College and Research Libraries press themselves. Reference librarians w h o wish the card catalog to answer every possible question without consider- ing the consequences of their demands upon the catalog department have been responsible to a larger degree than has generally been believed for the develop- ment of w h a t Osborn has termed legalistic, perfectionist, and bibliographical catalog- ing. Finally, library school instructors of cataloging w h o have failed to keep in touch w i t h practice have continued to teach young librarians theory without seri- ous attempts to instil in them the urge to examine their w o r k on the basis of indi- vidual cases or from the standpoint of users. Publications Important T h e three publications under discussion, therefore, are important at this time when administrators and catalogers have begun to wonder seriously about cataloging rules and processes. T h e new edition of the A.L.A. Catalog Rules appears as a result of the demands for uniformity in practice. T h e development of cooperative cataloging and union catalogs undoubtedly has in- creased the pressure for a set of rules which w o u l d provide guidance on matters which were not in existence when the 1908 rules were compiled. T h e inclusion of a considerable number of examples seems particularly useful. Sensibly, ac- ceptable variations in practice are noted. T h e fact that the volume contains so many details and rules does not discredit it. If librarianship is to be scientific at all, codifi- cation of rules and principles seems basic. Osborn actually indicts American cata- logers when he implies that they are in- capable of using intelligence in applying rules to practical needs. I t might be pointed out that the division of the new edition of the rules into t w o p a r t s — I . E n t r y and Heading, and I I . Description of B o o k — i s a highly desirable feature. It is to be expected that library practice so far as entry and heading are concerned w i l l be uniform. Practice in regard to the description of the books should undoubtedly vary. T h e golden age of cataloging in its old sense may be over. B u t it is on the threshold of an interesting and challenging era. T h e r e can be but one conclusion to the present difficulties in cataloging so far as large libraries are concerned: in- creased and systematic cooperation and centralization. Administrators, catalog- ers, reference librarians, and teachers of cataloging w i l l need to expend consider- able thought on the problem if cataloging w i l l meet the needs of users effectively and economically. A n d it is necessary to de- termine accurately just w h a t the u s e r s — patrons and staff members—really require. F u t u r e numbers of the Catalogers' and Classifiers' Yearbook might w e l l be de- voted to a further discussion of these p r o b l e m s . — M a u r i c e F. Tauber, Univer- sity of Chicago Libraries. Incunabula in American Libraries. Edit- ed by M a r g a r e t Bingham S t i l l w e l l . Bibliographical Society of America, N e w Y o r k , 1 9 4 0 : 8vo., xiv, 6 1 9 p. T H E FIRST of anything exerts a strong appeal upon well-nigh everyone and the sentimental attraction seems often to be in inverse ratio to its current usefulness or even to the comprehension of those w h o are the most fervent worshippers at its shrine. N o t h i n g has exemplified this more curiously than the books of the fif- teenth century, long segregated in highly honored seclusion under the impressive caption of "incunabula." MARCH, 1942 185 T h e book that marked the end of ex- perimentation and the inauguration of the business of printing as a commercial craft was the so-called Gutenberg Bible, a weighty two-volume publication designed for use at church altars. M e n who had had a hand in the production of that work were still actively engaged in making other and handier books when copies of the First Bible began to pass out of the churches into the possession of collectors who treasured it, not because they wanted to read it but because of the story that went with it. A s a result of this con- temporary interest among the laity rather than by the churchmen, there are nearly fifty copies of the First Bible whose stig- mata are as carefully registered as those of blooded calves or pearls of great price. Other Bibles just as good, or better for actual use, were on the market while that original edition was still to be had at the publication price, but copies of these, which were in production before the first one had been completed, are now virtually unpro- curable. T h e r e are a dozen copies of the First in American libraries. Three or four of these same institutions consider themselves fortunate in being able to ex- hibit a single leaf or two from the one that was probably second in date. T h a t this is a normal situation is shown by the parallel case of the first book printed in English America, just a hundred years after printing began on the Western Hemisphere. There are eleven copies registered of that Bay Psalm Book; there are two copies of the second edition of 1647 and only one of the edition of 1651. Fifteenth century books were over a hundred years old when discriminating book collectors began, so far as can now be told, to pick and choose the cleanest copies of the oldest texts of the books they liked to read. T h e y liked to fondle slightly old editions of Plutarch or Her- odotus, of Aeschylus or Terence, with the same satisfactions that their spiritual prog- eny find in an untrimmed Endymion or Hiawatha "as issued." Until the Napole- onic era, incunabula continued to be the literary firsts for collectors who had been drilled at school and university on the Latin and Greek classics until they could catch an error in scansion or a false quantity in a quotation in a speech by a parliamentary colleague. A f t e r that, new men and new fortunes brought changes in the book market as in other lines of serious work and play. H a l f w a y through the twentieth century, the chief of the patent department of the world's most embracive utility for relaxation reads Homer in his Florence edition of 1488, not- ing misprints and textual variations, but this is nowadays unusual. For most of the nineteenth century, the collecting of Fifteeners was the following of a tradi- tion, the treasuring of curiosities of a long ago. A hundred years ago now, college peo- ple and especially the librarians who found themselves in charge of considerable num- bers of fifteenth century books, became uneasy over their inability to answer many of the questions that were being asked them, not about the contents but about other aspects of these ancient tomes. Most often these were questions as to who and when and where. O u t of these grew a new science of book knowledge chris- tened "bibliography." T w o Englishmen had most to do with its upbringing. William Blades, when he found that his printing business was in shape to take care of itself, turned his leisurely atten- tion to composing a life of the first English printer, W i l l i a m Caxton. He read widely 186 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES and visited archives in search of what could be found concerning his subject. More important, he looked at the actual books that carry Caxton's name with the critical eye of a master printer who had watched over the work that was being done in his own establishment. Noting that Caxton's work, like his own, some- times revealed manufacturing tricks and slips, he went on to examine all the copies of the original publications that he could locate. A s he went along, Blades not only kept careful memoranda of what he found, but he devised his own technical methods of describing the books to meet the needs that he was himself creating. These are far from satisfying the meticu- lous requirements of the science that has evolved since his day, but these later re- quirements are very largely developments from the model set by Blades. Most im- portant of all, as a practical craftsman he recognized that everything depended on accurate observation and understand- ing of the material that Caxton's work- men had to work with, and primarily his type fonts. Henry Bradshaw Henry Bradshaw, librarian of Cam- bridge University, was steeped in the aca- demic scholarship that Blades knew little about. Finding himself in charge of a large number of old books that were of very little use in the places where his predecessors had shelved them, he devised a new arrangement into which they could be grouped. T h i s worked out into what he called the "natural history" method of classifying all fifteenth century books as examples of printing instead of by authors or subjects. A s perfected by Robert Proctor at the British Museum, this rearranged all incunabula under the press at which each book was produced, in the order in which they appeared. T h e individual presses were grouped under the localities in which they belonged, in the chronological order in which the printer began working there. T h e several lo- calities were similarly arranged chrono- logically under their country, and the countries in the order of the earliest print- ing in each. T h i s brought order out of previous chaos. It became possible to un- derstand how typography spread over the civilized world and how it influenced the economic practices and cultural develop- ment of the different nations. Study of Type Faces T h e scientific system worked perfectly as long as it dealt with precise data. T h e machinery clogged when its material was messed up by normal human factors. There are obviously different editions of the same work with identical place and date, and it is not always certain which copied the other. Very nearly half of all the extant fifteenth century publica- tions do not carry any statement telling when or where they were produced. These provided the occasion for prolonged and amazingly fruitful comparisons of type faces. A l l the books that were printed with identical fonts were grouped together, even though there is sometimes no certainty as to where they were printed. A n anonymous type not infre- quently is found in a book that also con- tains a type used by a known printer to whom the foundling can then be assigned. T h i s worked satisfactorily for a few years, until it came to be realised that in the fifteenth century, as in later centuries, men sometimes went out of business and disposed of their stock in trade without leaving any record of what had happened. MARCH, 1942 16 7 T h e study of type faces absorbed the attention of incunabulists for more than two decades. T h e professionals were still deep in these researches when other in- vestigators began reporting the results of a renewed hunt for fresh documentary evidence in the public archives. T h e names of printers were found of whose work nothing is known, and more con- fusingly some who paid taxes in one place at times when their names appear on books from another. T h e broadening interest that was evidenced by these activities had another even more disturbing effect on the placidity of the subject. T h e number of recorded incunabula multiplied three, four, perhaps five times. T h e new titles moreover were almost always more inter- esting in their contents as well as much rarer than those previously known, and the proportion of unidentifiable pieces was very much greater. Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke Fifteenth century typography is a sub- ject that has fascinated students who found occasion to look into it from early in the eighteenth century. It was compact, clean-cut, with a definite body of material that seemed fixed and, within reasonable comprehension, that could not be increased beyond the sum total already in existence within a limited area. By the end of the nineteenth century these advantages were breaking down. T h e limitations had broken bounds. Something had to be done. T h e German incunabulists, assert- ing their right to monopolise this German invention, undertook to bring the material under control. T h e y proposed to pre- pare and publish a "Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke" which should describe adequately every discoverable piece of fif- teenth century typographic workmanship. A special mission was sent to Italy to sift the contents of every big and little hiding place where these things might lurk. England and France had already begun a similar rounding up of their national hold- ings, and now dropped other bibliographi- cal programs to expedite the larger undertaking. America did what it could by attempting to compile a census of copies in public and private collections. A n enormous amount of data was accumulated at Berlin, and publication proceeded with the inevitable delays incidental to the thoroughgoing attempt to settle all the uncertainties for all time. T h e n came war, with the letter " F " unfinished. Census of 191Q Shortly, another incunabular situation arose in America that asked for allevia- tion. T h e Census of Fifteenth Century Books Owned in America which was printed by the N e w Y o r k Public Library in 1919 had done its work almost too well. It had proved valuable as a union catalog of the principal collections, with a single important exception. It made it possible for students whose researches led them to these books to locate copies of the widely scattered titles. It stimulated interest and appreciation in the custodians of libraries, both those who had these books and those who lacked them. One such, Henry E. Huntington, saw the op- portunity to gain distinction for his collec- tion by making a determined attempt to secure whatever the book market offered that was not registered as being in any other American institution. T h e book- sellers did what they could, and " N o copy in America" became a commonplace in their catalogs, some of which listed not a single item that was to be found in the Census. 188 C O L L E G E , AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES L u c k i l y , the impending need for a more careful second edition had been quickly foreseen by M a r g a r e t Bingham Stillwell. She had helped in the preparation of the Census of 1 9 1 9 and had gone on to the charge of the Rush C . H a w k i n s collection of First Books by the First Printers in the A n n m a r y B r o w n M e m o r i a l at Provi- dence. T h a t special library of fifteenth century books was obviously the strategic place to establish a clearing house for information about American incunabula, and M i s s Stillwell w e n t about establish- ing her right to expect to be notified when- ever an addition was made to any other collection. E v e n t u a l l y after many dis- couragements her foresighted persistence was rewarded. T h e Bibliographical Society of America, which had sponsored the first Census, secured the necessary funds to pay for assistance in completing the material. A n advisory committee w i t h L a w r e n c e C . W r o t h as chairman was ap- pointed to stand back of M i s s S t i l l w e l l and provide any needed support. Second Census T h e "Second C e n s u s " spread its net over Canada and M e x i c o as w e l l as the U n i t e d States. I t is a volume of x l v and 6 1 9 pages, listing 35,232 copies (about 13,200 in 1 9 1 9 ) of 1 1 , 1 3 2 titles (6292 in 1 9 1 9 ) in 332 public ( 1 7 3 in 1 9 1 9 ) and 390 private (255 in 1 9 1 9 ) collec- tions. T h a t the w o r k must go on, backed by some adequate financial support, is clear from the three pages of addenda, present- ing information that arrived too late for inclusion at the proper place. It shows 108 additional copies for titles already entered, and twenty new titles not before available for American students. Four- teen entries record a significant g i f t to the D a r t m o u t h C o l l e g e library. Seven- teen other entries marked " c h a n g e " are in the nature of errata, and look as if the responsibility might be evenly divided between the technical staff and the printer's compositor, M r . Skillings, to w h o m the Preface pays a laboriously earned tribute. T h e r e are undoubtedly other errors in the eighty thousand lines of nondescript medieval L a t i n and tricky bibliographical contractions spiced w i t h numberless meaningless figures, but there is every reason to believe that these w i l l prove to be amazingly f e w . It is a volume that bids fair to become a land- mark of American typographic craftsman- ship as w e l l as of scholarly standards and achievement.—George P. PFinship. MARCH, 1942 189