Law School Librarian Says Present Outside Use of Rare Volumes Is No Precedent--Library Not Open to General Bar

"Merely a public announcement of an old policy" aid Professor E. R. James, old policy" said Professor E. R. James, explaining the availability of the library's facilities to individuals outside the University, which has been characterized by the metropolitan dailies as a departure from precedent. "We have always allowed various firms and scholars to have access to our shelves; it is only that no public recognition has been made hitherto of this policy."

Such firms as the United Fruit Company, for instance, have always had a group of attorneys studying our books of South American law."

This announcement of availability does not mean that the Library will fulfill the function of a bar library to the ordinary practicioner. Its policy of serving the seeker after the more specialized kind of material will be continued, but the shelves will not be open for general law information.

The Harvard Law Library has no equal in breadth of scope in the world, its only possible rival, the Congressional Library, having a less complete collection of books of Anglo-American, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Scandinavian, German and South American law. It is expected that the Endowment Fund Drive recently launched by Dean Roscoe Pound will permit yet more expansion and specialization within the Library.