The Growth of Research Collections.

REFERENCE TO that invaluable mine of information, Public Libraries in the United States of America . . . (1876) reveals how far American libraries have come during the past one hundred years. In that pioneer compendium, all libraries possessing more than 300 volumes each-a total of 3,647 libraries-were recorded. Their combined holdings totaled 12,276,964 volumes, to which were being added less than one-half million volumes annually. Yearly expenditures for books, periodicals and binding were at the rate of $562,000.' Viewed in the light of the gigantic 1976 collections, individual library holdings in 1876 were picayune. The Library of Congress reported 300,000 volumes, The Boston Public Library was the same size. The largest university libraries in the nation were Harvard (227,000) and Yale (1 14,000) which, incidentally, have maintained their leads to the present day. The New York Public Library had not yet come into existence, but its predecessor, the Astor Library, held 152,446 volumes. State university libraries were in their infancy. Among the largest today, Michigan held 27,500 volumes in 1876. California (Berkeley) held 12,000, Illinois 10,600, Minnesota 10,000, Wisconsin 6,370, and Indiana 6,000. The universities of Texas, Stanford, UCLA, Duke, and Chicago were still to be born. Twenty-five years later, the U.S. Office of Education reported a spectacular growth in American library resources-relatively speaking. There had been nearly a fourfold increase, bringing the national total to 45 million volumes. At the turn of the century, the Library of Congress contained one million volumes, plus substantial numbers of manuscripts, maps, prints, and pieces of music. Harvard's collections had grown to 600,000 volumes, and the recently consolidated (1895) New York Public Library held 538,000 volumes.