LIBRARY LEAVES WILSON BULLETIN A Magazine for Librarians April, 1929 A Book contain delightful entertainment for giving happy ideas, joining keen literary minds, notable opinions, possessing qualities readily secured thru usual vigilant wisdom, xenial, yes, zealously. It will be noted that each word commences with a succeeding letter of the alphabet. The contributor of this sentence to Publishers' Circular says that he uses "xenial” in the sense (see Webster's) of “gift to strangers." Are any of the readers of the Wilson Bulletin equally ingenious? Published monthly, except July and August, by The H. W. Wilson Company, 958-972 University Avenue, New York. Mailed on request to librarians, teachers, and booksellers. Enclose 10C in stamps for each additional copy or back number requested. Subscriptions for persons in unrelated professions, $1 a year; single copy, 200. Manuscripts of service and interest to the library profession are invited. Libraries and library commissions are requested to send their publications, book lists, and publicity material to the Wilson Bulletin. "Carl Sandburg, prairie poet, said last week in San Francisco: 'I shall not inflict another volume of poetry upon the egg-headed American public until 1932, and maybe not until 1935!””-From Time, Feb. II. We apologize for reprinting without credit the U.S. Cat. verses on page 565, which many librarians will want to clip and display. They were taken from a mimeographed library bulletin, of which (alas!) we can remember neither the name nor the place. Will he, she, or they responsible for this charming little animal poem please step forward to receive the laurel? letin are members of the American Library Association. Because we believe that organized effort is the best springboard for individual accomplishment, we should be genuinely pleased if the membership list of the A.L.A. were considerably extended. No librarian should feel that he is working alone. Behind him he should be aware of a tremendous energy, controlled and directed, of which the significance is both cultural and professional. As a professional organization, the A.L.A. distributes its gifts among all librarians, not only among its members. No librarian can help from sharing in its benefits and achievements. Therefore it is only honorable for him to contribute to its support. Bacon's happy sentence, which has stood for many years at the head of the editorial page of Publishers' Weekly, merits quotation in this connection: "I hold every man a debtor to his profession, from the which, as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavor, by way of amends, to be a help and ornament thereunto.” (From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.) Lyle Stephenson of Kansas City, in this State, who is given to collecting a library for himself, noting the other day that his shelves disclosed great vacant spaces, considered the situation. It was not that he needed new books; it was that his old volumes had been borrowed—and not returned. Mr. Stephenson's confusion was acute. He didn't remember who had borrowed which book; he couldn't think of all his borrowers, or remember the titles of his missing books. How was he to reach his public? Being an advertising man he ran true to type. He inserted little ads in a newspaper. Books began to come in five at a time. Some he had forgotten he owned came back. Each post brought him old friends. The result is that Mr. Stephenson is convinced that book borrowers are honest. His discovery is of an importance that must not be neglected in this inconoclastic age. When book borrowers will return books of their own volition, honesty still is triumphant and faith in human nature survives. We salute the book borrowers of Kansas City. Mistakes sometimes occur, and we are not immune. If any readers of the Wilson Bulletin are receiving copies improperly addressed, or, as sometimes happens, if your name seems to be duplicated on our mailing list, please inform us so that such mistakes may be rectified. Merely clip the address from the envelope in which the Bulletin comes to you and mail it to us with the correct address superscribed. This notification will save time and expense for all concerned. Thank you. Often the picture requests are the main interests in the day's work in the Art Book Room. One day a middle-aged man asked for a picture of the Devil. Under the inclusive title of “Types of People" was found an advertisement on Deviled Ham that yielded a speaking likeness, tail, cloven foot, cap and all. Some artist had tried his majesty as a subject, and Goethe's Faust had been illu- second series, Zoology, by J. Arthur Thomson; strated, so these were all produced to the Evolution of Music, by Ernest Newman, Bisatisfaction of all concerned. Later, an even- ology, by W. J. Dakin; and Modern History, ing was enlivened by a small boy asking for by Sir Charles G. Robertson. The price is a picture of an archangel. Somehow one felt three-pence each. confident of recognizing the Devil, but how to tell an archangel from a plain one? We Book talks are given by Charles H. Brown, don't know how yet unless a label decided Librarian, Iowa State College, every morning it, because fortunately among our collections (except_Sunday) over Station WÓI, Ames, of “Angels" was 0:1e called "an archangel Iowa. The Station reports : “In two days last slaying a dragon." week we had over one hundred letters. The So you see we aim, and hope, in our pic- library at Tama wrote that they always had ture business, to cover anything from H-n a waiting list for books reviewed in our to H-1.-Minneapolis Public Library. talks." Radio book talks are also given by the library of the University of Nebraska Recently an English second-hand bookseller (KFAB, Lincoln, Nebraska); by Edith Tobitt, Librarian, Omaha Public Library (WOW, created some little excitement by offering his old books for sale at so much a pound-scales Omaha, Nebraska); and by the Seattle Pubon the counter. Now we notice that Little lic Library (KOL, Seattle, Washington). Boy Blue (Book) Haldeman-Julius is advertising the works of Clarence Darrow in the Add The Library Beacon of the St. Paul following mariner-—"Astounding Bargain! (Minn.) Public Library to the list of new Best, Liberal, Progressive, Reading--1157 library bulletins, lately increased by The LiPages, 300,000 Words, Almost 2 Pounds for brary Mercury of the Rochester (N.Y.) Pub$1." Which reminds us, for no reason of lic Library. Miss Lutie E. Stearns, whose all, of the item in a New York newspaper article on "The Great Unreached and Why" about the corybantic lady, "billed as the most appeared in the March Wilson Bulletin, will girl in the world.'” (Sic!) be pleased to note this paragraph entitled “No Red Tape" in The Library Beacon : The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Insti- "Probably because this Library ages and tute, Poona, India, appeals for contributions ages ago used to require applicants for cards towards the expenses of producing a critical to furnish two guarantors and perhaps in and illustrated edition of the Mahabharata, some cases because new residents have come which, next to the Vedas, is the most valu- from some town where such guarantors are able product of the entire literature of ancient still required, a good many persons don't know India. This great and venerable epic is one how simple it is to get a Library card. All of the most inspiring literary monuments of any adult resident of the city or county has the world, and an inexhaustible mine for the to do is to apply at the Registration Desk investigation of the religion, mythology, legend, at Central Library and in less than five philosophy, law, custom, and political and so- minutes he can have a card. No guarantors cial institutions of ancient India. After more are required, only the names of two friends than eight years of silent but arduous labor, to enable the Library to get in touch with the Institute has commenced the work of pub- the card holier in case he changes his address lication, which will continue for the next ten without notifying the Library. When applyto thirty years, depending on the support ing at any of the branches or stations the given. Two fascicules (pp.1-60, 61-136) have process is almost as simple except that the already been published and a third is on the card carinot be immediately delivered. But it press. When completed, this monumental la- will be ready within a day or two." bor of Sanskrit scholarship will have a total of about 8000 demy quarto pages, bound in England is again much stirred over the cenabout a dozen volumes. It will be a complete sorship problem, since the suppression of The thesaurus of all the important extant versions Well of Loneliness and The Sleeveless Errand. of the Mahabharata, which is in many re- The following interesting letter appears in the spects the greatest epic the world has pro- correspondence columns of The Publishers' duced. Circular: "It is a curious thing that the two novels The Public Libraries of Leeds, England, which have been seized and destroyed on the under the direction of the City Librarian, ground of obscenity are both more or less R. J. Gordon, are publishing an exceptional serious and carefully written books by literary series of "What to Read” booklets, consisting artists. This also applies to the seized manuof quite comprehensive outlines of reading, script of the poems of Mr. D. H. Lawren somewhat similar in plan and format to the If you really mean the words you quote ia Reading with a Purpose of the A.L.A. The your article with obvious approval as a test distinguished names of the contributors are of obscenity, Whether the tendency of the earnest of the quality of the series. The first matter charged as obscene is to deprave or series of the “What to Read” booklets in- corrupt those whose minds are open to such cludes Psychology, by W. McDougall (0.p.); immoral influences and into whose hands a Citizenship, by Rt. Hon. H. A L. Fisher; publication of the sort may fall,' I shall be English Economic History, by G. D. H. Cole; glad if you will tell your readers if you think Evolution, by J. Arthur Thomson (0.p.). The that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Smollett, Fielding and Sterne, with many of the great Restoration dramatists, in part, may be said to come under your definition? If not, why not? Or is it only contemporary art and literature which must be cleansed? I do not envy you your problem. For my own part I should be sorry if the mentality of the average policeman, or even that of a wellmeaning magistrate, is generally recognized as fit to judge literature either old or new. I think, moreover, that a good deal of current commercial and political teaching and practice is such as 'will deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral infuences,' but I do not therefore press for the complete suppression of my political opponents. “The fact is, that any form of literary censorship is always a farce, and must be a farce. It is always partial, one-sided and, finally, ineffective.”—Samuel J. Looker. the plot; and an outline of the play; together with the characters and scenes alphabetically arranged, with glosses and appendices. When completed the work will occupy approximately 2500 pages, size 10%2 x 774, and a title page, contents, and index will be issued for binding purposes upon its completion. Parts already published are Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Macbeth, The Tempest, Hamlet, King Lear, and King John. The prices for the parts are reasonable. Further information may be obtained from Mr. Baker, Public Library, Taunton, Somerset, England. Martinus Nijhoff, bookseller of The Hague, has published a Selected List of Dutch Books, recommended for libraries. This list gives a very fair idea of the best current Dutch literature in all its branches. The catalog is now in its tenth edition, revised and brought up to date. Address: Martinus Nijhoff, Lange Voorhout 9, 'S-Gravenhage. The rural library situation, according to the A.L.A. is briefly this: More than 45,000,000 people--44 per cent of the total population of the United States—are without local library service. Ninety-three per cent of those without library privileges live in the country or in small towns. English librarians have their troubles. One of them complains in print about the "thoughtless practice of idle gossip, which disturbs readers, in an atmosphere where quietness is as essential as in a place of worship. And the aimless perambulation of some young readers who confuse the library with a parade ground is something that is altogether foreign to effective library service. Another nuisance is the attempt to bring dogs into libraries, or to tie them up in the lobbies where their barking and antics are resented by the orderly reader and by the staff. A more minor nuisance is occasioned by the fond parent who allows his or her offspring to shout or play hide-and-seek around the bookstacks, or use books for building castles.” Poisoned chocolates are usually effective in these cases. A new method of handling duplicate pay collections is being tried by the circulating department of the Portland (Oregon) Public Library. This latest plan, as reported in Illinois Libraries is to select 18 of the most popular titles in fiction and non-fiction. Patrons of the library are given the opportunity to subscribe to the list, checking twelve of the eighteen titles that they want to read. A subscription fee of 25c is charged to cover cost of mailing notification postals. The books are issued at fifteen cents a week. The plan has been very successful. The borrowers are pleased to have a chance to read the new books, one after another, without any delay. Usually, the subscribers are thru with the books long before the general demand has been satisfied and even tho the books have not paid for themselves, they may be added to the library collection at less than half their regular price. "It is usually better to lose a book and its fine rather than a reader and good will.”— Jessie M. Wilson, Northumberland, Pa. Arthur E. Baker, Borough Librarian, Taunton, England, author of the Tennyson concordance, is at work on a scholarly enterprise that deserves the whole-hearted support of libraries. This is A Shakespeare Dictionary, which brings together the names of the Characters, Place-names and other words which invite explanation, whether fictitious or historical, created or utilized by the dramatist thruout the Plays. The work is being issued in parts, paged continuously, each part dealing with a play and being complete in itself. Each part or play includes the dates of composition and first publication; the source of Apartments in New York City are so predominantly the mode of habitation, observes the Municipal Reference Library Notes, that we can scarcely realize that the first apartment in New York City was built only fifty-nine years ago. The pioneer, “The Stuyvesant," at No. 142 East Eighteenth Street, is still operated as an apartme:at house. Rutherford Stuyvesant, its builder, was so impressed by the apartments in Paris that he decided to introduce the idea to New York. It has been responsible for revolutionizing the history of home-making in this city. This red brick building of five stories containing apartments of 9 rooms, 7 rooms, and 4 rooms--many of the rooms of immense proportions--was desig:red by Richard H. Hunt, the architect. Today, 59 years later, New York City has a total of 1,316,057 apartments. About 70 percent of the residents of the City reside in apartments or tenement houses. This picture, taken on March 20, shows the state of progress on the new eight-story fireproof building, which will add about the same floor area to The H. W. Wilson Company as is now occupied in the building adjoining on the left. THE LIGHTHOUSE M BONDS advantage of the linotype card catalog is that, $150,000. when the additions and corrections of the month have been added, it may be quickly and The NEW WILSON COMPANY cheaply duplicated, and a copy of it, in conBUILDING venient form, sent to every subscribing library. These linotype card catalogs weigh nearly First Mortgage 6% Gold Bonds two hundred tons and represent an investment Dated April i 1929. Payable $5,000 in metal alone of more than forty thousand annually. Balance April i 1949 dollars. Interest coupons payable April 1 and Octo- The publishing of an Education Index has ber 1. Certificates in denominations of $1,000, been postponed for several years but at last $500 and $100, registered. Title insured by the first issue came out last month. We have Lawyers Title and Guaranty Company. Call- promised to publish an index to the contents able on thirty days notice on any interest day of a selected list of good books of a combefore April i 1939 at 102 and before April posite character, which are of little use to liI 1949 at 101. braries without some form of analytical index. We have had under consideration for years MATURITIES an index to the literature of Art to take the April 1 1930 and annually thereafter the place of card indexes, now so expensively amount of $5,000 will be paid. made in many art departments and museums. The balance of $55,000 will be paid on April These and other publications of undoubted I 1949. value have been postponed until the new United States Catalog was finished and until Subscribers to these bonds should indicate the preferred due date. we might also have an added building to provide room for a much increased staff. BONDS AND COUPONS PAYABLE The new building will provide stack room AT BANK OF THE MANHATTAN for one hundred thousand volumes of indexed COMPANY periodicals and books included in standard Those wishing to subscribe to bonds should catalogs, many of which will be analyzed and all of which will be needed often for consulcommunicate with The H. W. Wilson Com tation in connection with the work we are pany, 950-972 University Avenue, New York. doing. Publishers are, of course, glad to supply us with the periodicals and books inTHE NEW WILSON BUILDING dexed and cataloged, but we must preserve them for our use so long as needed. since the first number of the Cumulative We shall have room in this building for a Book Index was mailed, there has been an photostat, so that any user of our indexes increased demand for the cooperative index will be able to secure a copy of any indexed material not in his own library. ing and cataloging services of this Company. During all these years there has been a steady The new building is number 950-956 Uniincrease in the number of libraries. The li- versity Avenue and adjoins the building now brary has come to be an indispensable unit occupied at 958-964 University Avenue. It is in every large business organization and now of strictly fireproof construction and we shall the library is coming to be regarded as neces- feel much safer when our valuable records sary in high schools and grade schools. One have been transferred to it. The lower floors superintendent of schools voices this modern have been made very heavy to carry printing attitude, “I build my schools around the li- machinery while the upper floors have been brary." made for office use. We look forward to the day when any sub- The actual cost of the land was approxject for which card indexing is worth while imately $16,000 but the present value is much in a dozen libraries will be found worthy of more. While the amount of contracts let for a printed index. the completion of the building now amount In our editorial department, a card catalog to $208,000 there will be additional items which is kept in which a card represents every entry will bring the total net cost above $225,000. in the printed index. In the printing depart- The total issue of bonds amounting to ment is kept for each index a corresponding $150,000 will be about 65 per cent of the and identical card catalog in linotype. The actual cost of land and buildings. |