College and Research Libraries


By T H O M A S F R A N K L I N C U R R I E R 

The Subject Specialist 
Thomas Franklin Currier, late associate 

librarian, Harvard College Library, now 

honorary consultant in American Literary 

Bibliography in the University Library. 

IT is the purpose of this paper to discuss a somewhat different organization of 
work from that to which we are accus-
tomed in our university libraries. T h i s 
organization should provide sympathetic 
service to those engaged in scholarly re-
searches, reduce the cost of administration, 
speed the processes of accessioning, and 
benefit the staff by giving to those with 
proper equipment and experience a larger 
share in the development and use of the 
collections under their care. It is a study 
of how far it is practicable to substitute a 
division of work by subject for the hitherto 
almost universal practice of division by 
process (order, accessions, cataloging, 
classification, and reference). T h i s study 
applies almost exclusively to the organiza-
tion of work in large university libraries, 
specializing in diverse fields of knowledge, 
and acquiring books in many languages. 
T h e paper is based on actual experiments 
over a period of a number of years in 
attempts to make such organization prac-
tically effective. 

An example, one of many that might be 
cited, will show the type of problem that 
has led to the conclusions here expressed. 
Some years ago, although my adminis-
trative duties were theoretically limited 
exclusively to cataloging and classification, 
it came my way to have the spending of a 

moderate sum to be devoted to unusual 
books in the field of the history of educa-
tion. Because I held the purse-strings I 
was consulted by the order chief as to 
purchasing a rare and somewhat costly, 
anonymous, sixteenth-century publication. 
A letter from our Italian agent was re-
ferred to me, describing the publication at 
length, and providing useful and rather 
unusual bibliographical references. In 
the course of making the decision as to 
purchasing the book, exact knowledge as 
to its significance and position in the 
history of education was acquired. T h i s 
knowledge was sufficient, had I had the 
book in hand, to enable me to catalog and 
classify it with practically no additional 
research. I approved the purchase and put 
the matter out of my mind. Some time 
later, glancing at a pile of newly acquired 
books, my eye lit on one that looked 
particularly interesting. Behold, it was 
the treatise I had earlier approved; it had 
now been received, accessioned, and sent 
on in regular course for cataloging. H a d 
I not accidentally noticed the book on the 
table it would have been the subject of a 
new investigation on the part of the cata-
loger, pursued without the advantage of 
reading the agent's letter. T h e chances 
are that lacking the information contained 
in this letter the results of the new investi-
gation would not have been so precise, and 
there would surely have been an unneces-
sary expenditure of time in searching 
biographical dictionaries, bibliographies, 
and other sources. In brief, the first re-

14 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



search, devoted to deciding if the book 
should be purchased, would have been 
wholly lost, so far as cataloging and classi-
fication were concerned. Is this not an 
altogether too common occurrence in our 
libraries? 

One Investigation Adequate 

I well know the usual reply to my 
problem. T h e order slip might easily 
have been marked with the statement that 
a bibliographical letter regarding the book 
was available in the order department 
files, and this note might have been passed 
on to the cataloger, or I might, at the 
beginning, have asked that the book be 
sent directly to me on receipt. T h e fact 
remained that neither of these seemingly 
obvious steps was taken, and it remains 
true that, even where there is the utmost 
desire on the part of all to coordinate 
order and catalog work, such matters are 
seldom automatically attended to. A 
spurt may be made in this direction as a 
result of a chance conference between 
department heads, or as a consequence of 
some flagrant case, and printed forms may 
be evolved to simplify the passing on of 
information; in six months' time the pro-
cedure has fallen quietly into discard. 
If, however, the information acquired in 
purchasing is passed on to the cataloger, 
the latter must usually, even then, repeat 
for herself the survey of sources in order 
to catalog the book properly, and as a 
consequence, we pay for two investigations 
of the same item by two competent per-
sons, when one would have been wholly 
adequate. 

Under the plan here suggested, when-
ever the library possesses a live and grow-
ing special collection, a trained and com-
petent person should be placed in charge. 
T h i s assistant should herself check all 

orders for books in this field, and know 
how much money may be spent; she might, 
to some extent, be authorized to initiate 
orders, guided as to policy by the librarian 
or the faculty member who may have been 
delegated to advise on purchases. T h e 
special assistant should invariably, herself, 
as soon as possible, receive the books she 
has ordered, and supervise the classifica-
tion and cataloging. W h o afterwards can 
better guide the visiting research specialist 
or reply to correspondence from outside 
relating to her subject? I may well quote 
here from a recent preface: 

T o Miss Ruth Cook of the Architectural 
Department and Miss Louise Taylor of 
Widener I am very grateful. Their assist-
ance has been much more than directing me 
to books on architecture and education treat-
ing the school-building problem. Each in a 
lovely and personal way has entered into the 
spirit of this investigation, and has been a 
genial counselor. 

Lost Motion 

I am not fighting windmills. I have 
watched for years the lost motion in work 
done under a strictly process department 
system in a large, scholars' library, and 
this when ( I assure you) there have been 
the best intentions in the world on the 
part of the staff personnel. In fact, it is 
just where these intentions are the best 
that we occasionally notice the greatest 
waste of time in conferences between 
subordinates, or of effort on the part of 
someone, spent in writing long memoranda 
in a laudable attempt to pass on informa-
tion. In a certain proportion of cases these 
memoranda are helpful, but too often they 
recite matters that are well known or, at 
the most, easily discovered by the cata-
loger, expert in her field. 

T u r n , for a moment, to the use made of 
library material after acquisition and cata-

DECEMBER, 1940 15 



loging. It will happen, at times, that a 
cataloger, who may be something of a 
specialist, is asked to check on a request 
for data after some research has been 
made by a member of another department, 
less familiar with the sources of informa-
tion in the field in question. T h e normal 
procedure would be to report the results 
back to the department to which the re-
quest was first addressed, to be communi-
cated to the original seeker for informa-
tion. W h e n this procedure becomes 
habitual, what is more discouraging to an 
ambitious cataloger than to supply infor-
mation regularly to the library patrons 
always through a third person, thus losing 
the pleasure and, decidedly, the benefit 
that comes from direct contact with the 
one who asks for help ? H o w encouraging 
to the cataloger, on the other hand, to have 
her helpfulness recognized in a neatly-
worded preface! 

It is, then, wise to give the competent 
and technically trained specialist on the 
library staff a larger share of responsibility 
in all that pertains to her subject, includ-
ing checking and approving orders, cata-
loging, classification, and making the 
collections useful, particularly to those 
engaged in advanced research. Each of 
the processes thus mentioned benefits 
hugely when carried on in close and in-
timate conjunction with the others. 

Axiomatic Propositions 

Consider now this question from the 
angle of administrative costs. M a y we 
not start by looking on certain propositions 
as axiomatic and then consider their effect 
on our library routine? 

First, the cost per unit of acquiring and 
absorbing difficult material is enormously 
greater than that for simple material. I t 
may cost several dollars (anywhere from 

three to thirty or more) to purchase and 
catalog an incunable, while it will cost as 
many cents to do the same for a current 
American novel. Moreover, the worker 
who can do independent and wholly satis-
factory work on incunables is of a rare 
type, difficult to find and retain, while 
American fiction can be acquired and ab-
sorbed, with complete satisfaction, by the 
newest library school graduate. As to 
cost, any administrator of cataloging 
knows the ease with which production 
figures are swollen when the staff is de-
voting its time to mass production of 
simple material, particularly when it is 
in English. Unfortunately for those who 
pay the bills the most important work 
of the scholars' library is apt to deal 
with difficult material, where mass pro-
duction may be impossible and where 
centralized cataloging is not available. 
In spite of this situation it is altogether 
too easy for the administrator to base the 
routing of work on a study of mass pro-
duction of homogeneous or easy material 
rather than on what we might call 
"quality" production of the difficult. 

O u r second axiom might be, that when 
acquiring and absorbing difficult material, 
the salary cost of the labor involved is less 
when one expert person passes the books 
and pamphlets through all but the me-
chanical processes than it will be if they 
are passed successively, like a Ford car in 
the making, from one expert to another. 
T h a t is to say, automobile factory methods 
do not apply, in the scholars' library, to 
that part of the administrative routine 
that demands reasoning ability and a 
knowledge of the subject. T h e example 
of the rare treatise on education which I 
cited at the beginning of this study makes 
this evident. Furthermore, successive 
handling of such material by several ex-

16 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



perts in a large staff is not alone unduly 
expensive but too often leads to clashing 
of personalities, and, in the end, to lack of 
uniformity in general results. 

O u r third axiom would state that the 
initial sorting of a large and, particularly, 
of a miscellaneous collection, should be 
done by an experienced expert, and not by 
young and inexperienced members of the 
staff. M y own best object lesson for this 
came with the receipt of the library of 
Evert J . Wendell, when we unpacked 
case after case of books and pamphlets, 
thousands of them. An attempt was made 
to set younger persons at the initial sorting 
of the unique and enormous lots of 
pamphlets. A f t e r a few days of unsuc-
cessful attempts, I gave up and devoted 
my own evenings for a week to the work, 
personally handling each individual item. 
By the time I had finished I knew that 
collection and had already made plans for 
the final disposition of the component parts 
and for the method of treatment. A f t e r 
gaining so complete a knowledge of the 
material and of the possibilities in the 
routine of handling it, it would have been 
little less than criminal to have turned it 
over to another department head for 
f u r t h e r investigation and treatment.1 

The Subject Specialist and Technical 

Processes 

From these statements it follows, first, 
that one expert specialist should supervise 
the progress of a special collection, or of 
difficult material, from the very inception 
of the order and the receipt of a collection 
through the processes of acquisition and 
absorption; and second, this specialist 
must, for economy's sake, be,,-not only 
conversant to the necessary degree with 

1 T h i s m a t t e r h a s been t r e a t e d at g r e a t e r length 
in an article in the J u n e , 1940, n u m b e r of College 
and Research Libraries. 

her subject,-tut must be technically trained 
and experienced in the various library 
processes, and, moreover, actually engaged 
in, or supervising, the daily routine of 
cataloging and "classifying in the subject. 

Cataloging and classification have been 
set aside too much as special processes, 
cleanly separated from the other library 
processes, such as order and reference 
work. Because a person is called a "cata-
loger" it is too frequently implied that she 
can have no share in reference and order 
work even in her own specialty. W e who 
administer agree that it requires a high de-
gree of intelligence and ability to catalog 
and classify, and then we deaden the work 
and limit the possibilities of an intelligent 
person employed to do this work, by with-
holding stimulating contacts with the 
faculty, research workers, and others. 
Furthermore, we avoid giving to her the 
slightest share or responsibility in the 
building up of the collections in her care, 
failing to use her even for so simple but 
necessary a task as checking orders for 
books in her field. 

A bit of reminiscence may serve here. 
Some years ago, when we were keeping 
rather careful figures on cost, our Russian 
cataloger (now no longer on our staff) 
was, by exception, finally entrusted with 
the duty of placing Russian orders and 
carrying on correspondence in regard to 
them. A t the end of the year a summary 
of statistics, covering twelve months' 
work, showed that the cost per title of her 
work, including ordering, was precisely 
the same as the cost per title of the re-
mainder of the staff that was engaged 
simply in cataloging and classifying. 
Moreover, where she formerly had been 
rather impatient at some of the necessary 
and seemingly petty rules of cataloging, 
she now, herself, of her own initiative, 

DECEMBER, 1940 17 



followed them intelligently and with dis-
crimination, having been impressed, 
through her order work, by their necessity. 
T h e purchase of an expensive duplicate 
taught her more quickly and thoroughly 
than a thousand rules the necessity of 
certain reference cards and the reasons for 
our methods of handling bilingual titles. 

The Ideal Organization 

W h a t , then, is the ideal organization 
which will meet the situation thus pre-
sented? In considering this it will be 
kept in mind that when special subject 
supervisors are appointed it must be only 
for those fields of research in which the 
library's collections are active, and steadily 
increasing; and, second, that in any field 
thus selected for special treatment the 
subject supervisor will have assistants in 
large enough number to handle com-
petently the work in the manner to be 
outlined. Outside of the special subjects 
for which provision is thus made, there 
will be a broad fringe of subjects for 
which books and pamphlets are being 
steadily acquired, but not in sufficient 
quantity to w a r r a n t a special organization 
for each topic. A special organization, 
furthermore, is unnecessary for these be-
cause the material acquired will consist 
largely of current publications and chance 
accessions. T o cover this area of mis-
cellaneous topics and to handle the general 
machinery of the library there must al-
ways exist the normal "process" depart-
ments: order, reference, rare book, serial, 
cataloging, and others as needed. It is 
not possible to imagine the whole library 
staff efficiently divided into little compart-
ments on a basis of one for each and every 
subject in the whole realm of knowledge, 
with a somewhat independent supervisor 
for each. T h e subject supervisor organi-

zation is, so to speak, superimposed on the 
"process" organization now ordinarily 
adopted. H o w would the plan work out ? 

The Plan in Action 

T h e order department would maintain 
an intimate knowledge of the application 
of the book funds and see that they are 
appropriately allocated; it would prepare 
a buying budget and keep such accounts 
as are necessary to guard against over-
stepping the approved budget; it would 
carry on the correspondence and promote 
business contacts with agents and book-
dealers, although in exceptional cases (e.g. 
Russian) the contact with definite dealers 
might be more simply placed in the hands 
of the subject specialists; the order depart-
ment would normally send off orders and 
check invoices; it would keep an eye on 
book prices; it would check current publi-
cations, with a view to purchase, except 
where this duty might more economically 
be assumed by the subject supervisor or, in 
the university library, be the labor of love 
and duty of a faculty member. I n the 
matter of checking invoices and maintain-
ing a record of pending orders and of 
uncataloged material there must be close 
coordination between the subject super-
visor and the order department, to avoid 
duplication of records and labor. In pre-
cise subjects and for collections in the 
lesser-known languages the subject super-
visor might well maintain the sole file of 
pending orders and uncataloged material, 
thus having it always close at hand for 
ready and speedy reference. She would, 
in consequence, assume the entire responsi-
bility of checking orders to prevent the 
purchasing of duplicates. T o these 
specialists the order department would, 
ultimately, refer all orders in their re-
spective fields. 

18 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



T h e reference staff would receive the 
mass of questions addressed to it by stu-
dents, visitors, and the teaching body, or 
coming by mail. It should endeavor, al-
ways, to divert to the subject specialists 
unusual questions, to introduce to them 
the research visitor, and pass on, to be 
answered by the subject assistants, letters 
definitely in their respective provinces. 
I t is probable that this correspondence 
should be visaed by the superior officer to 
whom reference will be made later. 

T h e r e should be a body of catalogers 
and classifiers, apart from the subject 
supervisors and their assistants, always 
available for the general and miscellaneous 
work, and for mass production. T h i s 
staff and its chief would be responsible for 
the upkeep of the catalogs, the mainte-
nance of uniform practice, and the har-
monious development of the classification 
scheme. Furthermore, it should serve to 
coordinate the work of the subject super-
visors where the several fields impinge, 
and furnish special help when one or 
another of the subject specialists receives 
an abnormal influx of books. 

T h i s brings us to a more detailed survey 
of the work of this body of subject 
specialists or supervisors for which this 
paper is a plea. T h e members of this staff, 
closely integrated with all the process de-
partments, must not only know a good bit 
about their subjects and the library's col-
lections, but must be competent as workers 
or supervisors in the processes of cataloging 
and classification and engaged daily in 
these processes. T h e y will translate, so to 
speak, the books and pamphlets received 
into terms of library practice. I do not 
say there is not room, when occasion 
demands, for having at the head of a 
special subject a scholar of competence and 
reputation; but when this is advisable he 

would not be asked to concern himself 
with minute technical details. H e must 
have as his right hand a librarian specialist, 
trained in the library technique, who will 
carry out the routine, and act in his 
absence. 

T h e normal, technically-trained, subject 
specialist need not, even in a university 
library, be the holder of a doctor's degree. 
In fact, it too frequently happens that the 
holder of this degree is not desirous of 
remaining for a long period as one wheel 
of a large library machine, when he is of 
the really competent type demanded for 
the work in question. In a library posi-
tion he frequently is intolerant of the 
minutiae of the work of cataloging, classi-
fication, toilsome checking of orders, and 
the like. H e often looks on the library 
position as a potboiler for the, to him, 
more essential work of original research 
and authorship. 

Usefulness Will Grow 

T o a person, on the other hand, holding 
the bachelor's or master's degree, there is 
much inspiration in a library position that 
entails the responsibility of caring for, 
developing, and making useful notable 
collections in some important field of 
research. In a university library, such a 
person with moderate attainments in her 
chosen field will always have some inter-
ested member of the faculty to guide and 
inspire and even incite her to continued 
personal study. T h u s her usefulness will 
grow with the years; for the best service 
in university library work demands full 
knowledge of the collections and experi-
ence in handling them. Given a person of 
this type, guided by a faculty member and 
assigned to a live and growing subject, she 
should be conversant with and direct all 
important work that goes on in the li-

DECEMBER, 1940 19 



brary within her field, drastic innovations 
in her work and abnormal matters being 
taken up with the advice and consent of 
her superior. T h e specialist should be in a 
position to initiate orders for books, and 
should check or pass on the checking of all 
orders in her particular subject. As soon 
as possible upon receipt, books and 
pamphlets in her subject should be sent to 
her desk and she should supervise the 
details of cataloging and classifying these 
books and pamphlets. In case of an un-
usual quantity of accessions she should be 
assigned help, to be applied under her own 
supervision. As to reference work, she 
would not be bothered with routine ques-
tions that can be answered with perfect 
assurance by the regular reference staff, 
but investigators starting work in her field 
should meet her, unusual questions should 
be turned her way, and correspondence 
in her subject be referred to her. If she 
is competent the members of the teaching 
staff of the university will speedily find 
their way to her desk. 

The Subject Specialist and the Investi-

gator 

It should be made clear that these sub-
ject specialists will by no means be ap-
pointed with the view of teaching the 
investigators who use the library about 
their own subjects or how to conduct their 
investigations. Ordinarily, this would be 
supererogation. T h e specialist's duty 
would be to point out the resources of the 
library and to make sure that no important 
body of material is overlooked through the 
investigator's unfamiliarity with the li-
brary's collections. T h e specialist will see 
to it, also, that uncataloged or partially 
cataloged material is made available. For 
those carrying on research who are already 
familiar with the library and its resources 

and do not need to be directed to them, 
the subject specialist can do much to 
smooth the way whenever there is need of 
help in matters that touch library methods 
and routine. A request might come to 
place an order for a book; it might be to 
unravel a complicated bit of cataloging or 
classification; it might be to introduce 
order or improvement in what has been 
done, thus making the collections more 
usable. T h e chief object to be attained is 
to make clear to the serious investigator 
who uses the library that there is a desk 
in the library, with an intelligent person 
behind it, where any library matter con-
cerning the field of research in question 
will be promptly and knowingly con-
sidered, and the needed information given ; 
a desired routine put through; or the mat-
ter referred to some higher authority when 
it transcends the authority of the specialist, 
as the case may be. T h e r e will be no 
necessity for the outsider to hunt up the 
order clerk for one matter, the stack chief 
for another, the catalog chief for a third, 
the serial division for a fourth, and so o n ; 
it will be the subject specialist who will 
make contact with the necessary officers, 
unless, indeed, the matter is so important 
that direct conferences are needed. It may 
be repeated, also, that only the unusual 
matter and the more serious investigator 
need ordinarily be directed to the subject 
specialist. Such questions as may with 
certainty be adequately handled by the 
department first approached should be dis-
posed of at once, thus saving the time not 
only of the questioner but of the specialist. 

A Definite Saving 

Experiments indicate that after an 
assistant has become conversant with her 
duties in the several processes there is a 
definite saving of money by thus combining 

20 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



the order and cataloging processes. Add-
ing reference work to these duties does 
expose the assistant to outside inter-
ruptions, but, if someone in the library's 
pay is to be thus interrupted on a serious 
matter, efficient administration points to 
its being the person who can most com-
petently attend to it. W h o is this, if not 
the subject specialist? Moreover, a truly 
competent assistant will learn to evade the 
unessential interruptions, while surely 
service given is of far higher quality when 
given by one who can be confident that she 
knows all the moves made by the librarian 
in her field, who is intimately familiar, not 
only with the resources of the library that 
are already accessioned, but who has under 
her control whatever comes in from day to 
day, or that is in process of absorption. 

New Problems of Organization 

Some new problems of organization may 
arise in a staff built on this plan. Unless 
the librarian, himself, can find time to look 
intimately after details (and this would 
seem d o u b t f u l ) there should be an ad-
ministrative officer, outranking the depart-
ment heads, whjj will be given authority to 
coordinate the work of the special subject 
assistants and the so-called process depart-
ments. It will frequently be necessary to 
get persons together to decide on just how 
a certain matter shall be done, how help 
shall be equitably assigned, when some 
assistant is rushed by unexpected claims on 
her time, and to decide what topics are so 
live and important as to demand the serv-
ice of a special subject assistant, since, in a 
large library, subjects rise and wane in 
importance, depending on changes in the 
faculty, in courses offered, assignment of 
funds, or new subjects coming to the 
f r o n t . 

It is well, in closing, strongly to em-

phasize the idea that these subject special-
ists are not primarily "catalogers" and 
should not be so called; nor are they per-
sons whose sole equipment is a knowledge 
of the subject field, without the technical 
skill of the cataloger and classifier. T h e y 
combine the two aspects in happy fashion, 
making up for a possible lack of deeper 
knowledge of a subject by their constant 
and close contacts with faculty members 
interested in the library, and by a greater 
willingness to devote themselves to the 
minutiae of technical processes, which pre-
vent the large library from falling into 
chaos. T h e i r functions transcend the 
bounds of the old-fashioned departments, 
although they must act in complete har-
mony -_with those who supervise the 
processes of ordering and with those who 
attend to^the demands of the public in 
person or by correspondence, just as they 
must also be particularly in touch with 
those who are responsible for the develop-
ment of the classification and cataloging 
systems of the library. T h e y are pre-
sumably rational and competent beings, 
who, from ability, character, training, and 
experience are able to look very much out 
for themselves and their assistants and 
who are constantly coordinated in their 
duties by the senior officer of high rank 
already mentioned. 

It is particularly important that these 
specialists shall not be submerged in a 
huge department if such submersion means 
that they must constantly and arbitrarily 
be withdrawn from their normal duties 
to meet some insistent demand of the 
moment, not germane to their specialties. 
T h e y should look on their specialties as 
the prime duty and be given time, oppor-
tunity, and authority to handle the ma-
terial in their care in such fashion as to 

(Continued on page 3J) 

DECEMBER, 1940 21 



thekswissenschaft. i. bd. Harrassowitz, 
Leipzig, 1931. 

Writing (Ideogrammatic and Alphabetic 

Systems): General Works on Philology 

and Treatises on Special Subjects 

Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. Holt, 
New York [01933]. 

Conference on phonetic transcription and 
transliteration, Copenhagen, 1925. "Pho-
netic transcription and transliteration; 
proposals of the Copenhagen conference, 
April 1925." Oxford, 1926. 

International institute of intellectual co-
operation. "L'adoption universelle des 
caracteres latins." Societe des nations, 
Institut international de cooperation in-
tellectuelle, Paris, 1934. 

Jensen, Hans. Die Schrift in Vergangen-
heit und Gegenwart. J . J . Augustin, 
Gliickstadt und Hamburg, [1935]. 

Twaddell, W . F. On Defining the Phoneme. 
Waverly press, Baltimore [1935]. (Lan-
guage monographs, pub. by The Linguis-
tic society of America, no. 16.) 

The Western Book 

Wroth, L. C., ed. A History of the Printed 
Book, Being the Third Number of The 
Dolphin. . . . The limited editions club, 
New York, 1938. 

The Book of Classical Antiquity 

Birt, Theodor. Kritik und Hermeneutik 
nebst Abriss des antiken Buchwesens. 
Beck'sche verlagsbh., Miinchen, 1913. 

Gardthausen, V. E. Das Buchwesen im 
Altertum und im Byzantischen Mittel-
alter. 2. aufl. Veit, Leipzig, 1911. 
(Griechische Palaeographie. 1. bd.) 

The Latin Script 

Steffens, Franz. Lateinische Palaographie. 
. . . 2. verm. aufl. W . de Gruyter, Ber-
lin und Leipzig, 1929. 

The Influence of the Manuscript 

Ullman, B. L. Ancient Writing and Its 
Influence. Longmans, New York, 1932. 

The Discovery of Printing and Incu-

nabula 

Haebler, Konrad. Handbuch der Inkun-
abelkunde. Hiersemann, Leipzig, 1925. 

Scholderer, Victor. Gutenberg: the Man 
and His Invention. (Issued by The Lon-
don Times, Jan. 5, 1 9 4 0 - ) 

Uhlendorf, B. A. The Invention of Print-
ing and Its Spread till 1470. (In The 
Library Quarterly, 2:179-231, July, 
1 9 3 2 . ) 

T h e Subject Specialist 
(Continued from page 21) 

make it increasingly useful to those patrons 
of the library who are engaged in serious 
research. These considerations, however, 
will not prevent the assignment, from time 
to time, of some lesser field of research to 
a person whose main work may be general 
and miscellaneous in character. 

W i t h a view, then, to smoothing the 
path for those investigators who use our 

libraries, decreasing administrative costs, 
giving sympathetic service, and expanding 
the opportunity for satisfying and con-
structive work to the more ambitious and 
capable members of the staff, the principle 
of division of work by subject as against 
division by process should receive the care-
f u l attention of the administrators of our 
large university and reference libraries. 

DECEMBER, 1940 37