LITUANUS LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES   Volume 42, No.2 - Summer 1996 Editor of this issue: Robert A. Vitas ISSN 0024-5089 Copyright © 1996 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.

On the Heels of the Review —
A Reply to Valkavičius

Lituanus vol. 41, no. 4, 1995 contained a review by the Rev. William Wolkovich-Valkavičius of Vaclovas Biržiška's bibliography, Lithuanian Publications in the United States 1874-1910 — Amerikos lietuvių spauda 1874-1910. As editor of this work, I would like to add a few comments to his remarks.

Biržiška's entries follow Biržiška's own numeration used in his bibliographies. If Biržiška's own name is not given and only other sources are indicated, it is to be understood that the publication was absent from Biržiška's bibliographies. Thus it would seem that no additional reference that something is a newly inserted publication is necessary.

The doubts the reviewer raises about the Lithuanian publishing center in Boston mentioned on page 15 belong to information for which Biržiška himself is the authority. Biržiška's own opinions on all questions analyzed are retained throughout the work; only his article is somewhat abridged.

The book Amerikiečių cirkas, arba Sorkes makes up the 19th entry to the bibliography. From the newly added comments it should be evident that this is a work compiled by various authors and not a book authored by J. Baltrušaitis himself. Nevertheless, the book can be located in the index of authors by looking up J. Baltrušaitis because it seems that he translated a poem by J.F. Merton which is included in the above collection.

This bibliography does not contain publications published outside the United States (e.g. in Tilsit-Tilžė or elsewhere). Works compiled in the United States but published elsewhere (for financial reasons) are not the focus of this bibliography.

The newspaper Unija has standardized comments, listed in the same order as those of other periodical publications in the description. All the data that the reviewer finds missing are indicated in the description. The data from the subtitles have been found in the indicated bibliographical sources as part of the descriptive material and hence are not put into square brackets.

The descriptive material includes standartizations, such as: the titles do not use capital letters in the initial position, the place of publication is given in its English form, etc. In addition, the 1874 hymn, "Wieszpaties savo szaukiuosi..." broadened the bibliographical framework by one year. I agree with the reviewer that a longer preface might have precluded some questions. It is also unfortunate that some important information regarding entry number 607 was not caught during proofreading.

In the review some information about the editor of the work is incorrect but this is not of great substance. What is important is that attention has been drawn to the bibliography itself; for this and for his commentary I am grateful to the Rev. Valkavičius.

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