College and Research Libraries By M O R T I M E R T A U B E Libraries and Research Mortimer Taube is head of the Order Department of Duke University Library. TH E U R G E to be collectors or biblio-philes has sometimes operated to obscure the standard of value which ought to guide university librarians in selecting books. I t is the function of a university library to collect and make available for use books, pamphlets, broad- sides, manuscripts, etc., needed for the teaching, public service, and research pro- gram of the university. T h e teaching and research program is not to be too narrowly conceived. A university library may legitimately collect material whose use is not imminent but whose value is demon- strable and which at some subsequent date may be used in either the teaching or the research program. T h i s concern for f u t u r e use may be matched with a concern for the needs of the scholars of a region or nation. A great university library usually serves more than the limited group of students or faculty members officially con- nected with the university of which it is a part. In spite of the- latitude of this con- ception of the function of a university library, a considerable part of the ex- penditure of the average university li- brary is dedicated to the purchase of materials whose acquisition cannot be justified in terms of this function. For example, an examination of the report of the Board on Resources of American Li- b r a r i e s , Notable Materials Added to American Libraries, 1938-J9,1 discloses that many of the items listed are notable only as collectors' items and have little sig- nificance for research. T h e pride that li- braries take in their "notable additions" seems to arise independently of the im- portance of these additions. A library is not proud of the fact .that it has J o w e t t ' s standard edition of Plato's Dialogues. Al- most any library may have it, but not every library can have a first edition or a copy of George Spelvin's Letters to His Son at College. W h e n M r . Spelvin w r o t e these letters he became so impressed with himself that he decided to have them printed as Christmas presents for his friends and business associates. T h e lucky recipients of copies of the Letters lost no time in depositing the books in safe places such as attics, closets, or basements f r o m which their emergence would be improb- able. Some time a f t e r the departure of George Spelvin f r o m this life, copies of the Letters were t h r o w n away or sold as junk, but like the fabled Phoenix they have undergone a glorious rebirth. T h e y began to t u r n up in dealers' catalogs as " r a r e Americana, not listed in Sabin and not in the H a r v a r d library," and are priced any- where f r o m $2 to $25. T h e college, which up to that time did not realize that the residence of George Spelvin's son within its walls had been the occasion for the creation of rare Americana, buys the book and lists it proudly among its "notable additions for the year." 1 Library Quarterly, 10:157-91, April 1940. 22 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES But the cream of the jest remains to be stated. T h e librarian who is forced to pay huge prices for the poems of Smith, the letters of George Spelvin, the dime novels of thirty years ago, or the back files of the Saturday Evening Post, resolves n o t t o be caught again. H e resolves to save every- thing, to collect "attic" material, to collect anybody's and everybody's letters, diaries, account books, etc., to throw away nothing even though he must crowd the books on his shelves until bindings break. Professor Branscomb effectively summarizes the fac- tors which have led to this intolerable situation: Apart from a tendency to rank libraries according to the number of their volumes and the pressure of accrediting agencies, the factor most responsible for policies of gross accumulation has probably been the feeling that every book contains something of value and should be preserved. This is an in- sidious argument because of the element of truth which it contains. Most librarians have discovered that it is really impossible to prove that any given piece of paper with writing on it will have no value for re- search studies of the future. The Oxy- rhynchus papyri, which have been of the ut- most historical importance, are, for example, personal letters, housewives' shopping lists and other ephemera recovered from the rub- bish heaps of that small town west of the Nile. The dime novels of a generation ago are now being collected, and the handbills of local amusements and even patent medi- cine advertisements of a century ago may be material of great use for the social his- torian.2 1 recognize, in agreement with Profes- sor Branscomb, the element of truth in the argument that everything has some value, and also that over against this element of truth there is the unavoidable conclusion that material indiscriminately accumulated 2 Branscomb, H a r v i e . Teaching ivith Books. Asso- ciation of A m e r i c a n Colleges a n d A . L . A . , 1940, pp. 166-67. becomes "a liability rather than an asset, increasing by its presence the cost of all routine processes and obscuring the pres- ence of books which ought to be read."3 Further, this element of t r u t h serves to blind librarians to another t r u t h , namely, the fundamental difference between a study such as Egyptology and the con- temporary history of the United States. In the case of Egyptology scholars are confronted with the task of imaginatively reconstructing a civilization from a limited number of monuments, ornaments, papyri, etc. But workers in the field of modern American history are faced with the op- posite sort of task. In order to realize that this is the case, consider what it would mean if every shopping list of every American housewife were saved; if every letter now lying in a desk or bureau drawer were preserved; if the business correspondence of every individual or corporation were stored; if complete files of every magazine sold on the newsstands had a valid claim to preservation in li- braries. T h e prospect would be ridiculous if it were not so menacing. T h e task that faces the scholar of the contemporary scene is not one of preserving materials but of eliminating them. T h e scholars in Ameri- can history have themselves come to real- ize that the sheer accumulation of undif- ferentiated "research material" may have disastrous results. In a report to the Com- mittee of the American Historical As- sociation on the Planning of Research, the Eastern Conference on American History held that . . . an enormous quantity of data is ac- cumulating, to such a degree as to create a serious problem of storage facilities, and, in the case of certain classes of sources, make the problem of plethora menacing to 3 Ibid., p. 167. DECEMBER, 1940 23 efficient scholarly exploitation. We there- fore recommend the appointment of a com- mittee to study the question of what ma- terials, if any, may wisely be neglected by collecting agencies and to study any other possibilities of coping with this problem.4 As far as I have been able to determine, no committee was ever appointed and nothing has been done to cope with the "plethora." T h e sanctity which surrounds the term "research" disguises a good deal of down- right nonsense. In the Survey of Activi- ties of American Agencies in Relation to Materials for Research in the Social Sci- ences and the Humanities, c o m p i l e d f o r t h e Joint Committee for Research of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council, it is disclosed that an overwhelming ma- jority of these activities are devoted to the uncritical collection of local history, local imprints, diaries, letters, genealogies, ac- count books, autographs, old newspapers, etc. Even if the legitimate nature of these activities be granted, the fact that hun- dreds of collecting agencies compete with one another for the same materials has the effect of raising prices to farcial propor- tions. Consider, for example, the afore- mentioned Letters of George Spelvin. Let us grant that some librarian, who finds M r . Spelvin and his letters revolting, nevertheless believes that it is his duty to posterity to preserve the record of all social phenomena. He, accordingly, is willing to receive the Letters in his library and bear the expense of cataloging and housing. But the issue is not resolved so simply. Aside from the value which may accrue to the Letters because of Sabin's indifference or H a r v a r d ' s oversight, the Letters may 4 A m e r i c a n H i s t o r i c a l Association. C o m m i t t e e on t h e P l a n n i n g of R e s e a r c h , Historical Scholarship in America, Needs and Opportunities; a report. N e w Y o r k , 1932, p. 98. have several other characteristics which add to their value. In the first place, M r . Spelvin cannot be supposed to have had his book issued by one of the well-known pub- lishing houses. H e would undoubtedly have employed the local job printer and the book will thus have a rare imprint. Sec- ondly, since M r . Spelvin's son received the letters while at college, the book has sig- nificance for research in the history of American education. T h i r d l y , M r . Spel- vin is a local author and his book is a legitimate collector's item for the local library, the county library, the state li- brary, the historical society library, and every college and university library in the state which lists "the collection of the works of local authors" as part of its pro- gram of collecting materials for research. T h e net result is the competition of a hundred libraries, each anxious to secure the book, and the question becomes, not who has sufficient good will to accept it but who has money enough to buy it. Determining Value of Research Materials It is possible to present certain concrete conclusions and proposals for coping with the situation discussed in the preceding pages. 1. A university library is primarily a service institution devoted to the f u r t h e r - ance of teaching and research. It is not a museum for the storage or exhibition of literary monuments and curiosa. 2. Libraries should resolve to eliminate scarcity as a measure of the value of a book. In general, it can be said that the value of the contents of a book varies in- versely with its scarcity. If, due to his- torical accident, a really valuable book should be scarce, its value will, in most cases, lead to Reprinting. 3. In general, the most recent edition of 24 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES a book is preferable to any earlier edition even if the earlier edition should be the first. 4. Autographs and association features, whatever monetary value may accrue to books from them, are not germane to the concerns of a university library except in cases where the occurrence of an auto- graph is an important historical fact, not previously noted. 5. Libraries, by means of concerted ac- tion, should force down the prices on Americana. T h e possibility of film repro- duction indicates one method of making "rare Americana" cheap and universally available. If necessary, libraries should declare a moratorium on the purchase of such material. T h e booksellers will then be compelled to give most of it away and charge reasonable prices for the balance. Parenthetically, it can be added that the traffic in Americana between book-dealers and libraries has reached the proportions of a flourishing racket. 6. Books whose value and importance are derived solely from the fact that they were published at a certain time and place (including a large proportion of Ameri- cana) likewise have no value for a uni- versity library once the fact of publication is known and recorded. T h e y should be discarded or sent to a museum or to some other type of repository. Libraries hesi- tate to do this because they pay so much money for "rare imprints." But combined action on the part of libraries could re- duce the price of "imprint" books just as in the case of Americana. 7. Manuscript collections are usually considered the most important research materials, but publication of the contents of a manuscript reduces the manuscript to a collector's item and dissipates its value for a research library. N o library should DECEMBER, 1940 collect manuscripts already exploited or edited by scholars unless there is good reason to believe that the editing has been bady done and needs to be done over. I n his r e v i e w 5 of t h e Guide to the Latin American Manuscripts in the University of Texas Library, Professor Rippy makes the following observation: Much of the cream has already been taken from this collection. Many of its important items have been published in documentary collections. . . . Many other manuscripts have served as the basis of works written by a number of historians. . . . In fact, many of the manuscripts were largely exploited or in the process of exploitation before they were deposited in the University of Texas Library. Professor Rippy goes on to lighten the sting of this comment by adding that "manuscripts are always useful to an- tiquarians . . ." 8. I wish finally to present a plan that will help to solve the problems of a li- brarian who must decide whether or not to purchase a manuscript, a rare pamphlet, a first edition, or similar materials. Items of this sort come high. T o be sure, they can usually gain publicity for the library or mention in the account of "notable ad- ditions." But suppose the librarian wishes to make his decision not in terms of ad- vertising value, but in terms of scholarly value or significance for research. His own judgment may not be equal to the task of deciding and the current interests of the men on the faculty may be too limited or too catholic. Various organizations concern them- selves with the collection and preservation of research materials. These same organi- zations might sponsor the creation of a committee on the determination of the re- 5 Library Quarterly, 10:433-35, J u l y 1940. 25 search value of rare books and manu- scripts. If such a committee could be set up which published, at regular intervals, a list of authors whose works had been is- sued in definitive editions, the presence of a name on such a list would be a declara- tion to librarians that the manuscripts, first editions, or pamphlets written by this man had value only for book-dealers and collectors. T h e r e would be nothing dog- matic about such a list. Several pre- liminary draf t s might be circulated in order to take advantage of any suggestions for the inclusion or omission of names. T h e discovery of new materials would automatically lead to a correction of the list. Besides names, the list might include topics. T h e committee would also have a permanent secretary who could answer questions about names or topics not on the list. If a librarian were not sure whether some manuscripts offered to him by a dealer had ever been published he could write to the committee for informa- tion. If the committee replied that the manuscript had been printed and was available, the librarian might still w a n t to buy the manuscript as a collector's item but he could not disguise the grounds of his decision with high-sounding phrases about source material, scholarship, or re- search. I can present two examples drawn from my own experience in which the existence of such a list would have been valuable. In both cases the scholarly insignificance of material offered by dealers was discov- ered without the aid of a list; but this does not lessen their value as examples. T h e r e are probably many other cases in which the library has bought material whose significance for scholarship has been overestimated, but since the type of check list I am proposing is not available, these cases remain undiscovered. It was only by accident that in these two cases the knowledge that the materials were unim- portant happened to be available. In one case we were offered by a dealer, at a very high price, the run of the New York Herald Tribune in w h i c h K a r l M a r x ' s comments on the Civil W a r ap- peared. Undoubtedly we would have bought this item if we had not known that these particular writings of M a r x had been collected and reprinted in a very reasonably priced book. So far as scholar- ship is concerned, the book, together with the information concerning the first ap- pearance of the articles which is contained in the preface of the book, does away with the value of the newspaper. In another case a man on our faculty recommended the purchase of a published decision of one of the earliest and most important cases in the history of American labor. Fortunately, another member of our faculty happened to know that this decision had been reprinted in a collection that was already available in the library. Positive Program of Action I realize full well that these proposals are essentially negative and contain few suggestions for a positive program. A positive program for a university library must await the achievement of cooperation between administration, faculty, and li- brarian resulting in a concrete and de- tailed collecting policy with well defined goals and limits. Further, this policy must be a phase of a regional or national program. Until such cooperation is achieved, and its achievement is all too rare, the collecting activities of university and research libraries will be characterized by confusion, waste, and lack of purpose. (Continued on page 32) 26 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES as to the word "research," we cannot get away from the cynical remark that he who copies from one book is guilty of plagia- rism, while he who copies from three is engaged in research. W e cannot forget the cartoon in a literary periodical depict- ing a shabby individual, armed with a pointed stick, w h o was picking scraps of torn paper from the ground. T h e caption suggested that he was a professor of edu- cation doing research. Likewise there is a distinction between "research" and " r e - search" which curators of rare books have to draw. The Curator of Rare Books It is my own opinion that rare books in college and university libraries should be treated as such—and that means that every library which has any regard for them should have, if possible, a separate curator of rare books. I t is to be urged that this curator shall not be a person of inferior training, salary, or personality. A prospective benefactor will infer much from the kind of person a librarian puts in charge of the rare books. T h e curator must be able to meet people. Increasingly librarians will wish to refer the more im- portant bibliographical enquiries to such a curator—hence training and experience in that field are more important for such a position than training in a library school. O f t e n we are inclined to think that ex- perience in antiquarian bookselling is the best kind of training for such a position. In any case, a rule-of-thumb assistant, fresh from college, is not ideally equipped, in fact, may not be equipped at all, for such a position. Libraries and Research (Continued, from page 26) T h e r e is a f u r t h e r question, of course, concerning the responsibility of librarians for the existence of such a situation. I t may be that our research libraries but mirror the confusion and meaninglessness that characterize much of research itself. If, as the Librarian of Congress has charged, our scholars are irresponsible, bored with meanings, and indifferent to values, the libraries which serve such scholars and are responsive to their de- mands must share this description. H o w - ever, this paper is not concerned with the allocation of blame or responsibility. W e must first recognize the situation as it is; we must realize that the boast of complete- ness disguises a f r i g h t f u l waste of money for the purchasing, cataloging, and hous- ing of t r a s h ; we must realize that " r a r i t y " is usually an indication of the lack of in- trinsic value; and, in general, we must realize that a research library must de- velop standards of value and importance, similar to those exercised by a museum in selecting its exhibits or by a symphony orchestra in selecting its repertoire. Catholicity of interests does not excuse the lack or obviate the need for such stand- ards. W i t h o u t them our research li- braries tend to become mausoleums in which a small percentage of worth-while books are buried beneath accumulations of trivialities. 32 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES