College and Research Libraries B y J O H N H . M O R I A R T Y Needed Reference Services for American Agriculture' Mr. Moriarty is director of libraries, Purdue University. WHEN ON M a r . 15, 1948 w e at last received the index to v o l u m e 95 of the Experiment Station Record f o r its final year 1946, w e put together and sent to the bindery the end v o l u m e of one more agri- cultural reference service. O n its return it was put on the shelves w i t h other agricul- tural reference titles and like them w i l l steadily g r o w less useful and be superseded as it ages. It is impossible f o r librarians and others concerned w i t h agricultural in- f o r m a t i o n not to consider and m o u r n some- what at this steady aging of first aids to data on agriculture. T h e sections of the usual reference collection where the specific volumes of agriculture are shelved are tend- ing to become shabbier and less frequented. Instructions to n e w assistants have c o n - stantly to reiterate that Bailey is only g o o d up to W o r l d W a r I, and they contain simi- lar cautions about the w h o l e three or f o u r shelves. A m o n g ourselves it may be w o r t h while to review exactly h o w old agricultural ref- erence material is as embodied in the usual types of reference books. T o start per- versely w i t h the Y ' s , it is apparent w e have a yearbook only in name. H e n r y W a l l a c e repeated his father's w a r p i n g of the Year- book of Agriculture. F r o m 1925 w h e n , with the elder W a l l a c e ' s leaving office, Jar- 1 P a p e r presented at meeting of A g r i c u l t u r a l L i b r a r i e s Section, A . C . R . L . , J u n e 18, 1948, A t l a n t i c C i t y , N . J . dine came in, and on up through 1935, there was an annual section, " W h a t ' s N e w in A g r i c u l t u r e " in the Yearbook, w h i c h together with the annual statistics w a s quite w e l l indexed, and so served as a g o o d first approach to both date and elementary in- f o r m a t i o n on n e w developments. T h e pres- ent so-called Yearbook is a very fine p r o d - uct, but each issue is, as y o u k n o w , really a m o n o g r a p h on some one subject of c o m - posite authorship and w o u l d better be scat- tered by us a m o n g the collection according to the volumes' varying topics than held together as a set as w e usually do. D o a n e ' s Agricultural Digest can be made to serve as a current yearbook but does not set v o l u m e after v o l u m e on the shelf to serve as an annual record. I have already mentioned Liberty H y d e Bailey's Standard Cyclopedia of Horticul- ture as it is currently k n o w n . It started f o r t y years ago as a cyclopedia of A m e r i c a n agriculture and even in its latest f o r m it goes back to a copyright between 1914 and 1917. It is still the best and actually al- most the only adult encyclopaedic material on general agriculture. Its editor has f o u n d it possible only to keep up the material on plants in it, by issuing the v o l u m e k n o w n as Hortus Second whose latest copyright is 1941. T h e other encyclopaedic w o r k still on our shelves is the rather juvenile Book of Rural Life whose first readers back in 1925 w o u l d find it not so engrossing today. It does, h o w e v e r , take a decidedly w i d e r geographical v i e w than Bailey and very 318 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH. LIBRARIES occasionally n o w still gives a g o o d first lead. A book like Earley V . W i l c o x ' s Modern Farmers' Cyclopedia of Agriculture ( c . 1 9 4 4 ) is less than five hundred pages and little better than any new elementary gen- eral textbook. W e have had then no general or universal encyclopaedia in the last generation, and in the case of the en- cyclopaedia's sister books, the dictionary and the handbook, there are likewise no uni- versal agricultural dictionary old or n e w of any merit, not any n e w handbook since the 1926 edition of the Extension Service Handbook on Agriculture and Home Eco- nomics by T . W . H a r v e y , w h i c h the U . S . D . A . published. T o make an encyclopaedia or dictionary approach to an agricultural subject these days, a preliminary refinement of the topic has to be undertaken in order that use of some smaller and specialized fields' ref- erence books may be made. Hortus Second just mentioned, and N o r m a n T a y l o r ' s or Black's Gardening Dictionaries ( 1 9 3 6 and 1921, A m e r i c a n and British respectively) must be used. So can Standardized Plant Nafnes by H a r l a n P.. Kelsey and W i l l i a m A . D a y t o n ( H a r r i s b u r g , M c F a r l a n d C o . , c. 1 9 4 2 ) , w h i c h has been adopted as the standard f o r botanical nomenclature by many horticultural organizations. A check should also include J . H . V a n - stone's Raw Materials of Commerce w h i c h is in t w o volumes. V o l u m e one is on Vege- table Products and v o l u m e t w o on Animal, Mineral, and Synthetic Products, but w i t h data back of the year 1929 only. Should the field of query be one in animal husbandry, a book like M . C . Self's The Horseman's En- cyclopaedia ( N e w Y o r k , Barnes, 1946, 519 p . ) is handily arranged and might help. In any event, however, these last named books are only patches over the chinks in the walls of our tremendous need f o r agricultural documentation. W h e n another type of reference book, that dealing with the physical basis of agri- culture, is considered what is available is equally old. O u r Atlas of Arnerican Agri- culture is dated 1936, but this is not a true indication of the age of its contents. A short mention of the project f o r this atlas deserves attention by persons concerned with agricultural information service. Its orig- inal plan back around W o r l d W a r I was brave enough and was to include sections on land relief, climate, soils, and natural vegetation, all of w h i c h have in fact been published. It was also planned to have sections on ( 1 ) crops, ( 2 ) livestock, ( 3 ) size of farms and systems of farming, ( 4 ) land utilization and farm tenancy, ( 5 ) rural population and organizations. O f these sections none was published except one item f r o m crops, namely " C o t t o n , " in advance sheets in 1 9 1 8 ; and one item f r o m rural population and organizations, namely, " R u r a l P o p u l a t i o n " in 1919. H a r d l y had these been issued, when a decision was made to hold the publication of data in atlas f o r m strictly to physical conditions which are more or less permanent. T h e s e other data of a social and economic nature w e r e used in a series of articles in the Yearbook of Agriculture f r o m 1921 through 1925. Some w e r e published in the Graphic Sum- mary of American Agriculture ( M i s c e l - laneous Publication 105, 1 9 3 1 ) . T h e reduced program f o r the Atlas per- mitted issuance of advance sheets f o r vari- ous sections f r o m 1918 w h e n " F r o s t and the G r o w i n g Season" came out, to the " S o i l s " section in 1935. T h u s a book w i t h a 1936 imprint has data w h i c h w e r e then t w o decades old and are even n o w the only atlas f o r m presentation of them after still another dozen years. If this is the story of the physical side of agriculture, w h a t about the human side? It is w e l l k n o w n that Who's Who in OCTOBER, 1948 35 7 America does not do a satisfactory coverage of rural leaders. Its selection policy, w h i c h has the strength and weakness of its type, namely, the mutual admiration society scheme, does not bring in the rural g r o u p . N o r does any other current reference book. F r o m 1917 through 1930, L . H . Bailey and his daughter issued f o u r volumes of R.U.S., a biographical register of rural leadership in the U n i t e d States and Canada ( i g 18, 1920, 1925, 1 9 3 0 ) w h i c h included almost 7 0 0 0 names, w i t h fairly full w h o ' s w h o type i n f o r m a t i o n . Since 1930, mostly serv- ices of a directory nature have been avail- able. O n e of these is a commercial publi- cation, Directory of Agricultural and Home Economics Leaders ( 1 9 3 6 , W i l l i a m G . W i l s o n , eighteenth e d i t i o n ) . Recourse f o r personal records usually has to be to ma- terial f o r more special groups, such as the Forestry Directory by T h o m a s G i l l and E . C . D o w l i n g published by the A m e r i c a n T r e e Association in 1943 and the various directories of its staff issued by the U . S . D . A . ; o r Who's Who in the Egg and Poultry Industries, and Who's Who in the Hatchery World, and yearbook w h i c h f o r one field gives feast instead of the usual famine. T h e U . S . D . A . has likewise w o r k e d earn- estly in the field of the history of A m e r i c a n agriculture. T w o excellent numbers of the Bibliographical Contributions issued by U . S . D . A . L i b r a r y , both by E . E . E d w a r d s , have stressed this field : N o . 32 : " R e f e r e n c e s on A g r i c u l t u r a l H i s t o r y A s a Field f o r R e s e a r c h " ( 4 1 p., 1 9 3 7 ) and N o . 3 3 : " R e f - erences on A m e r i c a n C o l o n i a l A g r i c u l t u r e " ( 1 0 1 p., 1 9 3 8 ) . B u t no standard and c o m - prehensive history has been produced. T h e r e w e r e issued some years ago by the Carnegie Institution t w o companion v o l - umes, one by P . W . B i d w e l l and one by L . C . G r a y on the history of agriculture to i 8 6 0 in the N o r t h e r n and Southern U n i t e d States respectively ( 1 9 2 5 , 1 9 3 3 ) - N o successor volumes f o r the eighty-eight years since or f o r other regions have come f o r t h and students must be offered very general treatments like N . S. B. G r a s ' His- tory of Agriculture in Europe and America, done in 1925, w i t h a single n e w chapter to cover 1920 to 1940. T h e dozen or so popular histories, e.g., R . W . H o w a r d ' s Two Billion Acre Farm ( 1 9 4 5 ) are, to put it politely, too i n f o r m a l f o r any serious investigator. Even in the subsidiary fields histories are too f e w . It is hard to find documentation f o r the various states. W h e n you come on an item like U . P . H e d r i c k ' s History of A griculture in the State of New York ( i 9 3 3 ) ) it is a big event. W h e n you turn to the various subject fields, there are hardly any volumes such as L . O . H o w a r d ' s His- tory of Applied Entomology ( 1 9 3 0 ) . A n d n o w w e have rambled through the various types of general reference sources o r lack of them in the field of agriculture, all that is, except t w o . T h e s e are statistics and bibliography and they should be saved f o r last. In these types of reference serv- ices, A m e r i c a n agriculture has had consid- erable coverage. T h e U . S. government, and particularly the U . S . D . A . , has labored w e l l in both. In statistics the Census of A griculture and the annual A gricultural Statistics, w h i c h later yearly publishes some 175,000 sta- tistics, should satisfy all but the most un- usual breakdowns and o f t e n these can be located through the fairly n e w Census Bureau service c a l l e d : Census Publications, Catalog and Subject Guide with its supple- mentary m o n t h l y t i t l e : Lists of Publications Issued. W i t h regard to bibliography, the U n i t e d States has been outstandingly fortunate. F r o m 1889 to 1945, the Experiment Sta- tion Record currently digested periodicals 320 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH. LIBRARIES and publications of the U n i t e d States and other countries relating to agriculture and, of course, the publications of our agricul- tural experiment stations. In 1945, its was the oldest title in the current bibliography of agriculture in the w o r l d . Abstracting between 5 0 0 0 and 7 0 0 0 titles annually it was a basic source. G r a n t e d that such coverage as such was inadequate, neverthe- less, it was treasured, searched, and cited by A m e r i c a n agricultural investigators as f e w other agricultural reference aids. Since 1916 it has been supplemented by the Agri- cultural Index, listing n o w always about 15,000 titles yearly, with no abstracting. Beginning in J u l y 1942, the U . S . D . A . L i - brary started to issue its monthly Bibliog- raphy of Agriculture, listing titles, without abstracts, but with translations of titles f o r foreign articles and with curt phrases of explanation when titles are ambiguous. T h e s e are helpful in discriminating among articles. T h e great significance of the Bib- liography of Agriculture is its coverage, n o w running to some 8 0 , 0 0 0 titles annually. T h i s figure deserves a certain awe and more meditation. A c t u a l l y , it offers some explanation f o r the situation in the field of agriculture with regard to reference books. If the field requires 8 0 , 0 0 0 periodi- cal references annually to describe it, any encyclopaedist w o u l d have to be a D i d e r o t f o r fair to encompass it. B u t the 8 0 , 0 0 0 articles, of course, represent a w o r l d cover- age and possibly, you say, an A m e r i c a n survey might be accomplished. A c t u a l l y this does not make sense either, f o r A m e r i - can agriculture is almost inconceivably dy- namic and international. L e t me illustrate this by the story of V i c t o r i a . A l t h o u g h not a movie queen, nevertheless like a star, V i c t o r i a soared to fame, and made fortunes and then as quickly fell into nothingness. V i c t o r i a is a brand of oats. T h e A m e s , I o w a , Station w a s where V i c t o r i a was groomed by D r s . H . C . M u r p h y , T . R . Stanton, and others. T h e s e men w e r e test- ing to find varieties or strains of oats that w o u l d resist grain diseases, smuts, and rusts ( c r o w n , stem, e t c . ) . In Victoria, which came f r o m Argentina, they f o u n d an oat extremely resistant to them. T h e y also, however, found it weak in its straw and in certain other respects. B y extensive genetic w o r k , Victoria was not only given strong straw, but increased yields and even stronger disease resistance. B e f o r e Victoria, in 1941, our farmers lost 4 0 per cent of their crops to rust, es- pecially c r o w n . C a m e V i c t o r i a and all this was a thing of the past. W h e n 1945 plantings w e r e checked, V i c t o r i a varieties were on 98 per cent of I o w a ' s oat acreage and on 75 per cent of the rest of the United States'. In three years, with less disease and more oats, I o w a farmers w e r e $ 7 0 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 and more ahead. A l r e a d y , however, with 1944 harvests, a once minor oat blight, named H e l m i n t h o - sporium, came along and it particularly thrived on V i c t o r i a strains of oats causing them to be abandoned as quickly as they were once adopted. Helminthosporium was an old blight to w h i c h most oats sown in the U n i t e d States had resistance, but not Victoria, a foreigner, and her scientific sponsors had not checked on this. T h e y may be able to do something but it probably will not matter because n e w varieties like Clinton and Bond are taking over. But this is certainly not the end of the story on oat breeding and defeats and victories w i l l continually need recording. It probably w i l l not be recorded in ency- clopaedias or even in dictionaries. A l l books, even ordinary textbooks, take one year to get to publication and reference books, if they are to be of g o o d quality, take longer. A g r i c u l t u r e , which includes at least soils and their management, horticulture, OCTOBER, 1948 35 7 animal husbandry, and f a r m economics, is progressive in almost all its aspects and in- escapably w o r l d w i d e . In both tempo and scope, it has become an implacable enemy of reference books. T h i s does not mean an end of agricultural reference books, but it does mean special- ized and modest ones. It also means that an increased load must be placed on another element of our service. O l d V a r r o , the R o m a n agricultural authority, divided the instruments of agriculture into the mute and the articulate. If he lacked a p l o w , or any mute instrument, I ' m sure he w o u l d have had the digging done by the hands of his aritculate slaves. So today w i t h the steady failing of organization in our re- search documentation, w e must pass f r o m hope of help in printed guides, to our refer- ence and other librarians w h o as best they can must find w h a t print exists to apply to our readers' problems. T h i s , however, is a w h o l e n e w subject and needs a paper at next year's meeting. Nonbook Materials in a Teachers College Library (Continued from page 315) w h o are taught the use of various types of equipment, are to gain a k n o w l e d g e of de- sirable equipment available on the market. In conclusion, I should like to say that probably the outstanding characteristic of our modern civilization is the rapidity at which change takes place. A s D e a n Ralph N o y e r of our college pointed out recently, there are students n o w enrolled in teachers colleges w h o w i l l live to witness the begin- ning of the twenty-first century, barring atomic destruction o r other catastrophe of equal magnitude. If the rate of change in all aspects of living is accelerated p r o p o r - tionately to that w h i c h w e have experienced during the first half of the present century, these persons and those w h o f o l l o w must accept frequent and sudden adjustment as part of the usual pattern of living to an ever increasing degree. T h e implications of this prospect f o r education are clear. Preparation f o r living and w o r k i n g effec- tively and f o r meeting the problems of a civilization in a persistent state of flux w i l l require every resource at our disposal if cultural degeneration is to be avoided. T e a c h e r s must be a m o n g the best in- f o r m e d and the best prepared vanguard in the vital struggle with circumstantial forces. A k n o w l e d g e of and the ability to use in- telligently every existing f o r m of c o m m u n i - cation and teaching aid are essential parts of their equipment. T h e library in a teachers college w h i c h does not provide the needs of its constituency must necessarily become relegated to that class of agency w h i c h first assumes a role of minor importance and eventually passes into oblivion. 322 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH. LIBRARIES