ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

News From the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• The University of Virginia Library at Charlottesville recently acquired its two-millionth book, the gift of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. The work is L’Architec- ture consideree by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, the eighteenth-century French architect whose designs influenced Thomas Jefferson. The rare, two-volume edition was published in Paris in 1804.

University President Frank L. Hereford, Jr. announced the acquisition of the two-millionth volume, saying, “All of us in the University community are deeply grateful to the foundation for such a superb gift.” He called the gift a fitting one, “not only because of Mr. Jefferson’s abiding interest in architecture, but also because he chose for Pavilion IX at the University an entrance motif designed by Ledoux for a pavilion at Louveciennes, where Mr. Jefferson picnicked with Maria Cosway.”

• The manuscripts of Alexander Graham Bell, distinguished inventor and scientist, have been donated to the Library of Congress by his heirs. The massive and extraordinarily rich collection (ca. 130,000 items) will be a valuable source for scholars, as it documents in great detail Bell’s entire career and varied activities. Although he is best known as the father of the telephone, Bell was the outstanding worker of his generation in education of the deaf, and his scientific and technological interests ranged from eugenics to aviation, in which he was a pioneer.

Bell’s papers include hundreds of laboratory notebooks in which he recorded his daily experiments. In one is the prophetic 1876 entry, accompanied by a drawing: “I then shouted into M[outhpiece] the following sentence: ‘Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.’ To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said.” The Bell correspondence is voluminous, including both originals and retained copies of Bell’s letters, as well as letters he received in great variety from the obscure and the important. Bell corresponded with many of the noted persons of his day, from such scientists as Guglielmo Marconi and Joseph Henry to presidents of the United States. The letters are not without humor; included in the papers is a complaint from Mark Twain to Bell’s father-in-law about his Connecticut telephone: “. . . the inventor is responsible for all this. . . . Let him come up & work the Hartford telephone till he pines for the solace & refuge of his long hot home.”

Included in the papers are numerous photographs of historical significance, many of them taken by Bell’s son-in-law, Dr. Gilbert H. Gros- venor, editor of the National Geographic for fifty-five years, as well as a miscellany ranging from data concerning Bell’s patent suits to biographical and genealogical materials. The library has also received a substantial volume of the papers of other Bell family members, among them the scientist’s father, the elocutionist Alexander Melville Bell, and his father- in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, one of the founders of the telephone industry and first president of the National Geographic Society, where the Bell Papers have been on deposit. A separate gift to the library is Bell’s first drawings of his telephone, presented by his grandson Melville Bell Grosvenor, who is also one of the donors of the Bell Papers.

The collection greatly strengthens the library’s extensive manuscript holdings in the history of American science and technology, which range in time from the papers of Benjamin Franklin to those of J. Robert Oppenheimer, as well as such inventors as John Fitch, Samuel F. B. Morse, and the Wright brothers. After arrangement and description by the library, the Alexander Graham Bell Papers will be available for use in the Manuscript Division by qualified scholars.

• An unpublished manuscript containing two short stories by the nineteenth-century English novelist Charlotte Bronte has been presented to the University of Missouri by the Senator Stuart Symington family. The miniature manuscript represents a major addition to the manuscript holdings of the University of Missouri.

The manuscript, containing the stories “The Secret” and “Lily Hart,” was written in 1833, when Miss Bronte was seventeen, and has been unavailable to scholars since 1915. The manuscript will be edited for publication by Professor William Holtz, a member of the English department, University of Missouri-Columbia, and is expected to show the development of Charlotte Bronte’s talents in the years preceding the publication of Jane Eyre.

GRANTS

• The University of Michigan has been awarded a grant of $50,000 by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Science Information Service to study a computer-based system to enhance the sharing of technical information in a system of scientific communities. Coprincipal investigators for the project are Dr. Karl L. Zinn, associate director of the MERIT Computer Network, and Dr. Charles H. Davis, associate professor of library science. Information about resources at Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the University of Michigan will be shared through the computer network in an on-line, interactive mode to show how communication can be facilitated among these and other scientific communities.

• A $348,800 Council on Library Resources (CLR) grant to Stanford University will enable that institution’s fully operational BALLOTS (Bibliographic Automation of Large Library Operations Using a Time-Sharing System) to undertake new development tasks toward a California library automation network.

Under terms of the two-and-one-half-year grant, the BALLOTS software and file structure will be altered to support the complete MARC character set, broaden its tape communication system, and expand its serial processing capability. The aim of this development is a reliable, flexible, and economical on-line network to support and improve library service in the libraries of California.

Since November 1972, BALLOTS has provided comprehensive on-line technical processing services in the Stanford libraries using the university’s central computer (an IBM 360/67). At the heart of the system is a 400,000-record file accessible through a powerful set of indexes. Currently these include a file of Library of Congress MARC data, a file of individual items being purchased by Stanford, an on-line catalog of all the items cataloged through the system, and an on-line catalog of the entire undergraduate library holdings. Approximately 100 languages are represented in the files, as half of Stanford’s acquisitions are foreign imprints.

Stanford University began work on BALLOTS in 1967, receiving about $2 million in development funds from the U.S. Office of Education through 1971. In 1972 CLR made a $325,000 grant toward continuation of the BALLOTS development, matched by a similar sum from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

David Weber is director of the Stanford University Library, and A. H. Epstein of the Stanford Center for Information Processing is in charge of the BALLOTS Project.

• The University of Chicago’s comprehensive library data management system is expected to achieve full operational status in 1976 and to be available for sharing with other libraries under terms of a new Council on Library Resources (CLR) grant of $350,000.

The Chicago system—in the planning, design, and implementation stages for almost a decade—performs a full range of administrative and reader services via the library’s Varian minicomputer, which has direct access to the single integrated data file stored in the university’s central computer (an IBM 370/168).

Bibliographic records in the Chicago system are to be fully compatible with Library of Congress MARC records and hence adaptable for use in other systems supported by CLR. It is expected that the Chicago system will prove transferable for use by other large libraries or by groups of small libraries connected to a central facility via remote terminals.

The Chicago system, initially supported by the National Science Foundation between 1966 and 1970, also received a $400,000 grant from CLR in 1971 matched by a similar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Principal investigators for the University of Chicago in connection with the library data management project are Charles T. Payne, the project director; Stanley McElderry, director of the library; and Fred H. Harris, director of the computation center.

• The Council on Library Resources (CLR) has made a two-year grant of $111,431 to the American Library Association (ALA) on behalf of the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of Anglo-American Cataloging Rules (AACR) of 1967. The Joint Steering Committee is composed of representatives of ALA, the Canadian Committee on Cataloguing, the (British) Library Association, the British Library, and the Library of Congress.

The 1967 AACR has played a significant role in English-speaking countries in standardizing the choice of entry, form of heading, and physical description of library materials. Such rules for recording the contents of library collections are essential to the collections’ accessibility.

Need for AACR revision after less than eight years is based in large measure on the need for revision of rules for entry, heading, and description. In 1967 it was impossible to reach full agreement on rules in the North American and British texts. And with the development of machine-readable cataloging (MARC) systems internationally, it is imperative that as many cooperative agreements as possible be made in order to avoid the cost of duplication of cataloging in the world’s libraries.

Under the terms of the CLR grant, royalties resulting from the sale of the new AACR will be placed in a common fund for the purpose of supporting future activities associated with AACR as these may be defined by a committee appointed by the AACR authors for that purpose.

Editor of the revised AACR will be Paul W. Winkler, principal descriptive cataloger at the Library of Congress. Associate editor will be

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“A landmark pul

LeRoy C. Schwarzkopfreviews

GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIO

Quoted below in its entirety is of ARBA. It falls under the heading

LeRoy C. Schwarzkopf

—Government Documents Librarian of the McKeldin Library of the University of Maryland.

— Author of the 52-page report “Regional Libraries and the Depository Library Act of 1962”.

— Secretary of the Federal Documents Task Force of GODORT.

— Author of “The Monthly Catalog and Bibliographical Control of U. S. Government Publications” (Drexel Library Quarterly, Jan.-Apr. 1974, pp. 79-105).

“GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS UNITED STATES

“ 102. Buchanan, William W., and Edna M. Kanely, comps. Cumulative Subject Index to the Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications, 1900-1971. Washington, Carrollton Press, 1973 (in preparation). 15v. $900.00. LC 4-18088. ISBN 0-8408-0001-0.

“A landmark publication in federal documents bibliography. Private enterprise has again come to the rescue of the harried documents librarian to fill a serious void left by official government indexes and catalogs. Disregarding the inadequate bibliographic control over the full range of federal documents, particularly “non-GPO” publications, and the inadequate depth of indexing and subject analysis, the most serious

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• offered with our 106 volume reprint edition of the Monthly Catalog itself from 1895-1962. Included is the 30 volume “Classes Added” Edition (for 1895- 1924) to which previously missing Superintendent of Documents Class Numbers were added under the supervision of Mary Elizabeth Poole. All reprint volumes are specially bound and marked for easiest use with Cumulative Subject Index. Send for our free brochure on the Monthly Catalog Subject Reference System. It includes details of our unique offer of free "interim use” microfilm reels which can be used before (and after) complete sets of reprint volumes are delivered. Meanwhile, the Cumulative Subject Index may also be purchased in the Combined Reference Edition which, as explained on the coupon, includes the complete Monthly Catalog on Microfilm.

drawback to using the Monthly Catalog and official indexes and catalogs published by the Government Printing Office has been the lack of timely cumulations of the indexes or catalogs. The Document Catalog, which most documents librarians have used to search for documents published between 1895 and 1940, was actually a two-year cumulation of subject entries as well as entries for issuing agency and publication series. The Monthly Catalog has, since 1900, provided an annual index of the entries in the monthly issues (except for a 30-month period, January 1906 to June 1908). Two decennial indexes to the Monthly Catalog have been published by GPO: the 1941-1950 cumulation, and the 1951-1960 cumulation issued in 1968. A planned quinquennial cumulation for the years 1961-1965 is still in preparation.

“The lack of comprehensive cumulative indexes is a problem familiar to users of periodical indexes. In order to use the Monthly Catalog for exhaustive research of a topic, or to find a work whose date of publication is unknown, one has to search month by month during the current year, then year by year to 1961, and through the two decennial issues to 1941. For earlier materials, most documents librarians prefer to use the biennial Document Catalog.

“As the title indicates, this is primarily a cumulative “subject” index to the Monthly Catalog. It does not contain the following entries included in the source indexes: names of persons who were beneficiaries of individual “relief” measures, and “personal authors.” The latter entries have been cumulated by Edward Przebienda in two decennial and two quinquennial volumes covering the years 1940-1970 (published by Pierian Press as Cumulative Personal Author Indexes to the Monthly Catalog). However, the following types of entries contained in the source indexes have been cumulated: government agency “author” entries, and title entries.

“This cumulation represents a massive merging of entries in all previously published official cumulative indexes to the Monthly Catalog-. 49 annual indexes (calendar years 1900-1905, 1935-1940, and 1961-1971; and fiscal years 1908/09-1933/34); the two decennial indexes; and one six-month index (July-December 1934). Original indexing was done for the 30 monthly issues that were not indexed, and the entries were merged. The compilers did not include the years 1895-1899, since the Monthly Catalog was not indexed

ication in federal documents bibliography”

the CUMULATIVE SUBJECT INDEX TO THE MONTHLY CATALOG OF U.S. NS, 1900-1971 in the 1975 American Reference Books Annual. this comprehensive review which appears on pages 47 and 48 of the 1975, Sixth Edition “General Reference Works, Government Publications, United States.”

during this early period. In view of their commendable effort to close the 30-month gap mentioned, their failure to do original indexing for this earlier five-year period is a regrettable, but not serious, oversight.

“Although this compilation will increase the use of the Monthly Catalog for the period 1900-1940 and will make searches more convenient and complete, it will not eliminate the need for the Document Catalog. This catalog was more comprehensive and includes many additional documents. The indexing was generally better and in greater depth. The Document Catalog is also a combined catalog-index. Arranged by subject, the entries provide complete bibliographic information, and the user must look only in one place and need not consult both index and catalog listings. In those cases in which the user can narrow the search to a short time frame, the Document Catalog might still be preferred. However, most documents reference work concerns more recent publications, and this cumulative index is warmly welcomed since it fills a serious gap for the period 1961-1971.

“ Due to variations in terminology and indexing rules that have occurred over this span of 72 years, the

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compilers have been forced to make certain arbitrary, but eminently reasonable and practical, editorial decisions. Subject headings appear intact under their original spellings. However, this problem has been alleviated by merging many see and see also references that had disappeared over the years. The problem of subject headings in both singular and plural form, often widely separated, has been solved by combining them under either one or the other heading. In the case of series and certain types of reports, chronological and numerical listings are used rather than straight alphabetical listings.

“The complete set is being published in attractive, folio-size, case-bound volumes. By the end of 1974, Volumes 1 through 11 (covering “A” through “Pub”) have been published. The price may appear to be prohibitive, but when judged by its value in practical use, in time saved for librarians and other users of federal documents, and in the more exhaustive searches which it allows and encourages, the set is quite inexpensive and is considered to be an outstanding bargain.”

LeRoy C. Schwarzkopf

Michael Gorman, head of the Bibliographic Standards Office of the British Library. Project coordinator is Carol B. Kelm, executive secretary of the Resources and Technical Services Division of the American Library Association.

• The Urban Archives Center of Temple University Libraries has received a grant of $18,950 from the William Penn Foundation. The grant will be used primarily for the arrangement and description of the historical records at the Archives of private agencies concerned with housing and social services in Philadelphia. The twenty-six social service agencies include coordinating groups such as the Health and Welfare Council and the Federation of Settlements, specialized agencies such as Traveler’s Aid, Big Brothers, and the Society to Protect Children, and community groups such as the Wharton Centre, United Communities of Southeast Philadelphia, and Germantown Settlement. The Archives will publish a guide to the records of the social service agencies, and a separate guide to the records of the Housing Association of Delaware Valley. The Housing Association records form a uniquely comprehensive collection of materials—including office files, photographs, pamphlets, and maps—documenting housing and social conditions in Philadelphia since 1909. The provision of access to the materials at the Urban Archives will, it is hoped, encourage and facilitate research into the history of the people of Philadelphia. Under the grant the Archives will also establish a microfilm program to ensure the preservation and continued usefulness of particularly fragile documents.

MEETINGS

August 24-28: The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) will hold its thirteenth annual conference at the Washington Plaza Hotel in Seattle, Washington. The theme will be “The Role of Information Systems Technology in Community Management.”

October 9-10: The First Annual Library Microform Conference, sponsored by Microform Review and the ALA Resources and Technical Services Division Resources Section Micropublishing Projects Committee and Book- dealer-Library Relations Committee, will be held at the Biltmore Hotel, New York, New York. The program will consist of seminars on “The Microform Reading Room; Preservation and Storage”; “Bibliographic Control of Microforms”; and “Micrographics Equipment and Maintenance.” Registration forms and information are available from Alan M. Meckler, Microform Review, P.O. Box 1297, Weston, CT 06880.

October 17-18: The New England Regional Group of the Medical Library Association will hold its annual meeting at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts.

October 19-22: The Colorado Library Association and Mountain-Plains Library Association will sponsor a joint convention at the Executive Towers Inn, Denver, the theme being: “Continuing Education—Continuing Excellence.” Keynote speaker will be Elizabeth W. Stone from the Catholic University of America, project director of the Continuing Library Education Network and Exchange (CLENE).

Preconference workshops on “Networking” and “Documents” will take place October 19. Miniworkshops will also be conducted on such topics as “Blind and the Physically Handicapped,” “ERIC,” “Grant Writing,” and “Telecommunications.”

For more information, contact Mrs. Ann Kimbrough, CLA Executive Secretary, 2341 S. Josephine, Denver, CO 80210.

October 23-26: The Oral History Association will hold its tenth National Colloquium on Oral History at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina.

The theme for the colloquium will be “Oral History Comes of Age: The Tenth National Colloquium on Oral History.”

The program chairperson for the colloquium is Thomas Charlton, Baylor University, and the workshop chairperson is Waddy Moore, State College of Arkansas.

For further information about the Oral History Association write Ronald E. Marcello, Secretary, Box 13734, North Texas Station, North . Texas State University, Denton, TX 76203.

November 9-12: Classification Systems. The University of Illinois Graduate School of Library Science will hold a four-day institute at Allerton Park, the university’s conference center near Monticello, Illinois, about twenty- five miles southwest of Champaign-Urbana. The institute for 1975, the twenty-first in the series, is scheduled to be on “Major Classification Systems.”

A brochure describing the program in detail is available. Individuals interested in receiving the brochure and registration information should write to Mr. Brandt W. Pryor, Institute Supervisor, 116 Mini Hall, Champaign, IL 61820. See the June C&RL News for further details.