College and Research Libraries Membership subscription to the society is $6.00 per annum, a fee entitling each in- dividual member to all publications. A l - though the Gutenberg-Festschrift (i.e., volume X X V of the Jahrbuch) is being sold for $14.27 in the book trade, it is still possible to acquire it as a part of the relatively modest membership fee for 1949-50. Mem- berships are received by D r . Aloys Ruppel, director of the society, at Rheinalle 3 3/10, Mainz, Germany (French Z o n e ) . — L a w - rence S. Thompson, University of Kentucky Libraries. Subject Cataloging in Germany Lehrbuch der Sachkatalogisierung. Von Hein- rich Roloff. Leipzig, Otto Harrassowitz, 1950. xii, H5p. T h e problem of subject cataloging is con- siderably more complicated in Europe than it is in America for the average research li- brary simply because of the age of the hold- ings and the nature of the cataloging tradi- tions. With a few exceptions, American re- search libraries began to assume significant proportions only in the latter part of the nine- teenth century; and before acquisition rates were stepped up to the present astronomical proportions, widely accepted cataloging codes, classification schemes and subject heading sys- tems had taken hold in America. Precisely the opposite is true in Europe. Moreover, European library systems have never com- bined attempts to serve scholars as well as the masses, and neither has the European uni- versity library ever had to serve undergradu- ates comparable to ours. Roloff, librarian of the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin, is thus free to describe a multiplicity of practice in this text- book without feeling obligated to set up in- flexible standards or condemn apparently clumsy systems which originated in past gen- erations and have been adapted to peculiar institutional needs. He does not offer a "sachkatalogische Kodifikation" such as Hans Trebst demanded in his article, " D e r heutige Erkenntnisstand in der Formal- und in der Sachkatalogisierung," Zentralblatt fiir Biblio- thekswesen, L I (1934), 449; but he does present a quite complete survey of current cataloging problems in Germany and a num- ber of points of departure for constructive discussion. T h e text is divided into four sections: ( 1 ) Historical development of subject cata- loging together with definitions and a state- ment of functions; (2) T h e problems in- volved in shelving books (formats; shelving in alphabetical order, by numerus currens, by groups, by classification; housing new acquisi- tions; call numbers); (3) Shelf lists in gen- eral and for shelving by numerus currens, by groups and in alphabetical order; (4) T h e classed catalog, with discussions of the basis of classification, a description of various classification schemes (with special attention to the basic decimal classification as well as its variants), the logic of form divisions and sub- divisions, the shorthand of notation, conspecti (rotuli) and subject indices and classed cata- logs as shelflists or as^subject guides inde- pendent of shelving systems; and (5) T h e rules for a subject catalog with special at- tention to the form of the headings, filing and a tentative subject heading code. It is particularly interesting in the latter case to note how many common sense rules for the establishment of new headings transcend linguistic and national differentiation and would seem to be well-nigh universally ap- plicable. For this very reason it is regrettable that Roloff did not cite practices in English-speak- ing countries more extensively. Except for the section on the decimal classification little discussion is devoted to routines familiar to us; and of the 85 references in the bibliog- raphy, all were printed in Europe. On the other hand, this book grew from lectures in a library school and was intended as a text- book for German students of librarianship; and we can only wonder whether anyone doing a similar book in this country would have given equal attention to the European literature of subject cataloging. Neverthe- less, a similar book is needed in English, and when it is published, it should refer fre- quently to the European practices described by Roloff.—Lawrence S. Thompson, Univer- sity of Kentucky Libraries. 302 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES