COLLECTION OF WAR DATA REACHES LARGE PROPORTIONS

The collection of all available data relative to the European war, started a year ago by the University library, has already grown to be a considerable one. It contains more than 1,000 books and documents, not including the many foreign newspapers which the library is filing and a collection now being formed in Germany for the University. The object is not to collect a huge mass of useless publications, but to gather together a representative and authoritative assembly of documents that may some day be historically valuable in determining the causes and course of the war. The literature so far collected may be divided roughly into three groups: first, the official publications of the various belligerents; second, accounts of the war written from a non-partisan standpoint; and third, the great mass of distinctly prejudiced literature, ranging from the numerous foreign newspapers down to the frakly propagandist book and pamphlets.

The first class includes official reports of diplomatic negotiations, correspondence, proclamations, and reports. The most important of these are the English White Books, the Belgian Cray Books, the German White Books. The Italian Green Books, the French parliamentary records. These are valuable chiefly for their bearing on events leading up to the war and, with the exception of certain documents which the British government has issued from time to time on such subjects as the submarine menace, the death of Miss Cavell, etc., do not relate to actual progress of the conflict.

Many Historical Accounts Gathered.

Historical accounts of various phases of the war, or formal histories of the war of date are included in the second classification. This group include, as well, books on particular episodes such as the campaign of the Marne, for example. These are usually drawn both from official dispatches, and from war correspondents articles. The best books in this group, however, are by such men as Frederick Palmer and E. A. Powell, who have actually seen what they describe.

Collection Being Made in Munich

What is probably the most unique part of the entire collection is now being made in Munich by a prominent bookseller there, who will send it to the Library at the close of the war. This consists of various German documents which it will be impossible to procure five years hence. More than 500 books and pamphlets have been purchased thus far.

The partisan literature may be divided into two classes, the German American propaganda with which everyone is familiar and which includes such books as "England a Pirate Nation," "England's Perfidy Exposed," and such publications as "The Fatherland," and the regular newspapers of England, Germany, France Italy, and Austria. The most important of these are the London Times the Westminster Gazette, Le Temps, Le Figaro Corriere deila Sera (Milan), Neue Freie Press (Vienna) Neueste Nachrichten (Munich), and the Allgemeinge Zeitung (Berlin). In addition to these papers, which will be filed throughout the war a set of American Notes, published by the American colony in Munich during the early days of the warand complete filed of the leading Swiss papers for the same period, have been given by alumni who were abroad at the time of the out-break of hostilities. The Library also has a collection of Spanish books on the war which, for the most part, are pro-German. In addition, a prominent German American has given a large number of books designed to present the German side of the war