as the Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, the gift to Vassar includes more than 600 letters and telegrams from Mark Twain, as well as a vast array of manuscripts, notebooks, and other documents by or relating to the noted author. It also includes a large collection of original documents by or relating to Jean Webster McKinney, a grandniece of Mark Twain, who, as Jean Webster, was a celebrated novelist and dramatist of the early twentieth century. She was graduated from Vassar in 1901.

Simpson simultaneously announced the establishment at Vassar of a Jean Webster Chair in American Literature, Creative Writing, or Drama, funded at $750,000, and has recommended to the Board of Trustees it be filled initially by a distinguished appointment in the Department of Drama.

The donors of the entire collection and of the fund to establish the chair are Jean Connor, Jean Webster’s daughter, and her husband, Ralph Connor, a former Vassar trustee. The couple lives in LaGrangeville, New York, on the farm where Jean Webster and her husband, Glenn Ford McKinney, once lived, and where the Mark Twain manuscripts, letters, and memorials have been stored for several decades.

“The Mark Twain papers in this collection will fill one of the biggest gaps in modern Twain scholarship,” according to Simpson. Pointing out that the bulk of Twain’s private papers now is permanently housed in the Bancroft Library of the University of California, he said that successive literary editors of the Mark Twain estate have drawn on the Twain writings there, as well as at “significant collections” elsewhere, “but they have not had access to this collection.” Knowledge of its contents has been derived chiefly from Mark Twain, Business Man, which Samuel Charles Webster, Jean Webster’s brother, published in 1946.

Describing generally the significance of the McKinney papers, Simpson said, “It represents a confluence of three streams which were flowing through the culture of middle-class America between about 1840 and 1916—the letters and memorials of Mark Twain and his relatives, those of Jean Webster and her friends, and those of the McKinney family into which Jean Webster married.”

• The papers of Tennessee Congressman Joe L. Evins, a thirty-year veteran of the House of Representatives, were donated to Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville on November 22, 1976. The documents, now being processed at Evins’ Smithville, Tennessee, home, pertain to the years 1947-77, the period during which Evins represented Tennessee’s Fourth Congressional District.

University president Arliss Roaden said that long-term plans call for a room or wing of the university’s library to be designated as a depository for the Joe L. Evins Papers and memorabilia.

At the time of his retirement from Congress early this year, Evins was fourteenth in seniority in the House. Evins was chairman during his last eight years in Congress of the public works subcommittee which funded such federal agencies as the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Appalachian Regional Commission, the Corps of Engineers, and the Energy Research and Development Administration.

Evins also was chairman of the House Small Business Committee and a member of the House Committee on Appropriations. The Evins papers will be made available to students and scholars who are interested in the legislative history of the past three decades.

• The National Libertarian Party, which received the third highest number of votes in the 1976 presidential election, and its candidate, Roger L. MacBride of Charlottesville, have given a collection of political papers to the University of Virginia Library.

The gift includes presidential campaign speeches, briefing materials, campaign literature and memorabilia, and news clippings, according to Edmund Berkeley, Jr., curator of Aider- man Library’s manuscripts department.

“With this gift the library’s treasury of political archives increases its scope, balancing its holdings among the nation’s political parties,” Berkeley said. “We also have a tremendous amount of illustrative material, such as gavels, buttons and badges.”

Berkeley estimated that scholars and interested persons will be able to use the National Libertarian Party and MacBride’s papers by this August, after the approximately fifteen cubic feet of material is cataloged by library staffers.

• Brigham Young University announces the establishment of the William Primrose Viola Collection at the Harold B. Lee Library. Named after the distinguished virtuoso, the BYU collection has not only the distinction of the famed violist’s name, but has also been designated the depository of his own private collection of materials pertaining to the viola and viola music. The library will become a resource center for students, violists, and music scholars.

Primrose, who became interested in BYU through his former student and friend, Dr. David Dalton of the Music Department, is a singular phenomenon in the history of musical performance, being the only artist to have ever achieved international reputation as a viola soloist. Along with Lionel Tertis and Paul Hindemith, it was he especially who “proved” the viola a viable concertizing instrument.

At the center of the viola library will be Primrose’s memorabilia, including his forthcoming biography, his transcriptions for viola, his technical studies for viola, his books on viola pedagogy, and tapes and records of his recordings as a solo virtuoso and chamber music player.

Surrounding this unique material will be a library of all currently available music published for the viola, all available recordings of viola music by Primrose and others, and books, treatises, articles, etc., which pertain to the history and pedagogy of the viola, as well as its literature.

• A collection of manuscript and audiovisual materials documenting the fifty-year history of the community of Jewish farmers in Farmingdale, New Jersey, will be deposited in the YIvo Institute for Jewish Research, New York City, in July 1977. The Farmingdale Collection of audiotapes, written tape summaries and transcriptions, videotapes, papers of community organizations, newspaper articles, photographs, legal documents, and other materials spans the years 1890—that is, from the earliest memories of its first settlers—to the present.

This collection of materials provides a unique source of information for historians and social scientists interested in the Jewish immigrant experience and the problems of acculturation and ethnic identity as they were manifested in a rural setting. Scholarship in American Jewish history has largely been concerned with Jews in an urban setting because most Jews settled in cities and because there has been so little primary source material relating to Jewish farmers. As a result, few are aware of the contribution these fanners made to American agriculture generally. The Farmingdale Collection should generate interest and scholarship in a previously neglected area and thereby help balance what is known about the American Jewish experience.

• Mrs. Dolph Briscoe, wife of the Texas governor, presented the four-millionth volume to be added to the University of Texas Library at a brief ceremony which was held to climax Library Week at the university. During that week a succession of important books were also added to the collections, each focusing on a particular aspect of the campus libraries.

The book of honor, which took the UT Library over the four-million mark, is a two- volume first edition of Noah Webster’s An American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828 with a printing of only 2,500. A manuscript in Webster’s hand, exploring spelling differences between British and American usage, accompanies the book.

“We felt the milestone of four million volumes might be most suitably marked by a book of great universality,” said Merle Boylan, director of General Libraries. “Webster’s Dictionary symbolizes the generalized, intellectual character of our libraries—offering services on the local campus to freshmen and faculty alike. The libraries also serve as the greatest educational resource in the State of Texas and as a major national resource.”

• Dr. Aziz S. Atiya, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Utah, has donated numerous Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Western-language materials on the Middle East to the Marriott Library of the University of Utah.

Dr. Atiya’s latest gifts to the library include 1,435 rare manuscripts, papyri fragments, and scrolls which he donated in 1975. These included 180 rag paper and old paper scrolls from Egyptian excavations dating from the tenth century; four papyri scroll fragments (three Arabic and one Coptic-Arabic); 1,185 original manuscript folios for paleographical studies dating between the eleventh and nineteenth centuries; and sixty-six Arabic manuscript co- dices (tracts and treatises on a wide variety of cultural Middle Eastern subjects ranging from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries).

In 1976 Dr. Atiya’s thirty-one-item gift of rare material included two ninth-century Koran folios in Kufic on ancient rag paper; three fourteenth, fifteenth, and seventeenth-century embossed leather bindings (one with gold leaf inlay); three eighteenth-century views of Grand Cairo and Alexandria; eleven steel plate prints of eighteenth-century views of Egypt (some dated 1803 and one watercolor); and twelve early Middle East maps (two dated 1803, nine seventeenth century, and one sixteenth century ).

• Mr. Nicolaas Steelink has donated to the University of Arizona Library a life’s work in the form of translations of the published works of the Dutch social philosopher Eduard Douwes Dekker, who wrote under the pen name Multatuli. Dekker is well known in Europe as a prose writer, moralist, and social philosopher. He published many works in Dutch during his lifetime (1820-87), but only a few of his books were ever translated into English. After his death, his widow produced an edition of his collected worki and a ten- volume collected edition of his letters.

Dekker was an atheist whose aphorism “Man’s calling is to be a human being” became well known in the late nineteenth century. His major work, Ideen, was published in seven volumes through the years 1865-77. Writing on education, society, the position of women, politics, philosophy, and religion, he was usually far ahead of his time; and many of his ideas were not generally accepted or even seriously discussed for 100 years.

Dekker’s works, whether they be essays, fiction, or dramas, are filled with aphorisms and parables. He saw these forms as a most useful way of educating his contemporaries. Throughout his works, the main theme is his insistence that people must think for themselves, not simply accept what their leaders tell them.

Since so much of Dekker’s work has never been translated into English, it has been relatively inaccessible to modern scholars outside of Europe. Steelink’s translations are, therefore, especially significant. They can serve as a basic scholarly resource for students not fluent in Dutch or German. They will be housed in the University of Arizona Library’s Department of Special Collections.

• John P. Herling, librarian of the Brooklyn College Library of the City University of New York, has announced the addition of ten transfile cases of correspondence from Norman Cousins, editor of Saturday Review and expert on international affairs.

The Norman Cousins Papers, the most prestigious in the Brooklyn College Library’s historical manuscripts collection, at present comprise 550 document cases of research materials.

The papers covering the period 1942-58 include personal and business correspondence, minutes of committee meetings and other papers dealing with the United World Federalists, material relating to the Hiroshima Maidens, and printed material relating to Cousins’ connection with the United States Office of War Information.

Most of the letters in the collection relate to Cousins’ role as editor of the Saturday Review and are usually short answers to business questions. The personal letters deal with a variety of topics and include letters to Harrison Brown, Marshall Field, Carlos Romulo, and many others.

The papers of the 1958-70 period feature correspondence, speeches, articles, oral history notes, pamphlets, clippings, photographs, and other papers relating to Cousins’ activities with the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, the American Association for the United Nations, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, the Johnson Foundation, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, National Educational Television, and United World Federalists.

Manuscripts are included of Freedom to Breathe: Report of the Mayor’s Task Force on Air Pollution in the City of New York (1966), In God We Trust (1958), and In Place of Folly (1961).

Persons represented in the Norman Cousins Papers include Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jawa- harlal Nehru, Albert Schweitzer, Adlai Stevenson, and U Thant.

Access to the Norman Cousins Papers is by prior arrangement.

• Two rare 400-year-old medical books written by two of the greatest figures in the history of modern medicine have been given to the Thomas Jefferson University Library by a 1952 alumnus, Dr. Robert L. Phillips of Greensboro, North Carolina.

The books are De Humani Corporis Fabrica, a landmark text on human anatomy by Andreas Vesalius, the “father of modern anatomy,” and Cinq Livres de Chirvgie by Ambroise Paré, the “father of surgery.”

The Paré book is one of only four copies known to exist in the United States.

The Fabrica was printed in 1543 and, says Dr. Phillips, “is considered by many to be the very foundation-stone of modern medicine and the first great positive achievement of science itself.” It corrected centuries-old errors by offering new data based for the first time on direct observation of human anatomy.

The illustrations, done with the help of painter Jan Kalkar, a student of Titian, were scientifically exact and artistically beautiful. They set the fashion for anatomic illustration for the next century. The fine typography, supervised by Vesalius himself, set a new standard for the printing art.

Cinq Livres,published in 1572 by Paré, reflects the philosophy of a doctor who, like Vesalius, chose to cast aside old superstitions and incorrect beliefs. He initiated a new approach to surgery based on observation and clinical experience.

“Both books,” said Phillips, “capture the spirit of the Renaissance and I hope, as they did then, direct our future with new meaning.”

• Dr. William P. Cumming, Virginia Lasa- ter Irvin Professor Emeritus of English at Davidson College, has given a rare and beautiful edition of the Works of William Hogarth to the E. H. Little Library, Davidson College.

The Works of William Hogarth from the Original Plates,reads the title page, Restored by James Heath, Esq., R.A.; with the Addition of Many Subjects Not Before Collected: to which are Prefixed, a Biographical Essay on the Genius and Productions of Hogarth, and Explanations of the Subjects of the Plates, by John Nichols, Esq. F.S.A. The imprint is: London: Printed for Baldwin and Cradock, Paternoster Row, by G. Woodfall, Angel Court, Skinner Street.

No date is given but the time of publication was almost certainly in the mid 1830s. The Library of Congress union catalog lists only six other copies in America of this, the largest collected edition made from Hogarth’s own copper plate engravings. Dr. Cumming found and purchased the edition in a Charing Cross rare bookstore in 1927 and had to buy a special trunk to bring it back.

The 119 plates in this impressive elephant- folio volume form a detailed and startlingly vivid history of life in eighteenth-century England. Hogarth saw his work as related to drama. “My picture is my stage,” he once wrote, “and men and women my players.” In several sequences of from four to twelve plates, such as in The Rake’s Progress, The Harlot’s Progress, and Marriage à la Mode, each picture corresponds to the central scene in the act of a play. Hogarth was also a reforming social satirist with a powerful influence on many later English writers.

Library director Leland M. Park expressed “our deep gratitude for this rare and valuable contribution.” Dr. Cumming donated the book to the library “with happy memories of the hours I have spent using it since 1917 and of work of many years on its Library Committee, and with gratitude to members of the staff.”

AWARDS

• The fifth Triennial Prize for Bibliography has been awarded to C. William Miller, author of Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia Printing (American Philosophical Society, 1974), it has been announced by Warren R. Howell, president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA), on behalf of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. Dr. Miller, professor of English at Temple University, is the first American to be so honored. The Triennial Prize Jury, composed of six bibliographical experts, selected Dr. Miller’s work from a distinguished international group of recent bibliographies on the basis of its comprehensive and scholarly study of Franklin’s colonial printing from 1728 to 1766.

Dr. Miller’s work has been hailed as “magisterial . . . indispensable for any student of any aspect of 18th-century America” (Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America), and as “one of the most comprehensive studies ever undertaken of the publications issued from an American printing house” (New England Quarterly).

Formal presentation of the prize, which carries a $750 stipend, was made at the annual meeting of the ABAA on March 30, 1977, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Dr. Miller gave a talk on “Benjamin Franklin and the Booksellers.” Previous winners of the Triennial Prize include J. Peeters-Fontainas (Bibliographie des Impressions espagnoles des Pays-Bas méridionaux), Wytze and Lotte Hellinga (The Fifteenth Century Printing Types of the Low Countries), Ir. C. Koeman (Atlantes Neerlandi- ci), and Claus Nissen (Die Zoologische Buchillustration). Competition for the sixth Triennial Prize closes on December 31, 1977. Further information can be obtained by writing Dr. Frieder Kocher-Benzing, Stutgarter Antiquariat, Rathenaustrasse 21, 700 Stuttgart 1, West Germany.

COURSES

May 23-July1: Dean Richard L. Darling of Columbia University’s School of Library Service has announced that a unique course, Library Labor Relations, will be offered in its 1977 summer session. An advanced course, it will commence with a study of union history and collective bargaining principles. The heart of the course will be a detailed analysis of major library labor contracts. The course, which carries three points of graduate credit, will meet Mondays and Wednesdays from 2:00 to 4:10 p.m. for six weeks.

A special feature will be an all-day negotiations simulation training session. Students will be assigned to labor or management teams to gain insights into the actual bargaining process. The session will be conducted by personnel of the U.S. Department of Labor and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

The instructor for the course will be Dr. Philip Harris, associate professor of management, visiting from Baruch College of the City University of New York. Dr. Harris is editor of the Library Employee Relations Newsletter and a labor negotiator representing library trustees. He previously served for many years as arbitrator, mediator, fact-finder, and hearing officer in collective bargaining disputes. Dr. Harris has presented numerous papers and published widely in his academic discipline. He is now completing a book on library labor relations.

Those desiring additional information should write to Richard L. Darling, Dean, School of Library Service, 516 Butler Library, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.

June 13-July1: The School of Library Service, Columbia University, has announced that it will offer a new course, Serials Librarian- ship, in its 1977 summer session. The course will be given in a concentrated three-week session and will be taught from 6:40 to 8:50 p.m., Monday through Thursday.

The course will cover current issues in acquisition, organization, preservation, storage, and servicing of serials collections, including problems of rising costs and budgetary restraints in libraries. Special attention will be given to the impact of automation, microforms, and networks on management of serials.

The instructor for the course is Mrs. Marion C. Szigethy, recently serials librarian at New York University, and for many years reference librarian with Radio Free Europe.

For additional information, write to Richard L. Darling, Dean, School of Library Service, 516 Butler Library, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027.

June20-24: Cornell University announces a course on Automatic Information and Data Base Retrieval. It will cover both the structured data base manipulations of the kind used for business files and the reference retrieval operations used for library and information center environments. The course is intended for computer and information scientists, and for library and information center specialists interested in the application of novel computer methods to the processing of data and document materials in information center and library environments.

Instructors for the course are Gerard Salton, professor of computer science, Cornell University, and Hubert Chung-shu Yang, assistant professor of computer science, University of Iowa.

The fee of $150 covers instruction, course materials, and parking. It does not cover meals and housing. For application materials, contact R. H. Lance, Director of Continuing Education, Carpenter Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853; (607) 256-4236.

July 16-August20: A special professional course on The Binding, Maintenance and Restobation of Books will be offered on Saturday mornings from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in Walnut Creek, California. The fee is $42. For further information and registration, contact Arts Education, Civic Arts, 1445 Civic Dr., Walnut Creek, CA 94596; (415) 935-3300, ext. 251 or 252.

GRANTS

• The Council on Library Resources, Inc., has awarded a $122,000 grant to the Ohio College Libbaby CenteR (OCLC) for a study of OCLC’s governance and organization by the consulting firm of Arthur D. Little, Inc.

OCLC’s Advisory Council, a group established by the OCLC Board of Trustees and composed of thirteen individuals from librarian- ship, science, business, and government, selected A. D. Little from eight consulting firms that submitted proposals for the study. The Advisory Council will guide and direct the consulting firm in the study that is expected to take about six months. Based on the findings of the study, the Advisory Council will submit to the OCLC Board of Trustees and membership recommendations for governance and organization of OCLC.

OCLC, a not-for-profit corporation chartered by the state of Ohio, operates a computer network system in which more than 800 libraries in forty-two states participate. However, only libraries in Ohio participate actively in the governance of OCLC because of OCLC’s present corporate charter. Formation of the Advisory Council, and subsequent selection of a consulting firm to study OCLC’s governance and organization, resulted from a resolution passed by the Ohio membership of OCLC at its 1975 Annual Meeting directing the Board of Trustees to investigate extension of membership in OCLC outside the state of Ohio.

• The library faculty of Ezba Lehman Memorial Libbaby at Shippensburg State College, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, has received a matching grant from the state of Pennsylvania and the college’s Professional Development Committee to conduct a self-study project based on the Library Management Review and Analysis Program (MRAP). The funds will be used to employ a consultant who has been a management research specialist involved with MRAP to lead the library faculty in the self- study. The project will extend for a six-month period with a final report being made during the first semester, 1977-78.

• The Committee fob the Pbesebvation of Abchitectubal Recobds has been awarded a two-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the amount of $79,633.

The committee was organized in 1973 by a group of architectural historians, librarians, preservationists, architects, archivists, and museum curators who gathered in New York and addressed themselves to the problems of locating and making accessible architectural records in America. An initial grant from the Architectural League of New York and another from the New York State Council on the Arts enabled the committee to begin a guide to architectural resources in the five boroughs of New York City, to make a mail survey of more than 600 institutions in the state to learn whether they held architectural records, and to publish a quarterly newsletter. The grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities allows the committee to continue its work in New York and expand to a national organization, and to begin a national catalog of architectural records in American collections. Any additions to this catalog or index will be gratefully received.

For further information, contact Catha Grace Rambusch, Executive Director, Committee for the Preservation of Architectural Records, Inc., 15 Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003.

• The National Library of Medicine (NLM) has funded a grant to the Region XI Medical Libhabies (California, Hawaii, Arizona, and Nevada) to develop an on-line cooperative serials system. The project, which has the acronym of COSAP (Cooperative On- Line Serials Acquisitions Project), is the first of its kind to be developed. The thirteen resource medical libraries in Region XI are the participants in the project.

Through the grant, NLM is creating a separate data base for the serial titles held by the Region XI resource medical libraries. The specially created data base will add abbreviated holdings statements and codes as to whether the title is received by purchase, exchange, or gift; whether the library will retain or cancel the title and/or whether the library has committed itself to retain the title; and whether the title is considered a core journal (defined as one held by ten or more of the thirteen libraries). Other capabilities to be studied will be foreign titles and those held by four or fewer of the thirteen libraries.

The thirteen libraries will be able to access, search, and modify the COSAP data base through in-house computer terminals. Training for the staffs of the libraries will begin in April.

• The Council on Library Resources, Inc. (CLR), has awarded a $55,000 grant to the Library of Congress (LC) for continuation of the COMARC (Cooperative MAchine- Readable Cataloging) project, initiated in November 1974 with CLR assistance. The grant covers the salary and benefits for calendar year 1977 of three individuals who were hired by LC for the project.

Under the COMARC project, LC accepts bibliographic records based on LC cataloging copy but converted to machine-readable form by other institutions. LC validates the access points (e.g., author, title, etc.) of the records against the LC official catalog, updates them where necessary, and distributes the records without charge to COMARC participants and as a separate subscription to others through the MARC Distribution Service.

Because the project was delayed in its early stages, only approximately 14,000 records thus far have been validated and distributed. The new grant will enable LC to process enough records to analyze the project’s effectiveness. If successful, COMARC will both broaden LC’s MARC coverage of books and demonstrate how a comprehensive national bibliographic data base can be built using decentralized input while maintaining integrity and consistency of the data.

Current contributors to the COMARC project are Washington State Library, 3M Co. Library Systems, Boston Theological Institute (a consortium of nine institutions), University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Cornell University, Yale University (including the Divinity and Medical Libraries), and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The Boston Public Library, the University of Illinois at Champaign- Urbana, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville have agreed to participate but have not yet begun to send records on an operational basis.

• The Council on Library Resources, Inc. (CLR), has received $1,500,000 in grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

The Mellon Foundation’s gift of $1 million will provide general support of CLR programs over a period of approximately five years. The $500,000 award from the Carnegie Corporation will be devoted over at least three years to programs to improve research library management. Both grants will take effect in July 1977.

Since 1956, when CLR was established at the instance of the Ford Foundation “for the purpose of aiding in the solution of problems of libraries generally and of research libraries in particular,’’ its funding has come almost entirely from the Ford Foundation, which has provided $29 million to CLR thus far.

When Ford Foundation president McGeorge Bundy announced the 1974 grant to CLR, he noted that it introduced a “new chapter” in the continuing relationship of the two organizations. “Up to now, the Council has depended on the Foundation for the bulk of its support. . . . Hereafter the Council will increase its efforts to seek financial assistance in support of its programs from a variety of other sources, including other foundations.”

According to Fred C. Cole, council president, these grants are the first to be received under the council’s new support structure. “In view of the urgent need for a national system to serve the libraries of the nation,” Cole said, “the support of the Carnegie Corporation and the Mellon Foundation is especially timely and encouraging.”

• The Council on Library Resources, Inc. (CLR), has authorized a grant of $25,000 to the Minnesota Higher Education Coordinating Board on behalf of the Minnesota Interlibrary Telecommunications Exchange (MINITEX) for the planning phase of an experimental project designed to link standard holdings statements to large serials files. The end goal is to provide library users with more efficient physical access to needed journals at a lower cost to the libraries involved. If successful, this pilot project may serve as an initial component of a national serials location system. The planning phase is expected to last six months.

The project calls for linking certain local and regional serials holdings statements to the national automated data base for serials currently being built through the CLR-managed CONSER (CONversion of SERials) project. The Library of Congress, which will assume responsibility for CONSER, will be involved, along with the MINITEX and INCOLSA (Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority) networks.

MEETINGS & WORKSHOPS

May20: A workshop entitled The Effects of Automation on Technical Services: All’s Well That Ends Well will be held at McLannan Community College in Waco, Texas. It is sponsored by the Acquisitions Round Table, College and University Libraries Division, and Texas Regional Group of Catalogers and Classifiers of the Texas Library Association. There will be presentations and discussions on such topics as costs, workflow, benefits versus losses, and effects on existing card catalogs and cataloging formats. Registration fee is $20 and registration will be limited to 100 participants.

For further information, please contact Leila Payne (713-845-6632) or Sharon Smith (713- 845-6211), Texas A & M University Library, College Station, TX 77843.

June 1-June4: The Graduate Library School of C. W. Post Center, Long Island University, is sponsoring a non-credit Institute on Space Planning and Practical Design for Special Libraries. Consideration will be given to efficient and effective space use and relationships; and to revitalization, remodeling, and renovation of libraries. At least one library case study will be examined in depth. Emphasis will be on the needs and requirements of special librarians.

Participants will study the practical problems of interior design and space planning pertinent to the special library. Emphasis will be placed on documentation of conditions, in-depth cost analysis, and methods of presentation of needs to higher management. The institute will be structured so as to foster maximum interaction between instructors and participants.

If there is sufficient demand, the institute will be repeated June 9-12. Enrollment will be limited to thirty-five persons per session. The fee for the institute will be $100. For further information, contact Joseph N. Whitten, Graduate Library School, C. W. Post Center, LIU, Greenvale, NY 11548; (516) 299-2866.

June2-3: The Ninth Annual State University of New York Librarians Association (SUNYLA) Meeting will be held at the SUNY College at Purchase campus in Westchester County, New York. In addition to business meetings, there will be a banquet and several seminars, including workshops on “Library User Surveys,” “The Teaching Role of Academic Librarians,” and “OCLC/CONSER in SUNY.” Florence Howe, president of the Feminist Press, will speak about her seven years of experience in publishing at the press.

For registration forms and further information, please write or telephone Joe Petraitis, The Library, SUNY College at Old Westbury, Box 229, Old Westbury, NY 11568; (516) 876- 3151.

June3: A workshop entitled On-Line Retrieval of Biomedical Literature will be held at the Medical Research Library of Brooklyn. The workshop is under the sponsorship of the Pratt Institute Graduate School of Library Science and is one of the school’s spring offerings under its Continuing Education Program.

The purpose of the workshop is to provide an intensive experience and exposure to the procedures, problems, and potential of on-line access to biomedical literature. Participants will be anyone working in a biomedical library, graduates of library and information science schools who have not had the opportunity to take courses which provide this experience, and any medical or biomedical professionals who would like to know more about on-line access of biomedical literature.

Dr. Anindya Bose and Professor Kenneth E. Moody are codirectors of the workshop. Robert J. Lord and June Rosenberg will also provide instruction.

Registration is limited to twenty-five persons. For information, write or call Pratt Institute, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Brooklyn, NY 11205; (212 ) 636-3702.

June3-4: Pulitzer Prize-winner Dr. N. Scott Momaday of Stanford University will be the keynote speaker at a symposium, Research, the Creative Process and Children’s Literature, at the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Momaday will discuss transmission of cultural heritage through language.

The symposium is sponsored by the University of Washington School of Librarianship, with the cooperation of the Committee on National Planning for Special Collections and the Children’s Services Division, American Library Association. Registration fee is $90.

See the February C&RL News for more information.

June11, 14, 16; June 18, 21, 23: As part of its Continuing Education Program, the Pratt Institute. Graduate School of Library and Information Science is offering two institutes about On-Line Terminal Searching.

The first, “On-Line Terminal Searching: Perspective and Practice,” which is designed for reference librarians and information scientists with little or no experience in this area, will be given on Saturday, June 11, Tuesday evening, June 14, and Thursday evening, June 16, 1977.

The second, “On-Line Terminal Searching: Advanced Strategies,” will be offered on Saturday, June 18, Tuesday evening, June 21, and Thursday evening, June 23, 1977. This institute is designed for reference librarians and information scientists who have had some experience with on-line searching or who have completed the first institute.

Everett Brenner, who is the instructor, is presently the director of the Pratt Institute Graduate School of Library and Information Science series “Library and Information Center Up-Date, 19—” and has been manager of the Central Abstracting and Indexing Service of the American Petroleum Institute since 1959.

Registration fees will vary: $75.00 for one full-day session only, $106.00 for full-day and two evenings for no credit, and $128.50 for full-day and two evenings for one credit.

For further information and registration form, call or write the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY 11205; (212) 636-3704.

June13-17: The University of Washington School of Librarianship will offer three short workshops in the field of Archival Management.

1. Introduction to Archival Management provides a basic orientation to the literature and problems in the archival and manuscript field. Sessions will include: history of modern archival theory, developing a manuscript collection, development of corporate archives, appraisal, facilities and equipment, microfilming, and legal problems.

2. Records Center Management is a thirty- hour advanced workshop with primary emphasis on planning, establishing, and maintaining a cost-effective records center operation. Archival values and processes in the context of records center operations will be addressed, and considerable attention will be given to managerial concerns and analytical tools: program promotion, procedures development, budgeting, and evaluation.

3. Advanced Workshop on Arrangement and Description is designed for those who have completed a previous archival management course or institute. This workshop will include instruction, demonstrations, and exercises in the arrangement of family or personal papers having archival characteristics, and corporate records.

Registration fee for each workshop is $85. For registration information, contact Short Courses Registration, University of Washington, DW-50, Seattle, WA 98195; (206) 543- 9233.

June13-17: The Institute of Gerontology and the School of Library Science, the University of Michigan campus, are cosponsoring a conference on Organizational Resources for the Development of Programs for the Aged. It is intended for librarians who are serving or preparing to serve as collectors or disseminators of materials on the aging. The registration fee is $135.

For further information, write to Mrs. Dorothy H. Coons, Director of Continuing Education, Institute of Gerontology, 520 E. Liberty, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

June19: An Institute on Workshop Planning will be conducted during the Detroit ALA Conference. It is sponsored by LAD/ PAS-SDC, JMRT, and RTSD-CRG. It will be limited to 150 people by preregistration.

This institute is being developed to provide assistance with the planning of workshops, selection of formats, and evaluation tools to measure the obtainment of developed goals and objectives.

Interested persons should contact Jane E. Marshall, Joseph Regenstein Library, University of Chicago, 1100 E. 57th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

June 20-July1: The Third Annual Oral History Institute will be sponsored by the University of Vermont. The fee is $114 for residents and $156 for nonresidents. For further information, contact Charles T. Morrisey, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05401; (802) 656-2020.

June 27-July20: Copyright and the Library, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle. Speaker: Dr. William Z. Zasri, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences. Contact: Library School Office, 329 Library, University of Illinois-UC, Urbana, IL 61801.

July18-20: George Hall, director of telecommunications for the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Alice Ihrig, a library-public relations consultant, will keynote the University of Wisconsin-Stout’s Twelfth Annual Educational Media and Technology Conference to be held in Menomonie.

Hall’s topic, “Is It Time to Turn Television Off?,” is aimed at taking a hard look at commercial and public television and its effect on people. His presentation will be on Monday evening, July 18.

Ihrig’s topic, “How to Massage the Decision Maker with the Message,” is directed at media professionals who are striving to communicate with supervisors, administrators, governing boards, and the public. Her presentation will be on Tuesday evening, July 19.

Five concurrent workshops will be held on Monday afternoon: "Super 8 Sound: The State of the Art”; “Microfiche Readers: Their Future Is Now!”; “Simple Binding and Repair”; “Graphics: Increasing Productivity with New Technology”; and “Security Systems: Pro and Con.”

Further information may be obtained by contacting Dr. David P. Barnard, Dean of Learning Resources, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, WI 54751.

July 25-August5: The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research is offering a workshop on Management, Library Control and the Use of Nonbiblio- craphic Machine-Readable Data Files. The workshop is designed to meet the needs of individuals whose responsibilities may include providing data services or information about machine-readable data files to users. The focus will be on both survey and aggregate numeric data files typically used by social science researchers. The objective of the workshop is to introduce individuals to data management, data library, and data servicing procedures and techniques employed at established data service centers. Specific attention will be given to the practical aspects of making machine-readable data available to users. The workshop contains two entry points contingent upon the background, experience, and interests of the participant.

The first week of the workshop will consider the process of collecting and making data machine-readable, documenting data collections, and processing (cleaning) data for primary analysis and use or storage centrally for public access. Hands-on experience with machine- readable data will be provided at each step of the data cleaning process. Computer experience is not required. The second week will focus on data library procedures, user services, and the administration and organization of data service centers.

It should be noted that an intensive format for this workshop will be used. Scheduled sessions will be held both in the morning and afternoon. Additional sessions may be scheduled for the evenings as needed. Enrollment will be limited. For further information and application forms, contact Summer Program, ICPSR, P.O. Box 1248, Ann Arbor, MI 48106; (313) 764-2570.

MISCELLANY

• At the semiannual meeting of the New England Library Board (NELB) Panel of Counsellors on October 14-15, 1976, keynote speaker Ruth L. Tighe, research associate with the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science, set the stage for a consideration of multistate cooperatives within the context of national planning. The present structure of networking in the United States as Tighe described it comprises two major entities—the bibliographic utility and the bibliographic service center. The former—including OCLC, BALLOTS, and LC—have thus far been single-service providers. The latter—including NELINET, SOLINET, etc.—are the dispensers of utility-originated services. Both entities have been concerned thus far only with automated bibliographic services rather than with a broad concept encompassing all aspects of library service to multiple clienteles.

The national program envisioned by NCLIS does cover the widest range of services, including the development of coherent governance structures and funding patterns. Since federal funding has traditionally flowed through the states, direct multistate application seems unlikely at this juncture. The use of multistate regions as formal hierarchical components of the national program, in the NCLIS view, cannot be imposed from the top.

Multistate consortia covering large geographical areas and formed of political subdivisions without previous patterns of cooperation have not yet found the focus of “critical mass” which would identify their roles, according to Tighe. It has been difficult for several such consortia to assume leadership in resource sharing when state agencies can often dispense available services more feasibly by contracting with utilities and service centers on behalf of libraries in their states.

Because of its small size and its long-recognized character as a traditional entity, Tighe saw New England as an exception to the national pattern. Where other multistate consortia have assumed primarily a coordinating role, NELB has been able to fill operational functions as well. Examples of these are the New England Document Conservation Center and the New England Serials Service, and other direct-service programs are planned.

Tighe cautioned, however, that New England is unique and should therefore not be taken as a yardstick for the rest of the country. While a multistate role in the national hierarchy may develop, it is as yet premature except in New England.

• Members of the Universal Serials and Book Exchange (USBE) elected Alfred H. Lane, head, Gifts and Exchange, Columbia University Libraries, as vice-president, president-elect for 1977. In January Joseph H. Treyz, director of libraries, University of Wisconsin-Madison, began his one-year term as USBE president and chairman of the board.

For twenty-nine years USBE, a not-for-profit agency, has filled orders for periodicals (single issues and runs), government documents, and books. Its present stock, housed in two Washington, D.C., warehouses, includes more than four million periodical issues (40,000 titles) and more than 100,000 books and documents. Member libraries located in fifty-six countries deposit with USBE materials they do not need, order publications from monthly lists, send requests for periodicals, and pay service fees for each order that is filled. For a pamphlet on USBE’s services and operations, write or phone USBE, 3335 V St. NE, Washington, DC 20018; (202 ) 529-2555.

• Wesley W. Posvar, chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh, announced that $100,- 000 of the proceeds from Pitt’s Sugar Bowl appearance will be allocated to the University Libraries for academic acquisitions.

In making the announcement Dr. Posvar said, "We are very proud of our football team, the Sugar Bowl Champions and the 1976 national champions. This gift justly increases that pride because it demonstrates how an outstanding athletic program can directly contribute to the academic excellence of the University.”

According to Rhoten A. Smith, provost of the university, approximately $80,000 will be allocated to the University Libraries for purchase of books and other print materials, and $20,000 will go to the University Center for Instructional Resources to purchase nonprint materials, particularly instructional films.

• The Environmental Studies Institute at Santa Barbara and Lockheed/DIALOG Online Information Service of Palo Alto, California, have announced an agreement for making available for computerized literature searches the sophisticated environmental science data base compiled by the institute over the last five years. ENVIROBIB will be the code name for the indexed bibliographic material available through DIALOG.

Starting in the spring of 1977, DIALOG subscribers will be able to search on-line for specific environmental information published in a variety of the world’s literature treating with all aspects of the environment. Close to 300 important periodicals are indexed by the Environmental Studies Institute for publication in the printed version of their bibliographic reference work, Environmental Periodicals Bibliography.

Under the new agreement, DIALOG subscribers searching the ENVIROBIB file will gain access not only to material already published in the first five volumes of Environmental Periodicals Bibliography, but also to current material from the forthcoming volume 6 for 1977. In many cases reference information will be available for on-line computer interrogation before hard copy of the bibliography is published. Thus environmental specialists may maintain current awareness of developments in their field, as well as enjoy access to complete background information in their specialty areas. The ENVIROBIB file for 1975 and 1976 alone will contain some 46,000 bibliographic records on environmental topics, and another 22,000 entries should be added during 1977.

The DIALOG system, now in its sixth year of commercial service, provides libraries and other subscribers in government, industry, and academia with access to data bases covering disciplines in natural and social science, business and finance, medicine, and the humanities.

For detailed information concerning ENVIROBIB or hard copy of Environmental Periodicals Bibliography, please write to Environmental Studies Institute, 2074 Alameda Padre Serra, Santa Barbara, CA 93103.

• Timothy Mellon of Guilford, Connecticut, has made a gift of approximately three-quarters of a million dollars to the Research Libraries Group (RLG) for the acquisition of computer hardware to support its bibliographical system. RLG President James Skipper expressed the gratitude of the board of directors for the farsighted vision that prompted this gift. Although the decision on hardware has yet to be made and may be one or two years in the future, such equipment is central to the main objectives of the consortium. To have a substantial financial base for implementing this part of the RLG program is of the greatest significance to the future of RLG.—HUL Notes.

• The Richard B. Russell Memorial Library at the University of Georgia opened for research January 10, and applications are being accepted for access to the large manuscript collection of the late Georgia senator.

Russell, who was Senate president pro tempore from 1969 until his death, was adviser and confidant to six presidents—Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon.

The Russell Library, a joint effort of the Richard B. Russell Foundation, the State of Georgia, and the University System of Georgia, was dedicated in 1974. It is located in an annex to the university’s main library on the north campus in Athens.

Inquiries may be addressed to the Richard B. Russell Memorial Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, GA 30602.

• Representatives of the British Library, the National Library of Australia, the National Library of Canada, and the Library of Congress met at the Library of Congress on November 8-9 for informal discussions of problems and strategies on cooperative aspects of cataloging. One of the major topics was the impact that will result from the promulgation of two major compilations of cataloging standards that are now in the final stages of editing.

The first of these is the second edition of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules. The latest information available on the publication timetable of AACR II seems to indicate that the new edition is unlikely to appear before mid- 1978. Although AACR II is not a new code, adapting to the changes it does embody will involve staff training, development of new internal procedures, and perhaps some modification in the formats of the programs for machine input of bibliographic data. The four libraries agreed that the minimum allowable period for preparation is at least six months, which would mean that they would not be ready to implement AACR II until mid-1979.

The second work in progress is the 19th edition of Dewey Decimal Classification, which, at latest report, is scheduled to appear in 1979. The four libraries felt strongly that adoption of DDC 19 should be targeted for January 1, 1980, for substantially the same reasons cited for AACR II. Simultaneous adoption of AACR II and Dewey 19 will also make possible better coordination of their conversion efforts.

Accordingly, the four libraries agreed to announce immediately their concurrence in a joint strategy for implementing AACR II and Dewey 19 effective January 1, 1980.

• A contract of nearly $200,000 has been awarded to Applied Management Sciences, Inc., of Silver Spring, Maryland, to help define the federal role in library services.

The study will determine the impact of existing federally funded library services programs and recommend the extent of federal involvement in that area in the future.

Two Office of Education programs are involved: Title III of the Library Services and Construction Act (LSCA), which aims to make better use of existing library resources by developing cooperative arrangements administered at the state level; and Title II-B of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which awards grants to institutions for library research and demonstration projects.

The study will be conducted at the federal level by means of personal interviews; at the state level through mail surveys to state library agencies; and at the project level by means of telephone and mail surveys. In addition, ten state library agencies, ten LSCA III funded projects, and twelve HEA II-B funded projects will be visited.

Dr. Ruth Patrick and Dr. Visita Mathur, both of Applied Management Sciences, Inc., are project co-directors. The final report is scheduled for late 1977.

• The Jewish Librarians Caucus was founded at the American Library Association 1975 Midwinter Meeting. The caucus, which does not require ALA membership, has adopted a statement which reads in part:

… As Jews we have a special responsibility to identify those issues affecting the Jewish people. We recognize a growth in anti-Semitism. We also recognize a general insensitivity of governments and institutions with respect to these issues.

According to Cookie Lewis-Soldinger, editor of the caucus’ newsletter, “the Jewish Librarians Caucus is involved in many issues within the multifaceted library profession. For example, it is involved in an intense lobbying effort for the reform of the offensive and discriminatory treatment of Judaism and Jews in subject heading lists and classification schemes (e.g., LC, Sears, Dewey Decimal, Wilson, Bowker); pressuring Soviet officials to allow Jewish librarians to emigrate; monitoring of anti- Semitic materials on all levels, in all media; and forming a Children’s Book Award.”

The caucus’ quarterly newsletter features topics of current interest to the Jewish librarian such as Jewish library collections and the Jewish press, guides to resources, and reviews of books, periodicals, and audiovisual materials. The newsletter subscription rate is $5 per year.

Inquiries should be sent to Cookie Lewis- Soldinger, Editor, 5246 Beeman Ave., North Hollywood, CA 91607.

• The New England Bibliographic Instruction Collection (NEBIC), housed in the Simmons College Library, for the first time has affiliated formally with an academic library organization. The Association of College and Research Libraries’ New England Chapter (ACRL/NEC) has established a Bibliographic Instruction Committee, one of whose ongoing roles will be interaction with NEBIC. In fact, the committee has adopted NEBIC’s core of founders as its initial membership. Any librarian interested in joining the fledgling committee may contact either Arline Willar, chairperson, at the Northeastern University Library in Boston, Massachusetts, or Diane Lutz, ACRL/ NEC president, at the New Hampshire College Library in Manchester, New Hampshire.

• Mr. and Mrs. Edmund J. Kahn of Dallas, Texas, have made the largest single gift ever made in support of the University of Pennsylvania Library—a gift of $1 million.

Richard De Gennaro, director of libraries, said the Kahn gift will establish an endowment fund to be known as the Edmund J. Kahn Book Fund. Yield from the fund will be used to purchase books and other resource materials.

Mr. Kahn was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1925 and has pursued a distinguished career in finance and investment. He has been active for many years in alumni affairs and has been a generous benefactor of the university.

The Kahns have followed a policy of making equal contributions to the university and to Smith College, from which Mrs. Kahn was graduated. In addition, they have been active participants in Dallas civic and philanthropic affairs. The Kahns have matched their most recent gift of $1 million to the university with gifts of $1 million to Smith College, for support of its library, and of $1 million to the Dallas Foundation to support the Dallas Public Library.

• The Canadian Union Catalogue Task Group, in a recent report, advocates the development, with the guidance and support of the National Library of Canada, of a Canadian Library Network, with the objectives of equalizing opportunity for access to information and making more cost-effective use of total Canadian library resources. This network would be composed of three interrelated components, a bibliographic network, a resource network, and a communications network. The bibliographic network would be based on a Canadian National Bibliographic Data Base, compiled at the National Library of Canada. This data base would be used to support the production and maintenance of union catalogs, union lists, and cataloging support services at both the National Library of Canada and at provincial/regional bibliographic centers. The resource network would be made up of the holdings of the National Library and other federal governmental libraries designated resource libraries across the nation, and unique items held in other libraries. Support for this resource network would be provided by the federal government for library collections both at the National Library and other libraries. A periodicals resource center and a storage center, to be operated by the National Library of Canada and the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information, are proposed. The communications network would consist of a delivery system for the actual transfer of items by such means as the postal service and interorganizational delivery, and information transmission systems. Costs of transmitting materials among libraries and of communications among libraries would be absorbed, alleviated, or at the least regionally equalized by the federal government.—HUL Notes.

• The Research Libraries Group (RLG) annual report for 1975-76 chronicles and quantifies progress made over a pivotal period, the year of its incorporation. The report abounds with meaty statistics. For example, during RLG’s first full year of operation, members requested the loan of 5,423 items and asked for bibliographic information concerning 297 titles, a total of 5,720 requests. Of these, an estimated 80 percent of the items requested were found in RLG collections, with a filled rate of 72 percent. The average number of exposures per photocopy request was thirteen, with 83 percent of the transactions entailing thirty pages or less. It was also reported that sixty expensive items, with an average cost of $1,372 and a total cost of $82,320, were acquired by one member or more to be shared by all members.

• January was a landmark month in the history of BioSciences Information Service (BIOSIS). Now observing its fiftieth anniversary, the Philadelphia-based organization, the world’s largest abstracting service for biology in the English language, announced that its three-millionth abstract was published in volume 63, number 2 of Biological Abstracts, issued on January 15. BioResearch Index, sister publication to Biological Abstracts, announced its one-millionth report in January in volume 13, number 1.

The publication timing of the three million abstracts confirms the “scientific information explosion” and the growth of BIOSIS. The one- millionth abstract appeared in February 1961, thirty-five years after the founding of Biological Abstracts. The three-millionth appeared after less than half that time!

The one-millionth item in BioResearch Index has appeared after only twelve years. This publication deals with such literature as proceedings, symposia, etc.

• The Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is celebrating its fiftieth birthday. Located between two of America’s largest and most prestigious universities, the University of Southern California and the University of California at Los Angeles, both noted for their cinema and theater arts programs, the facility also is within easy commuting distance of five movie studios, three television networks, one of the country’s largest newspapers, and the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film Studies. Altogether the faculties and students of ninety-seven educational instutitions make use of the facilities for research.

Librarians from the academy, AFI, USC, and UCLA enjoy close cooperation, meeting monthly to exchange information and discuss mutual problems. As a project of the Film and Television Studies Center, Inc., the Librarians’ Committee advised bibliographer Linda Harris Mehr on the compilation of the Union List o† Special Collections in Film and Television in the Eleven Western States, to be published this fall by G. K. Hall.

Occupying two floors of the academy’s new headquarters building on Wilshire Boulevard in the heart of Beverly Hills, the Margaret Herrick Library is considered by many experts to be the world’s leading source of facts and figures on every facet of the movie industry.

More than 11,000 visitors used the library in 1976, and 22,000 telephone requests for information were logged.

Reference materials may not be borrowed from the library, but reproductions of photographs and printed materials housed in the library are available at modest fees.

Its reference collection consists of books, periodicals, and pamphlets; files of clippings and still photographs; and special research and archival collections, all related to the motion picture and its history.

The library attempts to collect every book in English on motion pictures, as well as important foreign reference sources and selected books in allied fields, such as television and theater. The book collection now numbers more than 9,000 volumes.

Currently subscriptions to 140 periodicals of all types are maintained. Subject access to these is provided through clipping files and indexing, and occasional issues of many other periodicals are purchased and relevant articles added to the files.

The production files, on more than 40,000 motion pictures, contain information and photographs from virtually every American film as well as major productions from foreign countries. Still photographs, programs and press- books, synopses, cast and credits sheets, and posters are added through the cooperation of producing and distributing companies, by special arrangement with National Screen Service, and by individual gift.

The biography files consist of information and photographs dealing with filmmakers of all crafts from the beginning of the industry to date. The files contain feature articles, news- clips, daily trade items, studio biographies and publicity releases, and portrait and publicity stills. A card file of obituaries is also maintained.

The general subject files also contain clippings, stills, and pamphlets. These are assigned subject headings and often form complete records of an event, company, or special topic.

Named in honor of the academy’s first librarian, and later its executive director, the Margaret Herrick Library’s facilities are available without charge to the public and others from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, except major holidays.

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