In addition, many library professionals were dissatisfied with a perceived bias within the plan in favor of materials originating in Western European countries.
In response to the war and its effect on scholastic access to material, Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish sent out a call for advice and suggestions on how best to handle the matter.
The plan was initiated on October 9, 1942, when an advisory committee met in Farmington, Connecticut, to discuss collaborative collection development for preservation and access to foreign materials.
At its inception, the plan surveyed and collected material from Belgium and Mexico (1944), Peru, Spain, Sweden, Canada, France, and Italy (1945).
The plan went into decline through the 1960s and was eventually discontinued in 1972, in part due to the resurgent strength of the cross-Atlantic book markets after World War Two.