576 



SCIENCE. 



[N.S. Vol. XVII. No. 432. 



society libraries we are content with spend- 

 ing money on publications and taking in 

 exchange for them, not what we want, but 

 whatever we happen to get. In conse- 

 quence of this, the editions of society 

 publications are too large, and the libraries 

 which are accumulated are of little prac- 

 tical use. 



These conditions might easily be 

 remedied by a proper cooperation between 

 the societies and institutions of our coun- 

 try. If the total output of scientific mat- 

 ter produced by our smaller mixed so- 

 cieties could be combined and arranged in 

 serials, each covering one of the important 

 branches of science, it would be possible 

 to provide a number of scientific serials, 

 each of which would be of sufficient im- 

 portance to command the attention of sci- 

 entists, and which for this reason would 

 have to be taken by some group of men 

 who subscribe for the special journals, 

 and also by all the larger libraries of our 

 country and abroad. A demand for these 

 publications would, therefore,- at once be 

 created, and the material that is now diffi- 

 cult of access would become available to all. 

 The society funds devoted to publication 

 would be relieved by the increased sub- 

 scriptions, and the publication work would, 

 therefore, become much more nearly self- 

 supporting than it is at the present time. 



At present the mode of bookkeeping 

 of scientific societies is such that the 

 charges for publication and for accessions 

 to the library are not separated. This is 

 due to the fact that the accessions to the 

 library are paid by exchanges. If in the 

 bookkeeping of societies these two items 

 were cleai-ly separated, it would be found 

 that the amount of money invested an- 

 nually in the library is entirely out of 

 keeping with the usefulness of the library, 

 except in the few cases of old societies 

 which own houses and sufficient funds for 

 the proper administration of books. In all 



other eases it would seem more advantage- 

 ous to discontinue the accumulation of 

 books, and leave this branch of work to 

 public libraries. 



The only difficulty in organizing the 

 work of publication in this manner lies in 

 the reluctance of societies to lose any of 

 their individuality and to become closely 

 associated with a larger body; but scien- 

 tific societies and institutions should recog- 

 nize the value of cooperation and the fact 

 that the advance of science will be best 

 promoted, not by selfish endeavor to ag- 

 grandize each society, but by willing asso- 

 ciation with others and by cooperation 

 towards a common goal. 



If the publication work of societies and 

 institutions were organized in this manner, 

 the serials would, to a greater or less ex- 

 tent, be similar in form to the scientific 

 journals described before. On the whole, 

 it may be said that these journals oifer 

 an adequate means for the publication of 

 short papers. It would, therefore, seem 

 appropriate for the mixed societies to de- 

 vote their energies rather to the publica- 

 tion of memoirs that are too extensive for 

 the journals. Such series of memoirs 

 might well be made supplementary volumes 

 of the special journals, and in this way a 

 unification of the whole subject-matter de- 

 voted to a certain branch of science might 

 be brought about. 



There is another field in which coopera- 

 tion might result in much more satisfactory 

 arrangements for the advancement of sci- 

 ence than those we have at the present 

 time. Various journals and society pub- 

 lications print in each number a selection 

 of notes, bibliographies, reviews, etc., which 

 to a considerable extent overlap. The 

 preparation of reviews is more or less left 

 to chance, and the attempts at systematic 

 collection of bibliographies are few. 

 Nevertheless, we all recognize that system- 

 atic reviews and bibliographies are sorely 



