An Union List of Collections on European History in American Libraries: Compiled for the Committee on Bibliography of the American Historical Association (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from An Union List of Collections on European History in American Libraries: Compiled for the Committee on Bibliography of the American Historical Association

It was the hope of the Committee that the circulation Of the list would result at least in somewhat strengthening the apparatus for historical work in American libraries, but the prompt and large response went beyond their utmost expectations. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and the Library Of Congress, have perhaps been most active in supplying their lacks, but the greatest public libraries and many of the university libraries, especially libraries about Chicago, have been alert, with the results that several thousand additional copies are indicated in this edition, the total number of copies which cannot be consulted in America has been reduced, and the general situation in several geographical localities has been distinctly improved. In the report of last year, Harvard, with out of sets, had already a considerably larger number than the Library Of Congress, its nearest runner up. At once on the issue of the Check List in January, 1911, it began purchasing new sets, and, after the report in December, it continued the careful searching of its libraries for copies, so that before issuance of the proof edition in March Of this year it had sent in additional titles, bringing the number of its sets up to about Since that time some three hundred more sets have been added, so that, at the present time, Harvard alone has more titles than there were altogether, in all American libraries at the time of the report a year ago. It now lacks less than 300 sets, while it was reported a year ago that there were 313 sets which were not to be found anywhere in this country. Yale, too, has very greatly increased the number of sets reported over the number reported last year.

The most significant fact of the statistics of last year remains, however, substantially unchanged - the fact that only ten or a dozen libraries have as many as 10% of the collections, and that out of 786 institutions which profess to do work of college grade, only about fifty libraries have as much as The actual situation is even much worse than appears from the figures since two or three inexpensive volumes Of illustrative source books for class-room use are in the list through inadvertance, and undoubtedly swell the record of the minor institutions. It is safe to say that a majority even of the institutions included in the Babcock list have less than one-tenth of 1% of these sets, and yet these are titles which have been gathered from actual references and are the books which are liable to meet any men engaged in historical research at every turn.

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