This committee was formed by the American Library Association, the Medical Library Association, and several other national library organizations to foster the centralized acquisition of important European scholarly and scientific journals of vital interest to American scholars who were concerned that the journals would become unavailable as the war in Europe continued. Although the United States was still neutral in 1939, there were obstacles to the importation of German materials and materials from Nazi-occupied countries because of the British blockade of European ports and the U.S. government's increasingly restrictive policy against sending dollars to Nazi-occupied areas.
From the description of Joint Committee on Importations records, 1939-1943. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 506124020
