ABSTRACT
Certainly the two largest books to be noticed this quarter are the component “Author/Title” and “Subject” volumes of the Guide to Microforms In Print (81A). We note the 1980 edition, but cite the 1981 edition (and prices) to be published while this issue of Special Collections is printing. The Guide is a cumulative annual listing of microform titles of all kinds—books, journals, newspapers, government publications, archival material, collections, and other projects currently available from micropublishing organizations throughout the world, with the exception of theses and dissertations. The “Subject” volume lists the same titles alphabetically by author under 135 appropriate classification groupings. Addresses are listed in each volume, providing another extremely useful reference source; prices are given, and types of microforms are keyed to them. ALA’s Science Fiction Story Index ( 101 ), in its second edition, 1950–1979, includes citations to many anthologized reprints of stories published before 1950; even Plato, Voltaire, Hawthorne, and Poe are ”referenced.” This volume will be discussed more fully in the Winter issue of Special Collections, which will be devoted to S/F. The “Cumulative Index” volume ( 15 ) to Gale’s various Contemporary Authors sets and related volumes is a tremendous boon for owners of any of these series, all of which have become essential reference tools for different kinds of collections. The “Cumulative Index” includes over 65,000 entries. The 16th annual edition, 1981, of National Trade and Professional Associations of the United States and Canada ( 42 ), lists the usual helpful information of many difficult-to-locate organizations not gathered in other sources. The book includes about 6,500 organizations, but only those with national membership, and excludes fraternal, sporting, patriotic, hobby, and political action groups. Many listings show the 1981 and 1982 places and dates of annual meetings. There is a well-organized index of groupings by reasonable subjects, a geographic index, and an index in ten budget categories from under $ 10,000 to over $5,000,000, which can be a helpful approach to possible sources for appeals to support special collections. Now in its 4th edition, the Directory of American Book Specialists ( 24 ) provides another of those many and more and more complete listings of antiquarian dealers and their addresses by area or specialization. This particular Directory is an ever-growing useful one with several hundred subjects, but, as with all of their genre, missing some of the most obvious—probably many who did not want to reply or be listed. None of these guides is wholly duplicative of another (while few list private collectors), and someone will eventually try an even more “complete” record, which would include libraries. One of the troubles with all these dealer directories is, of course, the maddening lack of cross-references and the inconsistencies between subject entries; for example, here, two wholly different lists for “Medicine & Medical Books – Modern, Early, Rare” and “Medicine -History”. A short-title catalogue to the Morris H. Saffron Collection of Books on Historical Medicine ( 79 ) is an attractive and nice appreciation of the collecting efforts of a generous practitioner and collector of discriminating professional taste. Only a few of the 528 entries are annotated, but there are some illustrations from the books and a chronological index from 1517 to 1797, as well as a subject index. Among indexes of an historicobiobibliographical nature (as one might call it) is the published form of Yale Professor Benjamin Nangle’s tremendous card file of The “Gentleman’s Magazine” Biographical and Obituary Notices, 1781–1819 ( 56 ), which continues Farrar and Wheatley’s indexes (1886 and 1891) covering the first fifty years of the GM, 1731 to 1780. There are approximately 17,000 single-line name entries, coded to the GM and its Parts, giving name, occupation or other designation, date of death, and page reference to the original notice. An encyclopedic work and a good place to find 18th to 19th century reference clues, mostly concerning British persons who won’t be in the DNB.
