College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 
Farmington Plan 
Farmington Plan Handbook. By Edwin E. 

Williams. Association of Research Librar-
ies, 1953. 170 pp. $2.50. Orders should 
be addressed to Office of the Executive 
Secretary, ARL, Indiana University Li-
brary, Bloomington, Indiana.) 
If this were nothing more than a handbook 

of Farmington Plan practice, it would have 
even greater utility than the modest disclaimer 
in the Introduction which suggests that it 
"may be of some use to Farmington Plan 
dealers and their advisers, to the sixty-two 
participating libraries, to those who wish to 
locate recent foreign books in order to borrow 
them or obtain photographic copies, and to 
others who are interested in library coopera-
tion and resources for research." 

For handbook purposes Mr. Williams has 
provided a concise initial chapter on "What 
The Plan Is and How It Works" and then 
in the latter half of the booklet a succession 
of practical cross indexes which permit the 
user to work easily from several approaches. 
There is a list of the ninety-nine countries 
whose publications are procured under the 
Plan with indication of the procurement agent 
or library, a list of the participating libraries 
with report of the subject fields for which 
each is responsible, a fairly detailed alphabeti-
cal subject index that indicates the library 
responsible for each subject, and then a classi-
fied (L.C.) cross index. 

In view of the complexity of the subject 
allocations and the considerable number of 
countries and libraries that are involved, it 
seemed obvious that after six years of opera-
tion it was worth while to publish these por-
tions of the Handbook if only for the benefit 
of the libraries receiving books and the dealers 
sending them. 

During the first five years of operation 
(1948-1952) the Plan brought in over 50,000 
volumes, so already a large body of material 
that "might reasonably be expected to interest 
a research worker in the United States" has 
been added to the country's collections. Since 
under the terms of the Plan we can assume 
that much of this material might not other-
wise be available here, and even though indi-

vidual titles are supposed to be listed promptly 
in the National Union Catalogue, this Hand-
book provides an important resources guide 
for all libraries in the country. Although re-
sponsibility for a subject under the Plan does 
not necessarily mean that the particular li-
brary has a major collection in the subject 
field, certainly this is a tendency. Thus 
scholars and reference librarians, as well as 
acquisitions librarians, will find the Handbook 
a useful bibliographical tool. 

Happily, however, Mr. Williams has gone 
beyond the handbook stage and provided a 
historical and critical report on the Plan 
that is both impressive and readable, and also 
a full bibliography. This was well worth 
doing because the Farmington Plan is a truly 
monumental program, conceived in bold and 
generous terms, and because much of the 
source material is not easily accessible. 

This portion of the Handbook has been 
prepared with the documentary skill and 
thoroughness, as well as the candor, that we 
expect of Mr. Williams, who has had the 
special advantage of working closely with 
the Plan almost since its inception. If the 
Handbook contains any of the small errors 
that are the badge of a scholarly review, this 
reviewer found none and would consider it 
supererogatory to list them anyway. If effec-
tive criticism of the Plan or research into it 
are stimulated on the basis of Mr. Williams' 
shrewd comments, he will consider his work 
well repaid. Even without such important 
projections, he has performed here an im-
portant service to scholarship as well as a 
good job of scholarship.—Robert Vosper, 
University of Kansas Library. 

Lamont Library Catalog 
Catalogue of the Lamont Library, Harvard 

College. Prepared by Philip J. McNiff 
and members of the Library Staff. Cam-
bridge, Harvard University Press, 1953 x, 
562 pp. 
The Catalogue of the Lamont Library 

reflects accurately the main purpose of the 
Lamont Library which is to provide " . . . a 
live, working collection of books selected to 
serve the required and recommended reading 

236 COI.LEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES