[Rezension zu Pick's International Banking Directory 1927/28]

Helene Lieser: Review of Pick’s International Banking Directory 1927/28 (1927)

Lieser’s brief review evaluates the directory as a practical reference tool. Its central judgment is that the new edition preserves the established strengths of its predecessors:

Die neue Ausgabe des bereits seit einigen Jahren erscheinenden Banking Directory hat die Vorteile der bisherigen Ausgaben, Übersichtlichkeit und ein hoher Grad von Vollständigkeit, beibehalten.

English translation: The new edition of the Banking Directory, which has been appearing for several years, has retained the advantages of previous editions: clarity of arrangement and a high degree of completeness.

The review moves from this assessment to the directory’s coverage and organization: approximately 50,000 addresses of banks and bankers in European banking centres and New York, with postal addresses, telegraph addresses, and telephone numbers. Entries are grouped by country and then alphabetically by banking centre. Lieser’s criterion of usefulness thus combines breadth of information with ease of retrieval.

The appendix supplies a complementary route to identification:

Ein als Anhang beigefügtes alphabetisches Verzeichnis der Telegrammadressen ermöglicht es, aus diesen den Firmenwortlaut und die Adresse der depeschierenden Bank festzustellen.

English translation: An alphabetical index of telegraph addresses included as an appendix makes it possible to determine from these the name and address of the bank sending the telegram.

This reverse lookup makes the directory useful for interpreting incoming communications as well as finding contacts. Lieser closes with an unqualified recommendation of the work as a reference aid; her argument rests on concrete features of banking information infrastructure rather than broader financial analysis.