Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 22/Review: Pacific Northwest Americana

by Eleanor Ruth Rockwood

REVIEW

Pacific Northwest Americana. A Checklist of Books and Pamphlets Relating to the History of the Pacific Northwest.

Compiled by
Charles W. Smith,
Associate Librarian, University of Washington
Second edition, revised and enlarged. (New York: The H. W. Wilson Company. London: Grafton & Company.) Pp. XI, 329. 1921.

The new edition of the "Pacific Northwest Americana; a checklist of books and pamphlets relating to the Pacific Northwest," the most ambitious co-operative project so far undertaken by the Pacific Northwest Library Association, justifies our expectation of its increased value; both on account of its more permanent form and its larger size.

There are some changes in the list of contributors. Montana State Library, Pacific University Library and State College of Washington have withdrawn, although unique items in these libraries have been retained from the old edition. The checklist has been greatly strengthened by the addition of five new libraries: University of British Columbia, Oregon Historical Society, Oregon State Library, and the public libraries of Boise and Tacoma. This makes a total of fifteen co-operating libraries.

Neither the larger number of contributing libraries, nor the numerical increase in the items (two and a half times as many as the old list) is an index of the real gain in titles and in completeness, since many titles and imprints have been omitted on account of closer limitations of the scope of the work, and entries for serials have been condensed. Without doubt the Oregon Historical Society is the most important of the new contributors, both from the number of items and their rarity. All the libraries previously co-operating have added much valuable material and have listed items in their collections which they had not had time to list for the earlier edition. Perhaps the most notable of these additions are those of the Provincial Library of British Columbia, only a small part of whose valuable collection of voyages of discovery to the Northwest Coast, and of material on British Columbia was listed before. On account of the necessary limitation of this checklist to printed material, both of these libraries are inadequately represented in the checklist even now, as the Provincial Library contains the archives of British Columbia, with extremely important Hudson's Bay Company material, and the chief treasures of the Oregon Historical Society's Library are the manuscript journals and letters of early pioneers. The Oregon Historical Society has also some exceedingly valuable pamphlet collections which it seemed impracticable to list by the individual pamphlet and so they are shown only as collections.

The physical appearance of the checklist is quite different from the old edition as it has assumed the dignity of a bound volume and its convenience for use is increased by having half of the page left blank for notes and additions.

In general the plan is much the same as in the earlier edition, though there are some changes in detail. As the preface states "it includes descriptive material relating to the history of the region lying north of California and west of the Rocky Mountains . . . The word history has been used in the broadest sense including a wide range of literature bearing upon the region."

There are certain definite policies of limitation and exclusion which account for what might otherwise be considered serious defects and omissions. It is limited to printed material in the co-operating libraries and therefore cannot be expected to be a complete bibliography of the region. The date Jan. 1, 1920, has been definitely set, beyond which nothing has been included. This makes it necessary to leave out valuable books published or purchased after that time. The geographical area is more carefully defined than in the former edition so that some important items like Taché and Zebulon Pike do not appear. Fewer analyses of long sets are made in this but the series with inclusive volumes and dates are given. Definite classes of material are omitted, as follows:

1. Manuscripts.
2. Federal, state and city documents with the exception of a few rare items of great historical importance, not easily found in the readily available lists and indexes.
3. "Periodicals published in the region, except those devoted mainly or wholly to history. Serials, however, as yearbooks and publications of societies have been included as a part of the institutional history of the Pacific Northwest."
4. "Maps, except those independently issued and bound in book form."

Even of the material included in general, there has been more rigid limitation, in order to keep the checklist within reasonable bounds. For example, directories published after 1900 are omitted; some of the more recent advertising material is excluded; different imprints of the same book are left out unless they are definitely different editions.

The checklist has both the advantage and disadvantages of a co-operative undertaking. It is already proving its usefulness to the research worker by indicating in just which libraries books and editions are available. Even though limited to printed items in these few libraries, it is quite a full bibliography of the important works dealing with this region and will prove especially valuable to libraries as a buying list. We find that individual collectors are referring to it also.

A defect inseparable from co-operative undertakings is that each library probably contains many items listed but not credited to that library. This difficulty arises in various ways. A library having a strong collection rates as unimportant items which are of a great deal of value in a smaller library. Again, the understanding of the limitations of the scope of the work unavoidably differs with the individual and one will list material which to nother seems outside the range of work. An example of this is the Bulletins of the U. S. Geological Survey, some of which are listed in only one or two libraries while they are probably in every library. Still another reason is 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 very useful for the libraries of this district. The comment of the Boston Transcript upon the 1909 edition, two years ago: "That work still remains the most substantial bibliography of its kind," is even more true of this edition.

E. Ruth Rockwood