College and Research Libraries . Report on Europel T IME LIMITATIONS on the discussion of a complex subject are always annoying, but they have at least the virtue of compell- ing one to select, to present what is most important, and to leave subsidiary matters for another occasion. All I can do here, therefore, is to make a few generalizations, urge a few of my own convictions, reveal my prejudices, without being able to fill in either the detailed factual background or the often tortuous processes of inference that give depth and credibility. Stripped down to essentials, what this audience desires to hear from me is some answer to the following questions : ( I ) What are conditions in Europe in general, especially insofar as the problems of book- men are concerned? ( 2) What can we do to get books from Europe with satisfactory coverage and regularity? ( 3) What can we do to help Europe with its library and cultural problems? In treating these ques- tions it is necessary to break down Europe geographically a bit. First of all, we lop off the Scandinavian countries and Switzer- land. We dispose of the Scandinavian coun- tries because I do not know much about them and am not going to try to tell you anything about them. From all reports they are in reasonably good condition and present us with no real problems. Next we eliminate Switzerland. Here is a coun- try which came through the war relatively untouched. It always had a good book trade and an admirable library system, both of which it still has today. Many of you 1 Paper presented at the Conference of Eastern College Librarians, Columbia University, Nov. 30, 1946. APRIL, 1947 . By REUBEN PEISS had the opportunity to meet Dr. Pierre Bourgeois, the new Swiss national librarian, in the spring and to form your own opinion as to how good Swiss libraries and libn~rians are. Switzerland again presents no prob- lem. Finally we put off discussion of those countries east of Germany ·and Austria, chiefly because I must plead ignorance. Cer- tain straws in t~e wind may, however, be noted. · Normal commercial- relations can again be resumed with Czechoslovakia. The Library of Congress is getting books from Poland and Hungary. Regular and comprehensive acquisition of Russian books is, as we all know, one of the urgent needs of American research libraries. There are indications that these needs will be met. We are thus reduced to the Iberian pen- insula, Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Austria. Of these countries I personally know most about Spain, Portu- gal, France, and Germany. I have visited Austria on a tour of inspection and carefully supervised from Germany the operations of our able representatives in Austria over a period of some six months. Similarly I have directed the wartime , acquisitions program for the Low Countries up to the point where it could revert to normal commercial pro- cedures. While I have not had a chance to see Italy, I have discussed the situation on numerous occasions with Manuel San- chez, who has been there with a vengeance! All these countries suffer from certain handicaps and deficiencies, characteristic most of the defeated Axis countries and least of the Iberian nations, which remained neu- _ tral during the war. The chief of these is 113 material depletion. Whether it has been due to the ravages of war or to disruption of commerce or to mismanagement of the nation's economy, all these countries lack materials of many kinds. The situation is desperate when food or coal is concerned. In our own special realm, however, we are time and again faced with inability to get books moving because agents lack such sim- ple items as string, wrapping paper, o~ nails. I am told that even in the United States, whicq is looked up to with awe by Euro- peans because of the wealth of its natural resources, scarcity of nails is now seriously impeding the. building of new houses. In Europe during the war, steel and iron were being used for bullets and cannon. In Europe after the war, steel and iron are being used for industrial reconstruction-and the pro- duction of steel is severely reduced by lack of coal. The great coal-producing regions of western Europe are not meeting the produc- tion levels that might be expected partly be- cause the miners do not have a diet suffi- ciently high in calories. No food, little coal; little coal, little steel; little steel, other metal substitutes; other metal substitutes, no nails; no nails, no cases of books exported ; no cases of books exported, no dollars to import food. There, roughly traced, is - the circle, and it is indeed vicious. Economic Factors The food deficiency in Europe is general and serious, not only in occupied countries but also in liberated a:nd former neutral countries. One hears impressive stories of recovery in the Low Countries (which have done remarkably well) and in France. Luxurious living is possible in Brussels, Paris, the Riviera, Madrid, Lisbon, but the economic inferences drawn from this seem to me largely erroneous. The plain fact is that the common people pf Europe are very badly off. The manager or owner of a bookstore in a large European capital may be able to take visitors to a sumptuous luncheon but his workers are not eating well enough to keep heal thy and energetic. In the last analysis, it is these workers who carry through the intricate, trying operations which culminate in our receipt of foreign publications. Another econ·omic fact which enters into the picture is the simple lack of manpower. Bookdealers cannot get help. Most of the countries we have in mind have suffered serious depleti.on of manpower: France is a notorious example. Economic competition for available labor makes it difficult for bookdealers to get any employees, let alone those who have the requisite special skills. All through the war, strict controls were clamped on trade. In 1944 a European bookdealer told me he had stopped shipping to an American university because he had to fill out eighteen government forms before he could get a shipment off! While this particular story turned out to be somewhat exaggerated, trade was really badly hamp- ered. In the eighteen months which have elapsed since the atomic bomb was dropped, all too few of the controls have been lifted. Even the Library of Congress, which is a government agency, has been held up for months in several European countries before purchases could be paid for. Today the Trading with the Enemy Act still rears its ugly head even when proposals are made to ship publications on academic exchange to former enemy countries. Also it is very hard to find anybody in Washington who will give a clear-cut ruling on such a propo- sal. Nevertheless, progress has been made in easing trade with Europe, particularly exports from Europe. All European gov- ernments are eager for dollar credits. This has enabled us to buy European books, since the dollar value is usually deposited to the credit of the exporting nation and the dealer 114 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES is paid by his government in the currency of the realm. Belgium, Holland, France, and recently Austria have consequently re- turned to more or less normal trading prac- tices. It is now possible for individual American libraries to place orders with deal- ers of their own choice in those countries and no longer to depend upon the mass pur- chasing operations until recently conducted by the Library of Congress Mission. N a- tiona! bibliographies are published in all these countries and can be obtained through the mail. The Library of Congress gave up co- operative buying in Belgium, Holland, and France earlier this year and h.as given it up in Austria as of November I. The An- zeiger fur den Buch-~ Kunst- und M usikal- ienhiindel provides excellent information about the Austrian book trade; the Oester- reichische Bibliographie furnishes a medium of selection .; payment can be made, by ar- rangements already established between the Korporation der Wiener Buch-, Kunst- und . M usikalienhandler (acting for the trade) and the Austrian National Bank in New York; anl shipment can be made by the dealers. Library of Congress Mission I wish to say as little as possible about the Library of Congress Mission here. A final report is in ·preparation, the substance of which will, I hope, be published. Yet it i~ i!llpossible to report on Europe without sketching at least the outline of the mission's work, the promise of its achievemen~s in Germany, and the prospect for American libraries to acquire German publications in the near future. It may be revealing to tell you something about the physical conditions under which we worked. The mission· was attached ad- ministratively to G-2, U.S.F.E.T., but it worked closely with military government, and several of its outposts were tied in ad- APRIL~ 1947 I ' ministratively with local military govern- ment units. Billeting, messing, and trans- portation were provided by the Army. In Frankfurt we lived in comfortable houses or apartments formerly occupied by the officials or employees of the central I.G. Farben offices, and we ate at the I.G. Far- ben Kasin~ Mess, a very attractive building. We c'overed vast distances chasing publica- tions, sometimes in trains (the degree of whose comfort ran the entire gamut), some- times in sedans, most often in jeeps, and oc- casionally in trucks. The main office of the mission was in a sprawling I.G. Farben plant seven miles from the center of Frank- furt. Here we had a large warehouse and a railway siding, so that materials ~ould come in, be crated or recrated, and be dis- patched to a port. In Berlin the missign occupied three floors of the tower of the Telefunken Building, thus enabling it physi- cally and spiritually to look over the situa- tion in . Berlin. At the height of its opera- tion this outpost had three warehouses, one with a railway siding. The energy and re- sourcefulness of Dr .. Zuckerman, in charge of the Berlin unit, were such -that he could probably have taken over a whole railroad station if he had decided he needed it. In Munich Mr. Stuurman had two offices, one in the city proper in the Postbau, and the other in the Third Army Documents Cen- ter at Freising, a few miles out. In Stutt- gart Mr. Allen had office space with mili- tary government and was sumptuously housed and fed in the magnificent villas which crown the hills ringing the city. Our Vienna offices were with G-2, which ;was most hospitable, and Mr. Birnbaum man .. aged to find as his billet an apartment where he could live in what the rest of us con- sidered to be the Sybaritic luxury of an Oriental potentate. Mr. Glennen was at- tached to the American liaison mission at Baden-Baden and lived in a nice little house 115 I on one of the many small rises of that pleas- ant and undamaged resort. Mr. Fleming's office was in the American Consulate in · Hamburg and his food and housing were taken care of by the British authorities wit~ their customary courtesy. That, very brief- ly, is how we lived. Now, what did we get done? Work Accomplished First of all, the Leipzig-stored materials. The first shipment ought to have left the New York Port of Embarkation by now and to be in your hands any day. The second shi.pment, representing the remajning 6o per cent of the stored stocks, will be delivered to the Library of Congress Mission in Ber- lin before the end of the year, providing l'braries have signified willingness to accept the materials and have' made payment. Re- ceipt of these materials will fill in the most important wartime German periodical gaps in American libraries. The Library of Con- . gress is gratified .to have had a hand in effect- ing delivery of these materials. Great credit is due · to the German dealers and to the War Department for their foresight, and to the Soviet Military Administration for its understanding a~d cooperation. The number of volumes shipped from Germany and Austri~ by the Library of Congress Mission now exceeds one million . . Of these many were turned over by the War Department and may have to be spe- cially processed to satisfy the requirements of the department. Many others form spe- cial collections which must not be broken up,, and hence cannot be thrown into the • stockpile for distribution. Purchases from Germany and Austria will amount to be- tween two and three hundred thousand dol- lars. You know much better than I what kind df material has shown up in the dis- tribution, but I may say that t_he best is yet to come. We in the field have had time to \ do practically no bibliographical work. A recent spot check of N euerscheinu.ngen der wichtigen wissenschaftlichen Literatur~ 1939-45; Teil I, compiled at Bonn U ni- versity and covering medicine and the nat- ural sciences, showed that over 50 per cent of the titles were in the list of German im- prints published by the Library of Congress or had been acquired by the mission. The check is · unscientific and weighted in our disfavor. It tells nothing about how many duplicates of the titles will be distributed, but there are solid grounds for optimism. Aside from wartime imprints, the Library of Congress .will have at its disposal large numbers of publications · produced between the wars which have not been collected by American libraries and which are now show- ing up on their want lists. It is my personal opinion that the value of this type of acqui- sition can hardly be exaggerated, since it is essential to historical research and will be next to impossible to obtain on the anti- quarian market. Current Sertal Publications Another important category is represented by the serials produced in Germany and Austria after the end of hostilities. Allow- ing for inevitable gaps (which show up even in sets collected under normal conditions) the mission has acquired very . nearly a com- .. plete collection of these serials, usually in twenty-five copies. Distribution is no,w being made. It is essential that cooperating libraries inspect what is being distributed so that judgment may be made as to what to continue to collect in 1947 on a more selec- tive basis. The mission has published A Check-List of Curre.nt Serials in the United States Zone of Germany and the Library of Congress has distributed it. We hope short- ly to make available lists of serial publica- tions in the other zones. In effect, the work of the Library of Con- 116 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES gress. Mission in Germany is done. The staff of the mission has been reduced and by the end of the fiscal year will probably con- sist of one man. Now, effective termination of the mission poses the problem ·of how other American libraries may acquire Ger- man publications. The problem has been carefully thought out, and the mission has sent a 'proposal to military government which has been approved. The main points of the proposal are as follows : r. The Library of Congress Mission will cease its mass purchasing on behalf of other libraries and will confine itself to purchasing for the collections of the Library of Congress. Military government will encourage the en- trance into the American zone of American bookdealers satisfactory to the Department of Commerce. The Library of Congress heartily approves in principle the application .of Ameri- can bookdealers to do business in Germany. 2. The Library of Congress will continue to advise the Army on the disposition of captured documents and the Army will not recognize clai.ms from other institutions. 3. Publications of the American Military Government will be sent direct to the Library of Congress and will there be processed for distribution under the supervision of the docu- ment~ expediter. 4· If American libraries desire systematic collection of the publications of allied military governments and of German government agencies, they should appoint a foreign docu- ments expediter, who could be attached to the Library of Congress Mission for adminis- trative purposes but whose salary would be paid by, and whose work would be performed for, a group of cooperating libraries. 5. The Library of Congress Mission, within manpower limits, will continue to act in an advisory and supervisory capaCity in the ex- ecution within the American Zone of Control, of Council Order No. 4 directing confiscation of Nazi and militarist books. The mission will have access to duplicates for the use of all American libraries. 6. Exchange of academic publications will be facilitated by military government accept- ance of the offer of the former Preussische Staatsbibliothek, now the Cffentliche Wissen- APRIL~ 1947 schaftliche Bibliothek, to act as a central agency for German institutions. This sets up a German counterpart to the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian Institution has agreed to undertake an experimental ship- ment, and as soon as it is satisfied that the machinery works, will notify libraries that they may forward exchange materials which they have been holding. Concentrate on Current Orders Several of these points require a bit of elaboration. There is no reason why Amer- ican bookdealers should not be in Germany by January 1. If necessary, pressure should be brought to bear in Washington. I should advise libraries to concentrate first on their current orders, especially serials. Want lists can come as soon as decision is made whether or not to gamble upon the cooperative ac- quisitions project. German book stocks are low. Felix Reichmann and I have made independent es'timates of the destruction, and we agree upon 7 5 per cent. N everthe- less, there are still some wartime imprints in Germany which the mission has been un- able to purchase. People are reluctant to sell real property for a currency whose fu- ture seems unpredictable and who~e present purchasing power is negligible because of the lack of consumer goods. A not uncom- mon experience is to try to buy a book for cash in a bookstore and to be turned down. What is wanted is an exchange of two books for the one which is released. Many dealers haye delayed sales to the mission because they have. reached the point of diminishing returns in the face of high income taxes. Others are just beginning to get their stocks back or their warehouses into shape. The mission is acutely aware that it lacks ade- quate representation of the stocks of several of the best-known publishers, among whom the chief are Steinkopf, Fischer, Springer, Niemeyer, and De Gruyter. The reverse side of the picture is that many of the best 117 publishers, such as Hirzel, the Boerser.ver- ein, and the Akademische Verlagsgesell- schaft, have suffered staggering (sometimes total) losses. In Leipzig, German printing has not made much progress during the past year. Many of the presses have been busy printing books commissioned by the Russian autho~ities. From a recent visit to that city, however, I have the -impression that the coming year will see a marked increase in the production of those titles which Leip- zig publishers have been holding in readi- ness, and especially the birth or rebirth of important scientific journals. Many American libraries are anxious to resume direct relations with their former Leipzig dealers, and there is certainly noth- ing which the Leipzig dealers would greet with greater joy. I wish I could tell you a practicable method of accomplishing this. Unfortunately it still depend~ upon demoli- tion of zonal barriers, revision of postal reg- ulations, repeal of the Trading with the Enemy Act, and establishment of a currency exchange rate. When American dealers go to _ the American zone of Germany, it may be possible to arrange through them for provisory resumption of contacts pending normalization of the entire situation. Return of German Bibliography German bibliography is resuming slowly but promisingly. The Deutsche ·Biicherei is once more editing the Deutsche National- bibliographie. Comprehensive coverage de- pends upon renewal of the agreement by German publishers to send deposit copies to the Deutsche Biicherei. There are some disturbing signs of s~paratism to be noted among German ~ookmen, but the mere ex- istence of the Deutsche N ationalbibliogra- phieJ with the manifest advantages to the p1.1blishers of having his work listed there;, will probably overcome them. It still re- mains true, howev~r, that a unified bibliog- raphy, like so many other things in Ger- many, depen~s for its final success upon poli- tical and economic unification. There is the point at which politics and scholarship cross. It will be worth while to enumerate the imp_ortant current publications in Germany and Austria which have bibliographical utility: Anzeiger fur den BuchJ Kunst- und M usikalienhandel. Vienna. r, August 1945- Weekly Osterreichische Bibliographie. Vienna. I, March 1946- Quarterly Boersenblatt fur den deutschen Buchhandel. Frankfurt a.M. r, Oct. 6, 1945- Semimonthly Boersenblatt fur den deutschen Buch- handel. Leipzig. r, August 1946- Semimonthly (?) Mitteilungen des Arbeitsauschusses fur den bayrischen Buchhandel. Munich. r, Nov. I, 1945- Irregular Mitteilungen fur d e.n Buchhandel in der franzoesischen Zone. Baden-Baden. r, March 1946- Monthly. The Check-List of Current Serials in the United States Zone of Germany is more comprehensive than anything else in its field. In addition there are Das A ntiquariatJ an Austrian journal, and one or two other jour- nals of the booktrade or the graphic arts. The information control commands of the American, British, and French military gov- ernments also publish regular lists of cur- rent publications licensed by them. The mission, acting for A.L.A., has kept in close contact with Dr. Eppelsheimer of the Frankfurt Library, who is editing a "German McCombs list" which ought to be ready within a few months. Similarly it has forwarded reports on German library and bibliographical activities, some of which have already been printed and others of which will appear in the future. Russian Cooperation In the cultural field the Russian authori- 118 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES ties have shown great enlightenment and hav~ taken progressive steps to restor'e Ger- man art, music, and scholarship. They have not only taken these steps to aid institutions in their own zone but they have extended a hand to other zones, most notably in ap- proving a recent statute for the Offentliche Wissenschaftliche Bibliothek in Berlin which authorizes · it to ""act as a central ex- change ·agency for all Germany. Resumption of the exchange of academic publications is ardently desired by American and German libraries. I have already sketched the prospect, which I think is defi- nitely hopeful. Some exchange materials .have been forwarded to this country by the ' • mission-notably from the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin, the Senckenber- gisches Museum in Frankfurt, and the Uni- versities of Heidelberg, Freiburg, and Tii- bingen. When American publications reach Germany, they will give a great impetus to education and intellectual life in general. The economic situation in Germany is today so precarious, and it is so necessary that the money we put into the· economy go for food, that there is little likelihood of Germans being able to purchase Americ'an books for some time to come. Exchang~s and gifts are therefore the only possibilities. Council Order Number 4 I wish to say· a few words here about the now notorious Control Council Order Number 4· This order raised a storm of protest in America because it was hastily drawn up and perhaps phrased without suf- ficient care, because it got a sensational press, APRIL~ 1947 and because wild inferences were drawn from these press reports, sometimes by peo- ple who ought to have known better. An amendment to the order was later issued, specifically setting aside collections for the use of Germans under proper controls, but . none of the four powers ever proposed to burn books or to wipe their existence from the face of Germany. In all four zones some universities retained their Nazi col- lections, under lock, of course, with the ex- press or tac;:it consent of the occupying pow- ers. In all four zones central collections of ~ azi literature were created. The best single collection is probably at the Deutsche Biicherei; it forms the basis of the Liste der auszuso.ndernden Literatur published by the Central Administration for the Russian zone. In the American zone the Library of Congress Mission has supervision of a military government project to collect a central Nazi library, catalog it, and to pre:- serve I 50 copies of each title, if possible, for distribution to accredited agencies, to Amer- ican libraries, and to other nations. All in all, considering the holocaust, the picture in Germany is much better than could have been expected after a total war. Constant effort, tireless energy, unflagging alertness, unfailing goodwill-these are needed to insure continuing nourishment of ·our own research centers and effective re- habilitation of German culture in the gen- eral inte:t:ests of world peace. Constant ef- fort, tireless energy, unflagging alertness, unfailing goodwill-was there ever a period of history when these would not have helped to create a better world? 119