College and Research Libraries


144 1 College & Research Libraries • March, 1967 

small collection will work economically and 
efficiently. Indeed, the curator of silver at 
the Smithsonian was enthusiastic over the 
possibilities of the system, providing her 
with a useful means of categorizing her ma-
terials. In short, for certain types of collec-
tions, this system may be one answer for 
the mechanical means of information re-
trievaL-Marcus A. McCorison, American 
Antiquarian Society. 

Interlibrary Request and Loan Transac-
tions Among Medical Libraries of the 
Greater New York Area. By Lee Ash 
and Vernon R. Bruette. New York: The 
Survey of Medical Library Resources of 
Greater New York, 1966. 199p. $5. (66-
26014). 

Interlibrary loans are big business. This 
survey provides badly needed facts and 
suggests trends. While some of the findings 
are hardly unexpected, there are a few 
surprises. 

The survey was set up in 1963 by funds 
from the Health Research Council of the 
City of New York. Gertrude Annan served 
as principal investigator with Jacqueline 
Felter and Erich Meyerhoff as co-investi-
gators. The Medical Library Center of New 
York supplied office space and equipment. 
The original broad charge to the surveyors 
was soon narrowed to concentrate on inter-
library loans. 

The surveyors pragmatically decided to 
use all of New York state and the area from 
Groton , Connecticut, through northern New 
Jersey for loans and requests. In addition, 
loans made to the survey libraries from the 
College of Physicians of Philadelphia and 
the National Library of Medicine were in-
cluded. Questionnaires were sent to 441 
libraries, 278 returned completed reports, 
and 224 agreed to take part in the survey. 
Of the 217 libraries which remained in the 
program for the full year, seventy-nine pro-
vided the bulk of the material. 

The data used, which included requests 
for original materials and for photorepro-
ductions, amounted to 99,452 transactions 
(27,825 requests by the survey libraries, 
and 71 ,627 requests to the survey libraries). 

Of the serial requests made by the survey 
libraries 42.1 per cent were made by nine-
teen commercial concerns. The requests re-
ceived by the survey libraries showed that 

50.1 per cent came from the commercial 
concerns (mostly pharmaceutical houses ) . 
The National Library of Medicine received 
14.5 per cent of all serial requests by the 
survey libraries. Some 9.6 per cent of the 
total requests went unfilled. 

One of the biggest surprises for the sur-
veyors was that almost 18 per cent of the 
requests by the survey libraries were made 
outside the survey area. This has some im-
portant implications for regional planning. 

Tables break down the transactions by 
borrower, lender, and type, date, language, 
and subject of publication. The source 
records have been kept at the Center and 
are available for further study. The sur-
veyors hope to publish elsewhere more de-
tailed tables showing rank orders and num-
bers of requests and loans for the frequent-
ly-used journals. 

In addition to drawing attention to the 
need for detailed cost studies (to include 
both direct and indirect elements), the sur-
veyors conclude by emphasizing that the 
burden on the larger libraries must be re-
lieved, that these libraries should "supple-
ment" not "supply." They also stress the 
importance of on-the-spot service in the 
small libraries. 

This is a census of a region and not a 
sample that could validly be extended over 
the country. It is a valuable report that 
should have a profound effect in the New 
York region and could have an effect nation-
ally if other groups pick up the challenge 
and make comparable studies.-William K. 
Beatty, Northwestern University. 

Books in America's Past. Essays Honor-
ing Rudolph H. Gjelsness. Ed. by David 
Kaser. (Published for the Bib1iographical 
Society of the University of Virginia. ) 
Charlottesville: The University Press of 
Virginia, c:1966. x 279p. $8.75. 

When Rudolph H. Gjelsness retired in 
1965, he had served the profession of li-
brarianship for more than forty-five years, 
the last twenty-five years as chairman of 
the department of library science at the 
University of Michigan. This tastefully de-
signed volume was published as a token of 
respect for Gjelsness' long, distinguished, 
and fruitful career as librarian, library edu-
cator, and scholar. 

The volume contains thirteen contribu-