College and Research Libraries Thompson's book may be read with profit in conjunction with Shera, the early chapters of Ditzion, and a careful glance at Predeek's A History of Libraries (1947), to mention no other works. It may be read profitably by those who do not mind seeing each tree in the forest of the earlier chapters; by those who desire an idea of the progress of the public library idea from faint glimmer in the Colonial Period to the first truly influential and refulgent realization which came when the Boston Public Library opened its doors in the 1850's; and by those who wish to see how there came into existence the first permanent professional organization and the first pro- fessional journal. This work provides, too, a valuable bibliographical base for further ex- plorations by students of library history.— Joseph A. Borome, Department of History, City College of New York. Standard Gazetteer The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World, edited by Leon E. Seltzer with the geographical research staff of Columbia University Press, and with the cooperation of the American Geographical Society, x, 2148P. New York: Columbia University Press by arrangement with J . B. Lippincott Company, 1952. $50.00. The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer is easily the largest and the most up-to-date of the English language gazetteers. It contains about twice as much material as either of its two famous English-language predecessors, the Lippincott's New Gazetteer of the World (I905)> and Longmans Gazetteer of the World (1905), and Longmans Gazetteer of the World (1895). Its 130,000 articles and 30,000 cross-reference entries constitute a total volume of material about four times as large as that in the only other recent Ameri- can gazetteer, Webster's Geographical Dic- tionary (1949). Geographers are somewhat given to con- sidering gazetteers tools designed for their especial use. Certainly no geographer will be other than pleased to note that Theodore Shabad served as assistant editor and John K. Wright as advisory editor in the tre- mendous task of preparing this volume. As an encyclopedia of places, and their charac- teristics, this volume is at present unsurpassed in the English language. However the ma- jority of library users probably will not be geographers: the blend of historical and cul- tural information achieved herein greatly en- hances the utility of the volume from the general reference volume, and complements the geographical content effectively. T h e advantages of the volume for library use, for supplementing geographical research, and in other more general uses, are practically self-apparent when one confronts the volume and need only be listed to be evident to the reader. Its large number of entries places the volume in a class by itself. The informa- tion provided under the average entry is somewhat more than is characteristic of other English-language gazetteers. Its emphasis on geographical vs. strictly historical information appears balanced. Its small size—approxi- mately 9 X 12 X 2§ inches—in relation to con- tent is astonishing. Entries are listed alpha- betically, hence information is normally easily located and assembled even if an area con- taining several places is under investigation. Insofar as possible, 1950 or later census data have been used throughout; where 1950 data were not available, the latest and most ac- curate data were used. A "Key to Population Figures" indicates the census year, and/or other sources, used in arriving at population data for places in each political unit. Varia- tions in the spelling of place-names have been held to a minimum by adopting—where per- tinent to do so—the place-names decisions of the U. S. Board on Geographic Names, and the British Permanent Committee on Geo- graphical Names. In non-English speaking areas, place-names frequently have an estab- lished English equivalent; in cases where there is more than one English equivalent, the most commonly used equivalent today is ac- cepted. Place-names from languages which use a non-Latin alphabet have been trans- literated. This single contribution may have a tremendous, and entirely beneficial, influence upon the accuracy of place-name references in geographical writing in the next two or three decades. Place-locations are indicated by geographical coordinates, or by straight-line distance from a larger feature whose exact location is known. Cross-references are in- dicated by use of capital letters. The volume has been checked extensively by four colleagues and four graduate students of the writer's in connection with research under- way. Coverage appears surprisingly complete. The disadvantages of The Columbia Lip- pincott Gazetteer are few, but two, certainly, are apparent. Its price—$50—places it beyond the reach of most individuals; library 210 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES access to this volume therefore becomes of utmost importance to most scholars. The absence of place maps ^nd regional maps is a disadvantage, too, but considering overall size and comprehensiveness, this omission can be overlooked on the grounds that the volume is large and expensive as it is. The Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer un- doubtedly will be the standard English lan- guage gazetteer for many years. As such, it is and will be an indispensible library refer- ence tool in geographical, historical, and many related fields of investigation.—Merle C. Prunty, Jr., Department of Geography, Uni- versity of Georgia. English Literature 1660-1800 English Literature 1660-1800: a Bibliography of Modern Studies compiled for Philologi- cal Quarterly. By Ronald S. Crane, Louis I. Bredvold, Richmond P. Bond, Arthur Friedman, and Louis A. Landa. Vol. I : 1926-1938. Vol. I I : 1939-1950. Prince- ton: Princeton University Press, 1950-52. Vol. I, $5.00; Vol. II, $7.50. The compiling of annual period bibliog- raphies within the field of historical and literary research is a noteworthy phenomenon of the last generation in America. Since 1916, when the first one was started, nearly every field with some overlapping has acquired its own special bibliography, usually with the blessing or active sponsorship of a correspond- ing research group of the Modern Language Association. Neither the annual cumulations nor such a collection as the present can ever supersede in general library usefulness such comprehensive bibliographies as the Cam- bridge Bibliography of English Literature, but scholars have found the annual period bibliog- raphy the most useful guide to recent publica- tion; even when a comprehensive bibliography is new, the period bibliography records (and often assesses) all publications too recent to have been incorporated in the proofs of the larger work. Now, since the task of search- ing year by year through the annual volumes of the Philological Quarterly has grown in- creasingly burdensome, the Princeton Press has made this series conveniently available to libraries and scholars by reprinting it photo- graphically. T o the reprint Professor Landa has prefixed a brief "Foreword," and an Index (to both volumes) in Vol. I I . Since the entries of the first volume are more or less incorporated in the Cambridge Bibliography, the second volume (1939-1950) with the consolidated index will be more used. T h e index of some sixty pages is not exhaus- tive, but it is the most significant addition to the- reprint. Included in a single alphabet without analysis are page references to the names of scholar-authors of books and articles, the names of eighteenth-century figures dis- cussed, and some references to selected topical entries like Booksellers, Gothic, Plato, Primi- tivism, the Spectator, and Voyages. Not much duplication is allowed in the topical entries; e.g., Straus's Curll is indexed under Straus and under Curll but not under Book- sellers; Professor Jones's Ancients and Moderns under Ancient-Modern Controversy but not under Bentley, Swift, or Idea of Progress; and Professor Landa, who himself reviewed Professor Fairchild's Religious Sentimentalism in the Age of Johnson, de- clines to index it under Sentimentalism. The index, therefore, is no substitute for a search through the critical comments on books and articles of interest to the inquirer. A fuller subject index would prove useful, and sixty- five page references under Shakespeare will prove tedious to inquirers asking what has been written concerning Shakespeare by scholars dealing with later authors, but no extension of the index seemed feasible within the plan of this reprint. Regrettably, no space has been found to record significent errors or omissions dis- covered in this quarter-century cumulation, save for one page of embarrassing but harm- less misspellings of personal names.—A. T. Hazen, Columbia University A C R L M O N O G R A P H S Send your standing or single copy orders of ACRL Monographs to A C R L Monographs c/o University of Illinois Library, Chicago Graduate Division, Chicago 11, Illinois. Next four to eight issues (depending on size) $5.00; issues No. 1-7, $3.50. Make checks payable to The Association of College and Reference Libraries. Send cash or stamps in advance for single copies costing less than $1.00. The monographs are issued irregularly and have no annual subscription price. APRIL, 1953 265