College and Research Libraries By RALPH T. ESTERQUEST The MILC Chemical Abstracts Project I N THE FALL OF 1953, a joint meeting of the participating librarians and the di- rectors of the Midwest Inter-Library Center discussed goals for their coopera- tive enterprise and confirmed that a pos- itive and forward-looking acquisitions program was essential to meeting the de- mands of research. 1 One of the proposals relating to the acquisitions policy called for a high priority to be given to periodi- cals not held by the MILC member li- braries. As an example, it was suggested that holdings recorded in such special lists as that issued by C hemica.l Abstracts be checked to ascertain wants in the re- gion. From this beginning has evolved the Center's Chemical Abstracts Project, the final step of which was taken on Decem- ber 10, 1956. The selection of the Chemical Ab- stracts list2 as a basis for this significant experiment in regional coverage may be ascribed to the following reasons: 1. All of the MILC member institutions have a strong interest in chemistry andre- lated fields. 2. The C hemica.l Abstracts list provides a handy tool for a reasonably accurate locating of current subscriptions in mem- ber libraries, thus reducing substantially the extent of list-checking needed for identifying wants. 3. The Chemical Abstracts list is broad 1 For a statement of the Center's acquisitions policy and program, see CRL, XV (1954), 47-49, 89. 2 American Chemical Society. List of Periodicals Ab- stracted by Chemical Abstracts, with Key to Library Files and Other Information. Columbus, Ohio, 1951. 255 p. New edition planned for publication in March 1957. Mr. Ester quest is director., Midwest Inter-Library Center. in scope, including a large number of chemistry-related journals in technology, medicine, and the biological scie:nces- fields in which the MILC members have research programs-thus, a purpose is served that is not limited to chemistry in the narrow sense. 4. Although the Chemical Abstracts list includes an imposing number of titles -actually about 4, 700-it is still selec- tive, since the editors apply known cri- teria for inclusion as a matter of policy. It can be assumed that, if the editors ac- cept an abstract and list the parent jour- nal, that journal is one that will be asked for in our libraries. Preliminary checking of the Chemical Abstracts list took place during late 1953 and early 1954, with most of the labor contributed by Mr. Herman Henkle of the John Crerar Library. His June 1954 report to the MILC group included the following table, which showed the distri- bution of current subscriptions of Chemi- cal Abstracts journals among member li- braries: Number of Titles 1,583 651 425 300 228 206 196 169 148 134 117 114 92 94 Number of Member Libraries Having Current Subscription none I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 190 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES i r r 82 79 55 26 23 10 TOTAL 4,73t 14 15 16 17 18 19 18,101 subscriptions This decision to attempt "complete coverage," or "regional self-sufficiency," was based again on the first, third, and fourth reasons (cited above) for selecting the Chemical Abstracts list in the first place. (At this stage, it was appropriate to re- . mind ourselves that all the 4,732 listed Mr. Henkle's report called particular periodicals are not to be found in the attention to the total number of subscrip- Columbus, Ohio, headquarters of Chemi- tions, both duplicate and unique, held by cal Abstracts~ since many abstracts ar~ MILC libraries, namely, 18,101. "This supplied by abstractors in various parts statistic," he said, "is particularly signifi- of the world who do not forward to the cant with reference to the 1,583 titles not editorial office the journals containing held by any MILC library. It would re- the abstracted articles, nor does the quire only 8.7 per cent change in the total Chemical Abstracts office receive these subscription lists to gain complete cover- journals from other sources.) age without increasing the total number As a next step, the Center furnished of subscriptions :maintained by member each member library with a photocopy libraries."3 Although consideration was of the Chemical Abstracts list, marked to given to the possibility of a planned pro- show the 1,583 titles not recorded as com- gram of substitute subscriptions within ing to any of them. The member libraries member libraries, in order to increase the checked these 1,583 titles and reported to percentage of titles held by the group, the Center- this approach was not included in the program ultimately adopted on account of the extensive checking and reporting that would have been required. Instead, it was decided that participat- ing libraries would be free to cancel sub- scriptions to journals which later hold- ings information revealed to be widely held, and, conversely, to subscribe to others that were lacking or scarce in the region, merely reporting such decisions to the Center. Following the Henkle report of June 1954, the MILC member librarians gave primary attention to the 1,583 periodicals not represented in any of their libraries in the form of a current subscription. The core of their decision was that these titles should be added as soon as possible and that member libraries should have the opportunity to add those of them which they _might individually select. 3 "Final Report on Holdings of MILC Group of Li- braries Recorded in List of Periodicals Abstracted by Chemical Abstracts, 1951." By Herman H. Henkle. June 4, 1954. Typewritten copy. MAY~ 1957 1. Those which they were in fact receiving regularly, even though the printed location key in the list did not so indicate. 2. Those which they would like to cancel. 3. Those to which they would like to enter new subscriptions. The checked copies of the list were coded by the Center in a master copy, and the individual checked copies were returned to the member libraries with certain titles designated as follows: "MAKE FIRM"-Those titles which the printed key or the subsequent checking indi- cated to be periodicals of which the checking library held the only subscription. "suBSCRIBE"-Those titles which the check- ing library offered to add and which would otherwise be lacking among the members. The purpose of the "Make Firm" in- struction was to call attention to unique titles and to designate these as requiring a higher than ordinary level of responsi- bility on the part of the sole subscribing library. Under this policy, the subscrib- 191 ing library regards such a ti tie as one to which it subscribes for the common wel- fare instead of for its own community alone, and thus it takes special pains to "make firm," i.e., to confirm that it is ac- tually being received regularly and that its checking card shows that cancellation should take place only after consultation with the Center. By December 1955 this portion of the task had been completed. Among the nineteen participating libraries, 4 there were found at this stage to be 951 unique, or "Make Firm," titles, distributed as shown in the following table: Library Number of Unique Titles John Crerar 393 Illinois 148 Wisconsin 77 Purdue 56 Chicago 51 Minnesota 51 Wayne 49 fu~ ~ Kansas 21 Northwestern 19 Indiana 18 Oh~ 15 Michigan State 9 Indiana Medical 2 Notre Dame 5 Northwestern Medical 4 Cincinnati 2 Indiana Medical 2 Illinois Institute of Technology TOTAL 951 Indiana University Library and John Crerar led the list of those libraries which, a~ this time, entered 142 new sub- scriptions. These new subscriptions, plus those unrecorded subscriptions discov- ered by means of the checking procedure, reduced the number of "lacking" titles from the preliminary estimate of 1,583 to a reasonably accurate count of 837. There has been a historic interest in ~ When this checking was being done there were sixteen members in MILC , to which were added the three off-campus medical libraries of Illinois, Indiana, and Northwestern. As of January 1957, there are eighteen MILC members. the profession in the degree of overlap- ping (i.e;, duplication) among research library collections as related to the num- ber and extent of identical lacunae, and, like the preliminary estimate of lacking chemical titles, this more exact count of 837 journals is worth noting. These 837 titles not being received by a single MILC member represent 18 per cent of the 4,732 in the Chemical Abstracts list. That one in six of these journals is not found in even one of these libraries would seem to be curious when one re- alizes that among the MILC membership are five million-volume libraries, and six libraries with book budgets in excess of $200,000. It should be remembered too that an additional 20 per cent of these periodicals (951 of them) are being re- ceived by only one member library. At a meeting of the member librarians in July 1955, it was agreed that it should be the Center itself that should enter subscriptions to the 837 lacking journals, rather than that they should be scattered among the members. This decision was based upon recognition of the fact that the titles. in question were "less-used," and thus appropriate for MILC, and that existing Center machinery, as well as its location, made for relatively easy access. There is, furthermore, an often unrecog- nized advantage in having a coopera- tively acquired item housed in the Center building. This has to do with what might be called "equality of access" among tfie members, since, in the case of the Center, there is no factor of local priority of use which must necessarily exist when an item is housed in a member library. Although all the preliminary work was complete, the Chemical Abstracts project was put on ice from July 1955 until the summer of 1956, while waiting for budget support for personnel. Mean- while, the National Science Foundation became acquainted with the MILC plans and, last October, made a grant to sup- port the project during its initial period. (Continued on page 216) 192 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES