Library Aids to Mathematical Research

The aids which may fairly be expected from a library towards the prosecution of research, mathematical or other, are of two kinds. First, there is the aid given by furnishing the names of previous workers in the same field, accompanied by the names of the publications in which the results of their labours have been preserved or entombed. Second, there is the help in the opportunity given of consulting the said publications themselves and of borrowing certain of them for lengthened study. In other words, what the scientific investigator wants from libraries is books and books about books. One of the two is often obtainable without the other, but in that case its value is immensely lessened. To the so-called “ordinary” reader, a library is a labyrinth which probably would give him all he needs if only he had a guide through its intricacies: to the specialist, on the other hand, with his methodic bibliographies and booksellers' lists, it not unseldom presents itself as a lucky-bag in which the blanks are ultimately more in evidence than the prizes.