BUSINESS SCHOOL GAINS NUCLEUS OF LIBRARY OF FINANCIAL BOOKS

An acquisition which is likely to prove of great value is the nucleus of a Financial Library which has just been obtained by the Library of the Graduate School of Business Administration. For a number of years the school has felt the need of such a library but it was only after diligent searching by Mr. C. C. Eaton '03, the Librarian of the Business School Library, that a sufficient quantity of material could be obtained to start a collection of the nature of the present one.

The value of a Financial Library, according to Professor A. S. Dewing '02, lies not in the written books that it contains, but in the other miscellaneous material. The present group contains copies of railroad mortgages, debentures, reorganization agreements, corporation reports, reports of the various railroad commissions, listing applications of the New York Stock Exchange, equipment agreements, circular offerings of bond and investment companies, newspaper clippings about steel companies, insurance companies, water and gas companies, mining promotions, industrial corporations and public utilities, court decisions, reports of defunct railroads and some original briefs of cases affecting corporations.

Several Complete Files

In addition to the foregoing there is a complete file of Poor's Manuals including the first volume issued in 1868. There is also a complete file, one of the few in existence, of Hunt's Merchants Magazine and Commercial Review, the predecessor of the present Commercial and Financial Chronicle, dating back to 1839 and running to 1865 and conducted by Mr. Freeman Hunt.

The purpose of such a library is to enable the students of finance to study the history of corporations from the original sources, some of which cannot be obtained from the company itself due to particular circumstances.

The Financial Library now being started in the Business School is one of the few of its kind possessed by an educational institution. Princeton received a bequest of a large library from a business man some years ago but this has not been augmented since. Yale has also recently begun to collect this sort of material.

Due to the difficulty of properly classifying and indexing such a collection, it will be fully a month before the present material can be placed in condition for inspection and use.