College and Research Libraries By L E S T E R K. B O R N Universal Guide to Catalogs of Manuscripts and Inventories of Archival Collections: A Proposal for Cooperative Listing1 IN T H I S DAY, when the specialist (to cite the popular saw) ever strives to learn more and more about less and less, and when the documentalist seeks to magnify the light of information upon topics of, perhaps, minuscule size, and when, above all, emphasis is upon the contemporary, it may appear anachro- nistic to propose, or even to contemplate proposing, control of one aspect of the macrocosm. Yet history, seeking and knowing, is universal and dependent up- on documentation. Certainly there can be no doubt that control of sources is a prime objective in any scheme for exploitation of sources. Therefore, I suggest for consideration the listing of all useful bibliographical controls, whether published or unpub- lished, such as guides, calendars, cata- logs, inventories and indexes for the col- lections of manuscripts and for the archival fonds in public, semi-public, and significant private institutions throughout the world. This proposal, as is self-evident, is concerned with two separate categories of documentation, manuscripts and ar- chives, which in the implementation of any resultant project would require sep- arate listing and which, therefore, will require separate attention in the devel- 1 T h e v i e w s e x p r e s s e d i n t h i s p a p e r are those of t h e author and t h e y do n o t necessarily r e p r e s e n t t h e v i e w s of a n y o r g a n i z a t i o n or a g e n c y . Dr. Born is secretary general, Interna- tional Council on Archives. opment of the proposal. Except in the Americas, the term "manuscript" regu- larly is reserved for books in manuscript, whereas in this Western Hemisphere it embraces correspondence, personal pa- pers, journals, and similar private rec- ords. Archives, on the other hand, are the organic and organized rec- ords of an entity. In deference to long established custom in Europe and other parts of the world I shall discuss under "manuscripts" only the first type and include the New W o r l d type among "archives." Librarians will not need to be reminded that libraries not infre- quently possess separate documents which are archival in nature, nor ar- chivists that archival repositories fre- quently possess items, especially among their museum pieces, such as are often found in libraries. H I S T O R I C A L B A C K G R O U N D Like many another " n e w " idea, the present proposal does not lack precedent. Modern attempts at an international listing of manuscripts are spread over the last 200 years. Although the univer- sal listing of archives has appeared to some to be a task too gigantic for reali- zation, nevertheless partial listings, usu- ally for a specific purpose, have appeared within the past 75 years. T h e story, which provides a background essential to the understanding and evaluation of this newest version, is not without inde- pendent interest as historical documen- tation. 322 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES Manuscripts T h e first modern attempt at a univer- sal listing of manuscripts was that of Bernard de Monfaucon who published his Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum Manu- scriptorum Nova in two folio volumes, each containing about 1,000 pages, at Paris in 1739. One century later, Gustav Haenel brought out his more modest effort entitled Catalogi Librorum Man- uscriptorum in one quarto volume of 1,200-odd columns, which he published at Leipzig in 1830. It covered the li- braries of France, Switzerland, Belgium (that is, modern Belgium-Netherlands), Great Britain, Spain and Portugal. T h e third (and the last to be achieved) of these great pioneer efforts is the Dic- tionaire des manuscrits, ou recueil de catalogues de manuscrits existants dans les principales bibliotheques d'Europe, concernant plus particulierement les matieres ecclesiastiques et historiques, attributed to Mas Latrie, which Migne included in his Nouvelle Encyclopedic Theologique and published at Paris (1853) in two volumes. Different in nature and in purpose, albeit international if not universal in scope, are several more recent undertak- ings which are cited as examples illus- trative of a type. Gustav Becker's Cata- logi Bibliothecarum Antiqui (1885), a compilation largely from earlier frag- mentary studies, lists those catalogs made before 1500. Wilhelm Weinberger con- tributed to this genre a number of titles; e.g., Catalogus Catalogorum: Verzeich- nis der Bibliotheken die altere Hand- schriften lateinischer Kirchenschriftstel- ler enthalten (1902 and 1908), Beitrage zur Handschriftenkunde (1908 and 1909), and Wegweiser durch die Samm- lungen altphilologischer Handschriften (1930). T h e last two were published in the Sitzungsberichte der K. Akad. der Wissenschaften at Vienna. Paul Leh- mann produced the only two volumes which appeared (1918 and 1928) in the series Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskata- JULY, 1956 loge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, and Max Manitius had published posthu- mously his Handschriften antiker Auto- ren in mittelalterlichen Bibliothekskata- logen (1935). Examples of three more special types of international catalog—manuscripts (including archives) of diverse prove- nance and ownership which relate to a national history, manuscripts (including archives) of a national provenance now found in diverse localities, manuscripts of diverse provenance and ownership containing the works of a particular au- thor—are: David M. Matteson, List of Manuscripts Concerning American His- tory Preserved in European Libraries and Noted in Their Published Catalogues and Similar Printed Lists (1925); Ru- ben Vargas Ugarte, Manuscritos Perua- nos en las Bibliotecas del Extranjero (1935- ); M.L.W. Laistner, A Hand- List of Bede Manuscripts (1943) .2 T h e most recent scheme for extensive cataloging of which I have heard is that advanced by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at Paris in 1952 for listing manuscripts written in R o m a n characters between the ninth and six- teenth centuries.3 Some aspects of the plan, such as the centralized card file and the file of microfilm copies of texts maintained at national centers, are not too different from the project of the International Association of Music Li- braries which plans to establish a cen- tralized collection of negative microfilm copies of music manuscripts from which positive copies may be purchased on de- mand.4 T h e most recent proposal for a gen- 2 S o m e w h a t a n a l o g o u s to t h e various c a t a l o g i n g efforts are t h o s e f o r l i s t i n g i n c i p i t s . See, f o r e x a m p l e , L y n n T h o r n d i k e a n d P e a r l Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (1937) ; A u g u s t e Pelzer, " R e p e r t o i r e d ' i n c i p i t p o u r la l i t t e r a t u r e l a t i n e philosophique et t h e o l o g i q u e du m o y e n a g e , " Revue d' Histoire Ecclesiastique, X L I I I ( 1 9 4 8 ) , 495-512. 3 " U n c a t a l o g o i n t e r n a z i o n a l e dei m a n o s c r i t t i lati- n i , " Accademie e Biblioteche d' Italia, X X I ( 1 9 5 3 ) , 39-40. 4 " P r e l i m i n a r y D r a f t of a P r o p o s a l f o r a n I n t e r - n a t i o n a l Microfilm A r c h i v e of Music M a n u s c r i p t s " (n.d., 8 p. p r o c e s s e d ) . T h i s s t a t e m e n t is s i g n e d by Richard S. Hill, p r e s i d e n t , I n t e r n a t i o n a l A s s o c i a t i o n of Music Libraries. 323 eral world catalog however of which I am aware is that by the late Seymour de Ricci, distinguished paleographer and amateur de manuscrits, which he pre- pared at the request of Dr. W a l d o G. Leland, then director of the American Council of Learned Societies. In his "Proposals f o r a Bibliography of Cata- logues of Manuscripts" (2 p., mimeo- graphed) , dated at Paris in June 1939, M . de R i c c i remarked: "Strange to say, considering the importance of manu- script evidence in almost every branch of culture, there is not in existence a relia- ble h a n d b o o k containing a list of the k n o w n collections of manuscripts, with some kind of a bibliography of the cata- logues in which they are described." Dr. Leland, in the letter of transmittal by which he brought the proposal to the attention of the executive council of the A C L S , said: T h e n e e d of such a guide, which w o u l d give c o m p a r a b l e i n f o r m a t i o n f o r all impor- t a n t depositories, is obvious. A m e r e bib- liography of the titles of p u b l i s h e d cata- logues is n o t sufficient, f o r t h a t does n o t give the scholar w h o proposes to work in a given depository any a d e q u a t e idea of t h e collections t h a t are to be f o u n d there, n o r of the e x t e n t to which they have b e e n sat- isfactorily catalogued. I t is my own o p i n i o n , based u p o n considerable e x p e r i e n c e in re- search in m a n u s c r i p t collections, t h a t t h e user of such materials needs, as a sort of first aid, a g e n e r a l apergu of t h e collections in any given depository, a c c o m p a n i e d by a b i b l i o g r a p h y of t h e useful p r i n t e d or un- p r i n t e d catalogues of which h e can avail himself. Just ten years earlier M . de R i c c i had repeated at the First W o r l d Congress of Libraries and Bibliography held at R o m e his proposal entitled "Projet d'une 'Bibliotheca Manuscriptorum N o - va': Catalogue mondial des manuscrits des bibliotheques p u b l i q u e s " 5 which he had presented originally in a com- munication to the Academie des In- 5 Atti, I I : 345-350. scriptions et Belles-Lettres at Paris in August 1927. His plan f o r describing the estimated one million manuscripts (codices) in 20 volumes of 1,000 pages each, arranged by libraries and publish- able in fascicles, was the o b j e c t of a counter-proposal, " O n the Possibility to Realize the Plan of a 'Bibliotheca Man- uscriptorum N o v a ' " 6 by Mr. Zdenek v. T o b o l k a , w h o proposed a central card file in which w o u l d be accumulated all entries relating to a writer. Neither pro- posal appears to have become the object of a resolution at the congress, and therefore neither advanced f r o m the stage of proposal to that of project. In 1923 the American Library Asso- ciation established its Committee o n Bibliography which had as one of its objectives "the p r o m o t i o n of a project f o r a u n i o n catalog of w o r l d manu- scripts, a tool more and more urgently demanded by American research schol- ars."7 T h i s committee labored f o r more than ten years, accomplished more than proponents w h o had immediately pre- ceded it, but nevertheless fell short of its goal even as others had done. T h e frus- tration is apparent f r o m the brief pas- sage q u o t e d herewith: I n October, 1933, t h e A L A B o a r d h a v i n g decided t h a t it could n o t solicit f o r t h e p r o j e c t , it seemed idle to s p e n d m o r e time a n d m o n e y e l a b o r a t i n g p r e p a r a t i o n s a n d it was decided to p u b l i s h t h e r o u g h m a t e r i a l g a t h e r e d in t h e way of a survey, a u n i o n catalog of catalogs a n d studies in m e t h o d , p u b l i s h i n g as manuscript w i t h o u t p r e t e n d - i n g to c o m p l e t e or edit b e y o n d t h e p o i n t r e a c h e d automatically in compiling. . . . T h i s survey does n o t i n c l u d e all n a t i o n a l lists by any means, o r even all universal sources. . . . T h e total n u m b e r of collections, p u b l i c or private, large or small, m e n t i o n e d somewhere in p r i n t , is two or t h r e e times the n u m b e r given in t h e s t a n d a r d lists.8 T h e tangible products of the cora- 6 Ibid., I I : 351-357. 7 The World's Collections of Manuscript Books: A Preliminary Survey ( 1 9 3 3 ) , p . v . 8 Ibid., p . v i i . 324 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES mittee, in addition to the volume from which the quotations have been taken, are four: Ernest C. Richardson's Sum- mary of Method (1937); Henry A. Grubbs' The Manuscript Book Collec- tions of Spain and Portugal (1933, 1935); Nabil A. Faris' A Demonstration Ex- periment with Oriental Manuscripts (1934); and Dr. Richardson's A List of Printed Catalogs of Manuscript Books (1935). In the first work, Dr. Richard- son, chairman of the committee, cites the plan to catalog the world's western manuscripts in three years, at an annual cost of $25,000, which the American Philological Association fruitlessly pro- posed to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and he describes at length his own 30-year struggle to establish and implement a project for a world cata- log. Before passing on to the discussion of archives I should mention several other references which provide, in varying de- gree and by greatly varying methods, an international guide to catalogs of cata- logs. In 1933 the Departement des Man- uscrits of the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris brought out the fourth edition of its Catalogue alphabetique des livres imprimes mis a la disposition des lec- teurs dans la Salle de Travail which contains many of the titles basic to world-wide research. In 1937 Enrique Sparn of Argentina published Las Bib- liotecas con Qiiinientos y mas Manuscri- tos del Viejo Mundo in which he lists, among many other items, a large num- ber of published catalogs. He also points out, in passing, the difficulties which re- sult from the use of the Americas of the word "manuscript" to include not only codices but also documents, acts, auto- graphs. In 1948 Professor Paul O. Kristeller of Columbia University published his "Latin Manuscript Books Before 1600: A Bibliography of the Printed Catalogues of Extant Collections"9 in which he as- 9 Traditio, V I ( 1 9 4 8 ) , 227-317. sembled general works giving primarily bibliographical or statistical informa- tion about manuscript collections, cata- logs (many of which he has analyzed) covering collections in more than one library, and catalogs of individual librar- ies. " O n the whole," he says in his in- troduction, "cataloguing of the manu- script collections has been completed in France, and carried very far in Great Britain, Belgium, and a few other coun- tries. Large gaps still exist not only for Spain but also for Italy and Germany. T h e ultimate goal, of course, is to de- scribe in print all extant collections. Meanwhile, all handwritten catalogues available on the spot in the various li- braries should be microfilmed as soon as possible." A n appreciable aid to this end is provided by the author himself who five years later published a second bib- liography which he entitled " A Tenta- tive List of Unpublished Inventories of Imperfectly Catalogued Extant Collec- tions."10 Archives In the last decades of the nineteenth and in the first of the twentieth century several works appeared which, although written for a specific purpose or from a special point of view, provide partial international coverage: Herman Oster- ley, Wegweiser durch die Literatur der Urkundensammlungen (1885-86), vol- ume two of which deals with non-Ger- man institutions; Carl A. H. Burkhardt, Hand- und Addressbuch der deutschen Archive (1887) which describes collec- tions in German-language areas as well as in Germany; Charles V. Langlois and Henri Stein, Les archives de I'histoire de France (1891-93), part two of which de- scribes collections in archives outside France, and part three of which de- scribes materials in manuscript libraries both within and without France; Gustav W o l f , Einfuehrung in das Studium der 10 Ibid., I X ( 1 9 5 3 ) , 393-418. T h e 500 t i t l e s w e r e located i n s o m e 20 c o u n t r i e s . JULY, 1956 325 neueren Geschichte (1910), p a g e s 665- 729 of w h i c h , e n t i t l e d " D a s A r c h i v w e - s e n , " e n u m e r a t e q u a n t i t i e s of i n v e n t o - r i e s a m o n g o t h e r t i t l e s . A t t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o n g r e s s of A r c h i v i s t s a n d L i b r a r i a n s h e l d a t B r u s - sels i n 1910, M . H u b e r t N e l i s of t h e A r c h i v e s G e n e r a l e s d u R o y a u m e i n Bel- g i u m p r e s e n t e d a p a p e r e n t i t l e d " L e s p u b l i c a t i o n s d e s a d m i n i s t r a t i o n s d ' a r - c h i v e s " 1 1 i n w h i c h h e p o i n t e d o u t t h e la- m e n t a b l e n o n e x i s t e n c e of l o c a l a n d n a - t i o n a l i n v e n t o r i e s a n d g u i d e s , n o t t o m e n t i o n a n i n t e r n a t i o n a l list of s u c h c o n t r o l s . A l t h o u g h h i s r e s o l u t i o n call- i n g f o r s u c h a g e n e r a l b i b l i o g r a p h y of a l l p u b l i c a t i o n s of a r c h i v a l r e p o s i t o r i e s w a s a d o p t e d by t h e s e c t i o n d e v o t e d t o t h e q u e s t i o n a n d r a t i f i e d b y t h e G e n e r a l A s s e m b l y a t its c l o s i n g session, n o t h i n g m o r e c o n c r e t e a p p e a r s t o h a v e o c c u r r e d as a d i r e c t r e s u l t . I n 1953, a t t h e S e c o n d I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o n g r e s s of A r c h i v i s t s c o n v e n e d b y t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o u n c i l o n A r c h i v e s , t h e Society of A m e r i c a n A r c h i v i s t s p r e s e n t e d a r e s o l u t i o n t h a t " t h e I C A s t u d y t h e f e a s i b i l i t y of c o m p i l i n g a s e l e c t e d , a n n o - t a t e d , u n i v e r s a l b i b l i o g r a p h y o n a r c h i v a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n " 1 2 w h i c h , p r e s u m a b l y , w o u l d c o n t a i n t i t l e s of n a t i o n a l lists. T h e s a m e g r o u p l i k e w i s e p r o p o s e d t h a t t h e I C A s t u d y t h e f e a s i b i l i t y of c o m p i l - i n g a u n i v e r s a l g u i d e t o t h e r e c o r d s of i n t e r n a t i o n a l g o v e r n m e n t - s p o n s o r e d con- f e r e n c e s a n d t h e r e c o r d s of n o n g o v e r n - m e n t a l i n t e r n a t i o n a l c o n f e r e n c e s s p o n - s o r e d by n o n - c o n t i n u i n g b o d i e s . 1 3 Al- t h o u g h b o t h r e s o l u t i o n s w e r e a d o p t e d n o r e p o r t of a c t i o n h a s b e e n r e c e i v e d . T h e y e a r s i n t e r v e n i n g b e t w e e n 1910 a n d 1953 saw t h e p u b l i c a t i o n of s u c h g e n e r a l r e f e r e n c e s as Minerva-Hand- biicher: Die Archive (1932) w h i c h lists d a t a o n a r c h i v e s i n t w e l v e c o u n t r i e s of E u r o p e ; H a n s N a b h o l z a n d P a u l K l a u i , 1 1 Congres international des archivistes et des biblio- thecaires, Brussels, 1910. Actes, (Brussels, 1912), pp. 144-150. 13 American Archivist, X V I (1953), 375. 13 Ibid. Internationaler Archivfiihrer (1936), w h i c h c o m p l e m e n t s t h e Guide interna- tional des archives: Europe (1934) w h i c h h a d b e e n p r e p a r e d b y t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e of I n t e l l e c t u a l C o o p e r a t i o n ; s u c h d e l i m i t e d r e f e r e n c e s as t h o s e p r e - p a r e d by R o s c o e R . H i l l , The National Archives of Latin America (1945) a n d American Missions in European Archives (1951); a n d s u c h d i v e r s e b u t p a r t i c u - l a r i z e d i t e m s as t h e g u i d e s t o t h e m a - t e r i a l s f o r A m e r i c a n h i s t o r y p r e p a r e d by v a r i o u s s c h o l a r s f o r v a r i o u s c o u n - t r i e s — e . g . , C a r l R . F i s h , Guide to the Materials for American History in Ro- man and Other Italian Archives (1911) a n d t h e Tentative List of Jewish Cul- tural Treasures in Axis-occupied Coun- tries (1946) w h i c h w a s p r e p a r e d a n d p u b l i s h e d b y t h e C o m m i s s i o n o n E u r o - p e a n J e w i s h C u l t u r a l R e c o n s t r u c t i o n . U n d e r t h e s p o n s o r s h i p of t h e I C A , M . R o b e r t - H e n r i B a u t i e r p u b l i s h e d i n 1953 h i s " B i b l i o g r a p h i e s e l e c t i v e d e s g u i d e s d ' a r c h i v e s " 1 4 w h i c h s u p p l e m e n t s a n d e x t e n d s i n c o v e r a g e t h e Guide in- ternational. T h e I C A , w h i c h h a s b e e n s t u d y i n g s i n c e 1951 t h e p r o b l e m s i n h e r - e n t i n r e v i s i n g t h e Guide a n d i n e x t e n d - i n g it t o w o r l d c o v e r a g e , i n t h e f a l l of 1952 a d d r e s s e d a p r e l i m i n a r y q u e s t i o n - n a i r e t o n a t i o n a l a r c h i v e s a n d associa- t i o n s of a r c h i v i s t s . N o r e p o r t h a s b e e n p u b l i s h e d . I n t h a t s a m e y e a r t h e L i b r a r y of C o n g r e s s i s s u e d a 2 5 - p a g e list of Un- published Bibliographical Tools in Cer- tain Archives and Libraries of Europe, a s a m p l i n g f r o m s o m e 100 i n s t i t u t i o n s i n e i g h t c o u n t r i e s , w h i c h w a s i n t e n d e d as a s t i m u l a n t t o o t h e r s t o c a r r y o n b y l i s t i n g a n d b y m i c r o f i l m i n g t h e a c t u a l finding a i d s . 1 5 P R O P O S A L — P R O J E C T T h e c o n v e r s i o n of t h e p r o p o s a l i n t o a p r o j e c t i n v o l v e s c o n s i d e r a t i o n of a t 14 Journal of Documentation, I X (1953), 1-41. • 15 T h e Council of E u r o p e i n 1954 adopted a s c h e m e ( a ) t o microfilm all u s e f u l u n p u b l i s h e d find- i n g aids i n t h e n a t i o n a l a r c h i v e s of t h e m e m b e r c o u n t r i e s a n d ( b ) t o e x c h a n g e these films m u t u a l l y . P r e s u m a b l y such a p r o g r a m d e m a n d s a priori a knowledge of w h a t exists. 326 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES least six items: (a) estimates of quanti- ties of materials, (b) method of opera- tion, (c) dissemination of results, (d) time schedule, (e) costs, (f) sources of funds. Here, however, I shall limit my- self mainly to a discussion of the first three topics. Quantity of Materials It is extremely difficult to estimate the number of catalogs of manuscripts or the number of guides and inventories for archival fonds and collections of per- sonal papers. In 1939 M. de Ricci esti- mated that there were approximately one million extant manuscripts (codi- ces written prior to 1500); and that 200,- 000 were housed at the British Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, an- other 100,000 at the Bodleian and the Vatican, and the remaining 700,000 scattered among a very large number of libraries. How many catalogs result from this? How many result from the addition of "modern" manuscripts such as cor- respondence, personal papers, music scores, literary texts and the like? How many guides and inventories are there for the archival fonds housed in thou- sands of archival depositories? And what of the Near East and Asia which most persons have not included in their cal- culations? T h e British Museum's The Cata- logues of the Manuscript Collections (1951) and The Catalogues of the Orien- tal Printed Books and Manuscripts (1951) together list about 200 catalogs of manuscripts, one of which, " T h e Class Catalogue," is composed of 106 volumes. At an estimated 20 titles per page, Richardson's A List of Printed Catalogs of Manuscript Books, which covers the world, contains approximate- ly 7,000 titles of catalogs. T h e ttat des Inventaires des Archives Nationales, De- partementales, Communales et Hospit- alieres in France as of January 1937 lists nearly 900 inventories and indexes, both printed and manuscript, at the Archives Nationales in Paris and an estimated 5,000 for the other institutions. T h e Guide international lists for four coun- tries (France, Germany, Italy, Nether- lands) some 300 items by title; refers generally to certain periodicals and series; and, in the case of France, men- tions the existence of 500 inventories in the archives of departments.16 My estimate of quantity presumes, for manuscripts, that (a) Richardson's list is as complete as the compiler believed it to be, (b) additional catalogs have been printed, (c) still other catalogs re- main in manuscript, (d) not all catalogs will be worth listing; and, for archival fonds and collections of personal papers, that (a) most lists are very incomplete, (b) additional finding aids have been printed, (c) many finding aids are con- stantly being prepared, (d) the general lack of guides, or comprehensive lists, requires enumeration of countless spe- cific inventories, (e) not all finding aids will be worth listing, (f) not all types of finding aids can be listed regardless of quality. For manuscripts (codices), therefore, I estimate the number of cata- logs which will require listing to be 30,1 000; for archival fonds and collections of personal papers, with even greater hesitancy, I estimate the number to be 100,000. Method of Operation Clearly the first step in actual opera- tions would be enumeration of all as- certainable printed catalogs and similar works. This postulates access to exten- sive reference collections rich in biblio- graphical tools. From this it follows that the project could best be conducted from such locales as London, Paris, Rome, Washington. At the last named full use could be made of the work which Dr. Richardson was obliged to leave unfinished. Under the direction of a general editor and two assistant edi- 18 T h e Minerva Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt ( 1 9 3 7 ) lists a p p r o x i m a t e l y 1,700 a r c h i v a l r e p o s i t o r i e s t h r o u g h o u t t h e world. JULY, 1956 327 tors (one for manuscripts, one for ar- chives) a clerical staff with some compe- tence in languages could extract titles on cards, revise from source if necessary, and file the cards alphabetically by au- thor under general works and under specific works, arranging the latter un- der country, city, institution. Under the general direction of the central office, national agencies such as the national library, the academy of letters, or a pro- fessional society in each country could be asked to procure and transmit to the central office all titles of pertinent un- printed catalogs and similar works. T h e cards for these would be integrated into the central file. N o one, I am sure, will be misled by the apparent simplicity of the scheme. T h e value of an international guide to finding aids has appeared obvious to many, but it may not appear obvious to many others: those who will want access to knowledge of collections in their cus- tody to remain dependent u p o n a visit to their institution; those w h o will ob- ject to the foreseeable consequence of listing, namely requests for photographic reproduction of the (perhaps) imperfect finding aids in their possession; those who regard their collections as a private preserve. Even from countries in which there is a centralized authority over ar- chives and libraries delays must be an- ticipated. Even the minutiae of biblio- graphical form will bedevil the editors and may lead to the pursuit of ghosts or the establishment of double entries for single entities.17 Dissemination A n international clearing house of information, which is what the central office would become ad interim, has definite limitations upon its usefulness even in a world connected by air mail routes. Therefore, the logical end prod- uct of any project should be publica- tion. This, obviously, must be in two series (archives, manuscripts) and I sug- gest for consideration that it be accom- plished by fascicles restricted to a single country or area. Fascicles are recom- mended, in spite of certain negative characteristics, because their use would permit publication of readied material' without delay caused by incomplete re- ports from countries which take alpha- betical precedence, and because they would permit wider distribution of na- tional lists among institutions which might not want an entire volume or series. If the managers of the project would sacrifice esthetics to economics, they could achieve publication of the Univer- sal Guide at a very reasonable cost. I suggest that the materials be typed upon cards which can be mounted on a board, photographed, and printed by photo- offset in reduced size.18 O n pages 9 " x 111/4", arranged in three columns, 50 titles (at an average of 6 lines each) could be reproduced neatly and legibly on each page. O n the basis of the esti- mated 30,000 titles for catalogs of manu- scripts this scheme would result in 600 17 M. de Ricci a p p e n d e d t o h i s 1939 p r o p o s a l , as a n e x a m p l e of f o r m , t h e m a t e r i a l s (5 p. m i m e o g r a p h e d ) w h i c h he had a t h a n d f o r the B i b l i o t e c a N a z i o n a l e a t F l o r e n c e . A c o m p a r i s o n of t h i s list w i t h t h e titles listed by t h e B i b l i o t h e q u e N a t i o n a l e ( 1 9 3 3 ) , R i c h a r d - s o n ( 1 9 3 5 ) , G. Gabrieli (Notizie statistiche, storiche, bibliografiche delle collezioni di manoscritti oggi con- servati nelle biblioteche italiane [ 1 9 3 6 ] , S p a r n ( 1 9 3 7 ) , a n d Kristeller ( 1 9 4 8 ) s h o w e d s o m e d i v e r s i t y i n cov- e r a g e a n d considerable d i v e r s i t y in f o r m of e n t r y . A f e w e x a m p l e s of the l a t t e r will suffice. G u i s e p p e Molini (Codici manoscritti italiani . . . ) is listed by n a m e i n de Ricci b u t o n l y by title, as if a n o n y m o u s , i n Gabrieli. F r a n c e s c o P a l e r m o (I manoscritti dell' I. e R. Palatina . . .) is cited by de Ricci a s i n 3 vols, a n d 1 p t . , b u t i n Gabrieli a n d Kristeller as i n 3 vols. A u r e l i o B i a n c h i (Relazione . . . dei manos- critti . . . di Filippo Pacini . . . ) i s listed by n a m e i n de Ricci, R i c h a r d s o n , a n d S p a r n ( w h e r e i n i t a p p e a r s as a s e p a r a t e p u b l i c a t i o n ) , b u t under t h e collective title, "Indici e C a t a l o g h i , " by B. N . , Gabrieli a n d Kristeller. L u p o B u o n a z i a (Catalogo dei codici arabi . . .) is listed by de Ricci as a s e p a r a t e ( 4 3 p . ) o f f p r i n t e d f r o m Cataloghi dei codici orientali . . . , f o r w h i c h v o l u m e a n d y e a r a r e n o t g i v e n , w h e r e a s Gabrieli lists t h e t i t l e only i n s e r i e s f o r w h i c h all i n d i c i a are s u p p l i e d . A n d A u g u s t Reifferscheid (Bibliotheca patrum . . . italica), o m i t t e d by de Ricci, is listed in d i v e r s e w a y s by t h e B. N . a n d Gabrieli ( s e p a r a t e p u b l i c a t i o n , g e n e r a l ) , R i c h a r d s o n ( w i t h o u t t i t l e of w o r k , w i t h p a g i n a t i o n c u r t a i l e d ) , a n d Kristeller ( f u l l r e f e r e n c e s , f u l l a n a l y - s i s ) . Caveant lectores et collaborantes. 18 A n e x a m p l e of t h i s m e t h o d is t h e r e c e n t p u b - l i c a t i o n of t h e L i b r a r y of Congress, British Man- uscripts Project: A Checklist of the Microfilms Pre- pared, in England and Wales for the American Council of Learned Societies (1955 ; x v i i , 179 p . ) , w h e r e i n m o r e t h a n 11,000 titles a r e listed o n 145 p a g e s . T h e t y p e s i z e w a s reduced p h o t o g r a p h i c a l l y f r o m 12 p o i n t t o 8 p o i n t . 328 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES pages of lists to which would be added title pages, introduction, and name in- dex which, for discussion, may be esti- mated arbitrarily at another 200 pages. For the archival series the estimated 100,000 finding aids would produce 2,000 pages of text and would require some 500 pages of introductory and final matter. T h a t is, the two series would appear on a grand total of only 3,300 pages. Schedule, Costs, Funds Cooperative projects, especially those on an international scale, have never been distinguished by the celerity of their completion. Probably five years would elapse between the active incep- tion of the project and the publication of the final fascicle. T h e choice of locale for the central office and for the repro- duction will affect the costs materially, although probably not so much as it would have done even 20 years ago. Other cost factors are the size, qualifica- tions, and rates of remuneration of paid staff; the number of contributing staff; the amount, if any, of space, equipment, and utilities services furnished gratis to the central office. T h e cost of a project the size of that proposed here will not be negligible. It is, very probably, too expensive for self- support through subscription. It is, how- ever, the type of project to which insti- tutions, public or private, such as li- braries and academies often have of- fered hospitality in the past. It is, more- over, the type of project which should appeal directly to those philanthropic foundations interested in the dissemina- tion of ideas which will lead to better understanding between peoples. It is nothing less than the key to the keys to knowledge that is locked in unpublished source materials. T h e division into man- uscript and archival series and the pos- sible further division of each into an Eastern and a Western subseries would permit partial support of the project by each of several foundations. T h e in- terest, at 5 % , on one million dollars guaranteed annually for five years would d o much to assure the inception and suc- cessful prosecution of the project. Classification Schemes in Specialized Fields Classified outlines of subject matter in spe- cialized fields of knowledge are currently be- ing collected by the Special Libraries Associa- tion. Such classification schemes are of tre- m e n d o u s help, not only to librarians b u t to researchers, scientists, a n d others concerned with organizing the literature in their partic- u l a r fields of interest. T h e Special Libraries Association main- tains a "loan collection" of such classifica- tions on subjects ranging from "accounting" to "wood." T h e collection includes b o t h the n a t u r a l a n d social sciences in broad catego- ries such as chemistry, physics, a n d law, a n d also in narrower subdivisions such as "en- tomology," "radiology" a n d "steels." T h i s collection of classification schemes is currently being b r o u g h t u p to date a n d ex- p a n d e d , a n d contributions of classifications for all fields of knowledge are being solic- ited. Such contributions can be d o n a t e d either on a p e r m a n e n t basis or on loan. T h e collection is housed at the School of Library Science, Western Reserve University. Plans are u n d e r way to supply microfilm or photostat copies at a n o m i n a l fee. T h e work of enlarging the collection a n d bringing it u p to date is u n d e r the direction of the Committee on Special Classifications of the Special Libraries Association. Dona- tions of classifications or requests for f u r t h e r i n f o r m a t i o n should be addressed to: Allen Kent, Chairman, Committee on Special Clas- sifications, SLA, c / o School of Library Sci- ence, Western Reserve University, Cleveland 6, Ohio. JULY, 1956 329