College and Research Libraries


Chemical Literature 
A Guide to th e Literature of Chemistry. 2d 

ed. By E. J. Crane, Austin M. Patterson, 
and Eleanor B. Marr. New York: John 
Wiley & Sons, 1957. 397p. $9.50. 

Thirty years ago E. J. Crane and Austin M. 
Patterson put out a splendid volume, A 
Guide to th e LiteratuTe of Chemistry , which 
attempted to help the chemist avoid wasting 
valuable materials and more valuable time 
in the laboratory in determining what had 
been already published. The plan of this 
book of thirty years ago was to . divide the 
chemical literature into three points of view, 
namely those of production, distribution, 
and use. 

One will find , on turning to the new edi-
tion of A Gu ide to the Literature of Chem-
istry, in the chapter devoted to "Problem 
and Objectives," that the emphasis remains 
the same ; however, in the preface to the new 
edition, one finds the statement by Miss 
Eleanor B. Marr, the new joint author, that 
the second edition of the Guide is intended 
to be used both as a reference work and as 
a textbook. In agreement with Miss M arr, 
this second edition is definitely a reference 
work and, thus, similar in objective to the 
first edition. However, the new edition is a 
thorough and detailed analysis of many 
items that would be very difficult to present 
to the beginning student. It would seem that 
this work is primarily a reference work of 
great detail, which makes it most usable to 
the researcher who has had an introduction 
to chemical literature. From her chapter 
"Procedure in Literature Searches" one can 
see that Miss Marr is aware of such an un-
evenness when she writes, 

Within this work, there are some errors 
in respect to dates of publications. Some 
specific omissions follow: The statement on 
page 172 that Chemical Abstracts is the only 
abstract journal that covers Japanese pat-
ents should be changed to include the Ref-
erativnyi Zhurnal Khimiya , and other parts. 
On page 173, the statement that the Chem-
isches Zentralblatt stopped publishing tables 
of patent equivalents in 1945 should be 
changed to point out that this service was 
resumed in 1953. A statement on page 187 

SEPTEMBER 1957 

neglects to mention that there are two Facts 
for Industry , one published by the U.S. 
Tariff Commission, dealing· with organic 
chemicals, and the other by the U.S. Bureau 
of the Census, dealing with inorganic chem-
icals. On page 220 is omitted the biographic 
work American Men of Science, appearing 
in three extensive volumes and of the great-
est use. 

This book has retained many of the ex-
cellent features of the old edition, and most 
parts throughout have been enlarged. This 
new edition is still primarily for the scholar, 
the reference librarian, and those having 
passed through an elementary course in 
chemical literature. As a reference work, 
this new edition is the most important up-
to-date book available on the subject and 
should · be bought by anyone working with 
the literature of chemistry.-]ames van Luik, 
Purdue University Library. 

Russian Bibliography 

Zdobnov, N. V. Istoriia russkoi bibliografii 
do. nachala XX veka. Izdanie tret'e. Mos-
cow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo kul'tur-
no-prosvetitel'noi literatur'i, 1955. 607p. 
14R. 80K. 

Ten years after publication of the first edi-
tion, the third edition of N. V. Zdobnov's 
History of Russian Bibliography up to the 
Beginning of the Twentieth Century has ap-
peared. The editor of this edition, Professor 
B. S. Bodnarskii, has revised the text slightly 
and added a few portraits of outstanding Rus-
sian bibliographers and facsimiles of the title 
pages of their works. However, the history 
of Russian bibliography of the twentieth cen-
tury and of Soviet epoch is still unwritten, 
since Zdobnov's death prevented the comple-
tion of this great work. 

Before Zdobnov published his work, there 
had been several other works on Russian bib-
liography, such as those of K. N. Derunov, 
A. I. Malein ::md A. G. Fomin. However, 
Zdobnov points out in his preface that these 
earlier books were not written from the Marx-
ist point of view, which he follows. 

However, Zdobnov has not given any com-
pletely new Marxist view on bibliography, as 
he has not been original (and under exist-

421 



ing conditions in the Soviet Union could not 
be). He has simply applied the old Marxist . 
view of partisanship against objectivism in 
literature to the studies of bibliography. 

In preparing his book, Zdobnov had to 
consult over 5,000 boo~s and about 30,000 ar-
ticles in sixty bibliographical and 700 general 
magazines of the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries. He divided his book into five parts: 
(1) the beginning period of Russian bibliog-

raphy, from the eleventh to the seventeenth 
century; (2) the eighteenth century; (3) the 
first half of the nineteenth century; (4) the 
1850's and 1860's; and (5) from the 1870's to 
the beginning of the twentieth century. This 
third edition of the book was published in 
10,000 copies, an indication of widespread in-
terest in the history of bibliography in the 
U.S.S.R.-Milimir Drazic) Northwestern Uni-
versity Library. 

Argentine Libraries 

(Continued from page 402) 

works in a convenient place. In short, 
whether or not users receive assistance 
and the quality of such service too often 
depend on chance, as opposed to organ-
ized reference work. However, as evi-
dence of growing awareness of the im-

' portance of such work, one might cite 
the following: (1) use of enlarged book 
budgets to build up holdings of dic-
tionaries, encyclopedias, bibliogniphies, 
handbooks, and the like, and (2) plans 
to establish reference or reference-circu-
lation positions as soon as possible in 
several libraries now lacking such posts. 
The forthcoming publication of the first 
work in Spanish on reference books, by 
Josefa Emilia Sabor, librarian of the 
Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at 
Buenos Aires, should stimulate further 
interest in this area of librarianship. 

. The interpretation of public services 
has evolved unevenly in Argentina. Li-
braries utilize exhibits and displays, 
sponsor lectures on occasion and succeed 
in obtaining publicity in local newspa-
pers and on radio stations. On the other 
hand, instruction in the use of the li-
brary, handbooks, and guides to collec-
tions remajn relatiyely unexploited. 

Conclusion 

A review of the present organization, 
resources, and services of Argentine uni-
versity libraries reveals a number of 
closely discernible trends. The first of 
these is the growing amount of centrali-
zation and coordination in each system; 
this may eventually lead to centralized 
librar y service, especially if some institu-
tions carry out plans to build university 
cities. Second, if present funds continue 
to be available, these libraries will make 
substantial additions to their already 
important resources. Third, there is a 
tendency to re-evaluate library tech-
niques and services and to reorganize 
them along more modern lines when 
necessary. All of these are positive devel-
opments. Assuming that such present 
problems as lack of central catalogs, 
lacunae in holdings of recent foreign 
publications, and inadequate space will 
be solved (this is not a small task, but 
present signs point to success), one can 
look forward expectantly to Argentine 
university libraries' serving better the 
growing needs of their faculties and 
students. 

422 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARiES