In sending out this annual the publishers wish to emphasize the coöperative phase of the undertaking. From three to six people have been engaged during 1907 in the work of preparing descriptive notes to approximately 2,800 books, and clipping from 1,000 copies of magazines sentences most helpful for book selection. This card-index information furnished to libraries for five dollars per year would cost them many hundred times this sum should they do it themselves. For the time thus given to a valuable and indispensable part of library work the publishers look for an equivalent in the support of libraries all over the country. The justice of the statement “Time is Money” is commensurate with its economic terseness.

Publications from which Digests of Reviews are Made

OTHER ABBREVIATIONS:

Abbreviations of Publishers’ Names will be found in the Publishers’ Directory at the end of The Cumulative Book Index.

An Asterisk (*) before the price indicates those books sold at a limited discount and commonly known as net books. Books subject to the rules of the American Publishers’ Association are marked by a double asterisk (**) when the bookseller is required to maintain the list price; by a dagger (†) when the maximum discount is fixed at 20 and 10 per cent, as is allowable in the case of fiction.

The plus and minus signs preceding the names of the magazines indicate the degree of favor or disfavor of the entire review.

In the reference to a magazine, the first number refers to the volume, the next to the page and the letters to the date.

Books noticed for the first time this month have an asterisk (*) immediately below the author’s name in entry heading.

A Maltese Cross (✠) indicates that the A. L. A. Booklist suggests the books for first purchase. The letter S indicates that the same publication recommends the book for small libraries.