WHAT IS A TEXT-BOOK?

The University Library has a rule that text-books will not be reserved in the Reading Room. The Library leaves the decision as to what book shall be excluded by this rule to the professors in charge of the various courses. There can be no doubt of the wisdom of requiring every student in a course, which employs a regular text-book, to own a copy. For this reason the elimination of text-books from the shelves of the Reading Room is justified.

The type of books commonly employed in such courses as German A and French A represents to our mind what may fairly be considered a text-book. On the other hand, works which merely include collateral and prescribed reading, even though the contents of these books are occasionally referred to in the lectures, are most certainly not text-books. Such works are not, as a general rule, excluded from the Reading Room.

In several well-known courses, however, the books which furnish most of the material for section meetings have been kept out of the Library by the professors in charge. The fact that these same professors also happen to be the editors or authors of the prescribed books, adds and interesting complication and opens up a large field for conjecture.