Please reply to:
						Mrs. Lois Bebout
September 22, 1973				4004 Silverspring Drive 
						Austin, Texas


Dear

Enclosed are the suggested titles which I have received for inclusion 
in your subject area of the SUBJECT GUIDE TO REFERENCE MATERIALS ABOUT 
TEXAS.  I shall be listing your names and addresses in the next issue 
of the TEXAS LIBRARY JOURNAL requesting additional suggestions.  Other 
than that you will be on your own.  Of course, you may consult anyone 
else whom you feel might be of assistance.  Don't hesitate to request 
other librarians who work in your subject field to review your work; 
most of them will be flattered and very helpful.  There are many 
librarians who are quite interested in this project but are unable to 
participate actively.  Also, do not hesitate to write to societies, etc., 
working in your subject area; most of them will be happy to tell you 
about their publications and plans.

The Texas Library Association is planning to begin the publication of 
a monograph series; the outlook is quite promising that our "Texas 
Winchell" can be the first number of the series.  Shall we work toward 
a December 15th deadline?  If you can get the information to me by that 
date, I should be able to do quite a lot of the final editing over the 
Christmas holidays.

My feeling is that we should use the eighth edition of Winchell's GUIDE
TO REFERENCE BOOKS (see pp. vi-vii and xvii-xx) as our guide as to purpose, 
arrangement, serial entries, reprints, cross references, code numbers, and 
abbreviations. We will not usually include the introduction to each 
subject section.  However, if there are brief statements which you wish to 
include as introductory material for your section or sections, please feel 
free to send them to me.  If the length of the entire compilation is not 
excessive, we may be able to include them.  The scope and closing date will 
be somewhat different from Winchell (p. vi), of course.  Our scope will be 
limited to Texas materials, i.e., the sources which give the best information 
about Texas on the particular subject.  Thus, if a national or international 
publication gives the most comprehensive treatment of the subject under 
consideration, do include it, or at least mention it in the annotation of 
a purely Texas source.  For example, you might well want to compare the 
usefulness of the TEXAS MUSEUMS DIRECTORY with that of the OFFICIAL MUSEUMS 
DIRECTORY in the annotation for the former title. We want to make our 
GUIDE as useful to Texas librarians as possible.  I suggest that we use no 
closing date; if we know of something "in press" or "in preparation," let's 
include it with that notation and with as complete information as we can 
provide.  If you find out about card files which exist in some library and 
which fall in your subject area, do include them.  In such situations,
do get the approval of the compiler or of the library before listing them.

If you turn up a title which properly belongs in an other subject area, 
please send it on to the subject editor concerned.  If necessary, we'll
cross reference as Winchell does if some title is of use in more than 
one subject area.

As for format for your reports to me, I should prefer 4x6 cards with 
the information arranged exactly in the form used in Winchell, 8th ed.  
If you can possibly do it, please also make cards for index entries, again 
using the Winchell format.

It all sounds difficult; however, I know we can do it.  If you do not 
have ready access to any book which might be available in Austin, please 
call on me; I'll be happy to look at or check on anything which you 
might need.  If there is any additional information you need or if these 
guidelines are not clear, just drop me a postcard.  If you do not have 
handy access to a copy of Winchell, let me know; I'll Xerox the pertinent 
pages and a few example pages for your use.

Happy editing!
			Sincerely yours,

			Lois Bebout, Chairman
			TLA-RRT-Committee on Texas Information
				Sources