PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS IN OBTAINING FOREIGN SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS' VERNER W. CLAPP The Libra~yof Congress, Washington, D. C. had personal experience in learning, to be insu5cient Our prewar foreign acquisitions, both for individual libraries and for the country as a whole, assumed on the part of our people either a complete lack of interest in or, a t the very least, a lack of necessity for precise knowledge of vast areas of the earth's surface and of the political, social, economic, linguistic, industrial, and other activities carried on by the human beings inhabiting those areas. Before the war we could afford to be vague or lacking in accuracy in many affairs, or we could wait to write for information, or we could go to see. Only after our entry into the war, when none of these possibilities was permitted to us, did we 6nd that our previous acquisitions of foreign maps and other geographical materials, of technical and scientific publics, tions, of material relating to educational and financial systems, and so forth, were insufficient. While we had increased our acquisitions of the "important" books and of the journals listed in the professional bibliographies, we had neglected the important books of lesser importance and the journals which were not forced upon our notice by frequent citation. And, just a t that moment of course, our most important sources of foreign publications dried up. Every librarian remembers those early anxious days when he hoped to get his German subscriptions, now through the Netherlands, now out of Genoa or Lisbon, and finallya dim hope-through Vladivostok. Libraries attempted to pool their interests and to secure special favors from the warring powers to permit the flow of bookmaterials; hut it was almost a relief when a t last all dependence upon commercial arrangements had to be given up. Meanwhile the reduction of availability of printed information applied not only to Axis'publications; wartime hazards of transportation and wartime restrictions on both the amount and kind of publication markedly reduced our access to information even from those countries which were later to become our allies. And so, with our entry into the war, a curtain fell which cut us off from normal access to supplies of information a t the very moment a t which that information had just become vital. I believe that no general report has as yet been made of the methods employed by the United States in meet- ' ing this situation. Should it ever be made, it will make most interesting reading. Some of the methods necessarily partook, to a high degree, of the character of espionage; and even the case of the Library of Congress-not a war agency-involved a certain amount of what may be called "astuteness." In any event, by the end of the war, t.hrough its own activities and those
S m m the specific problems of the acquisition of scientific literature are for the most part particularizations of the geueral problems of acquisition, I propose to present briefly a r&m6 covering recent and present developments. Early in 1942 a firm of printers associated with the Alien Property Custodian's republication program borrowed certain volumes from the Library of Congress' set of Beilstein's "Handbuch" and proceeded with deliberation, hut with full permission, to slice the backs and the bindings off them so as to make photo-offset reproduction as nearly perfect as possible.. Quite apart from the act of heroism involved (you appreciate how hard i t is to separate a librarian from his bindings), this act was a very meaningful one; for in i t was vividly represented the extent of the dependence of our own wartime research upon the bibliographic assistance of our enemies, as well as the extent to which this bibliographic information was a t that time unavailable in this country. Before the war Beilstein was the accoutrement of well-stocked chemical libraries; as a result of the APC republication t,here are now some 11,000 additional sets available, and the bibliographical research equipment of the country is that much tho greater. On the eve of World War I1 there were being published in one foreign country-Germany-according to Sperling's "Zeitschriften- u. Zeitungs-Addressbuch," some 7000 periodical publications, .exclusive of newspapers. Although much, perhaps most, of this material was unimportant from the point of view of American libraries, yet the remainder included principal journals in many fields of research and industrial activity. At that same time-in 1939-one important American general research library, the New York Public Library, was receiving currently 2964 German periodicals; and another library, the Library of Congress, had 1736 subscriptions to German periodicals placed with German dealers done, aside from other subscriptions placed with American dealers and titles receivedby copyrightdeposit and international exchange. I mention these figures as indicative of the extent of publication in one field-periodicals offered for sale-in one country before the war, and also of the extent to which two large general research libraries felt the necessity of making these materials available to their readers. Extensive and costly as these prewar acquisitions were, they turned out later, as some of you may have Presented before the Division of Chemical Education a t the 110th meeting of the American Chemical Society in Chicago, September 9-13. 1946.
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of certain other agencies-notably the Army, Navy, OSS, State Department, and OWI-the Library of Congress had been able to secure some 12,000 German, 10,000 French, and 7000 Italian books, all published within the war period (check lists of these have been or are being published), quite apart from large supplies of maps, periodicals, and newspapers. These were quantities far exceeding the prewar norms. In the field of journals the Library of Congress maintained and published, as "a Check List of Certain Periodicals," a union catalog of some 3000 scientific and technical periodical publications from Axis and Axisdccupied countries, showing the location of individual issues wherever they might be found in some 125 libraries throughout the country. Finally, in order to make available to American research generally the current Axis publicstions which were being brought into the country and also to supply the need for older scientific manuals and treatises, the Alien Property Custodian undertook the republication program whereby, through the media of photo-offset and microfilm, about 600 book and 200 periodical titles were made available, covering a wide range of technical and scientific publications. So much for the subject of foreign publication procurement during the war, the excitements of which were focused principally upon the publications of our enemies, both eastern and western. For World War I1 was one in which dependence was placed, as I suppose never before, upon what in military terminology are generally called "documents," so that a t one time the merest scrap of enemy paper had its value for one purpose or another. It was a war in which a pamphlet found in a German army surgeon's tent after Alamein might convey information which could save the long expense and delay of a project in research in a new sulfa derivative, and in which the trends of enemy policy and action were studied through the changing shades of meaning and varying emphasis given to particular words in the dispatches printed in his provincial newspapers. With the close of the war the problem of the aequisition of foreign scientific publications became involved with the general question of the release of the scientific and technical information gathered during the war hut withheld from publication due to considerations of military security. Planning on this front had been done well in advance of the termination of the war in OSRD and other places, and action came soon thereafter; by Executive Order 9568, June 8, 1945, the President issued directives for the release for publication of such information and established the Publication Board to assist in carrying the directives out; and these arrangements were specifically applied in subsequent Executive Order 9604 (August 23, 1945) to information of enemy origin. The operation which has resulted from these directives is well known and needs but a brief description. Under the aegis of the Department of Commerce, a t first in the name of the Publication Board but since last July 1 in the name of the O5ce of Technical Services, there have been assembled in tremendous quantities the
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION reports of wartime research--our own, our allies' and our enemiesJ-including also the findings of the various investigative agencies-TIIC (Technical and Indnstrial Intelligence Committees), CIOS (Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee), FIAT (Field Information Agency, Technical), BIOS (British Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee),the Washington Documents Center, and the Air DocumentsResearcb Center. Following removal of security restrictions (in which the Army and Navy hold veto power), these documents are cataloged and abstracted and then announced in the Bibliographg of Scientific and Industrial Reports, which commenced in January, 1946, and which has now run to some 33 issues, announcing and describing some 15,000 reports. An additional 15 to 20 thousand have already b ~ e nindexed, and it is anticipated that the total may run to several millions. All of this material is made available quite simply. Following publication of the abstract, the original documents are placed in suitable libraries in Washingtonthe Army Medical Library, Department of Agriculture Library, or the Library of Congress-which have photostat or microfilm services. Photocopies of the documents may then be purchased through OTS; and in its first Technical Services bulletin OTS has disclosed that during the month of May alone copies of 21,000 reports were furnished under the plan. I know that a t the Library of Congress specifically we have had to add night shifts of photostat operators and to make use of every available piece of laboratory equipment and space in order to cope with the demands for service on this material. An examination of the Bibliography of Scientijic and Industrial Reports will show a very considerable share of the documents handled under this program fall into the classification "chemicals and allied products," and that either the documents themselves or the products and processes described derive from American, British, French, Russian, German, Japanese, and even Hungarian sources. There remain huge untapped reservoirs of data. In the United States there are the accumulations made under the various projects of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, the Chemical Warfare Service, the Army Air Forces, and other agencies; in Germany, FIAT, established under Military Government for the U. S. Zone as a feeder to OTS, employs a large group of research workers and a large battery of cameras for copying materials, whiie much technical data, e. g., aeronautic, has already been brought out of Germany into this country, where it is being examined and incorporated into reports. In order to expedite the release of all this information and to effectits dissemination beyond what the singlecopy abstracting method can effect, OTS is securing publication or republication in extenso of especially important reports and is also importing in multiple copies the current issues of certain technical periodicals. At several points, therefore, and this is one, there is a tie-up between this program and the programs of the Library of Congress for the importation and distribution of
FEBRUARY, 1947
European materials, for the distribution of residual stocks of printed or processed but hitherto undistributed U. S. documents, and in particular for the distribution of the OSRD reports as speedily as they become declassified from security restrictions. While the activity of OTS is directed toward the dissemination of previously restricted or enemy scientific and technical data, the Library of Congress has had in operation since July, 1945, a more general program for the acquisition of European publications of the war years on behalf of itself and some 110 other American research libraries. At the close of the war these libraries found themselves, for one reason and another, unable to purchase in Europe, whereas the Library of Congress, with official status and access to official channels, was able to do so. Consequently, with the consent of the State and War Departments, the Library of Congress undertook to acquire in multiple copies, so far as possible, the publications of the war years needed by libraries, and to distribute these copies in accordance with a schedule of priorities agreed upon among the libraries themselves. A Library of Congress Mission was sent to Europe where-until commercial arrangements gradually became available-it made purchases in Italy, France, Belgium, and the Net,herlands. In Germany and Austria it still operates, having status with the occupying military forces which it assists in screening stocks of publications taken from military or party sources. To date there have been received in Washington, either from or through the Mission, well over 5000 cases, representing perhaps a million books and periodicals, and distribution is well under way. A particular service which this Mission has been able to perform has been in connection with the so-called "Leipzig hooks." At the time when the clouds of war were gathering, American libraries sent an emissary to the group of booksellers in Leipzig, with whom a large portion of all American subscriptions for German periodicals are placed, assnring them that if they would continue, as in World War I, to place subscriptions and hold issues until after the war, they would be reimbursed. The questions ever since May, 1945, have been, therefore, to how great an extent had the dealers been able to fulfill their commissions, had the accumulated materials escaped bombing, and, if so, how could they be secured and shipped? Since Leipdg is in the Russian zone of occupation, answers to these questions could be secured only through the military government of that zone. Negotiations were undertaken and, for a long time, proceeded slowly; but eventually agreements were reached on all details for the evacuation of the materials, including pricing, and in August, with Russian encouragement, the Mission took'four Army trucks to Leipzig and came out with a first shipment of $106,000 worth of held book-stocks which will go far toward completing the series of many an American library. Just as in other activities, so in the matter of foreign acquisitions, i t seems probable that we shall be able to apply some of the results of wartime experience to peacetime practice. I have already alluded to the fact
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that before the war the country as a whole was securing-quite naturally-multiple copies of the most important publications to the complete neglect of many lesser hut, from some points of view, still important publications. From several sources momenta are gathering to change this situation. The best developed of these is the so-called Farmington Plan, which is under study by the Association of Research Libraries. This proposal, which was fomulated early in the war, provides that responsibility for foreign acquisitions be so distributed among the libraries of the country that there would be assurance of the existence, somewhere in the country, of a t least one copy of every publication having research value. No library, it is assumed, would have to carry a burden unequal to its powers, nor need any library give up the right to collect in any field-the bugaboo of usual cooperative acquisition proposals. The cooperative program for the procurement of European wartime publications, which I have just described as operating under the Library of Congress, is in some senses a pilot project for the Farmington Plan. I t has tested the willimgness of libraries to enter into a cooperative arrangement, and i t has helped to define the particular roles which individual libraries might play in a long-term project. Another pilot project of the same kind is directed toward the procurement of Russian publications. Numerous difficulties have arisen in the field of Russian acquisitions since the beginning of the war. Communications have been most unsatisfactory; the editions of the publications themselves have been, due to paper scarcity and for other reasons, small and quickly bought up; and the Soviet government, like other warring governments, .placed restrictions upon the export of scientificand technical data. Meanwhile there has been a marked increase of interest in this country in the content of Russian publications, evidenced by the fact that about 50 institutions participated last November in a conference on Russian acquisitions called by the American Russian Institute of New York. Meanwhile, a group of the principal libraries is attempting to adopt a version of the Farmington Plan with respect to this class of material-namely, so to divide the fields of responsibility that there will he assurance of the presence somewhere in the country of a t least one copy of each nseful publication. Any present plans for the acquisition of foreign publications, whether scientific or other, run into a number of obstacles, some of which are usual and some of which are residual from the war. Principal among all obstacles, of course, is the lack, in large parts of the world, of a record of what is published, issued su5ciently promptly so as to make it possible for the would-be purchaser to make his purchase. Subordinate to this obstacle in importance, but of the same kind, is the lack of selective lists which may serve as guides to the more important publications. Since such lists are now being produced by Great Britain and France, as in the United States, and since one is expected in Spain, it is possible
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that the idea may spread. Another category of obstacles includes the lack of competent and interested dealers, and, even where dealers are competent and interested, the mere lack of paper and string with which to tie up their packages, or a tightly controlled export system, too often succeeds in hobbling their activities. Add to all these the still-existent shortage of paper and consequent quick disappearance of editions. I n order to meet some of these impediments, a t least on behalf of the governmental agencies, the Department of State has announced [Dept. State Bull., 14, 2%5, 34 (January 6, 13, 1946)] a publications procurement program which is a very considerable extension of services which were available to the government before the war. Assignments have been made of officers in important foreign missions who are to have specific responsibility for the assemblage of bibliographic information, for finding and making arrangements with dealers, facilitating negotiations, and acquiring book materials not in the book trade. It may be hoped that as this program matures its benefits may extend beyond the governmental to the nongovernmental libraries. But, as you do not need to be told, it is not enough merely to acquire publications; to realize their use it must be possible to locate them when needed and, to be genuinely useful, they should be recorded also in the professional subject indexes where the inquirer will seek his references. These considerations have of course arisen also in connection with current acquisition programs. I have mentioned the fact that the Library of Congress has published or has in press lists of its accessions of Italian, French, and German publications of the war years. But these lists, no matter what their use may be otherwise, are author, not subject lists. .In addition, in the present cooperative acquisitions project which we are conducting, we make a record of each book sent to each library; and this record will be incorporated into the Union Catalog in the Library of Congress, which already has about 13 million entries and which is thus an unequalled finding list for books in the United States. But this catalog, too, is an author, not a subject list. The Farmington Plan specifically provides that the participating'libraries agree to He a list of their acquisitions in their fields of responsibility in a central classified catalog in the Library of Congress. This catalog would then be a union catalog, but it would make possible the location of books from the subject approach. There are, of course, many details to he worked out. Then there are the various methods of subject control
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
offered through the use of tabulating cards, which has been a matter of so much interest to this and other meetings of this Association. In the Library of Congress we are impressed with the possibilities which this method offers for providing printers' copy for successively cumulated accession lists arranged or analyzed by subject, and we are experimenting. The truth is, however, that before you can analyze by subject, you must have secured the publication to be analyzed. Conversely, indeed, little attention is likely to be paid to any publication which is not recorded in the professional literature or indexes to professional literature. The two go hand in hand. It is for this reason that the Library of Congress gives special privileges to a representative of Chemical Abstracts, permitting him to examine materials in process, with the hope that, if these materials are useful, he may be able to direct them to that use. It is interesting to note in this connection that at the h a 1 meeting of the Preparatory Commission of UNESCO in London last July, a t which proposals were made for the program of UNESCO itself to be voted on a t its first General Conference in Paris last November, this problem of bibliographic control was found to be common to all of the groups represented. The committee on the natural sciences recommended that UNESCO organize and assist the better exchange of scientific information, set up regional offices throughont the world for the exchange of literature and information, and rationalize the scientific journals and abstracting services. The committee on the social sciences asked for the establishment of an indexing and abstracting service. The committee on media of mass communication requested the collection of materials to be used for catalogs, bibliographies, abstracts, etc. The committee on the fine arts requested "as complete documentation as possible," and the committee on edncation wanted "biliographies, abstracts and digests, intended both for scholars and the public." The committee on libraries, which might have kept quiet on this subject and let others do the talking, also had suggestions for hibliographic enterprises (UNESCO, Preparatory Commission, Document 51, July 3, 1946). Indeed, this need for perfecting the means of access to the literature of their fields is common to the intellectual workers of all countries. At this moment it looks as though UNESCO might do something about it. And, in step with the perfection of bibliographic control, there always comes a demand for the publications themselves. The two operations-acquisition and bibliographic control-are opposite sides of the same shield.
