With the completion of the ninth volume of the A. L. A. Booklist Miss Elva L. Bascom severs her connection as editor and as head of the editorial department of the Publishing Board. For five years Miss Bascom has carried on this work with signal ability and with devoted industry, and it is with sincere regret that the members of the Board have accepted her resignation. During this period of editorial activity Miss Bascom has maintained the excellent standards established by her predecessors, Miss Caroline Garland and Mrs. Katharine MacDonald Jones, and has given to the publication a standard of judgment in selection and critical appreciation that has made the A. L. A. Booklist invaluable to thousands of librarians and as many library trustees in the selection of current books for their respective institutions. The A. L. A. Booklist is everywhere recognized as a publication wholly untrammeled by commercial consideration in the listing of books and the recommendation which these are given.
Miss May Massee has been elected as Miss Bascom's successor and will enter upon the work early in August. Her experience as a member of the staff of the Buffalo public library and her training prior thereto commends her for the position.
Concerning the A. L. A. Booklist there are no new facts to report, comments noted in previous reports being applicable as well at this time. While renewed representations have come to the members of the Board, suggesting a change of size, form, and character, and the arguments in behalf thereof have been given due weight, it has not seemed wise to alter the policy which has been continued for a period of nine years.
With the beginning of the new volume the place of publication and therewith the editorial headquarters will be transferred from Madison, Wis., to Chicago. By consolidating the editorial headquarters of the Publishing Board with the headquarters of the American Library Association both will be materially strengthened and some financial economies can be affected.
Periodical Cards—The Board received word last fall from the Library Bureau that they would have to advance prices for the printing of the analytical periodical cards. The matter was placed in the hands of a committee, and after some negotiation, unexpectedly prolonged by the illness of the representative of the Library Bureau, a rearrangement of the work was made which will enable the Board to continue the service to the present subscribers without change in prices. This has been accomplished by giving an order for sixty-five copies of all titles and thirty-five additional titles of the periodicals most in demand. Hereafter, subscriptions must be made either to the full set of approximately 2500 titles, or to the limited set of 200. A revision of the list is now in progress.
Concerning the periodicals issued during the past year Mr. William Stetson Merrill has submitted the following report as editor:
The sixteen shipments of A. L. A. periodical cards prepared and sent out during the year ending May 31, 1913 have comprised those numbered 284 to 299, which were received by subscribers June 18, 1912 to May 14, 1913. These shipments have included 3459 new titles and 136 reprints, making a total of 3595 titles. The time of preparation has been reduced from thirteen to ten and a half weeks.[2]
[2] By "time of preparation" is here meant the interval between the receipt of copy, and receipt of cards by the subscribers.
In February of the present year the editor took occasion to check up the work currently done, with the titles of periodicals given in the printed list as indexed by the Publishing Board. It was then discovered that in the case of thirty-five periodicals no titles had been indexed during intervals ranging from two to five years to date. These facts were brought to the attention of the collaborating libraries, which later reported upon these arrears as follows: Periodicals for which no issues later than those indexed had been received by the library, 12; discontinued, 3; now indexed by the Library of Congress, 2; overlooked or indexing postponed by the library, 10; dropped, 2; record card wrong, 1; no indexer, 5. The collaborating libraries at once took up the work of bringing their indexing up to date and at the time of writing only three current periodicals are not indexed to date, with the exception of those for which there is at present no indexer.
The preparation of the distribution and charges sheets has been in the hands of Mrs. S. L. Hitz and Miss Jane Burt under the supervision of the editor, who has also attended to all the correspondence connected with the card work.