College and Research Libraries


mary factor of greatly increasing the 

library budget, to providing additional 

staff members, paying better salaries, re-

modelling the b u i l d i n g — i f a donor can 

not be found to provide a new o n e — r e -

organizing the management and control, 

and c a r e f u l l y developing the book re-

sources to support adequately the uni-

versity's program of instruction and re-

search. T h e report suggests an additional 

purpose in the expressed hope that the 

university may obtain some "substantial 

help from sources outside of the state," 

since the "public revenues of the state are 

for the time being too l i m i t e d " and the 

need is urgent and of more than local 

c o n c e r n . — P e y t o n Hurt, Williams Col-

lege, Williamstown, Mass. 

The Classified List of Periodicals for Col-

lege Libraries ; 

The Classified List of Reference Books 

for College Libraries. Southern Asso-

ciation of Colleges and Secondary 

Schools. Commission on Institutions of 

H i g h e r Education. Birmingham, A l a -

bama, 1940. 1 5 p . ; 40p. ea. $ 1 . 

( M i m e o g r a p h e d ) 

A T T H E M I D W I N T E R M E E T I N G  o f t h e 

A . C . R . L . D e a n B r u m b a u g h of the N o r t h 

C e n t r a l Association cautioned us against 

using book and periodical lists compiled 

by accrediting agencies for buying pur-

poses. O n e cannot help but query w h y , 

if such lists can validly be used as testing 

tools, they should not also be used as book 

selection aids. N o t that one w o u l d ad-

vocate blind adherence to the lists in 

question, but in representing the pooled 

judgments of experienced librarians, they 

are admirably suited not only for use by an 

accrediting agency in measuring the ade-

quacy of a given library, but can also be 

used by the librarians of junior and four-

year colleges for a qualitative analysis of 

their o w n collections. 

T h e periodicals list compiled under the 

direction of G u y  R . L y l e and V i r g i n i a 

T r u m p e r of the W o m a n ' s College of the 

University of N o r t h C a r o l i n a is based on 

the 409 titles included in their Classified 

List of Periodicals for the College Library 

(2nd ed., 1 9 3 8 ) , which were ranked by 

the seventy-five librarians w h o cooperated 

in the project. T h e final list reflects their 

estimates of these titles and includes a 

f e w additional titles suggested by them. 

A r r a n g e m e n t is by the subjects in a col-

lege curriculum, w i t h fu r t h e r subdivision 

into essential and desirable titles. E i g h t y -

one titles suited to the junior college level 

are starred. T h e present reviewer doubts 

if f o r t y - t w o periodicals in education are 

desirable for a liberal arts college, but 

this is the only list w i t h which the reviewer 

disagrees seriously.  O n the w h o l e the 

quality of selection is high and if a college 

library w e r e to have all of the journals 

represented, faculty members and students 

w o u l d have access to a wide variety of 

material of current interest and future 

college generations provided w i t h a record 

of the history and thought of our times. 

T h e reference list, compiled under the 

chairmanship of M r s . Frances Cheney, 

reference librarian of the V a n d e r b i l t U n i -

versity L i b r a r y of Nashville, is likewise the 

result of cooperative effort. It, too, is ar-

ranged by subject and subdivided into 

essential and desirable titles.  O f the 778 

titles, 305 are starred as essential for jun-

ior college libraries. In inclusiveness the 

list falls somewhere between Shores' Basic 

Reference Books and M u d g e ' s Guide to 

Reference Books. Considerable ingenuity 

is shown in supplying general treatises for 

subjects for w h i c h adequate reference 

books are not available. In both lists 

156 ' COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



there are a f e w surprising omissions, not-

ably, in the reference list, Brunet's Man-

uel du Libraire, N o r t h r u p ' s Register of 

Bibliographies, Who Was Who, Rice's 

Dictionary of Geological Terms, Shaw's 

Manual of Meteorology, and Enciclope-

dia Italiana; in the periodical list, Duke 

Mathematical Journal, Economic History 

Review, E.L.H., a Journal of English 

Literary History, and Speculum. Pre-

sumably these titles have been considered 

and voted out by the librarians cooperating 

w i t h the project. T h e difficulty which 

the compilers w i l l have in keeping the 

lists up to date can be illustrated by the 

fact that the Annalist has merged w i t h 

Business Week, Forum and Century w i t h 

Current History since the periodical list 

was compiled. G r o v e s ' Dictionary of 

Music and Musicians and T h o r p e ' s Dic-

tionary of Applied Chemistry have new 

volumes, K i n g z e t t ' s Chemical Encyclopedia 

is in its fourth edition, and L a n g e r ' s Ency-

clopedia of World History now takes the 

place of Ploetz's Manual. T h i s difficulty 

w i l l be met in part by the " C u r r e n t R e f -

ference A i d s " section of College and Re-

search Libraries. W o u l d it be possible 

for those responsible for this section to 

note items especially suited to the junior 

college and the four-year liberal arts col-

lege ? 

T h e s e are, however, but minor matters, 

for the fact remains that these t w o lists 

are the best tools now available for a self-

analysis of reference and periodical hold-

ings for junior college and four-year 

college libraries. Because of their arrange-

ment, they can be readily used by librar-

ians in conferring w i t h faculty members. 

T h e y w i l l strengthen the plea of librarians 

in asking administrative officers for funds 

for materials of long-time usefulness. In 

citing items of peculiar interest and value 

to institutions in the South, it is to be 

hoped that they w i l l challenge other re-

gional library groups to go and do like-

wise. D r .  A .  F . K u h l m a n , chairman of 

the Steering Committee on Standards for 

C o l l e g e Libraries of the Southern Asso-

ciation, and M r s . Frances Cheney, chair-

man of the advisory committee, are to be 

congratulated on achieving these lists 

which are part of w h a t is modestly termed 

" A Preliminary and Partial Report on a 

P r o j e c t to D e v e l o p Criteria for M e a s u r -

ing the Adequacy of College Libraries." 

—Flora B. Ludington, Mount Holyoke 

College, South Hadley, Mass. 

A New Design for Women's Education. 

Constance W a r r e n . Stokes, 1940. xiii, 

2 7 7 p . $2. 

A New Design for Women's Education, 

w i t h true Chaucerian gusto "makes 

a v a u n t " that Sarah L a w r e n c e College, of 

which the author is president, and Ben-

nington College as w e l l , w e r e the first in a 

group of institutions that have broken 

a w a y f r o m an older educational pattern, 

in order to create a new design having its 

center at the point where the interests and 

the needs of individual students cross. In 

so doing, they have removed the learning 

of subject matter from its usual high rank 

among the offerings of the typical four-

year liberal arts college, substituting an 

educational concept " w h i c h has accepted 

f r a n k l y this new objective of making the 

whole college experience serve each stu-

dent to the best of its ability rather than 

serve scholarship as an end in itself." 

M i s s W a r r e n ' s description of the new 

design at Sarah L a w r e n c e is not weighted 

w i t h the dullness which so often comes 

from the educator's favorite v i c e — a n in-

finite capacity for taking pains. Instead, 

it has a fine quality of readableness, and 

MARC hi, 1941 157