here. One, that of securing in this 

 country at least one copy of all 

 needed items. Various estimates have 

 suggested that existing library hold- 

 ings represent from one-third to one- 

 half of all the books published. In 

 other words, nowhere in this country 

 are there copies of many millions of 

 books, pamphlets, magazines, etc. 

 The second part of the problem is 

 securing enough copies of various 

 titles so that they are strategically 

 available to students and scholars. 

 For some books, perhaps, one copy 

 would be enough, for others, how- 

 ever, there should be copies distrib- 

 uted according to some cooperative 

 plan. 



The participating institutions 

 would then be free to reduce the rest 

 of their collections to what may be 

 called "working libraries." Adequate 

 data are not yet at hand for defining 

 the limits of such working libraries 

 in the various scientific fields, and 

 analyses of the sort recently under- 

 taken by the Association of Research 

 Libraries are urgently needed. Studies 

 made by this group of the use of 

 chemical periodicals suggest that a 

 reasonable working library covering 

 over 90 percent of the ordinary chem- 

 ical laboratory's needs could be main- 

 tained by purchasing less than half 

 of the available periodical literature. 



Interlibrary cooperative plans could 

 take the form of agreements among 

 all libraries whereby each would at- 

 tempt to be inclusive in limited fields. 

 This would involve union catalogues 

 on a regional and national basis and 

 smoothly organized transportation ar- 

 rangements. The Committee recog- 

 nizes that proposals such as this have 

 been frequently under study by 

 librarians and that there are many 

 difficulties to be surmounted. Federal 

 aid for the library system of the coun- 



try might well have as its central 

 object the strengthening of the Li- 

 brary of Congress so that it could 

 foster programs of cooperation. Both 

 the Library of Congress and the 

 Army Medical Library occupy lead- 

 ing positions in their fields. Yet these 

 two Government institutions still 

 have to look to private sources for 

 much of their support, especially for 

 projects involving experimentation 

 with new methods. Two foundations 

 alone have contributed over half a 

 million dollars to the Library of Con- 

 gress in the past few years. 



Before leaving the subject of li- 

 braries it may be well to draw atten- 

 tion to an acute though temporary 

 problem brought on by the war. Few, 

 if any, European scientific publica- 

 tions for the last 5 years have been 

 reaching this country in adequate 

 volume. Many important periodicals 

 published are not represented at all 

 and others are available in only a 

 few libraries and in broken sets. The 

 end of the war will not bring about 

 a solution to the problem since much 

 of this material was published in re- 

 duced editions because of wartime 

 restrictions on paper and printing. 

 Furthermore, much existing material 

 has been destroyed by enemy action. 

 If American libraries are not to show 

 serious gaps in their collections of 

 important foreign periodical litera- 

 ture, it will be necessary to provide 

 funds for reproducing much of this 

 material. The funds necessary for 

 such a project are entirely beyond 

 private resources, and it is proposed, 

 therefore, that the Government un- 

 dertake to fill this need. 



B. Abstracting and Translating 

 Services 



One of the most useful tools 

 whereby the scientist is enabled to 



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