30                                    .Moses Hadas

cern with content, exploiting advances made in other disciplines.

Actually, then, the requirements of the classicists in books are
relatively larger than are those of humanists in other areas, and
because classicists are relatively few in number these requirements
are something of an extravagance which only our larger libraries
can afford. Men of scholarly bent can find their library needs ade¬
quately provided for in many places in a number of fields, but in
relatively few if their interest is in classics. In choosing a place to
teach and study, the availability of adequate library facilities is an
important factor. In view of the high costs of specialized study
to institutions and students alike, it seems poor economy indeed
to prevent persons who have received training from making full
use of it and even poorer economy for persons undergoing such
training not to be provided fully with the appliances necessary to
their work.

The library materials required for advanced study in the classics
fall into three categories. Most essential is the standard "working
library"—up-to-date reference works and texts and the continuing
results of research and analysis in books and periodicals in many
languages. Here Columbia's record is satisfactory; our holdings
are kept abreast of the times and items of significance which may
have been overlooked in the past are frequently added. As much,
it must be remarked, may be said of any of a dozen other institu¬
tions. Next in importance are original materials of ancient origin.
Here Columbia may boast of a collection of 600-700 papyri, which
is one of the largest in the country, of a smaller collection of orig¬
inal inscribed stones, and squeezes of others which constitute a
laboratory for work in epigraphy, and of a collection of Roman
coins of the Republican and Empire periods. In the third category
are early editions which mark epochs in the history of scholarship.
Here again Columbia's holdings are interesting and valuable.

Of medieval and renaissance manuscripts of cla.ssical texts and
studies, Columbia owns more than seventy exemplars.* Most of

* The specific comments about holdings in this and in the following three
paragraphs have been supplied by Roland Baughman.