Strange, Rare Collections go Into Library

Few students are looking for Finno-Ugrian Philology; fewer yet are interested in Quasi Psychologic Systems; no one is studying Hyperborean. For eager researchers, however, the Farmington Plan has filled Widener's shelves with recent volumes on these subjects.

A collection of such esoteric tomes is not accidental. The Farmington Plan was proposed to provide out-of-the-way research materials for libraries throughout the country. Under the program, libraries cooperate in their book-buying campaigns so that at least one copy of every book published outside the United States is bought by some library in this country.

Sex Relations and Feminism

Besides the standard topics of Anthropology, Fine Arts, Law, the University receives treatises on subjects such as Afrikaans Literature, Sex Relations and Feminism, Friesian Language, Low German Literature, Albanian Literature, and Hungarian Grammar.

Finno-Ugrian, a dialect of the Ural-Altaic language, is spoken in Lapland, Estonia, and Northern Siberia. Friesian is the vernacular of the Northern Netherlands and Friesland. Hyperborean, the oral-communication of the Chukchi and Koryak Eskimo tribes of the Arctic, is also spoken in Outer Mongolia.

Only 17 countries are represented in the plan so far. Of these, the libraries receive a great majority of books from only eight: Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and Sweden.

England is excluded from the plan, however, Books from that country are bought in large quantities by all libraries so that inclusion in this special plan is not necessary.

Metcalf Suggests

Since 1942--when the project was instigated by Boylston Professor Archibald MacLeish, then Librarian of Congress, and Keyes D. Metcalf, Director of the University Library--Harvard has received an average of 2,000 books per year under this plan.

Dealers send each new volume of foreign literature directly to one of the 54 libraries participating in the service. Subjects are subdivided into over 250 categories, and each library has chosen various ones for which it is responsible.

Unlike orthodox book-buying systems, the Farmington Plan sends books to libraries without specific orders, and libraries don't know what they're getting until the books arrive.

$1,100 Last Year

Last year Harvard spent $1,113 for books, pamphlets, and maps under the Farmington Plan. About 85 percent of all such publications coming to this country go to the Congressional. New York Public, Harvard, and Yale Libraries.

Yale's lesser known books include works on Numismatics, Penology, and Librarianship. Princeton is contest with among others, publications on Chess. Those fortunate to live in Washington, can go to the Congressional Library for copious information on Alcoholism. Tomperence, and the Tobacco and Drug Habits of all nations.