PROPOSAL FOR A CATALOG OF UNIVERSITY SERIAL PUBLICATIONS
One of the desiderata of our exchange departments, as well as of our reference departments, is a catalog of American university serial publications. This should give in addition to the general title, a full table of contents, and an index of the same. It may be prepared by one library, or cooperatively by the library of each institution issuing such series, and published by a central institution, as the bibliography of American historical societies was published by the Smithsonian Institution, or published as the trade list annual is, each institution printing its own catalog and forwarding it to a publisher to be indexed, bound with the catalogs of publications of other institutions, and so published.
The desirability of such a catalog as a record of American university publications was presented to the Executive Committee of the Association of American Universities at its last meeting. The Committee voted to recommend to the Association the passage of the following resolution:
"Resolved, That the Association of American Universities recommends to each of its constituent universities the preparation of a catalog of its serial publications and the printing of the catalog in a form which will permit the publication of the several catalogs as a collected work, so arranged and indexed as to make it a useful work of reference."
If the members of the College Section are similarly interested in such a catalog, similar action on the part of the section may be desirable. I present this suggestion with some diffidence because although the catalog will save librarians much labor in the long run the preparation of it would involve a large amount of extra labor in the immediate future. In spite of this, however, I hope that it will receive your favorable consideration.
After some discussion it was voted that the proposal be referred to the executive committee of the College and Reference Section for consideration.
The meeting then adjourned.