124 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 30 



It is suggested that a revolving fund of $75,000 and 1,000 library subscriptions 

 of $50 for 17 volumes will insure the enterprise. Whether or not this is 

 enougli is a detail. If this catalogue or something like it is an indispensable 

 tool for reseai-eh, as many first-class scientists seem to think, then any neces- 

 sary amount should and probably can be had. If the catalogue is not needed, 

 too much money is now being spent on it. Why waste more? 



The Smithsonian raises this question plainly. Why ask the American Gov- 

 ernment to continue to appropriate six or seven thousand dollars a year in the 

 procrastinated hope of a resurrection, if the project is better dead? If it is 

 needed, why procrastinate? 



By putting tlie question tlie Institution has deserved the tlianks of all con- 

 cerned. It is to be hoped that it will not let the matter rest until it has 

 a square answer from all responsible parties. * * * 



♦ * * The question raised liy the Smithsonian is not the question of pre- 

 senting a new project to be justilied, financed and initiated, but whether per- 

 fectly good machinery worth at least $3,000,000 is to be scrapped, in an enter- 

 prise bound to be revived sometime, as Professor Armstrong, of the Royal 

 Society, prophesies and as many scientific bibliographers in many countries 

 are on record as believing. 



It is at this point that the overture of the Smithsonian becomes a matter 

 of practical business concern both in the research trust endowments and to the 

 libraries. The research endowments are bombarded with bibliographical proj- 

 ects of varying method and degrees of merit. They aid or support a 

 good many projects. Tliey are deeply concerned as trust organizations 

 to put their money where it will do the most good. Other things 

 being equal they prefer to put it where one dollar will do the work of four. 

 This seems to be a spot where one million, i)erhaps a quarter of a million, 

 will do the work of four millions. If its usefulness merely averages with 

 these other projects the endowments are likely to feel that its claims come 

 first. It is here they can give the most bibliographical service with the least 

 money. The proposition touches the libraries in a very similar way. If and 

 when the matter is revived it will depend for financing, if not on the endow- 

 ments, then on library subscriptions. If this machine is scrapped, when a new 

 one is started either a $3,000,000 endowment must be had from promoters of 

 research or a quadruple price charged to libraries. 



This leads straight to the crucial question of whether the international cata- 

 logue is in fact a primary, essential or indispensable tool in such sense that 

 it is bound to be revived sometime. It no doubt seems a futile and mortifying 

 matter to those who have been deeply engaged in the problem for 30 year^ 

 that they should have to rejustify and refight a matter which was fought to 

 the finish 30 years ago. But it is fair enough. It is not the only real biblio- 

 graphical need of science. There are at least two other equally well-defined 

 needs — abstracts and handbooks. Without disparaging the usefulness of these 

 two other tools, it must be confessed tliat a good ease is made by those who 

 claim that something like the international catalogue is the essential and only 

 indispensable tool among the three types. 



A dispassionate general bihliogi'apher must recognize that this is a conclu- 

 sion towards which the whole history of bibliographical experience tends. The 

 complete survey, in full title form, of the whole literature of any subject or 

 group of subjects is the only solution of the main need of the student in re- 

 searcli and in the liighcr learning, that is, completeness, and the best solution 

 as to his need for a perspective. ♦ ♦ * 



