College and Research Libraries By R I C H A R D A. H U M P H R E Y The Department of State and the Acquisition of Research Materials of Foreign Origin THE government of the United States is a heavy consumer of foreign publica- tions in all categories. For many years it has made use of certain techniques in their procurement familiar enough to nongovern- mental institutions whose research likewise depends in greater or less measure upon such materials. It has had at its disposal in addition, however, at least one other avenue of access to the literature of the world not available to the private research institutions—the foreign service. W i t h the experience of W o r l d W a r I I now behind it, this government has been forced to the conclusion that its former procurement techniques were inadequate. T h i s inadequacy was amply demonstrated by the dearth of vital foreign research ma- terials at Washington's disposal at the outset of the war. Moreover, during the period of hostilities, not only the normal commercial channels, but also the exchanges were in a chaotic state. T h e burden of federal procurement throughout the war, therefore, was placed upon two principal sources of supply—the foreign service and an interdepartmental committee created for the express purpose of acquiring foreign publications. Between them, these sources secured thousands of foreign titles ranging from the daily press and vital periodical literature to maps, charts, statistical year- books, and other materials necessary to the conduct of the public business in wartime. Hostilities having terminated, the prob- lem has become that of reassessing former methods, analysing f u t u r e demands, and at- tempting to relate the two with a view to making such changes, additions, or other alterations in procurement techniques as ap- pear to be necessary to satisfy the greatly enlarged demand for foreign research ma- terials. By far the greatest proportion of foreign material procured for the government prior to the war was secured through one or the combination of two channels: ( i ) com- mercial, supplemented by traveling agents of individual agencies, and ( 2 ) exchange. In addition to the fact that, pragmatically judged, these sources produced consider- ably less than the desired quantity of pub- lications, the methods in themselves were not entirely satisfactory. T h e reasons for this will be apparent to any librarian re- sponsible for substantial foreign acquisitions. Exchanges, as between government and government, stem from the Brussels Con- ventions of 1886. In terms of the needs of this government their principal weaknesses have been that ( 1) they provided for the exchange of only single copies of the speci- fied classes of official publications; ( 2 ) they did not cover provincial, municipal, pro- fessional, or other important private pub- lications; ( 3 ) they did not provide for the establishment of new exchanges; ( 4 ) they did not of themselves provide the means for fluid adjustment to changes in departments and ministries; and ( 5 ) they did not con- 99 stitute suitable sources of bibliographical data. As a result, the various departments and agencies of this government adopted the method of establishing direct exchange relationships with their counterpart or near- counterpart agencies in specific foreign countries. In many ways this affected the needed relationships, but it remained es- sentially outside of the formal government- to-government pattern and gave rise to nu- merous additional administrative problems of integration as well as to an enormous amount of additional labor on the part of the separate agencies. O n the other hand, direct purchase through normal commercial channels also proved less than efficient as a method of procurement. In general, it may be said that the two chief drawbacks have been ( I ) the lack of adequate bibliographical information upon which to base sound pur- chase procedures and ( 2 ) a time lag, usu- ally extending over a period of months, before information was actually received in Washington and orders processed and placed. In order to circumvent these diffi- culties, two methods of purchase have been largely relied upon which, again, will be familiar enough to librarians generally— the direct representative of a department or agency traveling abroad and the blanket order. Neither was satisfactory. It will be obvious that no single govern- ment agency, having large-scale needs for foreign printed materials, could afford enough traveling representatives to attain really world-wide coverage. T h e Library of Congress, for example, one of the largest single consumers of such materials among the federal agencies, maintained only a few people at a time on collecting missions abroad but never attained the coverage de- sired. Other agencies could service them- selves even less adequately in this respect. Moreover, such representatives, officials of this government, functioned in an inevitably official capacity vis-a-vis other governments. T h i s rendered especially serious such dupli- cations of effort as from time to time oc- curred in certain . countries, and the Department of State came more and more to the view that the job to be done was essen- tially a foreign office function and, as such, could not either efficiently or appropriately be accomplished by other agencies than the department itself. In any case, the objec- tives to be achieved—full coverage, extensive bibliographical information, and efficient and speedy ordering—were not attained in the past through the device of traveling agents. T h e technique of the blanket order, placed with a dealer or dealers in a given area, has served the individual agencies' needs no better. Inevitably, the "intake" from any given dealer represented just so much of a substantive field as it profited the dealer to select and forward. Equally in- adequate have been the bibliographical aids. Moreover, a great deal of private printing of importance for government research is never represented at all in the usual com- mercial channels. Finally, even with such information at hand as they could secure through these means, the agencies lost a great deal of material by virtue of time con- sumed between receipt of information from abroad and the preparation and placing of orders in the field. Present Methods Inadequate T h e foregoing considerations should serve to show that, of the two principal channels for procurement of foreign pub- lications normally open to this government (purchase and exchange), neither has proved satisfactory judged even by prewar standards. T h e problem of the future, in- terpreted in the light of these factors and particularly with reference to the wartime experience, has become that of providing 100 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES such additional channels of procurement as appear necessary, modifying or clarifying the processes within old channels, or both. Chief reliance has been placed upon the latter of these two alternatives in the cur- rent planning for f u t u r e operations. I t has already been pointed out that the foreign service of the United States has, for many years, assisted the government agen- cies as a whole in procuring foreign printed materials. Under standing instructions from the Department of State, each post has been required to assign to a specific officer the re- sponsibility for complying with requests from Washington. One of the weaknesses of this system has been that in practically no case, even in important publishing cen- ters of the world, could the full time of any officer be afforded for this task. M o r e - over, few if any of the officers so designated could be presumed to have any technical training in the collection or even assessing of library materials. Nevertheless, over a pe- riod of years the foreign service had been able to do a significant enough job in sup- plementing the agencies' other channels of acquisition to make it obvious that the proper procedure to follow in building up new techniques was first to strengthen the one which had demonstrated its potential. Accordingly, after a thorough canvass of the problem by its Division of Research and Publication and upon recommendation of that division, the Department of State de- cided that its new responsibility in the whole acquisitions program was clear and deter- mined to allot to the foreign service (at first through the medium of the Foreign Service Auxiliary) a certain number of full-time, technically-trained officers to be stationed at the principal publishing centers of the world or in those areas from which library materials were most sorely needed, to coordinate the department's field facili- ties. T h e task that these officers are expected to perform is, in large measure, re- flected in the needs to be served, as judged against the background of the relatively inadequate methods of the past. Publications Procurement Officers In very brief, the activities of the depart- ment's publications procurement officers fall into two chief categories—the development of comprehensive bibliographical informa- tion services in the field and the acquisition of library materials by exchange, purchase, and gift. T h i s government's needs require that the materials with which the publica- tions officers will be concerned will be varied —books; pamphlets; periodicals; newspa- pers; federal, provincial, and municipal offi- cial publications; maps; city plans; and even ephemera such as posters. T h e i r biblio- graphical reporting is expected to provide current information on basic reference books and treatises, including directories, eco- nomic and commercial guides, statistical works, private periodical and other litera- ture published by industrial concerns and scientific societies, as well as information on the status of normal commercial publica- tion outlets. I t is clearly understood that the job to be done will display very different charac- teristics in different parts of the world. In all cases the intention is to supplement, not to supplant, normal commercial channels long employed by federal agencies. In one location the principal task may be establish- ing an integrated exchange system; in an- other, the emphasis may be on coordinating sources of market information; and, in still another, much attention will have to be given to "following through" already initi- ated exchange and purchase patterns. T o o much emphasis cannot, however, be placed upon the fact that (certainly for some time) the department will be able to afford all too few full-time officers for an essentially APRIL, 1946 101 gigantic task. As a consequence, it will not he possible for the publications officers to undertake certain related- functions for which the department would otherwise deem it right and appropriate that they assume responsibility. Substantial assistance to nongovernmental libraries falls in this cate- gory. It is hoped, however, that informa- tion bulletins and other bibliographical reports which are distributed by the depart- ment to the other agencies and which it is believed may be of use to private research in- stitutions, may be made available to such of these institutions as may desire them. Some of the publications procurement officers to serve under this program are now in the field, the first having been sent out in the spring of 1945. T h e department has itself learned a great deal about the scope of the over-all problem from the orientation course it established for these men prior to their departure from Washington. In addition to familiarizing them with the department's side of the program, these officers have been sent (as part of their orientation) to each of the other depart- ments and agencies having acquisitions in- terests in the countries to which their assignment was being made. Although time- consuming, this procedure has made it pos- sible for each officer to leave for his post with general and specific wantlists, as well as fairly comprehensive background informa- tion on the acquisition problems of each agency. W i t h o u t this background, sound reporting and servicing from the field would be a virtual impossibility. Procurement Function It has become more and more evident that, although the department's function in this program is strictly that of procure- ment (as against planning of acquisitions), some sort of integrated acquisitions policy was necessary as between the agencies in Washington, i.e., that there should emerge a federal acquisitions program. Clearly, the department should assist in procurement. Equally clearly, however, the department can operate effectively only if the acquisition of foreign printed materials is programmed on a government-wide basis. It will not be difficult to imagine that the department's position could easily become untenable if it were called upon to decide between the conflicting needs of agencies. So long as the department views its part of the problem as that of lending assistance to the govern- ment, assurance becomes necessary that the problem is also recognized by the other agencies in similarly broad terms. T h e whole, in this case, is obviously more than the sum of the parts. T h e outlines of such a coordinated pat- tern of federal acquisition of foreign printed materials are now emerging. T h i s is a direct result of the recognition by the several departments and agencies that un- related and even competitive acquisition has not in the past produced and cannot in the f u t u r e attain the best results either for the agencies as individual consumers or for the government as a whole. T h e department lately requested the Li- brarian of Congress to explore, with the other departments and agencies, a means of providing a continuity of acquisitions policy which could guide it in its procure- ment activities. In response to this request, the librarian held a series of informal meet- ings with a group of officials from those agencies most interested in foreign printed materials. A f t e r reaching general agree- ment that coordination and integration of the government's needs were necessary, the librarian was requested to make certain rep- resentations to the Secretary of State on be- half of the informal group discussing the problem. Those representations took the form of a 102 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES request that the secretary give consideration to the establishment of a permanent Inter- departmental Committee on the Acquisition of Library Materials within the framework of the interagency intelligence group which the President had requested him to form. As proposed, the duties and responsibilities of the committee are as follows: 1. T o plan a comprehensive program of co- operative acquisitions as between and among the several departments and agencies. The scope of this planning shall include the main- tenance of comprehensive research collections of library materials, the rapid interchange and loan of materials, and the distribution of bibliographical information. 2. T o originate recommendations to the sev- eral departments and agencies concerning the development of their libraries within the framework of over-all federal acquisitions; these recommendations being designed to make available to this government all foreign li- brary materials necessary to the conduct of the public business. 3. T o originate recommendations to the Department of State on matters of broad policy connected with the procurement of for- eign materials through the foreign service. 4. T o review requisitions on the State De- partment procurement facilities whenever it becomes necessary to determine whether said requisitions are consistent with the commit- tee's comprehensive acquisitions program. It should, perhaps, be pointed out that the basic philosophy of the committee negates the principle of agency representa- tion. For members of the committee to conceive of themselves, or for their agencies to conceive of them, solely as representatives of the interests of the governmental bodies to which they are attached, would render most difficult the primary task of attaining broad consideration of federal acquisition policy. T h e situation demands, instead, the continuous deliberation of individuals whose responsibility and chief interest lies in substantive fields of knowledge not neces- sarily encompassed by the rigid framework of governmental administrative structures. It is hoped that primary allegiance to the problem may be. attained through a tech- nique which assumes a committee of "experts" rather than a committee of "repre- sentatives." Indeed, specific provision has been made within the internal structure of the committee to deal with its problems on a substantive rather than on an agency basis. Executive Subcommittee Although membership is open to all agen- cies having responsibilities in the field of foreign acquisition, an operating executive subcommittee, selected by the whole com- mittee, is also provided for. Of first impor- tance is the principle that the problems of acquisition in specific fields of knowledge are considered by subcommittees pro tem composed of individuals whose agencies deal most largely with the particular fields in question, i.e., medicine, law, physical sci- ences, aeronautics, and so on. From the point of view of government officials vitally concerned with acquisition of foreign materials, the techniques out- lined herein give considerable promise. I t is hoped that the result will be the meeting of a total rather than a partial problem by those cooperative means by which alone the real issues can be resolved. Service to Private Libraries T h e principal private research libraries of the country have not infrequently had occasion to solicit the aid of the department in the solution of certain of their problems of foreign procurement. Wherever ap- propriate and possible, the department has lent such assistance as it could. Neverthe- less, it must be said that the department has never been in a position to match the sympathetic consideration with which it viewed these problems with positive action APRIL, 1946 103 on a sufficient scale to satisfy private li- braries. I t must not be supposed that the de- partment, through the medium of its pub- lications officer program or by other means, can promise at this time to do for private research institutions many of the things that it might be highly desirable for it to do. O n the other hand, it is prepared to redefine somewhat more broadly the scope of its procurement activities. T h i s redefinition, already stated in part, can benefit non- governmental institutions to a considerable degree. Responsible officials of private libraries have long recognized that, as a matter of principle, it was inappropriate for the De- partment of State to employ its resources directly in behalf of nongovernmental in- stitutions. Although this principle will re- main valid in general, the department is now prepared to endorse certain exceptions to it. T h e exigencies of the recent war and the rigid control of the marketing of pub- lished materials still prevailing in certain countries, have combined to make it ex- tremely difficult for private institutions to acquire library materials of any kind in certain areas. A f t e r reviewing this problem with representatives of a number of the research libraries, the department has adopted the view that its (i.e., governmen- tal) channels of acquisition could be made available to nongovernmental institutions under certain circumstances. Wherever normal commercial channels have become inoperative and it can be dem- onstrated that it is in the national interest that material be procured from areas thus restricted, even though they are in part in- tended for private research collections, the Department of State is prepared to employ the means at its disposal for their procure- ment. T h i s policy presupposes ( I ) that the 104 holdings in certain fields of knowledge are of importance to this government whether or not they are governmental holdings per se, ( 2 ) that those responsible for such private holdings will, when requesting gov- ernment assistance, present to the depart- ment evidence that they have evolved and will adhere to a plan of cooperative ac- quisition which will adequately correlate to- tal nationwide collections in the various fields of knowledge, and ( 3 ) that the de- partment reserves the right to determine when and for how long conditions obtain which render it possible for government channels to be used in this manner. L.C.'s Relationship to Program T h e Library of Congress has agreed to act in an administrative and liaison capacity with the department and the nongovern- mental institutions in order to provide a suitable supplementary mechanism in this regard. Private research institutions having specialized collections of national impor- tance, which find themselves unable to aug- ment these collections through normal commercial dealings, may make known their needs to the Librarian of Congress. If the library and the department agree on the justification for the request, in terms of the policies outlined above, the librarian is prepared to order titles in multiple copy through the Department of State, he (the librarian) being reimbursed by them for such copies as he distributes to the private libraries. Summary In summary, the department is presently embarking upon an expanded program of assistance to this government in the field of procurement of foreign library materials. I t is doing this because it recognizes, to- gether with the other agencies of this (Continued on page 108) COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES ment by the middle of December 1945. T h e weekly abstract bulletin will be made available to depository libraries. Others may subscribe to it through the Superin- tendent of Documents. In its present state this material is com- parable in size to one of our great research collections, but it is scattered all over the country and over half the world in boxes, bundles, files, caves, and possibly even in the inevitable salt mines. Most of it is available in manuscript form only, or in a single, poor, microfilm copy. T h e r e is no catalog of this material nor has it been or- ganized, so that no one really knows what is available or where it may be. Obviously, a large portion of our own classified or enemy reports is of little value for practical industrial application in the immediate future. A large portion of it may be worthless. T h e publication board's job is that of acquiring material as rapidly as possible and organizing it so that final selection may be made by those who will apply this knowledge to the industrial and economic benefit of the country. One of the important tools which will develop from the operations of the library unit of the board will be a master subject card index which will eventually provide a guide to the knowledge contained in this great mass of scientific and technical litera- ture. T h e responsibility of the librarians em- ployed by the board to organize this material is a heavy one, but still greater is the re- sponsibility of the librarians of research, industrial, and other special libraries who will, in the final analysis, be responsible for making the truly important and immediately applicable information available to their own organizations. T h e Department of State and Acquisition of Foreign Materials (Continued from page 104) government, the transcendent importance of such materials in day-to-day federal op- erations. Moreover, the department has recognized the principle that certain private collections of such material are of national importance, although they are not and should not be duplicated in Washington, and has consequently held that department assistance may be given these collections in their procurement problems under certain circumstances. It is hoped and expected that the tech- niques embraced by this expanded program will greatly benefit those responsible for the conduct of the public business. I t is also hoped that material assistance can, where it is justified, be given to private institutions. T h e private institutions must regard seri- ously, however, their responsibility so to correlate their several acquisitions needs that, when assistance is requested in a given area, an integrated program can be pre- sented to the department by the libraries. T h e department hopes that such coordina- tion within the government can be achieved through the efforts of the interdepartmental committee. It must have a similar back- ground against which to work when it undertakes to aid nongovernmental research institutions. 108 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES