College and Research Libraries ANDRE NITECKI Polish Books in America and the Farmington Plan A sample of books published in Poland was studied to see how effectively they were being acquired into American libraries. The re- sults were compared with the acquisition rate by American libraries of books from countries covered by the Farmington Plan. More than one- fourth of the Polish books sampled had been acquired, a · figure which compares favorably with those obtained from Farmington Plan na- tions. Polish book importations will doubtless increase. THE MAIN PURPOSE of this paper is to answer the following question: "What is the ·extent to which titles from a country not included under the Farmington Plan are represented in United States li- baries?" Or, in other words, does the ex- clusion from the Farmington Plan or similar cooperative ventures negate the adequate coverage accomplished through the uncoordinated efforts of individual libraries? To answer this question this paper will attempt to: 1. determine and analyze the American acquisition of titles from a "non- Farmington" country; 2. compare the findings with the Farm- ington Plan reports; 3. draw conclusions. Since it would be an insurmountable and actually meaningless . task to check the holdings of all "non-Farmington" countries' books in United States li- braries, it is necessary to limit this study to one country only and, pursue a depth study encompassing all titles published in that country during a particular period. Poland was selected for this in- vestigation. The value of Polish publica- Mr. Nitecki is with the library of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. tions to the United States audience is not merely to record the achievement of Po- lish scholarship in the fields of philos- ophy and mathematics, historical, clas- sical, and philological studies; other con- siderations include the extensive Polish reading public in the United States, the special interest in East Europe generated by the current political situation, and the growing concern for Slavic studies in many universities and research institu- tions.l Among the sixty major countries of the world, Poland ranks eleventh as a book producing country. Its total book pro- duction for the year 1952 was 6,632 titles; only ninety-six titles less than its closest competitor-the Netherlands-and 5,208 titles less than the United States, which produced 11,840 titles during the period. It is worth noting that in 1952 Poland produced 265 titles per million inhabitants, the Netherlands 673, and the United States seventy-four titles. In per capita book production Poland ranked twelfth in the world for 1952.2 In 1955 Poland produced 7,199 titles, of which 5,823 were first editions. In the same year the United States produced 1 Andre Nitecki, The Acquisition of Polish books in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963). 2 R. E. Barker, Books for All (Paris: UNESCO, 1956), p. 18-21. I 439 440 I College & Research Libraries • November, 1966 12,589 titles, of which 10,226 were first editions.3 METHOD The major concern of this paper is with two related problems: ( 1) What observations can be made about the ac- tual acquisition of Polish books by in- dividual libraries? ( 2) What kind of coverage of recent Polish publications is exhibited by the entire United States? Answering one question without the other means either overlooking the im- portance of specific collections or ignor- ing the larger question of accessibility of Polish materials by United States read- ers and researchers. As phrased above, however, these questions do not immediately point to feasible approaches which can elicit meaningful answers. Rather than deal with an over-all estimate of holdings, actual holdings will be checked against total titles published. It is hoped that such information will not only facilitate dealing with chief concerns, but also contribute to the answers to such further questions as the following: 1. Are holdings of Polish books in the United States adequate as far as the tot!ll 9utput and value of Polish pub- lications is concerned? 2. Insofar as the interest or demand for Polish publications will vary from area to area and from institution to institution, does actual acquisition follow the ups and downs of demand? 3. Since acquisition of books in Polish may create problems and difficulties, are there libraries whose holdings in- dicate that they have apparently re- solved such problems? In selecting a period for study, trends in Polish publishing suggested the more flourishing years beginning in 1957. Con- currently, the period could not be so re- cent that sufficient time would not have 8 United Nations, Statistical Yearbook, 1956 (New York: 1956), p. 603. elapsed from the publication dates to al- low individual libraries opportunity for acquiring and cataloging such materials. The combination of these two concerns led to the selection of the period begin- ning April 15, 1957, and ending August 17 of that year. In order to insure that the most com- plete list of titles published during the above period be used, investigation of the various sources of titles was under- taken. Poland is currently producing eighteen major book trade catalogs, of which six are of general nature and twelve are limited to specific fields such as medicine, literature, etc. Of the six general catalogs three are still somewhat selective: Kwartalnik wy- dawniczy4 specializes in juvenile litera- ture; N owe ksiazki5 selects monographic works only, excluding all serials and "minor" publications; N owosci wydaw- nictw Polskich6 limits itself to new books issued by the export booksellers. The remaining three general book trade catalogs are: 1. Kartkowy katalog nowosci (card cat- alog of new books). 2. Przewodnik bibliograficzny ( biblio- graphical guide) . 3. Zapowiedzi wydawnicze (publication announcement), which has been pub- lished weekly since February 4, 1952, by Dom Ksiaizki in Warsaw. It is an official organ of Centralny Zarzad Ksi~garstwa (Central Board of the Book Trade) . It, like Kartkowy kata- log, is published on one side of a leaf only; it gives complete bibliographic description, series notes, and it is an- notated with indication of the level of reading and suggests possible readers by educational standards. 4 Kwartalnik wydawniczy (Publishing Quarterly) is- sued quarterly since May 1955 by Nasza Ksiegarnia (Our Bookstore) in Warsaw . • 5 Nowe ksiazki (New Bo~ks) issued semimonthly smce October 1949 by Polskie Wydawnictwo Gospo- darcze in Warsaw. 8 Nowosci wydawnictw Polskich (New Polish Pub- lications) issued monthly since 1953 by Prasa i Ksiazka in Warsaw. TABLE 1. HoLDINGS OF PoLisH TITLES HELD IN FmsT EDITIONS IN UNITED STATEs' LIBRARIES Libraries MiDW MH DLC NN IC cu DNLM MiU ICU wu CtY MH-L DS NIC InU DI MiD CSt-H DA IU MH-PZ NCD NNC OCI CaBVaU CLU ICF MB MH-SD NcU NNM pp WaU Total Pure Sciences 1 5 3 5 5 1 1 1 1 23 Social Sciences 28 33 31 16 7 1 1 3 7 2 12 9 7 1 1 3 2 1 1 167 List of Abbreviations of Thirty-Three Libraries Used in the Study CaBVaU CLU CST-H CtY cu DA DI DLC DNLM DS IC ICF ICU University of British Columbia, Vancouver University of California at Los Angeles Stanford College library; Hoover Institution on War Revolution and Peace Yale University University of California, Berkeley U.S. Dept. of Agriculture . library U.S. Dept. of the Interior library U.S. Library of Congress U.S. National Library of Medicine U.S. Dept. of State library Chicago public library Chicago natural history museum University of Chicago Applied Sciences 3 8 3 28 1 1 44 InU IU MB MH MH-L MH-P MH-SD MiD MiDW MiU McD NcU NIC NN NNC NNM OCI pp WaU wu Humanities Miscellany 73 64 19 23 38 26 24 11 10 10 . ..... 2 5 4 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 320 3 3 Indiana University University of Illinois Boston Public library Harvard University, Cambridge Total 104 98 66 45 38 33 29 25 19 17 12 12 10 9 6 5 5 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 557 Harvard University-law school library Harvard University- Peabody museum library Harvard University- graduate school of design Detroit public library Wayne State University University of Michigan Duke University University of North Carolina Cornell University New York public library Columbia University American museum of natural history Cleveland public library Free library of Philadelphia University of Washington University of Wisconsin 442 I College & Research Libraries • November, 1966 Zapowiedzi wydawnicze seemed to be the most suitable catalog published in Poland during the time of the study and was therefore used as the final source of titles to be checked against the holdings of United States libraries. In the period under study Poland pro- duced the total of 1,309 titles. These can be divided into: 1,110 monographic · titles; 141 music titles; and 58 children's literature titles. The monographic titles include 228 reprints and textbooks. It was assumed that United States li- braries would not give priority to chil- dren's literature, reprints, translations frorp one modern language into another, nor to precollege textbooks from foreign countries. It was also believed that music (sheet music and songs) and sheet maps would be too specialized for a general library to acquire. Therefore, all titles in children's literature, music, textbooks, translations, and reprints were elimi- nated, allowing concentration on the re- sulting list of 882 titles. This list, re- ferred to as "First Edition Titles," was then checked against the National Union Catalog, 1958-1962. The resulting data were organized with respect to individ- ual libraries, specific areas of study, or other meaningful categories, to permit a relatively exact estimate to be made of the over-all acquisition of Polish books by United States libraries. PoLisH HoLDINGS IN AMERICA According to the National Union Cat- alog only thirty-three libraries possess any of the titles on the list (see Table 1 ) . These range from nine libraries which have one volume each, to Har- vard and Wayne State, which have ap- proximately one hundred titles apiece. In all, 332 out of 882 titles are represent- ed in United States libraries, in other words, 37~ per cent of the total number of first editions published in Poland dur- ing the aforementioned period. In ad- dition, duplications of these titles ac- count for an added 225 volumes, bring- ing the total number of volumes to 557 (see Table 2). TABLE 2. NUMBER OF PoLisH TITLEs HELD IN ONE OR MoRE UNITED STATEs' LIBRARIES Titles Duplications Tota l Copies 209 No duplications 209 68 2 of each 136 30 3 of each 90 13 4 of each 52 6 5 of each 30 4 6 of each 24 2 8 of each 16 332 557 1. General Distribution. Excluding the miscellaneous category (Sports and Trav- el), only two libraries have coverage in all four major divisions: the Library of Congress and the New York public li- brary. Harvard's coverage is incomplete, with heavier concentration in the social sciences and humanities, only one title in the pure. sciences, and none in ap- plied sciences. The University of Chica- go and Wayne State have coverage in three of the four major areas. Twelve li- braries have coverage in two major areas, while sixteen libraries have one or more titles in one category only. Generally speaking, the strongest and most widespread coverage is in the hu- manities, represented in twenty-three li- braries by 320 volumes. Next are the social sciences represented in nineteen libraries by 167 volumes. Following this are the pure sciences with 23 volumes scattered among nine libraries, then the applied sciences with 44 volumes di- vided (quite unequally) among only six libraries. 2. Specific Holdings. Table 3 con- tains the specific holdings, broken down into subjects, of each of the thirty-three libraries. None of the titles on the orig- inal list in the fields of archaeology, psychology, sociology, maps, technology, dictionaries, librarianship, and sports are represented in the United States libraries. The Library of Congress ac- Polish Books in America and the Farmington Plan I 443 TABLE 3. HoLDINGs OF PoLISH BooKs PUBLISHED DURING PERIOD OF STUDY: BY SUBJECT MATTER A.."N'D PER CENT OF TOTAL PUBLISHED Total Titles Held in Per Cent Volumes Held Published U.S. Libraries Held in U.S. Libraries Pure Sciences: Biology 7 1 14 1 Botany 16 1 6 1 Chemistry 12 1 8 1 Geology 24 5 21 5 Mathematics 10 5 50 5 Physics 24 1 4 1 Zoology 49 9 18 9 Total 142 23 ..... . . . . 23 Social Sciences: Anthropology 3 2 67 4 Archeology 7 0 0 0 Business, Finance 11 3 27 3 Education 20 6 30 8 Economics 12 5 41 8 General 6 2 33 2 History 88 47 53 111 Home Economics 2 1 50 1 Law 22 12 54 20 Politics 9 6 67 8 Psychology 3 0 0 0 Sociology 2 0 0 0 Total 185 85 . ...... . . . 165 Applied Sciences: Agriculture 57 2 4 2 Industry 52 5 4 5 Maps 5 0 0 0 Medicine 51 27 53 33 Technology 51 0 0 0 Transportation 20 3 15 3 Total 236 37 . . . .. .. . .. 43 Humanities: Art, Architecture 32 14 42 24 Dictionaries 2 0 0 0 Essays, Journalism 7 2 30 4 Fiction 185 142 77 217 Librarianship 6 0 0 0 Music 5 1 20 1 Philology 18 9 50 45 Philosophy 1 1 100 1 Poetry ( Collection) 14 5 36 15 Religion 1 1 100 1 Theatre, Film 16 9 54 14 Total 287 184 .. . . . . . . . . 322 Miscellaneous: Travel 16 3 18 3 Sports 16 0 0 0 Total 32 3 . .. . . . . . . . 3 Pure Sciences 142 23 16 23 Social Sciences 185 85 46 165 Applied Sciences 236 37 16 44 Humanities 287 184 64 322 Miscellaneous 32 3 9 3 Total 882 332 . . .... . 557 444 I C allege & Research Libraries. • November, 1966 counts for the total United States hold- ings in botany, chemistry, business fi- nance, general social sciences, industry, transportation, and travel. Fiction, his- tory, and philology books, the best rep- resented, are held in twenty, seventeen, and ten libraries respectively, while the bulk of the medical books ( 28 out of 34 in the entire country) are held by the National Library of Medicine. A further estimate of the coverage may be obtained by examining title holdings of the United States as a whole (see Table 3) in relationship to the total Polish output during the period. For ex- ample, not only is the United States fic- tion holding large ( 217 volumes) but these also represent 142 different titles or 77 per cent of the total number pub- lished. Similarly, the meager holdings in philosophy and religion actually exhaust the titles published during this period. It would be dangerous to generalize in such cases where only a few titles were actually published. However, in fields like law, medicine, history, and philology, holdings include 50 per cent or better of a much larger total number. The earlier statement that the United States has no titles in several areas is more significant with regard to such fields as technology, where 51 titles were actually published, than in the cases of psychology, sociology, maps, and librar- ianship wherein fewer than ten titles each were published. Other holdings of interest are in art and architecture, where the United States has 42 per cent of the thirty-two titles published; in theater and films, where 54 per cent of sixteen titles are held; and economics with 41 per cent of twelve titles. Because of budgetary limitations, 7 li- braries can seldom acquire every book justified by general principles. In one sense, each book acquired must be able 1 "The ultimate aim of all book selection is to make the most effective use of the allotted book fund. The ideal of sufficient funds to buy every book felt to be justifled is rarely encountered ..•. " Thomas Landau, Encyclopaedia of Librarianship (London: Bowes & Bowes, 1958 ) p. 48. to stand the test of affording an affirma- tive answer to the question, "Is this book more valuable than some other book not in the collection?" This is not at all a simple question since the value of a book is often, to a greater or lesser degree, · a function of the total collection -e.g., is a twenty-volume encyclopedia more valuable than the sum of the twen- ty volumes considered separately, or is a masterpiece of historiography on twelfth-century Poland wasted in a li- brary which has little other material on Polish history? Thus libraries must and do develop detailed acquisitions policies. 8 Ruggles and Mostecky summarize one such for- mulation with respect to Russian mate- rials. The library (unnamed) collects: ( 1) material directly related to the courses offered by the college; ( 2) classics of Russian literature and ma- terials connected with their historical, social, philosophical, and religious back- ground; ( 3) basic bibliographies, refer- ence aids, and language tools; ( 4) basic materials for fundamental studies in the fields of social science and humanities, not for extended research; and ( 5) mate- rials supplementing the existing special collections. 9 However, the authors' inves- tigation suggests that this example is almost unique with reference to East European collections. Few libraries have clear acquisition policies, let alone detailed sets of criteria for selection. Many improvise or follow the line of least resistance, buying what is re·adily available, i.e., offered by their dealers. The lack of policy and system in the selection process was particularly ev- ident among university libraries, pos- sibly because of the broad and often un- predictable interests of faculty and grad- uate students.1o 8 An extremely fine example of a detailed acquisition policy is John Crerar Library, Acquisitions Policy (Chicago: 1953). 9 According to Melville J. Ruggles and Vaclav Mos- tecky: Russian and East European Publications in the Libraries of the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960) p. 16. 10 Ibid, p. 16. Polish Books in America and the Farmington Plan I 445 RELIABILITY OF FINDINGS A general question must be asked con- cerning the reliability of these findings with particular concern for the small number of libraries which have reported holdings of titles published in first edi- tions during the period of the study. In all 2 422 libraries in Canada and the U~ited States are expected to report to the National Union Catalog. 11 This study discovered only thirty-three libraries with books in Polish. While it is possible that these thirty-three exhaust the libraries which currently acquire Polish books, some effort had to be made to check it. Such an effort could not be overly sys- tematic without enlarging the scope of the paper. However, certain steps were taken which should prove adequate. Our line of thought was as follows: are these thirty-three libraries, in fact, the only ones acquiring Polish books? Do others acquire them without reporting, or is it simply accidental that the study concentrated upon one period during which other libraries happened not to have made acquisitions from Poland? This lead to the question as to which libraries of the 2,389 remaining might have been missed in the study. A list of those libraries having over a million volumes in 1953-195412 shows that, while these thirty-three libraries in- clude eleven with over a million vol- umes each, there were eight which our study ignored. An attempt was made to discover if those libraries holding more than one million volumes in 1953/54, but not among the thirty-three mentioned above, have reported any holdings what- soever of Polish books. 13 Of these li- u Library of Congress, Processing Department, Sym- bols Used in the National Union Catalog of the Library of Congress (Washington, 1959). 12 Louis Round Wilson and Maurice Falcolm Tauber, The University Library (New York: Columbia Univer- sity Press, 1956), p. 86-87. 13 The method used is somewhat arbitrary and makes no claim of being thorough. Beginning with the au- thors of books which are held by three or more li- braries in the United States, we checked to see if other books by these authors were held in libraries braries, only two were found which re- ported each holding one Polish title (Princeton and Northwestern) and three smaller libraries with one each ( Univer- sity of Southern California, University of Virginia, and the Army War College). titles but that the number involved is not large. In addition, three of the largest li- braries (Johns Hopkins, New York Uni- versity, and University of Pennsylvania) This led to the belief that other libraries do, in fact, acquire and report Polish plus eight smaller ones have reported holding one or another of the Polish Academy of Science serial publications. Thus, while there may be some laxity in the extent of reporting holdings to the National Union Catalog, no blanket fail- ure to report is evident, and the findings for the thirty-three libraries can well serve to speak for the United States cov- erage. If the holdings of all libraries are not recorded, it is probably partly due to the time lag between the time of cat- aloging and the date of the actual print- · ing of the National Union Catalog. It is likely, also, that some of the remaining volumes not reported were acquired after the title already appeared in the NUC and are, therefore, duplications. A further opportunity for judging the reliability of the findings emerges out of the data compiled by Ruggles and Mostecky. Their information about the holdings of Polish titles is derived from estimates given by the libraries them- selves and is specific as to over-all hold- ings independent of publishing or ac- quisition dates. In fact, they include 122 libraries beyond those located by the present study, which have some Polish holdings. (See Table 4.) However, only twenty of these have over five hundred besides our thirty-three. Since Polish names are unique- ly spelled, locating any one author in the NUC brings to the investigator's attention numerous other Polish authors so that several hundred Polish titles cur- rently held in United States libraries can be quickly checked for symbols of libraries other than the thirty- three. By and large the same thirty-three libraries con- tinually recurred with only occasional new ones. 446 I College & Research Libraries • November, 1966 TABLE 4. NuMBER OF LIBRARIES HoLDING POLISH TITLES-COMPARED THOSE LOCATED BY EsTIMATED HoLDINGs 0 OuR STUDY Less than 100 2 100-500 . 2 500-1,000 5 1,000-2,500 4 2,000-5,000 3 5,000-10,000 6 20,000-25,000 3 25,000-50,000 1 Not listed 4 Totals 30t NoT LOCATED BY OuR STUDY 64 38 12 5 2 1 0 0 0 122 0 As reported to and quoted in Ruggles and Mostecky. t This total differs from the earlier quoted 33 li- braries since all the Harvard libraries are considered here as one library. volumes. A good many are large public library systems, which, only doubtfully, could alter significantly the conclusions of this study. Although beyond the scope of this paper, contact was made with that library in this category having the largest holdings, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York. The li- brarian could not confirm the exact re- liability of the five thousand to ten thou- sand volumes which Ruggles and Mos- tecky report as being held there, but other facts make it seem likely. The library was begun in the 1930's to col- lect all material (in all fields regardless of level) which deal with problems of Jewry. Such materials in Polish have been purchased quite consistently from Poland, with an estimated seventy vol- umes added during the past year. (Books in Yiddish published in Poland are deposited free of charge). In considering the phenomenon of such highly specialized research libraries as YIVO, it may be theorized that their awareness of and responsibility to the national library scene may not be as strong as those of general research li- braries. As a library, the YIVO no doubt feels that it has most, if not all, of the materials with which it is concerned and it is quite likely that this is true: However, insofar as it does not make known its holdings through the usual means (i.e., the National Union Cata- log), the value of the collection is di- minished. But this statement must prob- ably be further qualified: although re- searchers in indirectly related fields (e.g., the Polish labor movement) may never quite discover the usefulness of this library; although those seeking a particular book held solely by this li- brary may never find it; nonetheless seri- ous researchers in such topics as Jewish history, culture, etc. may be counted upon to reach its catalog and stacks without the help of the National Union Catalog. This leads to a final question: if there are Polish titles which a number of li- braries apparently agree are valuable, why do not more libraries have them? A main reason may be the problems of acquiring and cataloging books in a lan- guage as unfamiliar to most Americans as Polish. Certainly, however, the degree to which such difficulties are overcome is directly related to the extent of the interest or demand for such materials. Therefore, it might be predicted that with today's growing interest in Slavi~ studies (taking this field out of it previ- ous specialized realm into the sphere of near-necessity for any large research li- brary), there will be an improvement in library facilities to handle the acquisi- tion of Polish books. FARMINGTON PLAN What degree of assurance then exists that all valuable Polish books have been acquired by some United States library? Polish Books in America and the Farmington Plan I 447 Such a concern would not be primary if Poland were included under the Farm- ington Plan. The Farmington Plan is an experiment in specialization by voluntary agreeme~t a~on.g American research libraries. Its obJective IS to make sure that at least one copy of each new foreign book and pamphlet that might reasonably be expected to interest a research worker in the United States will be acquired by an American library, promptly listed in the Union Catalog at the Library of Con- gress, and made available by interlibrary loan or photographic reproduction. 14 The plan was originally drafted in 1944 and began to go into operation for France, Sweden, and Switzerland, be- ginning with 1948 publications.15 By the end of 1953 the plan included ninety- nine countries, having gone beyond its original scope of dealing only wi.th p.ub- lications in the Latin alphabet, with sixty American libraries participating.16 The plan has arrangements for i~s continu~d extension to new areas, subJect to ratifi- cation by the Association of Research Libraries. Volumes costing more than $25 are not automatically supplied; in addition, publications in certain areas are exclud- ed, namely: books primarily of interest for format, juvenile literature, newspa- pers, precollege textbooks, reprints, off- prints, sheet maps, sheet music, transla- tions, and government documents. The ' participating libraries are required to send to the National Union Catalog at the Library of Congress a preliminary catalog card within one month of the re- ceipt of each volume. Neither Poland nor any other East European country is . included in the H Edwin E. Williams Farmington Plan Handbook, ([Bloomington , Ind.] Association of Research Libraries , 1953), p. 3 . 1 5 Ibid, p. 23. 16 Robert L. Talmadge, "The Farmington Plan Sur- vey : An Interim Report, " CRL, XIX (September I958), 377. plan. However, volumes from included countries on the history of Poland have been assigned to the University of Vir- ginia libraries, and materials in various languages ( other than Polish) on Polish languages and literature having bee? assigned to the Harvard College h- brary.17 It is significant to see to what extent the features of the Farmington Plan exist with respect to Polish publications de- spite their not being included within the plan. With respect to over-all coverage, there are only limited figures on the number of titles acquired under the Farmington Plan to compare with the findings of this study of Polish holdings. Making use of what figures are avail- able,I8 it is found that in 1951, 350 titles were acquired from Norway solely through the operation of the Farmington Plan. Total published titles during the year were 2, 773. In 1952, 265 out of 2 704 titles were similarly acquired. In other words, 12.6 per cent during the first year and 9.8 per cent during the second were acquired as a result of the Farmington Plan. For Belgium we know the number of titles acquired during the years 1949-52, but we have only total publication data for 1953-55. By using the highest number of titles acquired during any known year and the lowest known number of titles published during the succeeding period, we still only get 11.6 per cent purchased from Belgium under the plan. During the period of the present study, 332 titles were ac- quired out of the total number of 1,309 published in Poland-25.1 per cent of the total titles are held somewhere in the United States. Thirty-seven and six- tenths per cent of all the titles issued in first edition are held, including 64.11 per cent of humanities and 45.94 per 11 Edwin E. Williams op. cit., p. 79. 1s Ibid, p. 61. - 448 I College & Research Libraries • November, 1966 cent of the social science titles. Only the pure sciences are not up to this remark- able level. While the percentages for Polish titles are not exactly comparable with the per- centages pertaining to Norway and Bel- gium, since the latter do not include the additional titles acquired through means other than the plan, Polish holdings are relatively-and when considered by themselves, quite-substantial. The advantage, resulting from being included within the Farmington Plan, of knowing immediately where books in any field are held, is absent in the case of Polish books, except to the extent that titles in certain areas tend to locate themselves naturally in certain libraries. For example, all the medical titles can be found at the National Library of Medicine (although six titles can also be found at other places). Such .. nat- ural" distribution cannot completely compete with a planned distribution. It may, however, be further pointed out that of the thirty-three libraries herein studied five are governmental libraries ( all but the Library of Congress being quite specialized), and two are museum libraries and therefore also specialized, yet all provide a start toward finding a book in Polish (or any other language) in a particular field. The greatest failing pointed up by these findings is the time lag before, or complete absence of, reporting Polish titles to the National Union Catalog. Whether imperatives, as incorporated into the Farmington Plan, to report hold- ings would or would not eliminate this situation is difficult to say. Ruggles and Mostecky also note this failing with re- spect to the entire body of East Euro- pean literature, and provide some of the reasons behind it. In some cases librarians were too self-con- scious of the peculiarities of their rules and practices; sometimes there has been a fail- ure in communication between the chief li- brarian and his cataloging staff. Or often, as was freely admitted to the investigators in several instances, a library deliberately withheld reports on its holdings because if they appeared in the National Union Cat- alog, the library would be flooded with interlibrary loan requests. 1 9 While these findings demonstrate that considerable duplication exists ( 225 vol- umes out of 557 held in the United States are duplicates-see Table 2), this may not have been .. unnecessary" dupli- cation. For example, exactly one-third of the duplicate copies ( 75 out of the 225 mentioned above) are fiction titles, purchased by large university libraries and large public library systems. There are no duplications in the pure sciences. Thus, looking at the larger picture, Polish publications fare rather well in the United States. Ruggles and Mostecky assert that most librarians take ... a very negative view toward the sugges- tion that the Farmington Plan concept be extended to include Russian and other East European materials. The reason most com- monly adduced was that there are so few libraries engaged in extensive acquisitions programs in East European publications that the responsibility for collecting com- prehensively in assigned subject fields would impose excessive burdens on each of the participants."2 0 This argument, by itself, is difficult to accept since the Farmington Plan al- ready includes Cambodia, Korea, Laos, Pakistan, Siam, and Vietnam, 21 countries of undoubtedly more specialized inter- est. Ruggles and Mostecky themselves feel that if the present need is not suffi- cient to warrant some such cooperative scheme, future needs will make it neces- 19 Melville J. Ruggles and Vaclav Mostecky op. cit., p. 119. 20 Ibid, p. 27. 21 Edwin E. Williams, op. cit., p. 65-67. Polish Books in America and the Farmington Plan I 449 sary.22 The assertion made earlier in this paper that interest in this area is increasing (and the subsequent data demonstrating the beginnings of that in- crease) add backing to their position. Channels for book importation from Poland are good. At present there are thirty-four Polish institutions participat- ing in exchange programs with United z:~ Melville J. Ruggles and Vaclav Mostecky op. cit •• p . 27-28. States institutions.23 In addition, physi- cal difficulties of importing book pur- chases from Poland are almost nonexist- ent.24 There appears to be little doubt but that this commerce will increase. • • » Ibid, p. 66-68. 24 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Department of Mass Communication. Di- vision of Free Flow of Information, Trade Barriers to Knowledge; A Manual of Regulations Affecting Educa- tional, Scienti-fic and Cultural Materials. New and re- vised edition (Paris: UNESCO, 1955).