Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 22.djvu/265

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Pacific Northwest Americana
255

that most of the libraries limit their collection to a definite part of the territory covered and have not listed fully their resources for the other parts.

Another disadvantage, also unavoidable in a co-operative undertaking, is that one library lists a work in one way, another in a different way. The compiler has caught many of these but a few have escaped. An instance is "Funeral services in memory of Mrs. M. F. Eells" which is entered both under the title and also under Atkinson, G. H.; another is Oregon Baptist State Convention which also appears as Baptist State Convention. The greatest trouble of this sort is in having government publications entered both under the country and the individual author, as happens occasionally.

When work of this sort is finished, one always finds omissions, and this is no exception to the rule. The greatest lack seems to be general works that libraries want for other purposes than simply local collections. For instance, Folk's Diary is not included, nor is the comparatively recent edition of Buchanan's Works, both of which must be in several of the libraries, and both of which are important for this country. Typographical errors seem rare. In two cases the author's name has been omitted, one on page 200, where the History of the Pacific Northwest should be credited to the North Pacific Coast History Co., the other on page 28 where Samuel Bowles has been left out and "Across the continent" and "Our New West" seems to be written by Bower, mistakes evidently due to the printer after the final proof reading.

It seems to the reviewer that still more state and city, especially city, documents might be left out to advantage, as the list is not sufficiently complete to be very helpful as a document checklist and it seems rather misleading to have a few years of these, with no means of telling what should be the complete file. It seems, in occasional instances, that even more explanatory notes would be helpful.

It is in general a careful piece of work and promises to be