Cooperative Indexing: a Postwar Program Today

W ITH THE PUBLICATION of "Local Indexes in American Libraries" scheduled for the near future, a new avenue will be open to libraries for cooperative indexing. A five-year project of the Junior Members Round Table of the American Library Association, the completed work is a union list of unpublished indexes in libraries of the United States, Canada·, the Hawaiian Islands, and Puerto Rico. Cooperative indexing is not a new idea in library circles, but unfortunately only a few libraries have been able t.o enjoy its benefits. Inadequate knowledge of existing indexes is the main reason for this condition, which now is to be partially remedied. Joseph L. Wheeler, librarian of the Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore, has long advocated cooperative indexing and has already used the unpublished "Local Indexes" to make a study of certain needs in this· field. -With the appearance of this work in print, approximately 950 libraries will reveal their special card files to librarians and scholars. Material for the list has been secured by means of questionnaires sent to libraries and by extensive publicity in library publications. The survey was conducted by state and national committees of the round table