Beating the Brush for Books: The Dealers' Sources of Supply

T N A R E C E N T A R T I C L E in another library journal1 I made the point that American periodicals dealers have surprisingly and, from the standpoint of good business principle, foolishly avoided telling their clientele anything about themselves. I stated that it is my great hope that the dealers themselves would correct this situation within the near future. Certainly, I should think, the librarians in this country would aid and expedite this correction by their natural curiosity about an area of acquisitions in which they are currently spending millions of dollars. I distinguish periodicals dealers from subscription agents and book dealers as those companies which buy, stock, and sell back-files of predominantly outof-print general and scholarly journals. A large periodicals company will maintain sets, volumes, and issues of publications ranging over such diverse subject areas as geography (Annals of the Association of American Geographers), history (American Historical Review), medicine (American Journal of Clinical Pathology), law (Columbia Law Review), engineering (Translations of the American Society of Civil Engineers), zoology (Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London), geology (Economic Geology), philology (Modern Language Notes), botany (Botanical Review), chemistry (,Journal of Physical Chemistry), physics (British Journal of Applied Physics), and literature (American Literature), to mention some examples.