College and Research Libraries


dealing with professional education in 19 
fields. Each field is discussed by; a national 
officer, and 1515 accredited professional and 
technical schools are listed. Education for 
librarianship is reviewed by Anita M. Hostet-
ter. 

Attention should also be called to the first 
three chapters of the volume. Chapter I, by 
M. M. Chambers, is concerned with the over-
all problem of "Education in the United 
States," and considers such matters as federal 
policy toward education, the Office of Educa-
tion, types of organizations and programs, 
philanthropic foundations and their relations 
to education, and associations of colleges and 
universities. John Dale Russell is the author 
of the second chapter, "The American Col-
lege." In the section on the library, Dr. 
Russell uses figures of the Office of Education 
for 1939-40. · These were the most recent 
available. As a result, the statements con-
. cerning the total book holdings and expendi-
tures of college libraries are undoubtedly far 
below present figures. Other topics discussed 
by Dr. Russell are interlibrary loans and 
microphotography. In his comments on book 
collecting, he observes: 

[Some libraries] are attempting to divide the 
responsibility for large-scale collecting within 
fields of common interest. Such a development, 
however, awaits a corresponding division of 
responsibility in the field of graduate instruc-
tion, and cannot proceed without it. 

This is an admonition that librarians need to 
bear in mind in organizing cooperative acquisi-
tions programs. 

The third chapter, "The "American Uni-
versity," by Donald H . . Daugherty, includes 
much useful material for the university li-
brarian. There is no attempt, however, to 
discuss the university library (reference is 
made to the comments of Dr. Russell). 
Tabular summaries of doctorates. by institu-

tion and subject and by institution and year 
( 1939-40 through 1945-46) bring up to date 
similar material found in the fourth edition 
of the volume. 

Growth in the development of junior col-
leges is also exhibited in American 1 unior Cal-
leges, by Jesse P. Bogue, who is executive 
secretary of the American• Association of 
Junior Colleges. The first edition of this 
work, issued in 1940, considered 494 ac-
credited junior colleges. The 1948 edition in-
cludes material about 564 accredited institu-
tions. 

Part I of this volume contains discussions of 
types of junior colleges, development of the 
junior college movement, present status and 
trends of the junior college movement, and 
accreditation of junior colleges. Accredita-
tion standards and practices, including both 
regional and state . accrediting agencies, are 
also provided . 

The information given regarding the library 
under each institution differs somewhat from 
that provided in American Universities· and 
Colleges. Data concerning type of library 
space (separate building or otherwise), seat-
ing capacity, and number of full-time and 
part-time library staff are provided in addi-
tion to facts about collections, periodicals, 
budget, and volumes added 1946-47. 

In both of these volumes, the librarian 
has sources of data regarding America's 
higher academic institutions which he can get 
at conveniently and easily. The discussions, 
the institutional exhibits, the standards,· the 
classified lists of schools in the appendices 
of both volumes, the tabular presentation of 
curricula offered by junior colleges-these 
features, among others, render these volumes 
edited by Brumbaugh and Bogue exceptionally 
valuable reference guides for college and re-
search libraries.-Maurice F. Tauber, Co-
lumbia University. 

Book Collecting 
Taste and Technique in Book-Collecting,· a 

Study of Recent D4;elopments in Great 
Britain and the United States. By John 
Carter. New York, Bowker, 1948, xxiii, 
203p. $5.00. 

If you relish good writing about books 
you will hasten to read this one, for it is 

written with sense, grace and knowledge. 
It avoids the defects of many books about 
books of being condescendingly elementary or 
sentimentally overwritten. It is neither glibly 
technical nor chummily anecdotal, and might 
be called a sophisticated big brother to Storm 
and Peckham's Invitation to Book Collecting. 

186 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



John Carter bases his book on the lectures 
which he gave in 1947 as Sandars Reader in 
Bibliography · at Cambridge University. 
Founded in 1895, this annual series has been 
given by such bibliographical "greats" as 
Duff, Madan, Greg, Pollard, McKerrow, 
Morison, Keynes and Sadleir. Carter is the 
first member of the rare book trade to be 
appointed, and it is as a dealer that he ap-
proaches his assignment. "Book-Collecting 
means Book-Selling" is the simple truth from 
which he proceeds to examine the evolution 
of Anglo-American book collecting since its 
burgeoning in the late I 7th century. 

It is not unnatural that Cambridge-gradu-
ate Carter, who is managing director of 
Charles Scribners' Sons Ltd., London, coun-
cilor of the Bibliographical Society, and au-
thor of numerous bibliographical writings, 
should deliver lectures documented but not 
dull. They are typically English in their 
laconic style, which is not surprising when 
we recall the noncommittal title given by 
Carter and Pollard to their shattering An 
Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nine-
teenth Century Pamphlets. They are un-
typically English in that they do not sneer 
at American collectors; in fact, Carter is 
more critical of English indifference than of 
American aggressiveness. 

The lectures first examine the history of 
English book collecting, from the desire for 
incunabula, fine bindings, and illuminations, 
to the rise of author-bibliographies, emphasis 

on original condition and exploitation of the 
moderns. The great sales are analyzed, be-
ginning with Britwell, Ruth and Hoe, pro-
ceeding to Forman, Wakeman and Quinn, 
and culminating in the sale-to-end-sales, the 
opulent Kern. 

Rhythms and cycles in reading and collect-
ing are correlated, book collectors' clubs and 
societies are appraised, the role of British 
and American university libraries in rare 
book collecting is compared and criticized, 
all with an easy handling of sources not to be 
learned in graduate school. 

Carter's closing chapters on "Rarity" and 
"Condition" are pure gold. I wish that the 
Antiquarian Booksellers Association would 
make them required reading for members, 
for it is true that buyers of rare books find 
a disconcerting lack of standards in the term-
inology and descriptions used by dealers. 

Carter is critical of what he calls "herd 
collecting" and contemptuous of the slavish 
school of "list collectors" a la Newton, Merle 
Johnson, the Grolier "Hundred" and the 
Zamorano "Eighty." He pleads for per-
sonal taste and conviction as surer guides 
than fashion. 

"For a man's handling of a book," Carter 
writes "is as instantly revealing to the ex-
perienced eye as his grasp on the reins of a 
horse." The English book trade may well be 
proud of spokesman John Carter.-Lawrence 
Clark Powell_, Library, University of Cali-
fornia at Los· Angeles. 

No Dissection Needed 
The Microcard Foundation has called to my attention an error of fact in my article, "An 

Inexpensive Microprint Reader" in the January issue of C.&R.L. In the discussion of the 
relative merits of microcards and the Goebel method of microreproduction, I stated that, with 
the methods employed at the present time, the production of microcards requires the dissection 
of two copies of the publication to be processed, and that therefore it is necessarily limited to 
pamphlets and other expendable materials. The Microcard Foundation points out that the • 
method of dissecting two copies for microcard production, as originally proposed by Fremont 
Rider, was discarded by the manufacturers almost as soon as actual microcarding was begun, 
and that all microcarding has been done from bound volumes, with the photographic process 
·identical with that employed in microfilming, without dissection of, or damage to, the bound 
volumes. 

Inasmuch as I encountered widespread misapprehension concerning this aspect of microcard 
production, the statement of the Microcard Foundation is to be welcomed.-Werner B. 
Ellinger. 

APRIL_, 1949 187