College and Research Libraries


By EDITH A. WRIGHT 

The American Library i~ Paris 
Goes Technical 

.L\MONG the important postwar develop-
£"\.. ments at the American Library in 
Paris is the establishment of a collection of 
modern American technical books. .At a 
time when American books of all kinds are 
sought _ after, technical works are particu-
larly in demand, because of the urgent need 
of France to modernize its factories and its 
farms and to make up for lost time and 
material damage resulting from the war. 
Accordingly, one of the greatest services 
that an American Library in Paris can per-
form is making available the latest infor-
mation of American achievements in tech-
nical fields to French engineers, technicians, 
and farmers. 

The American Library in Paris of pre-
war days possessed some technical books, 
but they were comparatively few, scattered 
as to subject, and largely , out-of-date. 
When, therefore, in the spring of I 946, it 
became possible to replenish the library's 
book stock for the first time since the be-
ginning of the war, the trustees decided 
that special emphasis should be placed on 
engineering and allied subjects. With the 
advice of Milton E. Lord, director of the 
Boston Public Library, it was decided to 
base the purchases on McCombs' list of 
Books Published in the United States~ 1939-
1943/ A Selection for Reference Libraries~ 
on its continuation, the Harvard list of 
Books Published in the United States~ 1944~ 
and on the United States Quarterly Book 
List for more recent publications. In addi-
tion, a special memorial collection of books 

on engineering was selected from a bibli-
ography drawn up by the Engineering So-
cieties Library and a collection of books on 
aviation was presented by Mrs. Richard E. 
Myers in memory of her son. To supple-
ment the books, subscriptions to the prin-
cipal engineering and aviation periodicals 
were acquired. 

The remainder of this note will present 
an analysis of the reference use of these 
books during the first four months after 
they became available for use, i.e.~ Sept. I 
to Dec. 30, I946. It must be remembered 
that this is a new service, not generally asso-
ciated in the minds of the French public 
with the functions of the American Li-
brary in Paris, that little publicity has yet 
been given it, that the limited space at the 
library's disposal has not permitted the as-
signment of a separate room to these books, 
and, finally, that many of the books had 
not yet been fully cataloged. In spite of 
these limitations, the use already made of 
them indicates the need that exists. 

Statistics 

The following statistics have to do with 
the reference use of books in all the tech-
nical fields, including chemistry, physics, 
and agriculture, but not · medicine or the 
pure sciences, other than chemistry and 
physics. During the month of September, 
when many people were still out of the 
city and when only a few of the new books 
were as yet available to the public, there 
were twenty-seven reference questions con-

232 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



, 

cerning technical subjects. In the three suc-
ceeding months, there were respectively 
forty-eight, forty-two, and forty-two. Also, 
much use was made of technical dictionaries 
and of such books as the Chemical F ormu-
lan'· After a brief notice in the Paris paper, 
Le M onde~ referring to the existence at the 
library of the National Research Council 
list of Scientific~ Medical and Technical 
Books~ there was an influx of readers want-
ing to consult it. 

The largest number of questions in a 
particular field, forty-two in all, concerned 
manufacturing methods and industrial for-
mulae. Translations of technical terms 
were second ( 3 I ) ; agriculture and animal 
husbandry, third (24). Next in frequency 
were chemistry ( I 8), aviation (I 6), phys-
ics (I 3), and automobiles (I I). There 
were also several questions touching each of 
the following subjects: architecture and 
building, metallurgy, electricity, military 
science and firearms, and technical educa-
tion in the United States. 

Users .of the library included UNESCO, 
the scientific service of the French Army, 
a French airplane and automobile factory, 
a firm which sells machinery, professors, an 
agricultural engineer, a representatiye of the 
Hungarian government, a decorator of air-
planes, a publisher, a cosmetics manufac-
turer, a maker of soft drinks, a member of 

JULY} 1947 

the R.A.F., an architect, and translators of 
technical articles. 

Examples 

A sampling of questions, taken more or 
less at random, includes: the translation of 
"soda lime," "annealed," "calcine," and of 
various aviation terms; information on 
hosiery and textile machines; airplane con-
struction in the United States; books on 
tractors and other agricultural machines ; 
information about plywood, refrigeration, 
and firearms; formulae for making cos-
metics; horse-breeding; distillation; the 
A.S.T.M. standards for electric insulation; 
the density of the royal coconut palm; new 
processes in the manufacture of glass; the 
enameling of metals; chemical analysis of 
foods; rocket-projectiles; painting and 
woodworking; the effect of the atomic 
bomb on concrete; electric motors; new 
methods of utilizing wood ; school and uni-
versity architecture in the United States; 
the cultivation and exploitation of sugar 
cane, vanilla, lemon grass, etc.; dairy farm-
ing; and pumps and wells.~ 

It is obvious that what has been done is 
only a beginning. The library must con-
tinue to build up its collections and to make 
them known to the French public, but the 
start made clearly indicates the need for 
American technical books in Paris. 

233