College and Research Libraries


plural, phrase headings, etc.; "Relations be-
tween subjects." Subject subdivision, com-. 
pound headings, etc. ; "Bibliographical and 
critical material." Includes relations be-
tween sovereigns and countries, between per-
sons and events; "Corporate bodies." In-
cludes treatment of their publications as well 
as material about them; "Geographical sub-
jects;" "Historical periods and events;" 
"Language and Literature;" "Form head-
ings;" "References for subject headings." 

Systematically organized, clearly and con-
cisely enunciated, copiously illustrated with 
helpful examples-need we ask that a code 
do any ·more. Probably it should not but 
the fact remains that we do need more. The 
very concisenes's of the wording of the rules 
precludes much explanation and practically 
no reasons for the choice of terms, the part 
of Cutter's code which is the most valuable. 
It is fortunate for the beginner that many 
questions are answered by Julia Pettee's Sub-
ject Headings· (N.Y., H. W. Wilson, 1946), 
the only book in English devoted entirely to 
this topic. By means of Part I of this book 
the beginner can be reasonably, interestingly 
and painlessly guided from his known world 
of encyclopedias to the te'rra incognita of sub-
ject headings. Likewise he will read of the 
evolution of the dictionary catalog, an ac-
count which gives meaning and reason to 
current practices not otherwise understand-
able. 

After studying the "Vatican Code," full of 
questions as to reasons why, the student can 
again find help by using Part II of Miss 
Pettee's book-"Principles and Practice." 
For example, the code states: "Works are 
recorded under their specific subjects, and not 
under the names and designations of the · 
classes and disciplines to which they belong" 
(Rule 374a). Miss Pettee explains under 
what types of headings and in what types of 
libraries this rule should be followed or 
modified. She also discusses "How specific 
must the specific topic be?" · Going far be-
yond the scope of any code for subject head-
ings Miss Pettee covers questions which are 

· an essential part of the subject heading 
process. She considers subject headings both 
a_s a feature of the whole dictionary catalog 
and also in their relation to classification and 
the shelflist. Likewise she examines the 
nature of words as well as the nature of the 
clientele of the library. 

The tools for the subject cataloger have 
been enormously benefited by the addition of 
these two publications, each one serving to 
supplement the other. The high price of the 
Vatican Rules is indeed unfortunate. In the 
opinion of the reviewer it would be eminently 
worthwhile to issue separately, at a reason-
able price, these valuable and unique ten chap-
ters on subject headings.-Bertha M. Frick, 
School of Library Service, Columbia Uni-
versity. 

Red Dog and Podunk 
Bibliography of Place Name Literature, 

United State"s, Canada, Alaska and New-
foundland. By Richard B. Sealock and 
Pauline A. Seely. Chicago, American Li-
brary Association, 1948, [10], 331p. $4.50. 
The poetical and historical charm of our 

American place names was first brought home 
to me many years ago as I sat in the Minne-
sota Senate gallery in Saint Paul and heard 
the Speaker recognize the various senators 
as they arose to address the chair. He would 
say: "I recognize the gentleman from Lac 
Qui Parle County," or "the gentleman from 
Ottertail County" and I remembered that this 
was the country of the voyageur, of the trap-
pers who mingled their quaint names with 
those left on the lakes and rivers by the 
Sioux and the Chippewas, the country of 

the old fur brigades, sweeping down the 
Great Lakes toward Quebec with their win-
ter's catch of pelts, dipping their paddles to 
the rhythm of "A la Clair Fontaine." 

Each racial element has left its distinctive, 
poetical or whimsical mark on the place 
names of our frontiers even down to our own 
time, when we find such geographical moni-
kers as Gene Autry, and New Deal, or 
mountains named for Churchill, Eisenhower 
and Stalin. Some of the queer people · who 
lived on the edge of the wilderness are re-
membered in Big John's Spring, Crazy 
Woman, Mike Mountain Horse, Red Dog 
and White Woman Creek. Certain charac-
teristics of the local <.:itizens are perpetuated 
in the names they gave their settlements, ·such 
as - Fairplay, Frugality, Hangtown, Hairy 

282 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



Hill, Odd, Robbers Roost Creek and Tarry-
all. Famous early cooks are remembered in 
Ginger Cake Mountain and Pie Woman's 
Lane, while a literary flavor is evident in 
Author, Ind., and in the classical names which 
infest central New York. Lulbegrud Creek 
was named by a Kentuckian with a taste for 
Gulliver's Travels. If you like just plain 
queer names, here are a few: Dogtown, Flag 
Station, Hell on Wheels, Hogwallow, Hoho-
kus, Mail Box, Podunk, Punk's Hole, Shake-
Rag-Under-the-Hill, Shirt Tail Gulch, Tee-
tertown, Uz and Zipp. Among the thousands 
of Indian names, we have that for Niagara 
Falls which meant: "The waterfall-that-
causes-women-to-exclaim-Gosh!" and the 
Massachusetts lake which was a boundary 
between two tribes and which is probably the 
longest geographical name in North America. 
Take a long breath before pronouncing it: 
Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagun-
gamaug. It means: "You fish in your end 
of the lake, we fish in our end of the lake, 
nobody fish in the middle." 

All of these delightful geographical names 
and many more are to be found in the index 
of this excellent bibliography of North Amer-
ican place name literature. Since there is 
no adequate dictionary of place names in the 
United States and Canada, it is necessary to 
se.arch the separately published gazetteers, 
manuals and articles, over 2000 of which are 
assembled here for the first time. Certain im-
portant manuscript sources are also indicated, 
but county and town histories have not been 
included since they are such obvious sources 
for those interested in a restricted area th.at 
their inclusion did not seem necessary. 

In addition to separate chapters on each 
of the states, provinces and the District of 
Columbia, there are three on the United 

States as a whole and one each on the Missis-
sippi Valley and New England. By the ad-
dition of a detailed 68-page name and subject 
index, the compilers have not only given us 
the individual authors and place names but a 
most interesting group of subject entries 
which is so suggestive of further study that 
we have yielded to the temptation of copying 
some of them : 

Animals, artificial names, battlefields, 
bayous, Bible · names, birds, border towns, 
camps , cantons, capes, Celtic names, Chinese, 
classical and corrupted names, dams, desert, 
Dutch, English, Eskimo and European names, 
explorers, forts, freak and French names, fur-
naces, German names, ghost towns, gold 
camps, historical, Icelandic and Indian names, 
the latter subdivided by tribe, islands, Italian 
and Japanese names, lakes, literary names, 
military posts, mills, mines, mining towns, 
missions, mountains, nicknames, Norse names, 
parks, patriotic and personal names, plains, 
plantations, plants, post offices, religious 
names, rivers, Russian names, saints, Span-
ish names, states (nicknames), statesmen, 
streets, Swedish names, synthetic names, 
topographic features, underworld names and 
water holes. 

This extremely valuable compilation, pub-
lished in photo-offset from a typed text, gives 
full title and brief collation for first editions 
of separate works, with indications of later 
editions and an exact reference for each 
periodical analytical. Brief but adequate 
notes are added when the nature of the con-
tents does not appear from the title. A 
casual examination of this painstaking work 
gives no idea of the immense labor involved. 
It is a must purchase for all reference li-
braries, geographers and historians.-R. Jf7. 
G. Vail, The New Y ark Historical Society. 

Louisiana Author Headings 
Author Headings for the Official Publications 

of the State of Louisiana. By Lucy B. 
Foote. Chicago, American Library Associa-
tion, 1948, x,125p. $4.50. 
Lucy B. Foote, chief catalog librarian, 

Louisiana State University Library, seems to 
have been destined to become the compiler of 
the second1 in the series of state author head-
ings lists to be published by the American 

JULY, 1949, PART I 

Library Association. In 1935 she completed 
Official Publications of the State of Louisiana 
as her Master's thesis at the University of 
Illinois, and in 1942 her Bibliography of the 
Official Publications of Louisiana, I80J-I9J4 , 

1 See review by Lucile M. Morsch of Author Head-
ings for the Official Pttblications of the State of Ala-
bama, by Anne Ethelyn Markley, in Colle.Qe and Research 
Libraries ro:9I-93, January 1949. Many of Miss 
Morsch's general remarks apply also to the Foote list. 

283