College and Research Libraries Report on Farmington Plan Program Report to Council on Library Resources on grant received by the Association of Research Libraries for its Farmington Plan Program " I M M E D I A T E L Y P R I O R to receipt, in July J- 1959, of the Council on Library Re- sources' second grant for the support of certain Farmington Plan studies and ac- tivities, there was a complete reorganiza- tion of the FP Committee. As reconsti- tuted, the general committee has respon- sibility for the over-all development and implementation of the Farmington Plan, but delegates the actual field operations for the most part to seven regional sub- committees covering the worlds: Western Europe, Middle East, Far East, South Asia, Slavic and East Europe, Africa, and Latin America. T h e reorganized commit- tee was able to make more effective use of the council's grant than would other- wise have been possible. Several specific investigations were in- cluded in the request for the council grant, and these were satisfactorily com- pleted by the terminal date. T h e studies in at least two instances were preparatory to possible extension of the Farmington Plan into new areas. T h e first study to be finished (Jerrold Orne, Report on the CIA Library Acqui- sitions Program, 1959) was a survey of the relationship of the Farmington Plan to the Central Intelligence Agency's pro- curement program. T h e investigation was made for the committee by Jerrold Orne, Library of the University of North Carolina. On the basis of Dr. Orne's find- ings, it was the consensus that, though the CIA and FP overlap to a certain ex- tent, the scope and purposes of the two agencies are entirely different and both should be continued. A second investigation was under- taken by Dale Barker, associate director, Georgia Institute of Technology Library, to determine the degree of completeness with which U.S. libraries are covering current foreign periodicals in the social sciences. T h e assumption was made that the periodical literature of the world in chemistry, physics, biology, and other major sciences is adequately represented in American libraries, but that holdings are much less complete in the humani- ties and social sciences. Based upon checking the U N E S C O World List of Social Science Periodicals, Mr. Barker found that more than 95 per cent of the titles in this field are now known to be available in the United States. (Dale L. Barker, Foreign Social Science Peri- odicals Received in American Libraries, [Urbana, 111., Farmington Plan Commit- tee of Association of Research Libraries, I960].) It was concluded, therefore, that periodical publications should continue to be excluded from Farmington Plan operations, other than for the limited program for new periodicals already functioning. A third study came to different con- clusions. T h i s was concerned with the holdings of American research libraries in the area of foreign government pub- lications. T h e survey was done for the committee by Donald Wisdom, assistant head of government publication section, serial division, Library of Congress, with Paul Berry, chief of the serial division, serving as adviser. Optimistically, it was hoped that the findings would be such as to make it unnecessary for the Farm- ington Plan to become involved with government publications, a huge and ex- ceedingly complex field. T h e survey re- port, however, concluded that "Current holdings of foreign government publica- M A R C H 1 9 6 2 1 4 3 tions in American research libraries are inadequate, and there is a universal de- pendence on the Library of Congress for the comprehensive collecting of foreign government publications." (Donald F. Wisdom, Foreign Government Publica- tions in American Research Libraries; a survey prepared for the Farmington Plan Committee of the Association of Research Libraries, 1961.) An important question of policy was raised by the Wisdom study. Should the research libraries of the country continue to rely primarily upon the Library of Congress or should an effort be made to bring into the United States at least two copies of all foreign government publica- tions? T h e latter would mean develop- ment of a national plan of collecting, dividing responsibility among research libraries, as is now being done for Farm- ington Plan materials. Even the Library of Congress holdings in certain areas have serious lacunae. Some of the libraries which have accepted national assign- ments under the Farmington Plan are going beyond monographic publications to collect periodicals, newspapers, and government publications. T h i s points to- ward a possible solution, since the larg- est gaps in holdings of foreign govern- ment publications are for the countries assigned on a national, rather than on a subject basis. T h e cooperating li- braries, accordingly, have been asked to adopt as standard procedure the collect- ing of government publications for the areas assigned to them. V I S I T S T O D E A L E R S Another item included in the Farm- ington Plan budget submitted to the council was a series of visits to prospec- tive Farmington Plan dealers in South America—an area poorly represented in the program to date. These visits were made by the chairman of the commit- tee, Robert B. Downs, in January and February 1960. T h e countries included were Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Contacts were es- tablished with a number of well-quali- fied dealers, some of whom are now being used by Farmington Plan participants. (Robert B. Downs, Survey of Prospective Farmington Plan Dealers for South America, 1960.) M E E T I N G S O F C O M M I T T E E S One of the most profitable uses of the council funds was to finance meetings of members of the area subcommittees, or to send representatives of the committees to attend meetings of related associations and groups interested in the procure- ment of foreign publications. Particu- larly active were the Slavic and East Eu- ropean Committee, working with the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies; the African Committee, working with the African Studies Association; and the Latin American Committee, cooperating with the Seminar on Latin American Ac- quisitions. T h e South Asian Commitee worked closely with the Association for Asian Studies, and the Near Eastern Committee with the Social Science Re- search Council. T h e area committees were thereby substantially aided in de- veloping plans for the selection, acquisi- tion, and distribution of materials for their respective regions. D I S S E M I N A T I O N O F I N F O R M A T I O N T o make the Farmington Plan more widely known and understood, the chief of the Farmington Plan Office, Edwin E. Williams of the Harvard University Li- brary, prepared a descriptive brochure entitled What Is The Farmington Plan? (Edwin E. Williams, What Is the Farm- ington Plan? rev. by the Farmington Plan Committee of the Association of Re- search Libraries, Cambridge, Mass.: Har- vard Univ. Print. Off., 1959.) An edi- tion of 5,000 copies, produced by the Har- vard Printing Office, has been distributed to members of learned societies, univer- sity faculties, publishers, bookdealers, li- 1 4 4 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S brarians, and others who should be in- formed of the program. Dealers and librarians frequently have expressed a need for a revised Farming- ton Plan Handbook. T h e 1953 edition is out of date in many respects. Edwin Wil- liams, who edited the first edition, has prepared a revision incorporating the changes of the past eight years. (Edwin E. Williams, Farmington Plan Hand- book, rev. to 1961 and abridged, Ithaca, N.Y.: Association of Research Libraries, 1961.) T h i s second edition is now avail- able. F U T U R E O F F A R M I N G T O N P L A N Financed in part from council funds, the Farmington Plan Committee and the A R L Advisory Committee held a joint meeting on March 24, 1961, at Colum- bia University. T h e recent progress and current activities of the general and area committees of the Farmington Plan were reviewed. Growing out of the reports presented by the committees and the en- suing discussion, it was agreed that the Farmington Plan should be more widely publicized among foundation officials, in influential government circles, among scholarly societies, and similar groups, in order to broaden the base of support from the federal government, the foundations, and the universities. L^o attain maximum effectiveness, it was further agreed, the Farmington Plan should be administered as a division of a national Association of Research Libraries office, with a perma- nent full-time staff, rather than, as at present, carried on by voluntary effort. Without question, the Farmington Plan program has made extraordinary progress since the first Council on Library Resources grant was received in 1957, and the advances can be credited in large degree to the stimulus of the two grants. Without the solid basis of the surveys, studies, and analyses of the Plan, over a period of several years, followed by ex- tended discussions, the A R L would not be prepared, as it now is, to move for- ward on a broad front with this major experiment in library cooperation.— Robert B. Downs. Rare Book Conference at Miami Plans for the third Rare Book Confer- ence are well under way. T h e date is J u n e 15th and 16th, 1962, the place is the beautiful modern campus of the Uni- versity of Miami at Coral Gables. Most of the meetings will be held at the new library, which is not even completely built as yet, but will be ready for us on J u n e 15th according to Archie McNeal and C. Lewis Morgan, J r . , the Local Ar- rangements Chairman. T o p i c of the conference will be Book Illustration. Speakers will be William Bostick (Detroit Institute of Arts), Her- bert Cahoon (Pierpont Morgan Library), Budd Gambee (University of Michigan), Lucien Goldschmidt (New York City), Mrs. Georgia Haugh (William L. Cle- ments L i b r a r y ) , H e l l m u t L e h m a n n - Haupt (H. P. Kraus), Harry Shaw New- man ( P h i l a d e l p h i a ) , and L a w r e n c e Thompson (University of Kentucky Li- braries). T h e r e will be lectures on Early Woodcuts, Baroque Books, Modern Book Illustration and Design, American and Latin American Book Illustration, Au- thors as Illustrators, T h e Cartographer's Art, and others. Fee for the conference, including rooms at the recently completed and newly furnished dormitories, as well as meals for two days, will be approximately $30.00-$35.00. T h e r e will be available some rooms for couples. Rooms at nearby University Motel are available, but their cost is in addition to the fee. M A R C H 1 9 6 2 1 4 5