$143. The Belgian copy is proportionally much more valuable than the German copy because the former is complete. This Belgian copy is appraised at $35,000. The division of maps of the Library of Congress has had since 1900 a complete colored copy, in perfect condition, of all three sections of this French Neptune. It contains 19 large views of ships and 12 plates of flags, together with 72 charts and maps, including several important early maps of parts of the United States. This French Neptune of ours is apparently worth at least as much as the Belgian dealer's copy, since, although it has the title pages printed in Dutch rather than in French, the titles of all the maps are in French and one section of it, dated 1693, rather than 1700, was printed seven years before the copy in Belgium.

All in all, without treating the prices asked for such maps and atlases too seriously, it is, nevertheless, possible from these three illustrations to see something of the present value of the map collection of the Library of Congress.

DIVISION OF MUSIC

(From the report of the chief, Mr. Engel)

Accessions to the Music Division for the fiscal year ended June

Contents of the Music Division at the close of the fiscal year,

June 30, 1927

Music:

Contents on June 30, 1926, volumes and pieces----
Accessions during the past year__.

934, 746

11, 943

Total on June 30, 1927–

946, 689

27, 192

Accessions during the past year---

1, 046

28, 238

1,022, 057

Contents on June 30, 1926, volumes and pieces----

Total on June 30, 1927__

Grand total, volumes, pieces, etc.

Success and

Measured by the number and importance of the gifts failure. and acquisitions listed in the following pages, the showing made this year by the music division comes easily up to the mark. In certain branches, such as the earlier imprints ranging from the beginning of the sixteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century, it can be called unusually good, better than it has been for some time. Yet, under these evidences of undeniable success there runs a tale of equally real disappointment. It should not be suppressed. This report would be incomplete did it recite only the gains, without mentioning the opportunities lost, some of them irrevocably. And it might be as well to have done with these first-preludio molto mesto—and then modulate into a brighter key for the thanksgiving song with variations.

Measured by what the music division did not get but could have got, had the funds been available, the year was conspicuous for its failures. This applies chiefly to the auction sale of the famous Heyer collection of Cologne which took place in Berlin in December, 1926, and May, 1927. The capture of one single trophy-as to which more will be said presently-is all that marks the Library's participation in this battle. Unlike most auction sales, it came not without warning. It was foreshadowed in a recent survey of the music division's past and future. as was also the possibility that one or two other great private collections of music (the last remaining of their kind in Europe) would sooner or later be broken up under the hammer. Such occasions, regrettable in themselves, are too infrequent; for they furnish the best and most welcome opportunities of enriching by signal additions a

collection so broadly and methodically developed as is the music division in the Library of Congress.

No matter how impressive may be its array of material filling the widest ordinary needs, a library's rank is determined by its comparative wealth in exceptional treasures, or in the "higher essentials." And these consist in the very rarities that are thrown on the market only by the dismemberment of what often constitutes the life work of an eminently discerning and lucky collector, unless an en bloc purchase can save it.

The Heyer sale abounded in unparalleled chances. Nothing quite like it probably ever has or will come along. The nearest approach to it was the dispersal, in May, 1917, at Sotheby's in London, of the collection formed by the late Dr. William H. Cummings. The catalogue of the Cummings sale listed 1,744 lots. The Library bid on 222 of them and got 166. The catalogue for the Heyer sale in December, 1926, contained 613 lots. The Library bid on two and got one-the holograph sketches and score of Schumann's "Spring Symphony." It was the most expensive single item ever purchased for the division. The purchase was made possible only through the aid of a thousand dollars which the Beethoven Association of New York had given to the division in 1925 (with the express wish that the money be used in acquiring a holograph score by one of the older masters). The second Heyer sale, in May, 1927, consisted of 577 lots. Among them were some of the rarest books and manuscripts known. The Library had to look on without so much as bidding at this sale.

The idea is erroneous that book auctions are prohibitive affairs and that institutions such as a library should not enter into competition with private bidders. Auction sales, as a rule, offer the cheapest means of picking up prizes. A number of items which the Library lost at the Cummings sale it has since been able to acquire through dealers; and in every instance, of course, there was an increase in price over what each one brought at auction. In some cases the advance was considerable. Thus the Library, in 1917, bid £3 on No. 58 of the Cummings catalogue, the libretto of "Whittington's Feast," by Thomas Arne; it went to a bidder who paid £4 10s. for it. In 1922

a copy of this libretto cost the Library £15 15s. The Library bid £60 on No. 98 of the Cummings catalogue, the holograph of the last movement of Beethoven's String Trio Op. 3; it went to a bidder who paid £98 for it. In 1923 the Library bought this holograph for 4,800 Swiss francs. For an eighteenth century chansonnier, La Toilette de Vénus, a copy of which fetched only 10 shillings at the Cummings sale, the Library five years later had to pay 4 guineas. And these examples could be multiplied. Only one more may serve to show how in the brief space of three months the value of a holograph can more than double. The manuscripts of Richard Strauss, although the composer is still alive, are exceedingly scarce. The Heyer collection contained only one Strauss holograph, a short song; it went at the first Heyer sale, in December, 1926, for $104. In March, 1927, the division was fortunate in buying this same holograph in Vienna (at a special discount!) for $250.

The logical and economical way out of the dilemma is this: The Library must have at its disposal an ample and permanent emergency fund, separate and distinct from its regular book appropriation, devoted to current needs; this emergency fund should be available for the purpose of bidding oftener and more successively at auction sales, or of seizing unexpected chances. That the Library had to pass by the unique opportunities offered at the sale of the Heyer collection amounts to a catastrophe. A repetition of it must be averted.

Growth and

collection.

The number of accessions for the year ending June 30, contents of the 1927, is 15,050 (or 397 more than the year before). In point of age these accessions are distributed as follows: Thirteen fall into the sixteenth century, 29 into the seventeenth century, 66 into the eighteenth century, 1,511 into the nineteenth century, and 13,431 into the twentieth century. The bulk of the last group-or 10,816-consists in copyright deposits. That the annual increase should now be kept down so regularly to an average of 15,000 is due in the main to the policy of selecting the copyright deposits, which was adopted a few years ago. The total estimated number of volumes, pamphlets, and pieces in the music division at the close of the fiscal year was 1,022,057.

68025-27-8

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA COLLEGE LIBRARY

Service of the division.

Twenty-three thousand nine hundred and sixty-two typewritten cards were done by the staff of the division and added to the catalogue; 3,039 of them belong to the index of music journals and magazines; the remainder covers a little over 11,900 titles or main entries, about 2,000 of which were for accessions of former years. Shelf-list cards are not counted. The catalogue division prepared cards for 678 titles, for which 4,569 printed cards have been added to the catalogue in the music division. The use of the collection by readers is growing.

The music division every year contributes a large share to the "information service," which holds so important a part in the Library's functions. The questions asked are sometimes puzzling, but generally the inquirer receives satisfaction. There is hardly a limit to what the resources of the collection will yield in an often highly specialized research. Only rarely is the searcher stumped and the inquirer disappointed, as, for instance, when an enthusiastic radio "fan" from Brighton, Mass., sends for the words of a song about "millions of cooties crawling around," which the air has incompletely transmitted and which the National Library is unable to discover among its treasures.

There is no inquiry too trivial or too complex. Two things, however, the division can not undertake to do— it can not fulfill the frequent requests (made as a rule at the eleventh hour) to furnish "study clubs" or incipient lecturers on music with made-to-order "papers on the subjects of their choice; and it can not give valuations or expert advice regarding musical instruments. It must be content with providing, in the one case, a list of reference books, and, in the other, the addresses of reliable instrument dealers.

sea.

Constant recourse is had to the photostat; it bridges distances and extends a helping hand across mountain or With its aid the music division has supplied data for a lawsuit in a city of the Pacific coast and has presented to the German ambassador in Washington, for the State theater in Dresden, the desired libretto of an early opera of Cherubini's, the only known copy of which is in the Library of Congress.