Library Plan, Sponsored by Metcalf, Wins Approval at National Meeting

America's 50 major research libraries have agreed to adopt the "Farmington Plan" to check over-expansion and preserve important research materials, Keyes D. Metcalf, director of the University Library and co-author of the plan, announced yesterday. The decision was reached at a recent meeting of the libraries' delegates in Washington, D. C., at which Metcalf represented Harvard.

Each of the participating libraries will draw an outline of the areas in which it wishes to concentrate its book-purchasing.

Overlapping interests will be adjusted and blank areas assigned at the American Library Association's next meeting, to be held in San Francisco the first week in June.

When it reaches full operation, the plan will leave each library responsible for the purchase of a copy of every book published in its assigned field. The sum total of the fields will include all publications of possible value to research workers.

Implementation of scientific work, in particular, is expected to result.

Central Catalogue

Through a central or "union' catalogue the libraries will make available to one another books which, acting as individuals, they would not ordinarily buy.

At the same time, the yearly outlay of participating libraries will be lessened by the knowledge that rarely demanded books which they might ordinarily have to stoke would be available to their subscribers through inter-library loan.