Books, Libraries, Librarians: Contributions to Library LiteratureReview by: Newton F. McKeonThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Jul., 1956), pp. 236-237Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4304558 .

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236 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

covers the first ten months of a new administra- tion, but it adheres closely to the form and ar- rangement of its immediate predecessors in the series. The content of two chapters that ap- peared in the report for 1953-54-one dealing with concerts, exhibits, and special events and one with bibliographic services related to gov- ernment-sponsored research-has been ab- sorbed by the six that remain. These cover the acquisition of materials; the organization of the collections; special services to Congress; refer- ence and related services; administration, per- sonnel, and finance; and the Copyright Office. There are fourteen appendixes, three of which are innovations: a summary of the annual report of the Trust Fund Board, statistics of the re- cording laboratory, and decisions of the comp- troller-general on questions raised by the Li- brary of Congress.

Three special surveys were made at the re- quest of the new librarian shortly after he took office. The acting comptroller-general examined the library's budget, accounting, and disbursing operations; and the Civil Service Commission surveyed both its position-classification pro- gram and its procedures in carrying out the loyalty-security program. Findings are reported to have been reassuring, and only minor changes aLppear to have been found desirable in any of the three areas in question. Librarians will be interested in the results of work now in progress to codify all legislation affecting the institution.

Results of another project that was begun during the year will be awaited with great inter- est by administrators of research libraries. This project is a detailed and systematic review of the library's acquisition policies and is intended to result in "a redefinition of policies in the light of the library's responsibilities and of its physi- cal and financial resources." Smaller libraries (and all other American libraries are much smaller than the Library of Congress) will not be foolish eniough to model their acquisition poli- cies on those of a library that received more than 5,000,000 pieces last year and added more than 1,200,000 of them to its collections; but these collections are so extensive and valuable and information regarding them is being so widely disseminated by means of printed catalogs that the acquisition policies of the Library of Con- gress must be taken into account when any other major researclh library makes an intelli- gent attempt to formulate its own policies.

The commonplace that the Library of Con- gress is the national library may need to be re-

vised, particularly in view of the plan for trans- forming the current supplements to its author catalog into a "Current Author Catalog" of the country's research libraries. It seems reasonable now to describe the Library of Congress as the central unit of a nation-wide library consisting of all the country's major research collections. It would follow that the outlying units ought to avoid needless duplication of this library's cen- tral unit and that, in order to do so, they must be familiar with its collecting policies.

Throughout this report and particularly in Appendix VI, which lists the library's publica- tions for the year, there is evidence of how much the central unit is contributing toward the bib- liographical organization of the nation-wide library. It sold more than 23,000,000 printed cards during the year. It continues to revise its classification and its list of subject headings and to issue, in addition to a multitude of more spe- cialized bibliographies, the Monthly Checklist of State Publications and New Serial Titles.

The central unit has a staff of some twenty- four hundred, so it may be expected to do more of this bibliographical work than any other unit; but this staff, large as it is, is small compared to the combined manpower of the other research collections, which suggests that, while the Li- brary of Congress is by no means doing too much, the rest may be doing too little.

PAUL BucK Harvard University Library Cambridge, Massachusetts

Books, Libraries, Librarians: Contributions to Library Literature. Selected by JOHN DAVID MARSHALL, WAYNE SHIRLEY, and Louis SHORES. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1955. Pp. xv+432. $6.00.

This is an anthology of professional library literature ("of, by, and for librarians"), intend- ed, in the words of its Introduction, to "be both pleasing and instructive to librarians and li- brary school students alike." Mr. Marshall, ref- erence librarian at Clemson College, graduate of the Florida State University Library School in 1951, while acknowledging the suggestions and criticism of his editorial colleagues, claims chief responsibility for choosing the materials here included. He states that the primary criterion of selection was "readability," explaining this by saying: "I have tried at all times to select ar- ticles and essays for consideration which, be-

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REVIEWS 237

cause of their content or purpose, style or treat- ment, would be enjoyed by librarians and li- brary school students." The iterative quoting is done advisedly. The audience in view is clearly perceived. Would that the definition of "reada- bility" had been brought into similarly clear focus.

From the evidence of the selections, the edi- tor has read widely and avidly, allowing his in- terest to range over all manner of library prob- lems and considerations. He gives us forty varied selections chosen from many sources and a dividend of four "Notable Statements of the Librarian's Profession." We may thank him for giving renewed currency to certain excellent papers, such as those by Frances Clarke Sayers, Archibald MacLeish, Leon Carnovsky, and Les- ter Asheim. We are his debtors for being first introduced here to several surprises in the form of pleasant papers from obscure sources. We may be grateful that Blanche P. McCrum's witty and perceptive "Neuroses of Librarian- ship" now has the wider audience it deserves. We may deplore reviving Randolph G. Adams' lively, yet unjust, essay in denigration, "Li- brarians as Enemies of Books." (This should have had a reply at the time of its appearance, a rejoinder in a tone equally assured and high and final.) But there is no denying its readability.

Yet, having said this, we must face the fact that the anthology is too fraught with articles which can be considered "readable" only if that word is so widely defined as to reduce it to meaninglessness. The intention to gather the cream of professional library literature remains a tantalizing one; the fulfilment here is dis- appointing. The occasional, the slight, the tedious, the obvious, the earnest but undistin- guished, the jargon-ridden, the pretentious, and the pedestrian intrude to such a degree as to cast discredit upon librarians as writers and as readers. This is unfortunate.

While the selections fall short of the quality implied by the Introduction, the audience for which they are intended is kept, as has been said, undeviatingly in mind. This invites the questions: Was not the audience too narrowly conceived? Have we not had too much of li- brarians writing for librarians? May this not be in some degree a narcissistic indulgence or com- pulsion? Why should not librarians speak of their interests to a larger public more often than they do? Would not doing so be more commen- surate with the statute of the profession as it is conceived and as it deserves to be understood?

Applied to the subject at hand, these ques- tions reduce to a more particular onie: Is not the (lisappointing quality of much of this anthology an almost inescapable consequence of limiting the intended audience too strictly? Of course, the selections in this volume address themselves to librarians, for whom the immediacy of the subject matter can offset indifferent presenta- tion. But we are concerned with "readability," and, to be consistently "readable" in any valid sense, the selections should be such as would interest any discriminating reader, librarian or not.

For the work it is doing the Shoe String Press deserves our praise. Two concluding comments are made hesitantly, not to be carping but, rather, helpful. The footnotes on each article's first page are not sufficiently differentiated from the letterpress directly above. Insistence that the copy supplied for offset be better prepared in this respect is to be desired. Finally-and this is another small matter-as the volume was being read, the gold stamping on its spine was progressively vanishing, with the result that it is now partly illegible.

NEWTON F. MCKEON Amherst College

Amherst, Massachusetts

Studies in Bibliography: Papers of the Biblio- graphical Society of the University of Virginia, Vols. VI and VII. Edited by FREDSON BOWERS. Charlottesville, Va.: Bibliographi- cal Society of the University of Virginia, 1954, 1955. Pp. 288; 240. $6.00 each.

These two volumes of Studies in Bibliography maintain the high standard of scholarly excel- lence set in earlier volumes. Appropriately, eight (or about a third) of the major articles are concerned with the text of Shakespeare. A paper by the editor, Mr. Bowers, entitled "Shake- speare's Text and the Bibliographical Method" (VI, 71-91), supplies an excellent short intro- duction to the techniques by which analytical bibliography is advancing Shakespeare studies. Miss Alice Walker's article on "Compositor Determination and Other Problems in Shake- spearian Texts" (VII, 2-15) has much to say that is of value to the editor of any Old Spelling text; and her paper entitled "Collateral Sub- stantive Texts" (VII, 51-67), although con- cerned primarily with Hamlet, has more general applications. Charlton Hinman, who is engaged

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