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In 1982, Scarecrow Press published Alternative Materials in Libraries. As one chapter, the book included a directory of collections of contemporary alternative materials in libraries. That directory, compiled by Patricia J. Case and edited by James P. Danky and Elliott Shore, proved immensely useful as a reference tool for identifying libraries throughout the United States and Canada that contain original source materials emanating from the social and political upheavals of mat period which is known loosely as “the Sixties.”

This is the first in a projected series of columns which will suggest materials for libraries from alternative, independent, radical, and small presses. Each column will focus on one aspect of the burgeoning independent press movement. In this issue we will suggest the salient alternative press periodicals in a number of categories, publications which libraries of most descriptions should consider as important a resource as any in their collections. In future columns, we plan to examine alternative publications in greater depth, in specific subject areas and formats, and for retrospective collection. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

More than the previous two columns, this list is highly suspect. It represents what I like to read from England, what I could get my hands on, and what could serve as a core collection for an American library. What I immediately want to do is disclaim that these are the most representative or even the most sensible choices for libraries, although I do want to emphasize that they are a fine assortment and that they are among the most influential and intriguing publications of the English press that are readily available.

It is time for some different brand names. Librarians are notorious for unthinkingly ordering books from major publishers. There is an understandable logic at work: these are large and well respected companies and their products must meet rigorous standards in order to be published. A secondary assumption underlies the first; if the book isn't so hot or if it is controversial, the librarian can always make the argument that it is from a usually reliable source. Buying from established sources can also allow the selector to circumvent the rule, sometimes unwritten, that one or two favorable reviews are needed in order to purchase. And there are the added bonuses of CIP data and ease of ordering and handling.

Where in our library collections will we find information on Jimmy Carter's membership in the Trilateral Commission? Can we answer a reference question on the effects of substitution of powdered milk for breast feeding in Third World countries? How about a question on the effectiveness of the four billion dollar anti‐cancer campaign in the United States? What about the costs of decommissioning nuclear power plants?

The most challenging aspect of overseeing an alternative press collection is to provide adequate reference service. The same forces that cause libraries to ignore alternative publications also conspire against their using them fully and effectively once they have been acquired. This holds true for all forms of alternative literature and media, though periodicals probably suffer the most severe neglect. Many periodicals go unindexed from year to year because such companies as H. W. Wilson and its Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature stick basically to a traditional core of “safe” or “acceptable” periodicals. (It took Readers' Guide ten years to include Rolling Stone, which had long since shed its “alternative” image.)

The diversity of ideas and information is central to the meaning of libraries—we enshrine it, and too frequently that is the word—in our Library Bill of Rights and other documents. This diversity of ideas is more than a passive concept, not just one of defending materials already in our collections, though that is a basic and important role for librarians and one that we are reminded of by Drake, Fairhope, and Kannawha counties. But to support this intellectual freedom we all need to actively promote the widest possible range of opinions, of concepts, of expression. And to do this we need more than the output of Gulf & Western, the Columbia Broadcasting System, Mattel, or Times Mirror. If these names seem unfamiliar in library work to some of you, perhaps you know them through their subsidiaries, Golden Books, Pantheon, and Simon & Schuster.

It is proposed that public libraries have a duty to collect material from alternative publishers (in both fiction and non‐fiction and in all media) to better reflect the diversity of their communities. This paper aims to investigate the links between alternative publishing and public libraries in Scotland.

Two surveys (based on the 1979 Alternative Acquisitions Project) were carried out of alternative publishers and public libraries in Scotland. Questions were based on those in the 1979 survey, except where updated to accommodate new technologies. A literature review was also carried out to contextualise survey findings.

While alternative publishers and public libraries were aware of each other, alternative publishers faced many hurdles in getting their material in public libraries. For their part, public libraries were constrained by budgets but wanted to extend support for alternative publishing.

This paper re‐uses a previously tried and tested methodology to create a comparable and up to date study of an area of publishing often overlooked. Alternative publishing is revealed as a flourishing area, despite trends towards fewer and larger publishing outlets. Public libraries are seen as having a vital role to play in giving an outlet to alternative publishing.

SHERRIE S. BERGMAN is College Librarian of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She served previously as director of the Roger Williams College Library and on the library reference staff at the New School for Social Research.

Despite the title of this bibliography, there was not a truly underground press in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. The phrase is amisnomer, reputedly coined on the spur of the moment in 1966 by Thomas Forcade when asked to describe the newly established news service, Underground Press Syndicate, of which he was an active member. The papers mentioned in this bibliography, except for the publications of the Weather Underground, were not published by secretive, covert organizations. Freedom of the press and of expression is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, although often only symbolically as the experience of the undergrounds will show, and most of the publications that fall into the “underground” described herein maintained public offices, contracted with commercial printers, and often used the U.S. Postal Service to distribute their publications.