Publications of the Library I CATALOGUE OF THE HOPKINS RAILWAY LIBRARY FREDERICK J. TEGGART, B. A. ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA INTRODUCTION. This catalogue, prepared during the past year by Mr. F. J. Teggart, the assistant librarian having the immediate care of the Hopkins Library, numbers 9,245 books and pamphlets. A writer in the Railroad Gazette of November 8, 1889, noticing at length the considerable collection of railway books included in the published Catalogue of the Library of the Prussian Department of Public Works, deplores the fact that he is not able to point to a similar special collection on this subject in the United States. It is hoped that the present collection and catalogue will in some degree direct attention to the extensive literature relating to railways, and stimulate an interest in its collection and preservation. The American Society of Civil Engineers and the Office of Poor's Railroad Manual each has a considerable number of books upon the subject; and in Europe, the Prussian Department of Public Works, the Würtemburg State Railways, the Austrian State Railways, and the Austrian Nordbahn, each possesses an important collection. Doubtless, too, if the railway books in so vast a library as that of the British Museum were segregated, the showing would be large. The history, in brief, of the Hopkins Railway Library dates from the time, a few years since, when Mr. Timothy Hopkins, of San Francisco, while Treasurer of the Southern Pacific Company, brought together gradually the material which constituted the beginnings of the collection. In April, 1892, six months after the opening of this University, he presented to the institution his railway library, which then numbered 2,000 volumes and pamphlets, at the same time providing for its maintenance and increase. Purchases were made as opportunity offered, until the autumn of 1894, when more systematic methods were employed. Circulars were sent generally to railway officials and to dealers in second-hand books, with the result that the accessions during the past year were unusually numerous. The scope of the collection is intended to embrace all subjects touching upon railway interests, so that the books may be useful both to the practical railway officer and to the student investigating the economic problems connected with transportation. How extensive this literature is at present, and how great its bulk is likely to become, is suggested by the railway statistics of this country alone. The Report for 1893 of the Statistician of the Interstate Commerce Commission showed the number of railway corporations to be 1,890; the total mileage, 176,461; the number of employes, 873,602; the number of passengers carried, 593,560,612; the number of tons of freight transported, 745,119,482; and the aggregate of property classified as railway capital, $10,506,235,410. This catalogue is published at the present time in order that the collection may be made immediately useful to those interested in the subject, and that the increase of the collection may be facilitated; while, as already stated, it is hoped that the publication will not prove unavailing in heightening the interest in the literature of railways. Library of the Stanford University, EDWIN H. WOODRUFF, |