University of Virginia Library

Towards the Implementing of Policy

Beyond our basic function of preservation, which we take to
include cooperation with others as well as the building of our own

collections, our staff has taken the stand that our proper aim is
not to exploit materials but rather to make them available to
scholars. Efforts have been made, therefore, to assist such projects
as the Union Catalog, the Jefferson editing at Princeton, the
17th Century Inventory at Yale, the Evans Bibliography continuation
at Worcester, the Short-Title Catalogue entries at Michigan, the
microfilm inventory at Philadelphia, the Florida Catalogue at Winter
Park, the Confederate Music listing at Emory, and the Confederate
unofficial publications at Chapel Hill. The Curator of
Rare Books is serving as general editor of the Virginia Imprints
Inventory, a cooperative venture which includes, besides this University,
the Library of Congress, the Virginia State Library, the College
of William and Mary, and the Virginia Historical Society.

Too much absorbed in the collecting and processing of new
material, I am personally to blame for the lateness of this report,
which is our principal means, other than correspondence and
photography, of making available to researchers elsewhere our
manuscript sources. With next year's report, which will include an
index for the years 1945-1950, we hope that it will resume its
proper character as an "annual" report. Other aids to research in
the manuscripts have gone forward satisfactorily. One of the happiest
appointments of recent years has been that of Mrs. Constance
E. Thurlow, formerly of the John Carter Brown Library, who is
engaged in overhauling the card catalogue to our manuscripts, and
is also preparing for the press the calendar of our Jefferson Papers,
previously mentioned. Assisted by a timely grant from the Richmond
Area University Center, Mr. William E. Stokes and I are compiling
a preliminary checklist of the writings of John Randolph of
Roanoke. By its publication and distribution we hope to obtain
many corrections and additions and to pave the way for an adequate
editing of Randolph's papers.

The resignations from our staff of Miss Evelyn Dollens and Mr.
William H. Gaines, Jr., who have given yeoman's service to all our
projects, are a source of regret to all of us. Their unselfish enthusiasm
in the work of the Division has greatly helped in carrying forward
into the future that "continuity with the past" which, according
to Mr. Justice Holmes, "is not a duty," but "only a necessity."