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Abstract

This note offers an overview of how Josiah Willard Gibbs's Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics, published simultaneously in London and New York in 1902, spread through European university libraries. Contrary to the received idea that the circulation of this text was slow, information gathered through direct contacts with numerous academic libraries, together with an examination of Yale University's archives, reveals an unexpectedly rapid material diffusion beginning on 15 March 1902. This early propagation can be explained by several channels: presentation copies sent by Yale University to leading universities, personal mailings by Gibbs himself to prominent scientists, and the distribution of copies by the American publisher to major scientific journals.