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 



was issued. Without a doubt, she realized 
the diffiulties and problems involved in at-
tempting to compile an orderly and acceptable 
list of the official agencies of the state of 
Louisiana and of its predecessor, the Territory 
of Orleans. The reorganizations effected by 
10 constitutions and the reorganization acts of 
1940, which in turn have been attacked as 
unconstitutional and have had many of their 
provisions set aside in succeeding appropriation 
acts, multiply the traps for 'the researcher. 
Miss Foote was indeed courageous to accept 
the <;hallenge to list all official agencies found 
in the law from 1803 through 1947. The cat-
aloging profession should be forever grateful. 

Miss Foote has included in the alphabetical 
list official departments, bureaus, committees, 
etc.; state supported institutions, parks and 
preserves; legislative bodies and committees, 
if created by law or whose reports are pub-
lished. Also included are many semiofficial 
agencies supported in whole or in part by state 
funds, and some private corporations -who re-
port to the state or whose reports are published 
as state documents. Examples of this latter 
group are the several railroad companies and 
state fair associations. By means of arbitrary 
headings such as "Louisiana. Levee Boards," 
"Louisiana. Railroads" and "Louisiana State 
Parks," Miss Foote has managed a subject 
grouping of similar agencies, in addition to 
their listing in alphabetical order. With a 
similar method she has indicated the many leg-
islative committees working in the same 
fields. 

The majority of the headings are· accompan-
ied by brief histories and references to the 
specific acts creating or abolishing the agencies. 
However many, especially the numerous leg-
islative committees, give no information in 
regard to authorization or source of the entry. 
Miss Foote says in her introduction that the 
list is based primarily upon the entries found 
in the laws and constitutions, several library 
catalogs, and two published bibliographies 
(see above). This list of headings would be 
considered even more valuable if, lacking the 
specific enabling act to cite, Miss Foote had 
given some source for each entry. This might 
have consisted of the name of the institution in 
whose catalog it was found , the title or author 
and tide of the publication with which the 
agency was connected, the activity in which 
it was engaged or the approximate dates of 
its existence. With so many committees, 

commtsswns, etc. having similar names it is 
diffiult to see how one can be sure whether 
Miss Eoote has used a varying f.orm of en~ry 
or that the agency given on a particular pub-
lication is not in her list at all. 

One instance in the use of the Foote list 
may underscore the value of citations or 
sources and the weakness of the list where 
they are lacking. A publication of the Louisi-
ana Legislative Committee on Educational 
Survey has been issued under this form of its 
name. Consulting the list no such entry was 
found. However, the publication carries the 
information that the Committee was author-
ized by Act 38, 1946. By reading through the 
list of legislative committees Miss Foote's 
heading was located as "LOUISIANA. 
LEGISLATURE. SPECIAL EDUCA-
TIONAL COMMITTEE," but only be-
cause in this case she has given a reference 
to the same Act 38, 1946. The lack of cross 
references is understandable since this might 
well have been an entry taken directly from 
the laws. But the many headings with no 
identifying information may not offer the as-
sistance one might wish for in establishing 
entries for one's own library catalog. 

Comparing the list with the catalog of the 
Library of Congress it was found that of 
approximately 820 headings included in the 
Foote list the Library of Congress has en-
tries for only 222. The Library of Congress 
has entries for 19 agencies not in the printed 
list, but only three of these are for separate 
bodies, the others being for additional sub-
headings of agencies included by Miss Foote. 
As to agreement in form of entry, the Library 
ot Congress and Miss Foote agree for 154 
entries, differ for 68. The most consistent 
variations among these 68 entries are the 
inclusion of "State" in the name of a board 
or department and the preference of the Li-
b t; ary of Congress for the entry of a bureau 
or office directly under its own name rather 
than as a subheading under the name of the 
executive department of which it may be a 
part. 

The discrepancies regarding the use of 
"State" in the name may be due to the use 
of an earlier form by the Library of Con-
gress and the lack of more recent material 
in its Louisiana collections. The discrepancy 
in the use of direct or indirect entry for 
bureaus; etc., brings up a more important 
question regarding the forms of entry used 

284 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



by Miss Foote. This reviewer believes that 
a list of state headings as inclusive as this 
one and so long awaited by the profession 
should have more closely followed the A .L.A. 
Catalog Rules for entries of government and 
corporate bodies . . Her entries for the state 
institutions have generally ignored the rule 
to enter the institution under the name of the 
state, the name of the state to be followed by 
a period. She has preferred forms like 
"LOUISIANA POLYTECHNIC INSTI-
TUTE, RUSTON," omitting the period in 
the heading. The entry of all of the state 
controlled trade schools directly under their 
names is another case in point. Bureaus and 
other subdivisions of executive departments 
created by law have been entered as sub-
headings, no matter how distinctive their 
names. 

Miss Foote's policy regarding change of 
names seems to be the use of the latest form. 
However, both "LOUISIANA. BOARD OF 
STATE AFFAIRS" and "LOUISIANA. 
TAX COMMISSION" are used, though ac-
cording to information given in the list the 
Constitution of 1921 changed the name of the 
board to the Tax Commission. Also, one 
wonders why "LOUISIANA. UNIVER-
SITY OF LOUISIANA, NEW OR-
LEANS" has been used for the heading of an 
institution which in I 884 was renamed Tu-
lane University of Louisiana. 

The use of dates to distinguish different 
agencies having the same name is an accepted 
library practice. The policy is not clearly 
shown in the Foote list. We find "LOUIS-
IANA. BOARD OF STATE ENGI-
NEERS ( 1871-1942)" and LOUISIANA. 
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH ( 1940/ 
41)" where there is only one entry for agen-
cies of those names. There are "LOUIS-
IANA. DEPARTMENT OF CONSER-
VATION" (with no dates), "LOUISIANA. 
DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION 
(1940/41)" and LOUISIANA. DEPART-
MENT OF CONSERVATION (1944-

)." Also, "LOUISIANA. TAX COM-
MISSION, 1906" and "LOUISIANA. TAX 
COMMISSION," listed in that order. 
Should not each one in a series of conflicting 
names carry identifying dates? 

Further editing of t"he very numerous cross 
references would have eliminated many dis-
crepancies which occur between the form of 
entry as given in the reference and as a head-

ing in the list. Place names are given in the 
references from several institutions but do not 
appear in the headings. The list gives refer-
ences "Louisiana. Board of Highways. See 
LOUISIANA. DEPARTMENT OF 
HIGHWAYS" and "Louisiana. Highways, 
Board of. See LOUISIANA. DEPART-
MENT OF HIGHWAYS. BOARD OF 
HIGHWAYS." The entry is "LOUIS-
IANA. DEPARTMENT OF HIGH-
WAYS ( 1942- ) BOARD OF HIGH-
WAYS." The entry "Audubon Sugar 
School, New Orleans" refers to "LOUIS-
IANA. SUGAR EXPERIMENT STA-
TION, AUDUBON PARK, NE'W OR-
LEANS" and also to "LOUISIANA 
STATE UNIVERSITY AND AGRICUL-
TURAL AND MECHANICAL COL-
LEGE." Turning to the entries for the uni-
versity one finds a see reference from the 
subheading "Audubon Sugar School" to 
"LOUISIANA. SUGAR EXPERIMENT 
STATION, AUDUBON PARK, NEW 
ORLEANS." Other examples could be cited 
of references which should have been more 
carefully cross-checked before publication. 
Some references, such as "Louisiana. Board 
of Labor. See LOUISIANA. DEPART-
MENT OF LABOR" might well have been 
omitted. At the same time there are head-
ings which lack adequate cross references 
from the significant words in their names. 

Even as the preparation of the manuscript 
of the Foote list was in its final stages ex-
tensive changes in the state's agencies were 
made by the 1948 Legislature. The user of 
the list must bear in mind the statement of 
the compiler that "the status of the agencies 
included within this list is that of December 
31, 1947." The possibility of conflict be-
tween entries in the list and headings appear-
ing on future Louisiana documents is thus 
to be expected and one will have to be on 
guard and carry on some research to bring 
up-to-date the status of the particular agency. 
However, this should not detract from the 
merits of the present list as a reference work 
and cataloger's tool in the fields of state docu-
ments and American history. American gov-
ernment being always in a state of change 
and reorganization, one can only hope that 
such ~aluable lists as this will be kept reason-
ably up-to-date by revision or supplements 
prepared from time to time.-A lice F. 
Toomey, Library of Congress. 

285