Introduction L O U I S R . W I L S O N COLLEGEAND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIANS who gained their experience in building up college and university library book collections before the end of World War I1 will find the papers in this number of Library Trends exciting. They will be impressed with the fact that while they were familiar with many of the conditions, procedures, and formulas with which their successors have been confronted, they never had to cope with the tremendous expansion and procedures

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... ch present-day librarians daily experience. These new conditions have arisen not only from the great increase of students at the undergraduate and graduate levels, but also from the equally extensive expansion of library materials, the proliferation of new subject areas, and the growth of language requirements. The number of book titles published in the United States alone increased from 13,462 in 1958 to 28,451 in 1964, 111 percent in seven years.l The number of Russian monograph titles listed in the Library of Congress Information Bulletin for 1963-64 was 17,863, while the total number of monograph titles listed in the Library of Congress Monthly Index of Russian Accessions from 1957-58 to 1963-64 was 103,555.2 The earlier practitioners will also find that the funds with which to meet the new demands have risen significantly, though not in sufficient amount to offset the notably increased costs of materials and service. A few statistics will make these points clear. The median annual additions to the book collections of forty-two university libraries noted in the annual statistics of both 1950-513 and 1964-6S4 were 33,631 and 73,562, respectively, and the median book funds for the same institutions and periods were $126,338 and $580,429. The range of the additions of books added annually for the two periods was from 12,198 to 145,388 for 1950-51 and from 20,967 to 257,631 for 1964-65. The range of the book funds for the first period was from