College and Research Libraries


By N . O R W I N R U S H 

The College Library as Publisher 

As librarian of Colby College, Mr. Rush 

has recognized and used the opportunity 

to experiment with an interesting aspect of 

library publishing. 

ONLY nine college libraries are active as publishers.1 T h i s is a relatively 
small number when one considers the hun-

dreds of college libraries in the United 

States and the wealth of material deposited 

in these which if known would be of im-

mense value to scholars and students. 

Perhaps a rather detailed account of 

the publishing done by the Colby College 

Library during the past seven years, dem-

onstrating what a library can do in mak-

ing known the wealth of its special col-

lections with little or no actual expense to 

the library, might be of interest to other 

libraries. 

O u r first such undertaking was in 1936 

when the library staff felt that its Thomas 

Hardy collection had grown to such an ex-

tent that a checklist of the collection would 

be of value to librarians, teachers, and 

students. T h r o u g h the cooperation of the 

college treasurer, the college financed the 

publication of two hundred copies which 

sold for one dollar and fifty cents each. 

A f t e r the publishing arrangements were 

completed, we prepared a mailing list of 

some five hundred libraries and Hardy 

students whom we thought might be in-

terested in owning a copy. A one-page 

printed announcement was mailed out to 

1 D w y e r , R. F . , comp. " D i r e c t o r y of P u b l i s h e r s . " 
Cumulative Book Index, 1942, p. 1239-68. 

these five hundred prospects. T h e book 

was copyrighted, and an announcement of 

the publication was listed in the Publish-

ers' Weekly. Also some local publicity 

was made of our new venture in several 

of the newspapers in the state. By the 

end of the first year, these announcements 

brought requests for some one hundred 

twenty-five copies. A t this time orders 

had almost entirely ceased to arrive, so a 

follow-up letter was mailed to those on 

the original mailing list from whom we 

h,ad not yet received orders. T h i s time a 

mimeographed letter was sent. T h e en-

tire two hundred copies were completely 

sold out within four years after publica-

tion, and the college treasurer had been 

reimbursed for the original outlay. It 

was evident from the number of libraries 

buying the checklist that libraries found 

it a useful reference volume. 

O u r next bit of printing was a two-

page invitation to an exhibition of Thomas 

Hardy material held in the Colby library 

from June 6 to June 21, 1937. In this 

instance the printing cost was assumed 

by the college with no expense to the 

library. In addition to this the Colby 

chapter of Phi Beta Kappa financed the 

printing of one hundred fifty copies of a 

four-page souvenir program, a striking fea-

ture of which was a facsimile of the manu-

script of Hardy's poem To Shakespeare. 

In almost any college town there are to be 

found similar organizations which are 

willing to help finance such worth-while 

projects. T h e library financed the print-

DECEMBER, 1943 
8 7 



ing of two hundred copies of a sixteen-page 

catalog describing the two hundred items 

on exhibit. Colby had been receiving reg-

ularly many items , on an exchange basis, 

but up to this point there was nothing to 

offer in exchange, so the library felt justi-

fied in undertaking the publication of this 

catalog. T h e response from the libraries 

receiving the catalog as an exchange and 

from the publicity received from it, led us 

to repeat the experiment. O n M a y 7, 

1938, commemorating Robert Browning's 

birthday, we published an eight-page cata-

log describing a Browning exhibit held in 

the library. T h e following month we 

issued a twelve-page catalog entitled A 

Jekyll and Hyde Exhibition of Books by 

and about T. J. Wise in the Colby College 

Library. Copies of these catalogs were 

sent to the editor of the book review section 

of the New York Times. Considerable 

space in the rare book department was de-

voted to them. In connection with the 

library's exhibition celebrating the one 

hundredth anniversary of the birth of 

Thomas Hardy, we published a sixteen-

page catalog describing the items on dis-

play, copies of which were sent to the 

libraries with whom we enjoy exchange 

relations. 

In 1939 an unusually good addition to 

our Thomas Hardy collection was re-

ceived from the library of Miss Rebekah 

O w e n . In order to make this material 

known to Hardy students elsewhere, a 

ninety-five-page monograph was issued. 

Again we were successful in getting the 

cooperation of the college treasurer. T w o 

hundred copies were issued at one dollar 

each, and early in 1941 the book was sold 

out. 

In the autumn of 1939 the library tried 

a new scheme of meeting the printer's bill 

for exchange items. In October of that 

year we exhibited what seemed to us an 

unusually good Robert Frost exhibition. 

T h i s was written up so that it would make 

desirable news for the college paper and 

at the same time merit being sent to li-

braries, students of Frost, and collectors. 

T h e college paper accepted the article, and 

we had several reprints made before the 

type had been disbursed. T h e cost of 

these reprints, which were used as ex-

changes, amounted to very little. 

By this time we had begun experiment-

ing with new schemes for paying the print-

er's bill. T h e two which we tried the 

following year were both successful. W e 

issued in book form for the first time two 

of Thomas Hardy's short stories under 

the title Revenge Is Sweet. T h e y ap-

peared in three different printings. T h e 

twenty-five numbered copies of the first 

edition sold at fifteen dollars to collectors 

and libraries wishing first editions. T h e 

second and third printings were for ex-

change purposes. T h e demand for copies 

of the first edition was much more than 

we had expected; they were all sold within 

a short time, thus paying the cost of print-

ing all editions. 

A s a usual thing, it may not be wise for 

a college library to go beyond its own re-

sources when publishing. Here again, 

however, friends may be gained as well as 

valuable publicity for the library. T w i c e 

we have undertaken such a venture, but 

in both cases it was for the purpose of 

obtaining material in a permanent form 

for our own special collections. T h e work 

in preparing the material for publication 

required very little time of the library 

staff.. O u r first such undertaking was A 

Descriptive Catalog of the Grolier Club 

Centenary Exhibition, 194.0, of the Works 

of Thomas Hardy, O.M., 1840-1928. 

T h i s eighty-page catalog was prepared by 

72 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



a member of the Grolier Club but was 

financed entirely by Colby College. H o w -

ever, not knowing just how the catalog 

would be received by libraries and in or-

der to get the college treasurer to advance 

the money for the printer's bill, it was 

necessary to receive a written assurance 

from two of the Grolier Club members 

that they would meet any deficit that 

might occur. O n that basis we published 

four hundred copies and have sold over 

two hundred and fifty copies at one dollar 

and fifty cents each. T h i s has paid for 

the publishing. 

In connection with our Thomas Hardy 

exhibit commemorating the fiftieth anni-

versary of the publication of Tess of the 

D'Urbervilles, we published a sixty-two-

page illustrated catalog. From the news-

paper publicity alone given to this exhi-

bition, the library has completely sold out 

the two hundred copies which it had 

printed at one dollar each. N o t only the 

local papers but also N e w Y o r k and Bos-

ton papers have carried many articles fav-

orable to our publications. T h e New 

York Times twice devoted nearly a whole 

page in its book review section to this 

particular publication, and the London 

Times Literary Supplement gave it a full 

column on the front page. W e sold copies 

to three foreign countries and have been 

unable to fill dozens of orders. 

T h e library published (for exchange 

purposes) on Jan. I I , 1942, an eight-page 

pamphlet in connection with Colby's W i l -

liam James Centenary Exhibition. 

T h e demands for Revenge Is Sweet, 

our first attempt at reissuing Hardy stor-

ies, led us to reissue two other little-known 

Hardy items, The Thieves Who Couldn't 

Help Sneezing and Maumbury Ring. 

T h e latter had never before been published 

in book form and had never been pub-

lished in America in any form. These 

two books were published by us in 1942 

at two dollars each. T h e y both received 

commendation in the New York Times 

Book Review section and were sold out 

within a few months. 

U p to this point we had not really un-

dertaken any big printing jobs—that is, 

big in a financial way. T h e largest one 

was the Grolier catalog, the cost of which 

was guaranteed by certain members of the 

Grolier Club. T h i s time we wanted to 

publish a centenary bibliography of Har-

diana. T h e cost of printing one hundred 

fifty copies of this two hundred seventy-

six-page book amounted to five hundred 

dollars and was paid out of the library's 

budget. U p to this point, we had more 

than broken even on all of our publica-

tions, so we decided to swing it ourselves. 

It took us only a short time to reimburse 

the library and in less than a year the en-

tire one hundred fifty copies had been sold 

at five dollars apiece, netting the library 

a neat little profit. T h i s was put aside 

for the use of future publications. Again 

considerable space was received in the 

N e w Y o r k and London papers. 

By this time we were convinced that 

libraries and scholars were finding most 

of our publications of some interest and 

value. Lawrence C . W r o t h devoted most 

of his column on "Notes for Bibliophiles" 

in the June 27, 1943, issue of the book 

review section of the New York Herald 

Tribune to the Colby library publications. 

In order to make available in printed 

form more such information from and 

about the rare materials in our library, it 

seemed advisable to us to issue a regular 

quarterly bulletin. Thus, the Colby Li-

brary Quarterly, backed financially by the 

Colby Library Associates, made its first 

appearance in January 1943. Again we 

DECEMBER, 1943 
8 7 



took advantage of issuing a reprint for 

exchange purposes. T h i s time it was A 

Tennyson Exhibition from the first num-

ber of the Colby Library Quarterly. 

T h i s year in commemoration of the 

birth of Henry James we issued for ex-

change purposes an eight-page pamphlet 

containing a list of the first editions of 

Henry James in the Colby library and a 

genealogical chart showing the various 

connections of the James family with Col-

by College. 

W e have just published a volume of 

Edwin Arlington Robinson letters to 

Howard Schmitt, printed by the South-

worth-Anthoensen Press of Portland, M e . 

W e were able to issue this volume at a 

reduction for all prepublication orders. 

One of our next experiments will be in 

the bibliographical field. W e hope to have 

ready for the printer early in 1944 a bib-

liography of the writings of Rufus M . 

Jones, who is a native of Maine and is 

"the greatest spiritual philosopher living 

in America since William James." 

In becoming a publisher it is not neces-

sary to own a press; the local printer may 

be able to handle the job. However, un-

less the local printer is an exceptionally 

good one, it will pay in the long run to 

do business with a well-established firm 

even if you have to go quite a distance to 

obtain the services desired. 

It should be a pleasure and certainly 

will pay dividends for any library if the 

librarian sees to it that occasionally some 

information is prepared regarding treas-

ures which can be passed on to other in-

stitutions, scholars, research students, book 

collectors, etc. T h i s does not mean that 

the library staff should do the actual work 

in preparing the material for the press, 

but they should be responsible for having 

it done. T h e library staff knows who of 

the college faculty are interested and 

capable of doing the actual editing. Their 

job is to get these people to do the work. 

T h e librarian should be a good judge of 

whether or not the material is really 

worthy of passing on to other institutions 

and know which institutions and individ-

uals are apt to be interested in the material. 

Canadian Agricultural Documents 
(Continued from page 70) 

Bibliography 

A l b e r t a . D e p a r t m e n t of A g r i c u l t u r e . 
The Department of Agriculture, Its Func-
tions and Services (with Statistical Sum-
mary). E d m o n t o n , K i n g ' s P r i n t e r , 1939. 
( N o mention is made in this pamphlet of 
publications issued by the d e p a r t m e n t . ) 

C a n a d a . D e p a r t m e n t of A g r i c u l t u r e . 
The Department of Agriculture, Its His-
tory, Organization, and Work. C o m p i l e d 
and edited by the Publications B r a n c h , D e -
p a r t m e n t of A g r i c u l t u r e , 1933. 42p. ( T h e 
department w a s completely r e o r g a n i z e d in 
1 9 3 9 . ) 

C a n a d a . D e p a r t m e n t of A g r i c u l t u r e . 
Directory of Organization and Activities of 

the Dominion Department of Agriculture. 
O t t a w a , K i n g ' s P r i n t e r , 1939. 32p. 

C a n a d a . D e p a r t m e n t of A g r i c u l t u r e . 
Fifty Years of Progress on the Dominion 
Experimental Farms, 1886-1936. O t t a w a , 
K i n g ' s P r i n t e r , 1939. I58p. 

C a n a d i a n Society of T e c h n i c a l A g r i c u l t u r -
ists. E x t e n s i o n G r o u p . A Survey Dealing 
with the Preparation, Publishing, and Dis-
tribution of Agricultural Bulletins. 1942. 
T y p e w r i t t e n . 

( A n n u a l reports of the D e p a r t m e n t of 
A g r i c u l t u r e f o r the D o m i n i o n and f o r each 
of the provinces w e r e also consulted. C h e c k -
lists and indexes already listed have not 
been included in the bibliography.) 

74 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES