College and Research Libraries Edge- Punched Cards for Research Notes THIS BRIEF NOTE is designed to bring to the attention of scholars the profitable utilization of commercially available edge-punched cards for note taking. Al- though they have been widely used in bibliographical work, they are not well known or used as y~t by academic re- searchers. Folklorists, however, are be- ginning to recognize their value in cata- loging motifs. Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate the uses of the punch cards would be to mention a specific experience. The au- thor was recently studying British and American literary criticism in some fifty periodicals; the study dealt with fifteen American authors and covered a twenty- year period. Numbers on the cards were assigned to the following divisions of the outline: British criticism, American crit- icism, each author, each year of the study, each periodical examined, each work published by each author, and a four division rating which indicated the critic's opinion of the author or work under consideration. Additional divi- sions could have been made, but the scope of the study and the material avail- able made it unnecessary. Regardless of the way the cards were arranged-and they need not be filed but merely placed in the tray or pile at random as the notes are taken-all of the cards containing ·material on any one of the topics given above could be selected in a moment. For example, if all of the material on a particular book by Hawthorne were de- sired, it could be selected directly. If the British criticism had then to be sep- arated from the American, it could be accomplished simply by making another selection with the rod. If the material that had appeared in a particular peri- JULY 1963 BY LEWIS E. WEEKS, JR. Mr. Weeks is Assistant Professor of Liberal Studies in Clarkson College of Technology, Potsdam, New York. odical was to be selected, it could easily be done; or if the notes were to be ar- ranged chronologically, a simple inatter of successive selections with the needle made it possible, all without looking at the note itself. Again, if all of the ma- terial devoted to Hawthorne were de- sired, it could be isolated by a single thrust of the rod, as could any topic or item in a sequence. Although note taking methods vary with the individual and sometimes with the type of project, most researchers em- ploy some system involving the use of cards. Generally a series of headings taken from the outline of the project and combined with an appropriate in- dication of the content of each note it- self is used on each card; and the cards are thereby grouped systematically under index tabs or dividers of some kind until the writing is begun. The chief problems of such a system are the fre- quent necessity of cross referring and the difficulty of keeping material in usable and efficient order. The edge-punched note cards elimi- nate these problems as well as provide a simple and effective means of selecting material from the file as it is needed. No actual filing is necessary because the se- lection of any card in the stack is made quite independently of its location. The system is applicable to any dis- cipline and can be employed on any level of the subject from that of the broadest and simplest of main topics to that of the narrowest of subdivisions. 303 The first and most important step and one that is sometimes a bit difficult to accomplish, especially if the material is not to follow a rig~dly predetermined pat~ern, is to prepare an outline in de- tail and assign a number from the cards to each topic or division. However, changes can be made, values reassigned, and topics added or dropped if material is not available on an anticipated sub- ject or if a different pattern seems more appropriate at a later stage of the re- search. The five by eight card, frequently found to be the most convenient size for note taking, has ninety-one numbers that may be assigned to divisions of the out- line for direct selection, usually an am- ple number for most projects. If more divisions are needed, additional num- bers in a second row are provided in groups of four, each group permitting up to fourteen classifications or divi- sions to be added. Obviously the possi- bilities of selection are more than ade- quate for almost any conventional un- . dertaking. Around the edge of the card are holes matching the numbers. On any given card, the material in the note de- termines the holes to be notched out. A quick glance at the master card or the numbered outline indicates the topic or topics that are covered by or related to the note, and holes opposite those numbers are notched out. To select aU the material on a given topic or division Foreign Area Studies (Continued from page 296) a new central library as at Cornell's Olin library, involves both capital outlay and a continuing annual expense. Also affected by growing area pro- grams is the availability of staff work space, increased reference and circula- tion work, and the inevitable increase in the number of undergraduate courses in the areas concerned, involving the ob- of the outline, a rod is inserted in the ap- propriate numbered hole in the stack of cards and is then raised. The cards which drop out because of the previously punched V notch are those desired. Because the cards are expensive, cost- ing four or five cents apiece, for notes that require more than both sides of one card, the thrifty scholar can use 4 in. x 6 in. blank tablet sheets, which can readily be fanned slightly on one end, tipped with glue on the fanned edges, and attached to one side of the punched card in such a way as to leave free the selector holes in the edge of the card. The advantages of this system are chiefly that no cross referring or dupli- cation of notes is necessary because the cross referring and indexing is done by punching the card according to the pre- determined plan, either as a note is completed or at the end of a period of note taking when all the notes can be punched at once. If the second method is followed, the conventional headings should probably be made on the card to serve as a guide for punching; or the numbers from the master card or the numbered outline can be jotted down on the card immediately after the note is made. An addition to the advantages already mentioned is the fact that no filing is necessary, for a note is selected by the needle regardless of its location in the stack. •• taining of hard-to-get, out-of-print works, journal articles, and necessary duplicate copies of required reading materials. . One gets involved in all these implica- tions when a planned, well-organized program is developed. But what happens when over and above the planned pro- gram one has the opportunity of acquir- ing a large bloc purchase? The process- ing of such a collection can present problems even to a large library staff with personnel trained and experienced 304 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES in handling area materials. What are the effects of such an acquisition on a library just embarking on an area study program? Can the existing staff manage its processing in a reasonable period of time, or will funds be available to add the necessary help to process the materi- al? If not, the inevitable backlog results. Questions on large block acquisitions in- clude: I. Does it fit into the long range plan- ning both of the library and the teach- ing and research staffs? 2. Does it fill an existing gap or is it to be used as the nucleus of a new pro- gram? 3. What is required in the way of retro- spective purchasing to round out the collection? 4. Can current acquisitions in the field be made without harming established programs? 5. Does the collection contain manu- scripts, papers, charts, etc. which might require special facilities for care and preservation, and if so, is the li- brary prepared to handle these special materials? The recently announced transfer of the Ames library of South Asia to the Uni- versity of Minnesota where it will be ad- ministered as a special unit of the uni- versity library is an example of a differ- ent, but potentially highly complex block acquisition. This collection of seventy- five thousand items includes : books, charts, official papers, and other materi- als relating to Pakistan, Afghanistan, In- dia, Ceylon, Burma, Tibet, Persia, and Malaya. The interpolation of biblio- graphical information on a collection of this size into one's catalog could present a substantial problem, to say nothing of the planning which might be required for the coordination of past and future acquisitions with such a substantial col- lection. · The magnitude of problems incidental to the development of area resources would seem to call for carefully planned JULY 1963 programs. Yet Patrick Wilson,I3 in his survey of South Asian collections, . noted the lack of systematic acquisition poli- cies, and Ruggles and Mostecky found ". . . that planned and systematic selec- tion policies, as applied to East Euro- pean materials ... , are simply nonexist- ent in the great majority of research li- braries of the United States." 14 However, the picture is not completely bleak. The cooperation of librarians and scholars, notably the cooperative efforts of the joint ARL-Farmington Plan-learned societies committees, have made some progress in the following fields: 1. Encouraging descriptive accounts of area resources in individual libraries. 2. The production of bibliographies and research guides. 3. Microfilming projects covering news- papers, archives, and serials. 4. Programs for the reproduction of out- of-print books. 5. Cooperative projects including the PL480 programs for the United Arab Republic, India, and Pakistan with ,the accompanying cooperative and centralized cataloging programs. 6. The working out of transliteration schemes. 7. The sharing of information via vari- ous newsletters and bulletins. Much more research needs to be done on the problems inherent in the develop- ment of non-Western library resources-- their selection, acquisition, and servicing -and in the training of personnel. Also of primary importance at this time is a study that will explore present practices in the handling of non-Western materi- als in the major centers with some assess- ment of the advantages and disadvan- tages of each. A careful analysis of the experiences of established centers should result in the definition of guidelines ap- plicable to new and changing programs. •• 13 Wilson, Survey of South Asian Collectivns com- missioned by Institute of International Studies, Uni- versity of Calif