College and Research Libraries


information on its subject. In addition, the 
final paper by Dr. E. H. E. Pietsch on the 
proposed Gmelin Information Center con-
tains dramatic evidence of the growth of 
research and publication in the sciences. In its 
presentation of the total problem of biblio-
graphic control, this article is of definite inter-
est-and, perhaps, the most valuable one in 
Punched Cards.-Ralph Blasingame, Jr., 
Columbia University, School of Library 
Service. 

Early State Records 
A Guide to the Microfilm Collection of Early 

State Records. Supplement, prepared by 
the Library of Congress in association with 
the University of North Carolina. Col-
lected, compiled and edited by William 
Sumner Jenkins. ·washington, D.C. 
Photoduplication Service, Library of Con-
gress, 1951. 161p. (Offset Reproduction, 
$3.00) 
In the fall of 1950 the 8oo-page Guide was 

issued, the monumental significance of which 
has been noted in reviews at home and abroad. ' 
The Supplement released in January, 1952, 
extends the scope of the earlier publication by 
listing 170 reels of additional microfilm ma-
terials. The Guide lists 1,700 reels of film 
concerning six subject classes: legislative rec-
ords, executive records, statutory law, con-
stitutional records, administrative records, 
and court records. Within each class the ma-
terial is arranged by states and chronologically 
within the . state. The Supplement utilizes 
the same arrangement in the presentation of 
five additional classes: ( L) local records-
county and city, (M) records of American-
Indian Nations, ( N) newspapers, ( R) rudi-
mentary states and courts, and (X) Miscel-
lany. 

The two volumes represent one of the most 
comprehensive and worthwhile microfilming 
projects ever undertaken in the United States. 
The volumes provide a complete list of the 
historical state records that have been micro-
filmed during the past decade by a project 
sponsored jointly by the Library of Congress 
and the University of North Carolina. 

History, government, and sociology students 
will find their range of possible research 
greatly extended by each of the five new 
classes covered in the Supplement. 

In the section, Local Government Records, 

only seven local units are covered. However, 
two of these, the New Orleans Cabildo rec-
ords and the Texas Nacogdoches Archives, 
are most rewarding and suggest the feasibility 
of a more comprehensive collection of such 
local records. The very roots of our demo-
cratic development are to be found in the 
deliberations of local bodies in the late 18th 
and early 19th centuries. 

Nothing is more exasperating to the scholar 
than to find his source material scattered in 
a multitude of libraries over the whole coun-
try. The future student of Indian affairs 
will be most grateful for the section of the 
Supplement covering the Records of American-
Indian Nations. The resources at the Okla-
homa Historical Society and the resources of 
many secondary repositories are now con-
veniently brought together on the · film. 

The preservation and storage of newspapers 
is one of the prime problems of librarians 
today, yet we know that the student wishing 
to use official records of many early govern-
mental bodies must rely on the newspaper for 
the only extant printing of those records. In 
the fifty-odd reels covered by the section on 
newspapers in' the Supplement an attempt 
was made to arrange in chronological files the 
official gazette in each of the colonies and the 
first newspaper in each of the territories. 
Extracting the official documents in each of 
the paper:s resulted in copying about half of 
the pertinent newspapers . 
. The student interested in frontier govern-

ments will find great help in that section of 
the Supplement dealing with Rudimentary 
States and Courts. In this class are collected 
the records of those bodies which possessed 
at some time the rudiments of organized 
government. These governments were some-
times abortive, provisional, revolutionary, 
rival, usually extra-legal, and always transi-
tory. On the frontier local needs gave rise to 
provisional courts for the administration of 
civil and criminal justice. The use of this 
great body of records will help us separate 
legend and fact in many instances. 

In a class of Miscellany are included a 
great lot of irregular and non-serial official 
material and some non-official material written 
about the states. A considerable amount of 
this is broadside and manuscript material not 
quite fitting the major classifications of the 
microfilm project. These forms occupy an 
important place among source materials avail-

280 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



able for the historical investigator, and from 
them may be gathered many essential details 
of history. 

In a monumental collecting project of this 
sort a number of problems ~onfront the col-
lector. Certain items are so scarce that it 
takes a long time to. round them up for film-
ing, even if the location is known. The hunt-
ing process itself makes items turn up too 
late, sometimes1 to use in normal sequence. 
To take care of these and a number of other 
contingencies the compiler of the Supplement 
has included a most useful addenda section 
which takes care of a number of unavoidable 
omissions and happy discoveries since the 
Guide was published. 

Many research institutions will want to add 
various segments of this monumental collec-
tion of basic documents on film; indeed, a 
number of institutions may want to purchase 
the whole collection as a unit. Purchase in-
quiries should be directed to the Photodupli-
cation Service of the Library of Congress. 

This review note would be incomplete 
without generous praise for the zeal, energy, 
and prodigious scholarship exerted by the col-
lector, compiler, and editor, William Sumner 
Jenkins. He is an unquestionable authority in 
his field. His position as teacher and direc-
tor of research in government and political 
science is all the stronger for his assiduous 
study of the basic documents. -G. F. Shep-
herd, Jr., Cornell University Library. 

Subject Headings 
Subject Headings,· a Practical Guide. By 

David Judson Hay kin. Washington, D.C., 
U. S. Government Printing Office, 1951. 
V, 140p. $.70. 

Mr. Haykin deserves the thanks of cata-
logers and teachers of cataloging for this well 
written and well printed volume on a subject 
on which little literature is available. The 
statements of principles are clear, the examples 
well chosen. The principles themselves are 
generally sound, although the Library of 
Congress does not always follow them con-
sistently. Mr. Haykin disarms criticism to 
some extent by stating that "the principles 
and rules of practice here presented represent, 
in many instances, what is desirable, rather 
than what has actually been achieved." This 
disclaimer seems too general, however, to 
cover the failure to discuss the variations and 

JULY, 1952 

inconsistencies in LC headings which unduly 
complicate the explanation of subject headings 
to the library user. 

After a brief theoretical introduction the 
use of references to relate the various scat-
tered headings is described. There follows a 
chapter on the form of the heading-simple, 
inverted, phrase, or compound. There is here, 
however, no discussion of the validity of the 
inverted form of heading. If the first princi-
ple of a good subject heading is usage, and if 
the dictionary catalog does not recognize any 
classification in the arrangement of headings, 
then the use of an inverted heading "in order 
that it may appear in the catalog next to other 
headings beginning with that noun" should be 
more elaborately justified. On page 24 the 
lack of a reference "Heretics. See Heresies 
and heretics" is excused on the plea that no 
other headings would intervene. Actually 
two subjects "Heresy" and "Heresy (Canon 
law)" as well as all titles beginning with the 
words Heresies and Heresy, intervene. 

The fifth to seventh chapters deal with 
subdivisions and personal and geographic 
names. There is no general discussion of the 
type of material which takes a geographic 
subdivision under subject and that which takes 
a subject subdivision under place name, a 
distinction which is frequently difficult to 
explain. On page 39 there is a sentence dis-
cussing the advantage of the form "Goethe 
as theater director" over a possible "Goethe, 
Johann Wolfgang von-As theater director," 
but no reference to the fact that in Appendix 
G the forms "Shakespeare, William-Bi-
ography-As an actor" and "Lincoln, Abra-

. ham-As a lawyer" are listed. 
A brief chapter discusses the over-extended 

use of duplicate entries which add their bit 
to the size of our catalogs. It is fully recog-
nized that these have been used too frequently 
and the tendency is to replace them with a 
single entry. The relations of subject headings 
to author entries and added entries is next 
taken up, with the relation of the subject 
catalog to the shelf list, the forms of subjects 
for special libraries or special departmental, 
catalogs, problems of filing, and procedures 
and personnel in the subject cataloging field. 
Appendixes containing various special lists of 
interest in subject heading work (omitting, 
however, the subdivisions used under place 
names) complete the work. 

As a general introduction to the subject 

281