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By CATHARINE PENNIMAN STORIE

· The American College Society Library and the College Library

Mrs. Storie has abbreviated for the readers does any one of them discuss the value of of College and Research Libraries a master~s the society libraries. ' essay which she presented at the School of At first it was the purpose to show merely Library Service~ ~ tn the value of the society library to the col­ 19]8. lege library. Before the value of the li­ braries could be discovered, however, the HIS ARTICLE reports a study of college printed or manuscript catalogs of these T society libraries in the nineteenth cen­ libraries had to be located; and before the tury and was undertaken to provide a catalogs could be located, the colleges which supplementary chapter in the history of the had had societies had to be determined. American college library. The closing lines Examination of the society library collec­ of Shores's history of colonial college li­ tions at all the colleges was impossible. braries discussed the situation as it was in This part of . the work was confined, there­ I8oo and stated that "the inadequacy of fore, to a cursory study of the value of these most of the college libraries was felt so libraries in general and to a sp(,'!cific examin­ keenly by the students that the liter~ry ation of the collections at one college, i.e.~ societies which began to appear for the those of the Peithologian and the Philo­ first time undertook to establish libraries lexian societies at Columbia University. as one of their major purposes. " 1 Except for a few individual colleges and­ Sources for Locating the Libraries for statistics covering one decade, there · Reports and Handbooks. To help in seem to be no contemporary accounts of locating colleges which had society .libraries t he early college society libraries. There there fortunately are various government are scattered later references in histories of documents. The Smithsonian Institution higher education, in histories of particular issued in 185I the earliest report on libraries colleges, and in periodical articles written in the United States. William J. Rhees after I875· Also D. H. Sheldon's Student published more extensive information in Life and Customs~ published in I90I, gives I859, and the Commissioner of Education in three chapters a fairly extensive treat­ has included notices on public (including ment of student societies. But none of college) libraries in his reports at intervals these sources has anything to say in detail since 1876. A handbook on college societies about the contributiQn of the society library was put out in I871. These publications, to the college library, and only indirectly as has been · indicated, cover the period I

1 Shores, Louis. Origins of the American College after 1850 only. · Libt'ary, r638-rBoo. New York City, Barnes and Periodical Literature. Few articles re- Noble, 1934. 29op.

240 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES lating even indirectly to the subje<;t were thirty-one other colleges as having been found in indexes to periodicals. In these established before I825, some of which pre­ accounts the society library was mentioned sumably had societies. Material referring only in passing. With such scant informa­ to these two groups totaling I 58 colleges tion and with no references to articles. writ­ was s~ught in the card catalogs of Columbia ten before I 850, the next approach was to University Library, the Library of Congress go directly to educational periodicals pub­ Depository Catalog at Columbia University, lished dur!ng the first half of the nineteenth the catalogs of Teachers College Library century. and the , twenty­ Statistics: 1828-39. In spite of the fact five printed or book catalog~ of college that no descriptions of society libraries could libraries and. the Boston Athenaeum, the be located in the early journals, very in­ shelflist of the Library of Congress, and, teresting statistics exist in certain tables in after a revision, the catalog of the library the America~ Annals of Education and of the American Antiquarian Society. Instruction for I834, I835, and I836. The Questionnaire. To supplement the check­ I834 volume points to an earlier source by ing of library card catalogs, a questionnaire mentioning that the editor of the American was sent to the librarians of the colleges Quarterly Register of Education had esti­ founded before I85o. Limitation to this mated the number of students in I830. In period was decided upon because library this journal are statistics for the years I828, catalogs had not been located for any of I82g, I830, I83I, and I833· The table those founded at a later date. in the American Annals of Education and Instruction for . I834 also leads to a more Procedures and Findings complete source, stating that it was "copied From the foregoing it can be seen that with some additions and variations from the three main types of sources were located: American Almanac for I835." The Ameri­ the statistical tables (in the government can Almanac was found to contain statistics reports and in the journals for I 828-40) , on students' libraries for every year from the catalogs of . society libraries, and the I830 through I840, and its table for I830 responses to the questionnaire. Results, referred back to the American Quarterly therefore, depend~d upon interpretation of Register and Journal of the A "!erican Edu­ the statistics and of the responses to the cation Society~ which was the same periodi­ questionnaire and upon evaluation of the cal under a variant title as the American catalogs and of a few miscellaneous sources. Quarterly Register of Education mentioned Interpretation o,f the ·statistics. The sta­ above. tistics brought to light some interesting facts. It was discovered that of all the Sources for Locating Catalogs colleges flourishing in I83o, So per cent Library Card and Book Catalogs and had society libraries, and of these, nearly Bibliographies. Although it is evident that half had collections larger than those of the societies in general were dying out in their college libraries. In I 83 7 these li­ the last quarter of the nineteenth century, braries varied from a few hundred to I 5,000 the number of libraries referred to in the volumes, while the college libraries varied Report of the Commissioner of Education from · a few hundred to Io,ooo volumes, for 1884-85 was much greater than in with the one exception of Harvard, which earlier issues. In that report I27 colleges had 43,000 volumes. By I85I only 55 per were listed as having societies. It mentions cent of the colleges reported society libraries,

JUNE~ 1945 . 241 with slightly over a third of these having Yale reported the most complete schedule: collections larger than their college libraries. every day in the year (except Sundays and These society libraries were found in the three or four public days) in term time colleges of the United States from Maine from IO A.M. to I P.M. a~d from 3 to 5 to Georgia and as far west as Missouri. P.M.,. and in the summer commonly an hour · Information tabulated from the statistics or two more: in vacation every day from in the journals from I828-40 showed that 3 to 5 hours. Added to the inconvenience throughout this period the society libraries of short hours, at Amherst College, was that at Dartmouth, Middlebury, Amherst, Yale of paying for the· privilege of borrowing after I 830, Washington2 after I 833, Wil­ books at the library. These conditions liams after I835, Jefferson and Washing­ show clearly why i ny supplementary li­ ton,3 Western/ Union, Geneva,5 Dickinson, braries which might be developed at a col­ Washington,6 University of North Caro­ lege would be of great use to the students. lina, University of Georgia in I83I- and Interpretation of Responses to the I832, Nashville from I835 to I839, Miami, Questionnaire. Because of the painstaking and Franklin from I836 to I839, had responses to the questionnaire, many addi­ larger collections than their college libraries. tional catalogs were located, although no Also; one-third of the colleges in the New catalogs of society libraries were known to England states had more books in the li­ exist at the universities of Georgia or Vir­ braries of.their societies than in their college ginia or at the colleges of William and librarie·s during the decade I 830-40. Mary, Hampden-Sydney, Washington, Beside the facts relating to the size of Charleston, or at any institution in Ala­ the libraries which the reports generally bama, Louisiana, 'tennessee, or Kentucky. yielded, the report of the Smithsonian In­ Yet the Library of Congress has a catalog stitution for I 85I presented other inf~rma­ for one of the society libraries at Franklin tion which added considerably to the College (now the University of Georgia) picture. The descriptions for I 26 college and, according to the statistics quoted in the libraries vary from a paragraph to several original study, nine of the sixteen institu­ pages and include I42 student libraries at tions listed from the South had society li­ sixty-five of these colleges. One of the braries of over a thousand volumes at some items requested from the libraries was the time during the decade I830-40. The li­ number of hours - that each was open. braries at the College of William and Mary Forty-six of the colleges which had student were largely destroyed by fire before the libraries responded to this question, indicat­ Civil War, in 1859. Moreover, other col­ ing that their college libraries were open leges in all sections of the country suffered for periods ranging from one hour every from disastrous fires throughout the whole two weeks or a half hour once a week to nineteenth century. It seems probable, "several hours" daily. At the most this therefore, that many catalogs were published for libraries of which all the records are probably resulted in eighteen or twenty lost, except bare statistics. hours a week for six of the colleges, while Only two colleges reported the distribu­ half of them could claim only the minimum. tion of their society library collection other

2 Now Trinity. than to the college library. At one of 3 Now W ashinRton and Jefferson. 4 Now University of Pittsburgh. these one of the libraries was sold to an 6 Now Hobart. e Now Washington and Lee. individual, and at the other the books of

242 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES one society were sent to "Southern col­ manuscript which he had compiled for the leges." use of his fellow students was rapidly wear­ Evaluation of Miscellaneous Sources and ing out and was finally printed as the Index of the Printed Catalogs of Society Libraries. to Subjects Treated in the Reviews and That the society libraries were of value not Other Periodicals.8 An issue of five hun­ only to the students, but an intrinsic ally, dred copies was made, the society sponsor­ appears in certain passages taken from his­ ship being alluded to and the immediate tories relating to colleges for which printed distribution being described, together with society library catalogs could not be found the purpose of the book, in a note follow­ or were not available for interlibrary loan. ing the introduction to the first edition: All of these colleges were located in or west of the !\.ppalachian Mountains or in It is yet uncertain whether a second edition of the Index, containing the improvements and the far South. Whatever the reason for adqitions suggested above, will be printed. the lack of printed catalogs for their society Book-making is a profession that is not con­ libraries, the quotations show that these templated in the purposes and objects of our libraries were important. The following Society. This work was prepared expressly concerns Marietta College, founded at for our own accommodation, and if in secur­ ing this, we have extended it to other kindred Marietta, Ohio, in I835: Societies and Public Libraries, we are doubly They began at once also to collect libraries, gratified. The need of such a work is evident the members donating books and assessing from the fact, that no sooner was the prepa­ themselves at different times from five to fifty ration of the work announced, than orders dollars apiece for this purpose. The high. from abroad exceeded the whole edition. If quality of the books bought may be inferred the Society concludes to issue a second edition, from an entry in the record book of Psi it will be announced through our publishers.9 Gamma in 1847: "It was voted to expend one half of all moneys paid into the treasury In the search for the printed catalogs for initiation fees and fines in the purchase of the society libraries, finally 2 7 3 different of well authenticated histories of the early catalogs, 220 of which were printed, wer.e settlements of the Ohio and Mississippi Val­ discovered. Since eighteen of these 220 leys."7 were not located in any library but were One of the, most interesting facts dis­ listed in bibliographies only and since one covered about a society library came from unique edition at the Library of Congress another miscellaneous source. It was found was missing, a maximum of 20I could have that one of the student libraries at Yale been examined. Sixty-seven per cent of furnished the material for the beginning of these were examined at the five libraries that famous and invaluable reference tool, visited or were obtained through interlibrary Poole~s Index. Contrary to Shores's state­ loans. ment in Basic Reference Books that this The American Antiquarian Society had work was undertaken in and for the college the greatest number of unique editions out­ library, Poole tells in the opening paragraph side of the colleges themselves (an edition of the preface to the I 882 edition of his was considered "unique" if it were available index how the need for a key to periodical in only one of the five libraries visited and literature grew in the library at one of the if it were not available for interlibrary literary societies; also, how by I 848 the s Poole's Index ... Index to SubJects Treated in the Reviews and Other Periodicals. cx882. · 1938. 7 Beach, A. G. A Pioneer College, the Story of p. iii. M arietta, p . I 10. 9 Poo le's Index . . . 1848, p . iv.

JUNE, 1945 243 loan). The editions available on interli­ which reached their peak by 1840, con­ brary loan from the colleges ranked second tinued near this peak until 186o, and died among the sources for examining the cata­ out rapidly thereafter. logs. One of the most unexpected attributes of It seems probable that many other cata­ the society libraries was the range of sub­ logs existed for the libraries of the Middle jects included in the collections. A pre­ States (New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl­ conceived idea led the author of this paper vania, Delaware, and Maryland) and some to imagine the society library as one mainly others for those in the South ; the libraries of fiction and general literature, with some . in the Middle Western colleges, however, drama and poetry and perhaps a few travel did not develop until a later date. The books, and to suppose that if any nonfiction preponderance of catalogs for the society were included, it would be in the field of libraries of the New England colleges is :religion or the Latin and Greek classics. probably attributable to more fortunate cir­ Actually, of ninety-seven catalogs examined, cumstances of preservation than existed in none was found devoted solely to literature. other sections. The disappearance of cata­ Sixty-seven of these ninety-seven were classi­ logs in the colleges of the South is probably fied, having from four to twenty-seven due at least partially to the general disrup­ subject divisions. tion of education, and consequently of edu­ To ascertain the quality of books included cational librarie~, after the Civil War. within the varied classifications, the author From the forewords and introductions compared twenty-five catalogs from sixteen in the catalogs it was noted that the college colleges with a list of books recommended usually gave the society a room in which ·by Robert M. Hutchins in 1936 as books to hold its meetings and to house its library. which every educated person should read. The introductions also often contained rules This list was chosen from an indefinite and regulations. Although many of the number of "best books" lists, because fifty­ rules of the society libraries indicated that three of the fifty-seven books included were little or no reading was done on the prem­ first published before 186o, because practi­ ises, it seems altogether probable that the cally all classifications of subject matter society libraries were to some extent the were included, and because it was compara­ browsing rooms of the early nineteenth tively short. It was found that all but eight century. The rooms were furnished by the of the fifty-three books were represented in societies, and in some cases separate build­ one or more of the society libraries checked, ings were constructed by them, as at Emory that the library of the United Fraternity and Henry and at Princeton. Financial at Dartmouth College contained thirty-one support was supplied to the society libraries of the titles .in 1824, and that the two so­ by their members, and later when these cieties at Middlebury College contained libraries were given to the colleges their thirty-one between them twenty years later. book funds often were also turned over to Without an extensive study of the cata­ the colleges. logs of the society libraries it would be Several other attributes of the society impossible in most cases to determine their libraries can be discovered from the book value. Two catalogs from· societies at catalogs which they published. From the Dartmouth and at Middlebury, which give mere number of catalogs published a chart date and place of publication as well as can be produced showing definitely the author and title, indicated collections of trends in the growth of the society libraries, significance in two different fields. A count

244 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES of the entries according to date of publica­ typical example in that the only clue it

,I tion showed the following: furnishes to the identification of a book,

Before 1500-99 1600-99 1700-99 other than incomplete author and short title, 15oo (in U.S.) is the size! There were 415· individual Dartmouth 5 18 157 Middlebury 2 22 114 titles listed. No printed catalog is known for the collection of the Peithologian So­ The collection at Dartmouth is obviously ciety library, but one volume of this society strong in Americana, even after discount­ was listed in the accession book of the ing the fact that there were two entries for university library with . the gifts of the some volumes. The earlier collection be­ . Looking at random longing to the Philological Society at Mid­ through other volumes of · the accession dlebury College was, on the other hand, books, 642 gifts of the Peithologi~m S~ciety strong in foreign books, including two were found in the volume immediately pre­ incunabula, one from the press of Aldus. ceding the one which contained 530 gifts of the other society. Society Libraries at Columbia Comparing the ti tl~s of the gifts of the To have discovered that the society li­ two societies, it is i~teresting to note that braries contained rare books is something one society contributed several outstanding quite apart from discovering that the col­ American editions of nineteenth-century . lege libraries ever received these books or fiction, that together they gave forty-two now have them. Several college librarians, volumes of AJ:?ericana published in the

in responding to the questionnaire, indi­ United States before 18oo, and that none 1 cated that they hoped to check up on the of these duplicated each other. Moreover, old collections that had come to them. four of the Americana from the Peitho­ As bearing on this, an attempt was made logian Society could not be found in Evans' to evaluate the collections at Columbia U ni­ American Bibliography. All of those from versity as a sample, using the resources the Philolexian Society were found in available in the Columbia University Li­ Evans, although none is listed as being at brary. The entries in other society catalogs, Columbia University. ' such as those of the societies at Dartmouth, Since the society libraries at Columbia Middlebury, and Yale, would have been were found to be significant in spite of being easier to identify since the bibliographic smaller than those at twenty-five other col­ information included in them is more com­ leges in 1830 and smaller than those at plete than in most. seven others in 1839, it may be inferred At Columbia only one catalog of the that the ones existing elsewhere than at collection of the Philolexian Society is the Columbia libraries were of material known. This one, for 1825, is, however, a value.

Dates of founding of societies and of publication of society library catalogs considered in this study. (The first date given after each society is the date of founding; the others are dates of catalogs.) Allegheny College, Meadville, Pa. Allegheny Literary Society, 1835 1867*, 1866-73*, 1886 Philo-Franklin Society, · I 834 1855-56* Amherst College, Amherst, Mass. Athenian (-Athenae) Society, 1821 1836, 1855 , n.d., n.d. Alexandrian Society, 1821 1853, n.d. Eclectic Society n.d.* * Manuscript copy.

JUNE~ 1945 245 Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me. Athenaean Society, I8o2 I830, I834, I838, I86I Peucinian Society, 1805 1823, I829, I859 Brown University, Providence, R.I. Franklin Society, I824-34 I826

Philermenian Society, I794 I8101 I814, I8I71 t82I 1 I824, I828, I833, 1835,

I838, I84I1 I844, I849 Society of Federal Adelphi, 1799 1799-I800* United Brothers Society 182I, I824, I829, 1835. I837. 1839, 1841, I848, 1853 Colby College, Waterville, Me. Literary Fraternity Society, 1824 Columbia University, New York City Peithologian Society Philolexian Society, I8o2 Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H. Philotechnic Society 1856, 1858, I862, I872 United Fraternity, 1786 1812, I82o, I824, I83o*, I835, I835*, I852-54, I859, I877*, n.d.*, Supplements ... presented by the classes of I852-54, etc. Delaware, Universitl of, Newark Athenaean, I834 Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. Belles Lettres Society, I786 Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va. Hermesian Society, 1839 Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. Diagnothian Society, I835 (Marshall College) Georgia, University of, Athens, Ga. Demosthenian Society, I8oi (Franklin College) 1855 Gettysburg College, Gettysburg, Pa. , I832 Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y. Phoenix Society, I8I4 1827*, I832*, 1839. I839-55, I847* Vnion Society, I 824 I834*, I835-58( ?), I838, I842, I842*, 1847, I84i" Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass.

Hasty Pudding Society, I795 1838, I84I 1 I852 1 I857*, n.d.* Institute of I770, I770 1832, 1823-36*, 1837*, I841*, 1854~55* , I791 ( ?) I816, I827, 183I, I834, I839, I846, I850, I854, I857, 1865, I867, I877, I887, 1891 .6ELIINO!f>A l'OI Club 1816 Haverford College, Haverford, Pa. Loganian Society, I848 Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Mich:'" Philolexian Society, I85I 1868

Sherwood Rhetorical Society, I855 1868, I871 1 1873, 1876 Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio Philomathesian Society, I827 Knox College, Galesburg, Ill. Adelphi Society and Gnothautii Society, I 845, I 849 * Manuscript copy.

246 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES , Easton, Pa. Franklin Society, 1831 1890 Washington Society, ' 1832 1877, 1888 Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio Society of Inquiry 1850

Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt. Philological Society 1824 Philomathesian Society 1819, 1832, 1837, 1844 North Carolina, University of, Chapel Hill Dialectic Society, 1795 1817, 1821, 1835, 1843*, 186o*, n.d.* (4) Philanthropic Society, 1795 1822, 1829, 1840*, 1882*, 1889*, n.d.* (2) Pennsylvania, University of, Philadelphia Zelosophic Society 1850 Philomathean Society 1840, 1870

Princeton Univ~rsity, Princeton, N.J. American Whig Society, 1769 1845, 1853, 1857, 1862, 1865, 1870 Cliosophic Society, 1765 1840, 185o, 1855, 1873, 1878, 1882, n.d. Philological Society 1828 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. Peithessophian Literary Society, 1825 1864*, n.d. Philoclean Literary Society, 1825 1827-34*, 1836*, 1875 South Carolina College, Columbia Clariosophic Society 1842*, 1848*, 1868*, n.d.* (2) Eu}1hradian Society 1883* Trinity College, Hartford, Conn. Athenaeum Society, 1824 1838, 1840, 1844, 18.53, 1853* Parthenon Society, 1827 1836* Union University, Schenectady, N.Y. Adelphic Society, 1796 1827, 1836, 1847, 1852, 1856, 1868 Philomathean Society, 1795 1812, 1820, 1828, 1833, 1840, 1841, 1848, 1863 Vermont, University of, Burlington Phi Sigma Nu, 1803 Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Ind. Calliopean Society, 1847 Lyceum Society, 1847 Washington & Jefferson College, Washington, Pa. Franklin Society (Jefferson College), 1791 Philo Society (Jefferson College), 1805 Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. Peithologian Society, 1831 1831-41*, 1846, 1853 Philorhetorian Society, 1831 1837, 1st, 1840, 2nd, 1846, 1853, 3rd Western Reserve University, Cleveland (formerly Western Reserve College, Hudson, Ohio) Adelbert College Adelphic Society William & Mary, College of, Williamsburg, V a. Flat Hat Club n.d. Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. Adelphic Union 1812, 1832 Philologian, 1795 1843, 1847, 185o, 1853, 1856, 1862 Philotechnian Society, 1795 1844, 1850, 1853, 1856, 1861, 1867 *Manuscript copy.

JUNEJ 1945 247 1

Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio Excelsior Society, 1845 1850, 1877 Philosophian Society, 1847 1876 (?) , New Haven, Conn. Brothers' & 1808, 1811, 1814, 1818, 1822, 1825, 1873, 1880, suppl. to I 873 , 1768 1781*, 1829, 1832, 1835, 1838, 1841, 1846, 1851 Calliopean Society 1819, 1824, i826, 1828, 1829, suppl., 1831, 1837, 1841,.~ 1846 Linonian Society, 1753 1770*, 178o*·, 1790*, r8oo*, 1829, 1831, 1834, Moral Society 1836, 1837, r84o, 1841, 1846, 186o Phoenix Society 1814, 1818, 1822, 1825 -1806 ( ?) *Manuscript copy.

Sources of Reports and .Statistics

American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowl­ British Provinces of North America.. Philadelphia, edge for r830-40. Boston, I82'9-39. v. I-rr . Lippincott, I859. 28, 687p. American Annals of Education and Instruction, Seeley, I. C. Manual of College Literary Societies I834, I835, I836. Boston, I834-36. v. 4-6. with Statistical Tables. Kalamazoo, I87I. I45P· American Quarterly Register and Journal of the U.S. Office of. Education. Public Libraries in the American Education Society, I828-3 I. Andover, etc., United States of America; Their History, Condition Mass., I829-31. v. I-J. and Management. Special report. Department of Cutter, Charles A. "List of Printed Catalogues of lnterior, Bureau of Education. . . . Washington, Public Libraries in the United States." (In U.S. Government Printing Office, I876. 2v. in r. Office of Education. Public Libraries in the United U.S. Office of Education. "Public, Society, and States of America. Washington, Government Print­ School Libraries in the United States; with Library in~ Office, I876, p. 577-622.) ' · Statistics and Legislation of the Various States." Jewett, Charles Coffin. Notices of Public Libraries 1896, 1900, etc. (In RePort of the -Commissioner of in the United States of America. Printed by order Education, I895-96, r.8gg-1goo, etc. Washington, of Congress, as an appendix to the fourth annual Government Printing Office, I897, 1901, etc.) report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian U.S. Office of Education.... "Statistics of Public Institution. Washington, Printed for the House of Libraries in the United States Numbering 300 Volumes Representatives, I85L · 207p. and Upwards for 1884-85.'' (In Report of the Com­ Rhees, William Jones. Manual of Public Libraries, missioner of Education, 1884-85. Washington, Govern­ Institutions, and Societies, in the United States, and ment Printing Office, r886. ccxxix-ccxxx, 6gi-782'p.)

Personnel in Cataloging Departments (Continued from page 227) alertness, self-confidence, perception, flexi­ should be given by adnii.nistrators to cata­ bility, and balance."6 According to Mrs. logers as people. This seems so obvious Nyholm, who listed the qualities above, that one hesitates to repeat it, yet the epi­ these people could withstand aggressive and demic of criticism suggests that administra­ demanding pressures and make decisions tors, in their great desire to emerge from based on "soundness" and "survival value." a bad situation, have not always used the Finally, a good deal more attention proper approach.

8 Op. cit.

248 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES