ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 3 5 0 / C&RL News New Publications G e o rg e M . Eb e rh a rt A m e r ic a n B e g in n in g s : The P re h is to ry and Pal a e o e co lo g y o f B erin g ia, edited by Frederick Hadleigh West (576 pages, D ecem ber 1996), presents an objective environmental depiction o f late Quaternary Beringia, the 1,000-mile-wide land bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska. The 56 contributors to this volume offer a sw eep­ ing reconstruction o f the en­ vironment, biology, and hu­ man culture at the time o f its discovery and occupation by Siberian hunt­ ers more than 12,000 years ago. An essential purchase for Arctic, archaeological, and Qua­ ternary collections. $75.00. University o f Chi­ cago Press, 5801 S. Ellis Ave., Chicago, IL 60637. ISBN 0-226-89399-5. The C h ro n ic le o f th e W o rld , edited by Derrik Mercer (1175 pages, O ctober 1996), pre­ sents historical events from 3.5 million years ago to 1995 as if they w ere written by contem ­ porary news reporters. Numerous illustrations, maps, and chronologies make this a convenient place to get a feel for a particular year. Origi­ nally published in English by Chronicle Books in the 1980s, Dorling Kindersley has updated the volume to the Bosnian peace plan. Because o f the volume’s broad scope, most years after 1780 are featured in two pages, with sparser coverage prior to that. However, it is a superb place for a quick dip into world history. The headlines for each story are intriguing and make this b o o k a good browser: “Barbarians sack Rom e,” “Germans print the B ib le ,” “Europe’s cities: Full o f muck and m oney.” $59.95. DK Publishing, 95 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016. ISBN 0-7894-0334-X. G uide to Federal Records in the N a tio n al Archives o f the United States (3 vols., 1996) describes all records held by the Washington area and regional depositories o f the National Archives and Records Administration as o f O c­ tober 1994. The records date from pre-federal titles to the present and include linen-paper records o f the Continental Congress as well as electronic lists o f Vietnam casualties. The ar­ rangement is by government agency; each entry includes a history o f the record group and a descrip­ tion o f the textual records, m aps, m icrofilm s, p h o to ­ graphs, videos, sound re­ c o r d in g s , and d a ta b a s e s h e ld . T h e th ird v o lu m e serves as an index to the first two. $95.00. U.S. G overn­ ment Printing Office, Super­ in te n d e n t o f D ocu m en ts, Mail Stop SSOP, Washing­ ton, DC 20402-9328. ISBN 0- 16-048312-3. In sid e the M instrel M a s k : R e a d in g s in N ineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy, edited by Annemarie Bean, Jam es V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara (310 pages, November 1996), examines the effect that minstrel shows had on American ideas about race, class, and gender. Now recogn ized as A m erica’s first popular mass entertainment, blackface min strelsy was a source o f ethnic stereotypes and humor that was freely borrowed and perpetu­ ated by vaudeville, burlesque, the revue, film, radio, and television. The essays gathered here explore the development o f early minstrelsy, social commentary in the shows, the music, the humor, the dance, and images o f gender and class. Also included are firsthand accounts o f minstrel shows, a minstrelsy guide, and ex­ amples o f jokes, sketches, and sheet music. $50.00. University Press o f New England, 23 S. Main St., Hanover, NH 03755. ISBN 0-8195- 5294-1. LC E a s y 2 .0 (Windows/Mac software) trains shelving assistants and shelf readers the basics o f Library o f Congress classification. The pro­ gram offers drills in shelf reading and book sorting that allow students to drag-and-drop unsorted books into their proper order. Les­ sons are written using shelvers’ terminology— line by line, digit by digit, nothing before som e­ thing. This is an effective and entertaining way to get new shelvers up to speed quickly. $59.95. Specify Windows or Mac. Make checks pay­ able to Mary L. Kish, 222 Forest Home Dr., Ithaca, NY 14850. George M. Eberhart is associate editor o f A m e ric a n Libraries May 1997 / 351 The N A SA A tlas of the S o lar System , by Ronald G reeley and Raymond Batson (369 pages, D ecem ber 1996), contains maps and charts of planets, satellites, and asteroids based solely on available data from spacecraft mis­ sions. Staff at the U.S. Geological Survey in Flag­ staff prepared the topographical maps in uni­ form format with consistent scaling. Geological charts, NASA photographs, and nontechnical commentary complement the maps in this at­ las-sized volume. A gazetteer of planetary sur­ face features accompanies the text. $150. Cam­ bridge University Press, 40 W. 20th St., New York, NY 10011-4211. ISBN 0-521-56127-2. P la ce n a me s of the W o rld : O rigin s an d Meanings, by Adrian Room (April 1997), re­ veals the meaning of more than 5,000 names for cities, natural features, countries, and his­ toric sites worldwide. For example, the world’s largest atoll, Kiritimati, was discovered by Cap­ tain Cook on Christmas Eve in 1777 and was named by him Christmas Island; its current name is a local (Gilbertese) pronunciation of the holiday. The United States is proportion­ ately represented with the rest o f the world. In the introduction, Room lays out the principles of placename study and identifies placename classifications and naming patterns. $65.00. McFarland & Co., Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640. ISBN 0-7864-0172-9. Sacred Jo u rn eys: An Illustrated G uide to Pilgrimages around the World, by Jenni­ fer Westwood (223 pages, March 1997), offers insight into the methods and mindsets of those who choose to travel to sa­ cred landscapes, temples, and shrines. Westwood, a British folklorist, outlines the stages com m on to all o f th e se jo u rn e y s, and d e ­ scribes more than 40 o f the essential routes and sites throughout the world. Mod­ ern p ilg rim a g e s (S o d o , Atomic Mirror, war graves of the Somme) are covered as w ell as tra d itio n a l o n e s (Lourdes, Mecca, Santiago de Compostela). Plentiful il­ lu stratio n s and e x c e rp ts from the writings o f pilgrims from many eras and lands make this book an excellent com panion to Colin W ilson’s Atlas o f Holy Places a n d S acred Sites (DK, October 1996). $35.00. Henry Holt, 115 W. 18th St., New York, NY 10011. ISBN 0-8050-4845-6. Science an d the Environm ent (CD-ROM, October 1996) brings together 320 articles pub­ lished in the online journal Science a n d the En­ vironment during the 1995– 1996 school year. The journal summarizes news stories from more than 500 magazines and newspapers on the following topics: biodiversity and wildlife; al­ ternative energy and fuels; marine ecology; waste management and recycling; clean air; cli­ mate change and atmosphere; health, popula­ tion, and agriculture; and clean water. Each ar­ ticle focuses on a narrow topic suitable for ongoing research, such as “Scientists Find Song­ birds Affect Health o f Forests” or “China Looks to Wind P ow er to Meet G row ing Energy Needs.” Photos, maps, and Web links are also included. The CD-ROM includes an Adobe Acrobat reader that is necessary for reading the articles. Windows, DOS, Macintosh, and Unix platforms are all supported. One copy costs $24.95 (plus $2.50 shipping); for a package of five and a teacher’s guide, the cost is $80.00 (plus $5.00 shipping). Voyage Publishing, 901 N. Columbus St., Alexandria, VA 22314; http:// www.cais.com/publish/. S ta te Fa ct F in d e r: R a n k in g s A c ro ss America 1997, by Harold A. Hovey and Kendra A. Hovey (408 pages, February 1997), provides up-to-date statistics on national, social, and eco­ nomic trends in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Data are conve­ niently organized into 12 s u b je c t are as, inclu d ing population, health, govern­ ment, education, and crime. Two tables are concerned with libraries: public library holdings per capita in 1993 (Maine and Wyoming are tied for first), and total li­ brary operating expend i­ tures in 1993 (New York is first, Arkansas is 50th). Data so u rces are provided in source notes. $78.95. Con­ gressional Quarterly Books, 1414 22nd St., N.W., Wash­ ington, DC 20037. ISBN 1- 56802-296-4. ■ http://www.cais.com/publish/