Checking availability of books with original Af-Am spirituals. Some are very scarce, and priced dearly. One which is available, after a fashion, is Logan, Wm. A., "Road to Heaven, Twenty-eight Negro Spirituals," Univ. Alabama. Reprints offered by a print-to-order service.

Another is Kennedy, R. Emmet, 1931, "More Mellows," 178 pp. of spirituals coll. in LA. Many are not available from other sources.
Three ex-library copies are offered by dealers, $75 to $175. A clean copy at a rare book dealer would cost several hundreds.
The latter example also illustrates how public libraries have discarded seldom-consulted reference material, leaving universities and a very few government-supported institutions as the sole repositories.
Space is now filled with the latest romances, sci-fi and mysteries.