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SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1443 



rarer with the high cost of living and the de- 

 creasing amount of shelf space in modern 

 houses and apartments. The necessity of 

 quick action can not he stressed unduly in view 

 of the present circumstances. It is not a ques- 

 tion any longer of waiting for a favorable op- 

 portunity. Rather are we faced with the ne- 

 cessity of getting what we need whenever the 

 chance comes up. The competition from the 

 newer countries and the newer libraries is 

 keener every year. Thirty years ago there was 

 no large scientific library west of us — not one. 

 Now we may mention the Universities of Chi- 

 cago, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, 

 Nebraska, California, Leland Stanford, Wash- 

 ington, and the John Crerar Library, without 

 even exhausting the list of institutions of the 

 first rank — for special libraries in a small field 

 are equally dangerous competitors for the val- 

 uable books and sets in their own line. In 

 those same thirty years South America, South 

 Africa, Japan, Australia, and Canada have 

 come into the field eager to provide their scien- 

 tists with the record of science. McGill Uni- 

 versity bought just before me last fall very 

 many sets of journals long on our list of 

 desiderata. I found Japanese buyers had been 

 everywhere with the government purse to draw 

 on. The fact is that we must both hasten our 

 own purchases and combine with our neighbors 

 if American learning is to be kept on an 

 equality with that of Europe. 



The need of cooperation and of a policy 

 looking to the elimination of certain forms of 

 competition is brought home to me more 

 keenly each year. We should be able, it would 

 seem, to agree on certain fields which we can 

 cultivate intensively, securing everything of 

 moment in them, as far as we can raise the 

 funds. Certain general works, general society 

 transactions, journals of a wide appeal we 

 must all have. But must we — to take a con- 

 crete case — all try to buy the publications of 

 the smaller and less important societies? May 

 not half a dozen sets spread over the country 

 suffice with the development of the inter- 

 library loan and of photo-duplicating ma- 

 chines? Can we not agree with Chicago, 

 Urbana, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsbui-gh, and 

 Ithaca on a limit in purchasing such local 

 society publications? Thus we might all save 



money, keep down prices, gain in the total 

 number of sets available, and lend freely be- 

 tween ourselves. This matter seems to me 

 highly important — even vital to our success. 

 It has been much discussed among librarians. 

 There would be small difficulty in arriving at 

 a policy, if it were a matter to be decided by 

 librarians alone. But it concerns far more 

 deeply the faculties of the various universities 

 and their governing boards. We librarians 

 can not, for example, get together and agree on 

 a limitation of our several fields of specializa- 

 tion. We must first gain adherents to a policy 

 of limitation, then form an agreement through 

 some joint committee of professors, and finally 

 secure the consent of boards of regents and 

 trustees. The facts are most clear and patent. 

 We simply can not all have everything. There 

 isn't enough to go 'round, nor money enough 

 to buy everything. What we must do, then, 

 in common sense is to stop trying to get every- 

 thing in each library, and go for the things 

 we can reasonably expect to secure in co- 

 operation with our neighbors. If any one 

 doubts the success of this plan, I refer him to 

 the results of the agreement between the Chi- 

 cago libraries made in 1895 and carried out 

 since to the lasting benefit of scholarship. 

 There is every reason why we should enter into 

 a similar pact with neighboring libraries. 



For what is our position now? We have no 

 near neighbors among universities. We stand 

 half-way between Cornell and Buffalo on the 

 east and Chicago and Northwestern on the 

 west. Western Reserve, Ohio State and Ober- 

 lin to the south are in a manner comparable 

 with our collections — but as yet hardly formid- 

 able rivals. There is practically nothing north 

 of us — (Remember that I am speaking now of 

 libraries whose chief interest is the furthering 

 of scholarship). We have Uvo large public 

 libraries fairly near — Detroit and Cleveland, 

 both owning certain valuable special collec- 

 tions, and both likely to specialize in tech- 

 nology and in the applied sciences. There are 

 a few specialized libraries of distinction, such 

 as that of the Western Reserve Historical 

 Society at Cleveland, which owns what is prob- 

 ably the best collection on our Civil War in 

 existence. We may safely say, then, that we 

 have fewer neighbors on whose aid we may 

 relv than have the eastern universities or those 



