ACRL College & Researc Libraries News

COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES

News From the Field

ACQUISITIONS

• Almost every edition published of Mark Twain’s writings and extensive memorabilia are included in a private collection recently purchased by the University of Illinois library at Urbana-Champaign. The collection is from the estate of Franklin J. Meine, a former Chicago writer and editor. Robert B. Downs, University of Illinois dean of library administration, said there are numerous books and pamphlets in the collection, especially those about Mark Twain, that have corrections and marginalia in pencil by Meine. In addition, many have presentation inscriptions to Meine. The Meine collection contains fifteen first editions of Huckleberry Finn, most of them in original bindings, though not all first state; several first editions of Tom Sawyer; five first editions of Life on the Mississippi; and various other works, including Following the Equator, Mark Twain’s Sketches, The American Claimant, Old Times on the Mississippi, and an impressive collection of all possible reprintings of 1601. In addition there are copies of Glasgow, Melbourne, Toronto, and Montreal editions of many of the above titles, as well as what is probably a complete collection of the London issues of virtually all of the nineteenth-century Twain books, Downs said. The collection has about 260 volumes of books by Samuel L. Clemens, mainly first editions and first American editions; about forty pamphlets; forty volumes of Canadian editions, first editions, first and later Canadian editions; fifty volumes of English editions, first and later editions, and eleven volumes of translations.

Other items include large framed portraits, drawings, etchings, statuettes, serials, and newspapers with contributions by or about Clemens; about 200 single issues or bound volumes; about 230 photographs; and about 760 other items, including books, pamphlets, files on Hannibal, tearsheets, comics, movie stills, and forgeries.

“The estate adds enormously to the importance of the library’s holdings in this field and permits students of Twain’s work the additional advantage of being able to consult various first editions,” Downs said.

“The Meine volumes are in excellent condition and the rarities included help to make the Illinois collection one of the major Mark Twain libraries in the country,” he said.

The Mark Twain Collection is to be housed in the Rare Book Room of the University of Illinois library at Urbana.

• The largest known assemblage of Sean O’Casey literary papers is now concentrated in the New York Public Library, according to James W. Henderson, Chief of The Research Libraries, who announced the acquisition by the library’s Berg Collection of English and American Literature of the O’Casey literary estate. Henderson said that the newly acquired collection complements the library’s unique Lady Gregory archive and other related materials, thus bringing to New York “what is undoubtedly the most comprehensive source anywhere for the study of the nineteenthand twentieth-century Irish Literary Revival.” Twenty-five manuscript notebooks in O’Casey’s hand, twenty-seven packages of typescripts, some typed by O’Casey and some professionally typed but corrected and altered by him, and a large amount of edited page and galley proof comprise the new acquisition. The notebooks—many of them are of ruled paper such as are used for school exercises—date from as early as 1918 to as late as 1962, almost the entire period of O’Casey’s long career.

Although much of the writer’s early work was destroyed by fire, several exercise books and other notebooks he used in his youth in Dublin are among the items, including the manuscript of a three-act drama, The Harvest Festival. This play had been submitted to the Abbey Theatre in late 1919, and was rejected. It has never been produced or printed. O’Casey moved to London in 1926, convinced that he could not write freely in Ireland and unhappy in the Abbey milieu. In England, he wrote The Silver Tassie, which was also rejected by the Abbey. It was first produced in London in 1929 and the notes and drafts of this play are in the new material. The various drafts reflect many changes made by O’Casey and include much unpublished dialogue, as well as the draft of a song that is not found in the printed text. Best represented of the writer’s full-length plays in the newly acquired papers are Within The Gates (1934), The Star Turns Red (1940), Red Roses for Me (1943), and The Drums of Father Ned. The Drums of Father Ned was scheduled for presentation at the Dublin International Theatre Festival of 1958 but was withdrawn by the Dublin Toastal Council. O’Casey thereupon banned all performances of his plays in Ireland. The world premiere of The Drums was given shortly thereafter in April, 1959, by the Lafayette (Indiana) Little Theatre. The six volumes of O’Casey’s autobiography (1939- 1954) are well represented. Manuscripts and typescripts and galley and page proofs show the work of O’Casey from preliminary conception through printed work and, indeed, beyond to revision after publication. In addition, other notebooks and typescripts are drafts and revisions of articles, essays, and autobiographical chapters that were collected and published in 1962 as O’Casey’s last book, Under a Colored Cap. The O’Casey literary papers may be consulted by scholars through Dr. Lola Szladits, Chief, Berg Collection of English and American Literature, Room 320 in the central research library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.

• The University of Rochester library has received the collected papers from the most recently completed chapter in the diversified political career of United States Ambassador to India Kenneth B. Keating, it was announced today. Keating, also a former United States Senator, has sent the library the papers collected during the three and a half years he sat as an associate justice on the Court of Appeals, the highest court in the State of New York. They include copies of all the opinions he researched and wrote during that time. Keating, who resigned from the bench when he was named Ambassador to India by President Nixon last spring, made his first gift to the University Library when he left the Senate in 1964—all the papers amassed during eighteen years in Congress. (Keating served six terms in the House of Representatives and one in the United States Senate.)

Keating’s ties with the University of Rochester are of long standing. He was graduated in 1919 after being elected to Phi Beta Kappa and last June returned to campus with other members of his class to celebrate his fiftieth reunion. In 1954, the university awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree, and in 1959, on the fortieth anniversary of his graduation, he was elected a member of the board of trustees.

• The papers of nineteenth century American social reformer Albert Brisbane, the papers of the Ellicott, Evans, and Spalding families of western New York, and unpublished manuscripts by French poet and novelist Pierre Louys are among items newly available for research at the Syracuse University library. Jack T. Ericson, head of the manuscript division at the university, listed these collections and several others in his quarterly report on “collections now available for research.” Ericson noted that Brisbane, a student of Cousin, Guizot, and Hegel, popularized the ideas of French reformer and economist Charles Fourier in the United States. Brisbane traveled in Europe observing social conditions and was at first influenced by the ideas of the followers of French social reformer Saint-Simon. Later he abandoned their theories for the philosophy of Fourier. The Syracuse University Brisbane collection includes a diary describing his European travels and another containing his thoughts about Saint–Simonianism, as well as correspondence and some bibliographical material. Brisbane was born in Batavia, New York.

The Ellicott–Evans–Spalding papers include legal and financial documents and correspondence and diaries from 1796 to 1901. Some members of these families were Quakers; some were connected with the Holland Land Company; some with the Erie Canal and with temperance and anti-slavery movements.

The working plans and notes for an unpublished book on the life and times of Marie- Louise Murphy, mistress of King Louis XV, is one of the Louys 1870–1925 manuscripts. The other is an unpublished short novel, “LTsle.”

The papers of Stuart Gerry Brown, who was Maxwell professor of American civilization at Syracuse University from 1947 to 1965, are also in the collection. They contain material by and about Adlai E. Stevenson, including material on the 1960 Draft Stevenson Movement.

• A rare medical textbook written in the eleventh century has been donated to the University of Nebraska College of Medicine library by Dr. Robert J. Moes, a 1929 graduate of the college now practicing in Los Angeles, California. Considered to be one of the most famous medical texts ever written, the twovolume work is one of the earliest complete editions of the “Canon of Medicine” by the Arabic “Prince of Physicians,” Avicenna. Translated from Arabic to Latin in the twelfth century, the work donated to the College of Medicine was printed in 1479 on the first press of Johann Herbort in Padua and is listed as one of the most important of the twelve editions published in Latin between 1472 and 1608. The “Canon of Medicine” includes theoretical medicine and prescribed medicaments, diseases and treatments, and descriptions of composition and preparation of drugs. “Avicenna took the works of Galen, Hippocrates, and most of the other prominent medical men of previous times and compiled them in these volumes to summarize all the medical knowledge of that time,” said Dr. Joseph Scott, library committee chairman at the College of Medicine. “The ‘Canon of Medicine’ was considered an indisputable medical authority for about six hundred years,” he added. Bound in decorated leather over wooden boards and still retaining the title in gilt lettering, the volumes contain a total of 434 pages. All of the pages are considered to be very well preserved.

• Duquesne University library has recently acquired a valuable collection of Hebraica and Judaica, which is housed in a newly appointed room on the main floor. It is the gift of Rabbi Herman Hailperin, lately retired from his position as Rabbi of the Tree of Life Synagogue of Pittsburgh but still actively engaged in teaching at the university as adjunct professor of history and theology. The collection, containing 2,687 titles, is a working library particularly rich in books centering around the Middle Ages, the period of Rashi and Nicolaus de Lyra about whom the Rabbi wrote his “lifetime” work, “Rashi and the Christian Scholars,” published in 1963.

Highlights of this collection are a fine manuscript of Nicolaus de Lyra, fourteenth century, the “Postilla super Psalmos”; an early printed book of his, the “Liber Differentiarum”; and two incunabula of this author, both Postilla on the Bible, dated respectively 1481 and 1487. Other noteworthy items of early date are Reuchlin’s “De Arte Cabalistica,” Pellican’s “Commentaria Bibliorum,” Kimchi’s commentary on the twelve Prophets, dated Paris, 1539, and two very rare first editions of the year 1527, bound together. One of these is on astronomy, and the other on Chaldaic grammar, by the sixteenth century geographer, mathematician, and Hebraist, Sebastian Münster. The collection is rich in Bible and Bible exegesis, both Jewish and Christian; Talmud, Mishna, and rabbinical commentary. Many of the fine old editions in Hebrew of the Bible and Mishna were handed down from the Rabbi’s father, himself a Rabbi and a book-lover. There are also sizable blocs of books on the history of the Jews of all periods, on customs and rites, on liturgy, and on the Hebrew language. The many dictionaries include both an old Osiander “Dictionarium Hebraicum” of 1569 and the new edition of the Israeli Even–Shoshan, just now being issued in several volumes from Jerusalem. Of particular interest is the group of books by the Christian Hebraists, Buxtorf, Lightfoot, and Wagenseil, all in early editions, showing the relationship between the Jewish and Christian scholars of the seventeenth century.

• N. Harvey Deal, director of libraries at Virginia Commonwealth University, has announced the acquisition of the Lynwood Giacomini collection of rare eighteenth-century English books. The collection, totaling about 380 titles, was acquired through the newly forming Associates of The James Branch Cabell Library. The library presently is under construction. Mr. Giacomini, a life-long book collector, is an official at Harper and Row, publishers. The collection is centered on Johnson, Boswell, and Goldsmith but contains numerous other important eighteenth-century items as well. Included among the titles are twentyeight biographical studies of Johnson, comprising all the major editions. Examples include the 1792 Dublin piracy; the earliest known one-volume Life, 1829; the 1826 Oxford edition; the 1926 Stockholm translation; and the famous John Murray edition of 1835, in original cloth binding. A perfect copy of the twovolume first edition is also present. Other items include the extremely rare pamphlet, Love Letters of Mrs. Piozzi, Written When She Was

Eighty, to William Augustus Conway,London, 1848; the earliest known use of cloth for binding, Johnson’s Works, 1825; Johnson’s The Poetical Works, 1785, with the rare two leaves of advertising; and Johnson’s The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, 1792, with numerous holograph notes by Daines Barrington, one of Johnson’s friends. Also included are the Dublin piracy of Johnson’s The Lives of the English Poets, which precedes the first London edition; a rare 1751 edition of Gray’s An Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard, and Boswell’s Johnson, edited by Croker in 1831. This volume contains marginalia by I. Jones Ystrad, who assisted Croker by supplying much information for the edition. The collection is being cataloged by Bibliographical Consultant Maurice Duke. A member of the English Department, he is including pagination and signature collations for all rare items. The collection will not be available for use until the catalog is completed.

• Among the most important accessions of the Library of Congress during recent years is that of Charles E. Feinberg’s collection of manuscripts, books, and memorabilia relating to Walt Whitman. This outstanding collection includes more than 1,000 manuscripts by Whitman (including the only page of the manuscript of the first edition of Leaves of Grass known to be still extant and the manuscript of “O Captain! My Captain!”); more than 1,000 of his letters, notes, and memoranda; a similar number of letters addressed to him (including Emerson’s famous congratulatory letter of July 21, 1855: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career. …”); first editions and/or proof sheets of most of Whitman’s books; about 125 volumes from Whitman’s own library; and more than 3,000 books about him. This is probably the largest and most important collection of Whitman materials ever assembled and, along with the significant body of Whitman manuscripts which were already in the library’s collections, makes the Library of Congress the foremost Whitman repository in the world. An exhibit of materials from the Feinberg Collection will be open to the public in the library’s main building until January, in honor of the sesquicentennial of Whitman’s birth. The collection will not be available for use until 1970.

Recent accessions of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress have included a fine three-page ALS from George Washington to his former aide, James McHenry, on August 15, 1782. The heart of the letter may be found in the following quotation from it: “… ’tis plain, they [the English] are only gaining time to become more formidable at Sea; to form new Alliances, if possible; or to disunite us. Whatever may be their object, we, if wise, should push our preparations vigorously; for nothing will hasten peace more than to be in a condition for War.” This letter is a gift from Mr. Sol Feinstone of Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, in advance of the coming to the Library in the near future of the remainder of his excellent collection of documents pertaining to the American Revolution.

The Library has received the papers of Stephen C. Rowan (1808-1890), naval officer. There are three private journals and one letterbook. The first journal, which commences in 1826, relates in part to the circumnavigation of the globe by the Vincennes, the first American man-of-war to accomplish this. The second private journal is for 1841-44, and relates to service in the Delaware on the Rrazil and Mediterranean Stations. The third journal was maintained sporadically over the years 1845-69. It presents considerable detail on events on the Pacific Coast during the Mexican War, touches briefly on tire opening days of the Civil War, including Rowans participation in the attempt to relieve Fort Sumter, and, after omitting further episodes of the Civil War, resumes with an account of Rowan’s command of the Asiatic Squadron. The letterbook is for 1854-1890 and includes letters selected from various letterbooks and copied at a later date. The Rowan Papers have been deposited by the Naval Historical Foundation.

New collections for the twentieth century include the Charles C. Marshall Papers, primarily concerned with his various activities and research in an effort to support charges made against presidential candidate A1 Smith that a Catholic should not be elected President, which resulted in a famous article by Marshall in the Atlantic Monthly (answered by Smith in a subsequent number of the magazine) and Marshall’s book, The Roman Catholic Church in the Modern State. The Library has acquired the papers (about 10,000 items) of Harold R. W. Benjamin, author of The Saber-Tooth Curriculum and other books, former professor of education at several universities, first director of the U.S. Office of Education’s international educational relations office, a primary developer of the University of Maryland overseas education program for servicemen, and a participant in the drafting of the charter for UNESCO.

New acquisitions in the field of science include additions to the Sigmund Freud Archives of twenty-nine clinical case histories written by- Freud in 1883 and the ten-page holograph manuscript of Freud’s “Trauer und Melancholie.”

INTERNATIONAL SCENE

• The Tehran Book Processing Centre (Tebroc) and the Iranian Documentation Centre (Irandoc) have recently been established. As agencies of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and its Research Centre, these organizations have the goal of bringing modern computerized documentation and library service to Iranian researchers and professors in universities, ministries, and research institutes.

Commercial library acquisitions and cataloging service is the function of the Tehran Book Processing Centre. Not only are book purchasing and receiving provided, but also subject and descriptive cataloging for all types of libraries. The organization has started processing service with the most modern policies and techniques, thereby skipping the intermediate development steps taken over a period of years in Western countries before a successful cooperative operation could be achieved. Tebroc expects to provide better processing service than most Iranian libraries presently enjoy and to provide it more cheaply as well. Tebroc offers its customers a choice of Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal Classification systems and a choice of Sears or Library of Congress subject headings. Numerous supplementary subject heading and descriptor lists are also available. It catalogs according to the Anglo- American Cataloging Rules, purchases printed cards from several other countries, and will soon sell its own Persian printed catalog cards locally and abroad. Special adaptations of the Dewey Decimal Classification and the Cutter author number tables are being developed for Persian material. Books are prepared for the shelves with book plates, pockets, charge cards, date due slips, and clear plastic jackets to improve their durability and appearance. In addition, Tebroc maintains a National Union Catalog of monographic material held by leading Iranian libraries and will publish it in book form. Customers may order material for delivery by air or ship mail, and appropriate fees will be charged for services. By cooperating with the Department of Library Science, University of Tehran, Tebroc is providing a realistic and practical laboratory for the internship of library science students as well as the in-service training of staff members sent by other libraries. Consequently, it is improving the educational programs of new as well as practicing librarians. Formal western education and practical local internship are being tied closely together to adapt modern theory to Iranian situations. Already a third of the Library Science Department’s new students are subprofessional staff members. Modern management planning, organizing, and analyzing ideas are used to coordinate and simplify Tebroc’s program. Such modern devices as telex to speed orders for material, proportional-spacing electric typewriters to prepare catalog cards, computer tapes to store bibliographic data, offset printers for quantity card and newsletter duplication, and photocopies to reproduce material easily are already in use.

The second of these organizations, the Iranian Documentation Centre, is a modern westernstyle information center covering the subject areas of social science, science, and technology. All kinds of reference and circulation service, literature searches, photocopies, bibliography compilations, selective dissemination of information, state-of-the-art studies, interlibrary loans, and translation service are given. Reference librarians are available to serve as bibliographic members of government and university research teams. The Centre will compile a thesaurus of descriptors through which the subject interest profiles of its clientele will be matched with the subjects of incoming material. An ambitious publication program is planned in both Persian and English to make Iranian information available around the world. The program consists of both serial and monographic publications issued to facilitate productive intellectual cooperation and to speed interlibrary loan. Plans for serial publications include (a) a scanning service to cover the current contents of significant Iranian periodicals, (b) the Irandoc Abstract Bulletin providing an alerting service to Iranian social science and science material, and (c) an annually updated and comprehensive union list of serials in Iranian libraries. A book publication program has started to produce basic library science texts, and directories of research, Iranian libraries, periodicals, reference books, library laws, bookstores, and publishers, several manuscripts already having been edited. The organization will take advantage of abstracting, indexing, and translating services provided by foreign agencies to avoid repeating work already done. Exchange relationships are sought with other institutions in its subject field (P.O. Box 11- 1387, Tehran).

In their first year of operation, the progress of Tebroc and Irandoc has been encouraging. Their combined staffs total sixty-five people, half of them college graduates, two-thirds women, most of them bilingual, seven with doctorates, and averaging twenty-five years of age. The organizations now occupy a five-story building with space allocation for offices, conference rooms, bibliographic center, reading room, computer center, reproduction center, audiovisual center, classroom, and dining room. Three leading Iranian administrators head these organizations. Akbar Etemad, Deputy Minister and former Nuclear Science Coordinator of the Plan Organization, is the Director of both organizations and the Ministry’s research policy center; Abbas Mazaher, former assistant branch librarian, Dallas Public Library, U.S.A., is Associate Director of Tebroc; and Ali Sinai, former librarian, School of Public Health, University of Tehran, is Associate Director of

Irandoc. John F. Harvey, former chairman, Department of Library Science, University of Tehran, is Technical Director.

MEETINGS

Oct.8-10: Madison, Wisconsin will host the 1969 annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists. Panel sessions will deal with academic archives, oral history, income tax appraisal of donations, computers and records administration, editing of photographic collections, and other topics of current archival interest. Further information and registration materials are available from F. Gerald Ham, Secretary, Society of American Archivists, 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706.

Oct.26-30: 68th annual meeting of the Medical Library Association will be held at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. Miss Joan Titley, director of the Kornhauser Memorial Medical library, University of Louisville, is convention chairman. The advance program and registration forms will be a part of the May, 1969 issue of MLA News.

Oct.31: 2nd International Seminar on Approval and Gathering Plans in Academic Libraries, sponsored by Western Michigan University Libraries, Kalamazoo 49001. For application forms write Peter Spyers–Duran, Director of Libraries, West Michigan University.

Nov. 5-8: The Library-College Associates will hold an interdisciplinary conference entitled, “A Library Dimension for the Higher Learning,” at the LaSalle Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, November 5-8,1969. Participants who will be featured at this conference include: Henry S. Commager, Historian, Amherst College; Woodburn O. Ross, Dean of Instruction, Wayne State University; Louis Shores, Dean Emeritus, Florida State University; Sister Helen Sheehan, Librarian, Trinity College; and Harvie Branscomb, Chancellor Emeritus, Vanderbilt University. To obtain reservations and further information on this conference, address inquiries to Mrs. Dorcas Scalet, Library-College Associates, Box 956, Norman, Oklahoma 73069.

Nov. 7-10: The Fourth Annual Colloquium on Oral History will be held at Airlie House near Warrenton, Virginia, according to Dr. Gould P. Colman, of Cornell University, president of the Oral History Association. The George C. Marshall Research Library of Lexington, Virginia, will act as co-host for the Airlie meeting.

Among the featured speakers will be Mrs. Barbara Tuchman, author of The Guns of August; former Ambassador Lucius D. Battle; Saul Benison, of Brandeis University, on the critical evaluation of oral history products; David W. Cohen, The Johns Hopkins University, on field studies of traditional African history; and Nathan Reingold, Editor of the Joseph Henry papers, on a critic’s impressions of oral history. Other topics include legal problems affecting oral history programs, a review of studies on the accuracy of oral interviews, and the use of film supplements to complement oral interviews. There will also be demonstrations and exhibits of the latest in tape recording equipment suitable for the needs of the oral historian. The program has been developed under the chairmanship of Dr. Peter Olch of the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland.

Officers of the Oral History Association for 1969 are: President, Dr. Colman; Vice-President, Dr. Oscar Winther of Indiana University; Secretary, Mrs. Alice M. Hoffman, Pennsylvania State University; Treasurer, Knox Mellon, Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles. Council members are: Dr. Forrest C. Pogue, director of the George C. Marshall Research Library; Mrs. Willa Baum, director of the University of California at Berkeley Oral History project, and Dr. Olch.

Participants at the four-day Airlie meeting will be charged an inclusive fee of $100 to cover administrative costs, meals, and lodging (a double room). A single room is $12 extra. Daily rates will be available proportional to the registration fee. For further information or reservations, write: Royster Lyle, Jr., colloquium coordinator, The George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Virginia 24450.

Nov. 29: “Libraries and Learning” will be the subject of the 55th annual Eastern College Librarians Conference to be held at Columbia University. The conference will explore methods by which students acquire knowledge in academic institutions and how librarians can assist. Speakers will cover current trends in education, new concepts of learning, and the involvement of faculty, librarians, and students as a working consortium. Registration fee $5.00,

Dec.6-11: 1969 Galaxy Conference of Adult Education Organizations, sponsored by the Committee of Adult Education Organizations. Location of the conference will be the Shoreham and Sheraton Park Hotels, Washington, D.C. The conference theme is Learning to Change: A Social Imperative. Its purposes are:

To provide individual members of adult education organizations with greater opportunity for professional growth;

To strengthen the work of all adult education organizations through joint consideration of matters of common concern;

To provide organizations of adult education with a platform from which to speak with one voice on matters of great national concern.

More than 4000 leaders in adult and continuing education organizations will participate. Galaxy Conference is a concurrent meeting of those associations with a major concern for adult and continuing education. Full membership meetings will be held by the following:

Adult Education Association of the USA Adult Student Personnel Association Association of Field Services in Teacher Education

Association of University Evening Colleges Council of National Organizations for Adult Education

National Association of Public School Adult Educators

National University Extension Association United States Association of Evening Students

Divisional, sectional, board and special group meetings will be held by:

American Association of Junior Colleges American Library Association, Adult Services Division

Extension Committee on Organization and Policy of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges

International Congress of University Adult Education

National Education Television

University Council on Education for Public Responsibility.

Observers from national and international agencies will also be on hand.

At least two Galaxy General Sessions will be held on Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon. A reception is also scheduled for early Sunday evening. Participating organizations will develop their own programs for times other than during the General Sessions. The programs will be based on the general theme of the conference. A statement of “Imperatives for Action” will be the basis for a major address by a leading educator to be delivered at one of the General Sessions of the Conference. In turn, these “Imperatives for Action” will serve as a basis for discussions in the separate programs of participating organizations.

Jan.16-18, 1970: The Association of American Library Schools, annual meeting, Graduate Library School, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

Jan.19-21, 1970: A three-day seminar on the evaluation of information retrieval systems is to be presented by Westat Surveys, Inc., in Chicago.

The seminar will cover the following areas: criteria for measuring performance of retrieval systems; factors affecting performance; components and characteristics of indexing languages; design and conduct of an evaluation program; analysis and interpretation of evaluation results; application of results to improve system performance; evaluation of economic efficiency; continuous quality control.

Instructors will be F. W. Lancaster and D. W. King. Mr. Lancaster, who is the author of Information Retrieval Systems: Characteristics, Testing and Evaluation (Wiley, 1968), recently completed a comprehensive evaluation of MEDLARS at the National Library of Medicine. He will be the author of the chapter on evaluation in the 1970 volume of the Annual Review of Information Science and T echnology.

Mr. King, a specialist in statistics and operations research, is the author of the 1968 Annual Review chapter on evaluation and coauthor of the Procedural Guide for the Evaluation of Document Retrieval Systems prepared by Westat for the National Science Foundation.

Tuition for the three-day seminar, including course materials, is $200.00. A limited number of registrants will be accepted for each session. Reservations may be made through Westat Surveys, Inc., 7979 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, Maryland 20014. Telephone: (301) 652-8223.

Jan.26-28, 1970: A three-day seminar on the evaluation of information retrieval systems is to be presented by Westat Surveys, Inc., in San Diego. For details see entry above.

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

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

May8-9, 1970: Fifteenth annual Midwest Academic Librarians Conference at Drake University and Grand View College, Des Moines, Iowa.

June 28-July1, 1970: Annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries, Washington, D.C.

Sept.14-24, 1970: 35th FID Conference, Buenos Aires. The Conference will be organized by the FID National Member in Argentina: Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas, Rivadavia 1917—R. 25, Buenos Aires, Argentina, attn: Mr. R. A. Gietz.

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

MISCELLANY

• The National Federation of Science Abstracting and Indexing Services has announced the availability of a new Publication Program which is of major interest to scientists, technologists, information specialists, and librarians. The program consists of reference tools for anyone interested in following developments in abstracting and indexing services. The Publication Program consists of the Federation Newsletter which is published bi-monthly and carries up-to-date news stories covering national and international developments affecting abstracting and indexing services, many written specially for the Newsletter; and a Technical Reports series which will carry the results of several projects and studies now in progress. In preparation at this time are reports on the state-ofthe-art in abstracting and indexing; description of member services prepared specially for the Federation; current indexing practices and a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of Federation activities. Subscribers to the Publication Program during 1969 will receive all material published from July 1969 to December 1970 at a cost of $25.00. From 1971 on, the Publication Program will be available on a yearly subscription basis. In the ten years since its establishment in 1968 the Federation has developed several projects—notably a directory of the world’s scientific abstracting and indexing services; a review of the machine produced and machine aided indexing operations of members; and a study to develop a national plan for abstracting and indexing services. Annual meetings with published proceedings are held each year. For further information, contact Stella Keenan, Executive Director, NFSAIS, 2102 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103, U.S.A.

PUBLICATIONS

• The American Library Association has announced the publication of American and British Genealogy and Heraldry, by P. William Filby. It is an up-to-date bibliography of the best works on British and American genealogy and heraldry. It covers the United States, Canadian, and British regional and ethnic groups and includes a special section on heraldry.

• The American Center of P.E.N., the international writers’ organization, has just published the first issue of its new magazine, The American Pen, which will appear four times a year. It will be sent free to all members of American P.E.N. and to the headquarters of the eighty other P.E.N. Centers all over the world. The cost to others is $1.25 per copy, or $4.00 for an annual subscription. The contents of the first issue reflect the varied activities of American P.E.N. The chief emphasis is on matters of international concern—writers in prison, censorship, notes on current foreign books, reports on the activities of other Centers, and above all on the vital subject of translation, to which American P.E.N. will be directing special attention. There are also articles of domestic interest, such as a report on P.EN. in the city, a newly inaugurated program of workshops to encourage writing talent and an interest in reading books in the ghetto.

• Jules Lieure’s Catalog and Life History of Jacques Callot—out of print for 40 years—will soon be available from Collectors Editions. Lieure’s definitive work illustrates every etching and catalogs every state of the graphic works of the great sixteenth-century French etcher-engraver, Jacques Callot. The nine-volume set contains a six-volume catalog with more than 500 plates. Equally as comprehensive is a two-volume illustrated life history, which includes a biography of the artist, pertinent documents, articles on Callot’s early dealers and collectors, and a complete critical bibliography. The original edition was published in 1929. Since then, it has been the standard reference on Callot. (Callot’s etchings are, to this day, classified by the “L” or Lieure number.) The new republication of the Lieure Callot, in French, has been reproduced in its original size—121/2" x 91/4". Every catalog plate, including the fold-outs, remains the same size. Re-formated according to the style set by the New York Public Library, each of the three catalog volumes has its own separate plate volume to facilitate reading and reference.

Jacques Callot (1592-1635) is regarded by many as one of the greatest etcher-engravers before the modern period. His grotesque actors and beggars and his vast military views are widely sought by museums and collectors. His works run from biting satire to dry humor with strong elements of pathos.

The Collectors Editions’ Callot will include an accompanying volume of Comments and Annotations. Updating the catalog with documentation compiled since 1929, it will include references to new states, copies, and late pulls of Callot’s work. The Callot is considered indispensable to any museum, library, gallery, or collector interested in early seventeenth-century French art. Jacques Callot will be published on September 1, 1969. (Volume 9, Comments and Annotations, will be in print June 1970.) The price for this monumental buckramand vinyl-bound collection, including Volume 9, will be $450.

• The Arizona State Library Association (ASLA) announced publication of the Intermountain Union List of Serials, edited by Donald W. Johnson and Larry Larason of Arizona State University (ASU) library. The 800-page Part I—Periodicals being published in August 1969 will display the periodical holdings of fifteen southwestern libraries, giving any library instant access to any one of over a million individual issues of the 13,000 titles listed. The eral Electric). Mr. Johnson states that he and his staff have developed a completely automated serials listing system that has no limit in capacity or flexibility and that may prove to be a model system for other regional union lists around the country. The initial volume (Part I —Periodicals) will sell for $30.00 and is available from: Intermountain Union List of Serials, c/o Donald W. Johnson, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281.

entire list takes over two miles of computer tape to store even when highly compressed.

ASLA secured federal Title III funds in June of 1968 and appointed Johnson as director. After many hours of labor, over $50,000 worth of donated computer time, and the assistance of Larason (ASU’s Library Systems Coordinator) and Hal West (Systems Analyst for Gen-

Libraries included in this first edition are: Arizona State Library and Archives, Phoenix, Arizona; Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona; Glendale Community College, Glendale, Arizona; Thunderbird Graduate School of International Management, Glendale, Arizona; Mesa Community College, Mesa, Arizona; Phoenix College, Phoenix, Arizona; Phoenix Public Library, Phoenix, Arizona; Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona; Tucson Public Library, Tucson, Arizona; University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; U.S. Army Proving Grounds Library, Yuma, Arizona; Yuma City County Library, Yuma, Arizona; Arizona Western College, Yuma, Arizona; University of Nevada at Las Vegas; and the University of Nevada at Reno. Other libraries may join at any time and be completely represented in the next edition.

• The International Federation for Documentation, 7 Hofweg, The Hague, Netherlands has announced the publication of the following documents: (1) Report of the Secretary General on the Activities of FID in 1968, FID Publication no. 441, March 1969, 14 pp., free of charge; (2) 1969 FID Publications Catalogue, FID Publication no. 439, January 1969, 36 pp., free of charge; (3) FID 'Yearbook 1969, FID Publication no. 440, March 1969, 88 pp., $1.40 (includes FID Statutes, Rules of Procedure and Regulations for Regional Commissions; lists Administrative Bodies, National and Associate Members, Committees, Working Groups and Joint Committees); (4) UDC Revision and Publication Procedure, FID Publication no. 429, 1968, 53 pp., $2.10.

UDC Revision and Publication Procedureis a trilingual publication (English, French, and German). It is a revision and extension of UDC Revision Procedure (provisional), FID 338, October 1961. It is intended as a working guide for the steadily increasing circle of individuals, national and international committees, and groups engaged in updating and revising the UDC schedules in every field of knowledge. Included is a revised section 2— Classification and Notation Principles, aimed at providing the minimum theoretical basis for practical improvements and extensions to the schedules, while two concluding sections (7— Authorized UDC Editions, and 8—Copyright and Royalties) add essential information about the FID’s international control and conditions of publication to sections 3-6 on practical revision procedure, all of which have been reviewed and brought up to date in this publication. Two new Appendices I and II show respectively the Constitution and membership of the FID Central Classification Committee and the Organization of UDC Revision Committees. This revised publication should now serve as the essential basic guide for all concerned with the development and publication of the UDC schedules.

Also available is On Theoretical Problems of Informatics, FID Publication no. 435, Moscow, 1969, 192 pp., $5.60. This book presents a collection of articles devoted to the theoretical aspects of informatics contributed by authors from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, the United States, the German Democratic Republic, and Great Britain. The articles were assembled by the FID Study Committee on Research on the Theoretical Basis of Information. Topics covered include: Informatics: Its Scope and Methods; The Scope and Aims of the Information Sciences and Technologies; Informatics as a Branch of Science; Knowledge Transfer from Autoconsumption to Mass Production; Some Fundamental Aspects of Classification as a Tool in Informatics; Study of Users’ Information Needs: Subject and Methods; Efficiency of Information Activities: Evaluation Criteria, Methods and Indices Preparation of General and Special Information in Social Sciences by Information Bodies; Librarianship and Documentation/Information: Distinctive Features and Common Aspects; Semantic Aspects of Information Theory; and The Informational Basis of Scientometics.

• The centennial of Little Women, first published on October 3, 1868, is commemorated in an annotated bibliography entitled Louisa May Alcott, issued by the Library of Congress. Designed in part to serve as a catalog of the centennial exhibition of Miss Alcott’s work in the Library’s Rare Book Room, the 91-page publication lists 171 items by and about this famous American author. It may be purchased by mail from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402, or in person at the Library’s Information Counter for 55 cents a copy. Compiled by Judith C. Ullom, formerly of the Children’s Book Section of the Library,

With a preface by Virginia Haviland,head of the section,the bibliography cover chiefly

those Alcott writings designed for children, Other works, however, that had wide popular appeal in their day and came to be considered landmarks in Miss Alcott’s literary development are also included, as well as hio-critical works

the Little Women series, the bibliography gives major attention to editions of the eight books in that series, including entries for translations available in the Library of Congress. Incorporated in the annotations of first editions of the Little Women series are selections from contemporary reviews that demonstrate early recognition of their significance in children’s literature; Henry James, reviewing Eight Cousins for The Nation in 1875, said Miss Alcott “deals with the social questions of the child world, and, like Thackeray and Trollope, she is a satirist.” Numerous illustrations reproduced in the bibliography show how a variety of illustrators have interpreted Louisa May Alcott’s literary creations over the past hundred years. The cover illustration is a reproduction of the famous Jessie Wilcox Smith painting of the four sisters for the Orchard House edition of Little Women, first published by Little, Brown and Company in 1915.

• Library Automation* reports the proceedings of the first Institute on Library Automation, sponsored by American Library Association’s Information Science and Automation Division. In book form, the presentations by library and automation experts at the institute constitute a valuable introduction and guide to automation in the library. Progress in relation to automation is highlighted for such areas as: systems analysis and design, building planning, acquisitions, cataloging, book catalogs, serials, circulation, information retrieval, and automation programs at the Library of Congress. The future of library automation and information networks is also discussed. A bibliography of library automation supplements the text. This unique state-of-the-art review is concerned exclusively with automation in the library. Librarians will use this recapitulation of progress in relation to automation in charting plans for the future. Stephen R. Salmon, the editor, is presently Assistant Director for Processing Services, Library of Congress, formerly Assistant Director of Libraries, Washington University.

• The first computer-produced edition of The New York Times Index has just been published. The 1,720-page 1968 volume is also the biggest in the history of this unique reference work. The new Index, which summarizes virtually all the news published by The Times in 1968, has 20 per cent more pages than the previous largest volume. This reflects in part unprecedented volume of news that filled the pages of The time last year. There are ninety-five pages of entries on the war in Vietnam and ninety-three pages on the U.S. presidential race, the year’s most extensively reported news stories. Considerable space is also devoted to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Arab-Israeli crisis, the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., unrest on the nation’s college campuses, and the U.S. space program. To a large extent, however, the 1968 Index is bigger because it has more detailed abstracts and more cross-references than ever before. This is due to a new computer-assisted process which makes it possible to handle a greater volume of material at far greater speeds. While abstracting and indexing of material continue to be done by information specialists, the mechanical functions of storing, sorting, combining, and collating are handled entirely by computer. Index editors also select the illustrations which since 1965 have made the Index a pictorial reference source as well as a comprehensive news summary, while the computer allocates the necessary space. Among the illustrations in the new volume are photographs of the candidates and highlights of the Presidential campaign and election, a diagram of the Apollo moon rocket and lunar module, charts showing the rising costs of medical care and the population explosion, and a diagram which depicts the MIRV defense system. Not only does the 1968 Index have more pages than previous editions, but each page also provides more information. This is the result of a more condensed yet more legible typeface. There are about 300,000 entries (abstracts and cross-references) arranged under thousands of subject headings. The abstracts, which appear in chronological order, frequently provide all the information needed by a reader. Each is followed by the date, page, and column in which the original story appeared in The Times.

* Library Automation:A State of the Art Review. Papers presented at the Preconference Institute on Library Automation held at San Francisco, California, June 22-24,1967, Stephen R, Salmon, ed, (Chicago:

• A 75-page booklet titled Pharmacy and Pharmacology: MEDLARS Indexing Instructions, by Thelma Charen, has been issued by the National Library of Medicine Index Section. Prepared primarily for MEDLARS indexers and search analysts, the guide may also be of interest to biomedical librarians and others. A limited number of copies are available without charge from the Index Section, National Library of Medicine, 8600 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, Maryland 20014.