College and Research Libraries From all of this it becomes clear that both the librarians and the scholars are conscious of critical problems affecting research libraries. On the whole the librarians are more con- scious of the ramifications of the problems than are the scholars. While there are a large number of solutions and partial solutions sug- gested, there is no real unanimity on the direc- tion in which solutions are most likely to be found. Furthermore it is important to note that many of the proffered answers are un- likely to be within our grasp in the immediate future. Above all it is apparent that there are major gaps in our general knowledge of scholarly needs and behavior that urgently require filling, if we are to find appropriate answers. It is in the stimulus to such think- ing that the principal value of this book rests. We congratulate the University of Pennsyl- vania on this highly constructive observation of the 20oth anniversary of the founding of its library.-H erman H. Fussier, University of Chicago Library. Philosophy of Professional Education Social Work Education in the United States,· the report of a study made for the National Council on Social Work Education. By Ernest V. Hollis and Alice L. Taylor. New York, Columbia University Press, I95 I. xviii, 422p. $s.so. Librarians familiar with the activities lead- ing to presentation of standards for accredita- tion by the American Library Association's Board of Education for Librarianship to the Association's Council last summer, will re- member the senior author of this study, Ernest V. Hollis, for his two appearances before groups of the library profession in the inter- ests of clarifying basic issues and reaching an understanding of the proper role of an ac- crediting body within a profession. In the opinion of this reviewer, then chairman of the Board of Education for Librarianship, Hollis' steadying hand based on wide experience and study of professional education was a signifi- cant factor in producing a document which received the Council's unanimous approval (reported in A me ric an Library Association Bulletin 46: 48-9, February, I952). This study of social work education was OCTOBER, 1952 done with the assistance of Alice L. Taylor, training consultant, Bureau of Public Assist- ance, Federal Security Agency, and in consul- tation with many others in the field of higher education in general and social work educa- tion in particular. Titles of the three major sections describe its scope: I. Foundati~ns for Educational Planning; II. Charting a course for Social Work Education; and III. Implica- tions: Translating the report into action. The book is reviewed here, not so much for its contribution to the field of Social Work Edu- cation, which will no doubt be considerable, but rather for its relevance to current prob- lems in developing a sound program of pro- fessional education for librarianship. The questions in common with librarianship are many including: (I) need for a more thor- ough understanding of the evolution of educa- tion for librarianship; ( 2) need to define more clearly the scope and status of library work and to take cognizance of ·the probable future role of librarians in a h:ghly complex society; ( 3) decisions as to the respective roles of. the undergraduate and graduate colleges in the professional education of librarians and the desirable administrative structure within institutions of higher education; (4) educa- tional responsibilities of professional associa- tions; ( 5) accreditation. Except for some elision and the substitution of library work for social work, the above topics are actually the chapter headings of the Hollis-Taylor study. Working backwards with respect to the above list of topics, six different organizations are now engaged in some form of accredita- tion of social work education or have ex- pressed such intentions: (I) American Association of Medical Social Workers; (2) American Association of Psychiatric Social Workers; ( 3) American Association of Group Workers; (4) National Association of School Social Workers; (5) American Association of Schools of Social Work (54 schools accredited up to I950) ; and ( 6) National Association of Schools of Social Work Administration (list- ing 39 members in I950). The first four are individual membership organizations, the·· last two, associations of institutions. A funda- mental cleavage between the latter stems from differences of opinion on the amount of general education that should precede the professional program and on the nature of preprofessio~al 395 . courses. The National Association advocates beginning a professional program as early as the junior year and including semiprofessional and professional content in the senior year of undergraduate study. The American Associa- tion in contrast, restricts professional courses to the postbachelor's degree level of study and recommends a less fixed sequence of profes- sional courses to undergraduate colleges. The inability of these two associations to resolve their differences was a primary cause of this study of social work education. One of the major outcomes expected is the development of a proposal on which all major segments of the profession can reach a working agreement and present a united front to the National Commission on Accrediting and to the general public. Librarians may have reason to be thankful that they are not quite like the social workers in this respect. Still, we already have or have been on the verge of having something like this same complex of accrediting interests (e.g., Association of · American Library Schools, American Library Association through the Board of Education for Librarianship; Joint Comr>tittee on Library Education; Medical Library Association's activities in certifying medical librarians; Council on Library Educa- tion, etc.) The Hollis-Taylor program for resolving differences and presenting a united front is of particular interest. It would accept as a kind of premise that the character of a profession is largely determined by what it is willing to accredit as education. It would have those concerned examine the concept that education for social work, as is true for all professions, is r~ally a whole and indivisible process which educators divide into undergraduate and grad- uate segments, largely for administrative con- venience. It would have those concerned reach a working consensus for establishing a line of demarcation between graduate and undergrad- uate preparation suggesting that the nature and quality of the latter be left as a primary responsibility of those who manage and ac- credit undergraduate colleges. With agreement on what not to accredit, agreement is needed on what is to be included in the graduate professional program, and equally important, the relationship between the basic or generic curriculum and education for the several specializations. A good case is made with evidence and by analysis for a different kind of basic curriculum drawing more heavily on the relevant concepts from such fields as genetics, physiology, medicine, psychiatry, psychology, economics, political sci- ence, and anthropology; and enriched by con- cepts developed by and now taught in the different social work specializations. Within agreed-upon boundaries and under- standings as to the nature of graduate professional social work education, a duly authorized accrediting commission operating under the auspices of the National Council on Social Work Education or its equivalent could establish criteria, norms, regulations and pro- cedures by which the program and facilities of a school could be evaluated. All of the organized major segments of the profession could be represented on this commission, as well as university administration and the public. The several school and practitioner associations mentioned earlier would delegate their accrediting functions to the commission. It would not be administratively and fiscally dependent on any one school, practitioner, or agency membership association. Decisions would be final and not subject to review by the sponsoring Council, although the Council would review from time to time the policies which constitute the mandate under which the commission works. The commission would thus perform the policy-forming and judicial functions required for making and enforcing accrediting policies and procedures. Accrediting was stressed in this review first because the study sought primarily to resolve this problem in social work education, and second, because of the similarity of the prob- lem to that of the library profession. Other sections of the study have much to offer those concerned with professional education for librarianship. No panaceas are offered. Still, the problems common to professional educa- tion regardless of area are analyzed and pos- sible solutions suggested, but almost always (and I think properly) leaving final decisions to social workers and those responsible for social work education. This reviewer is left with impressions not unlike that following a first reading of the report of the Inter-Professions Conference on education for professional responsibility, held at Buck Hill Falls, Pa., in 1948. (Pittsburgh, Carnegie Press [1948]): (I) what we don't 396 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES know about professional education in each and all of its aspects far exceeds what we know; (2) the problems and possibly the solutions are not much different as between the profes- sions; ( 3) we may be expecting far too much to happen to a student in one, two or even three years of professional study even though in addition to four years of college; (4) the librarians have done no worse and may well be doing better than average for the profes- sions including those with a longer experience such as Law, Medicine, and Theology; ( 5) meaningful improvements are likely to come slowly and then only if the importance of the task is recognized by the profession as a whole and in terms of substantial time, effort and energy devoted to it.-Richard H. Logsdon, Columbia, University Libraries. Books and Printing Books and Printing: A Treasury for Typo- philes. Ed. by Paul A. Bennett. Cleveland and New York, World Publishing Com- pany, 1951. 417p. $7.50. A treasury says Webster, with all the exacti- tude and cool inadequacy of a lexicographer's definition, is "a place or building in which stores of wealth are deposited ... any reposi- tory for treasure ... hence, a work contain- ing much knowledge, wit, or the like." It is to be hoped that no editor would lightly assign to a volume that he had nurtured into existence the sub-title "A Treasury of ... " or "A Treasury for ... " without first care- fully searching both his conscience and his text to be sure that he was perfectly justified in so doing. While those of the literary call- ing are less apt perhaps than are their com- mercial brothers who make patent medicines and breakfast foods to be apprehended by the guardians of the law for little misrepresenta- tions of the character of their products, one likes to think that on the whole the world of books is a realm wherein the producers are folk of honesty as well as humility who would not claim more for their wares than they really are: that any collection or anthology was a treasury unless it really was such. - Happily, it can be reported th,at Paul A. Bennett's Books and Printing as "A Treasury for Typophiles" is a treasury in a far richer sense than that expressed by the "harmless drudges" (as Doctor Johnson styled dictionary OCTOBER, 1952 makers) of the Merriam Company. Bennett presents a galaxy of great modern bookmen represented by some of their best short writings. Of the forty-two articles and essays, all save an excerpt from James Wat- son's History of the Art of Printing (1713) and a dialogue (late I 9th century) by Theo- dore Low DeVinne are of the period 1919 to r 95 I. A few of the pieces have been revised or supplemented by postcripts for inclusion in the present volume. Books and Printing is not primarily of an historical nature, nor is it a textbook. It is, rather, a blending of some historical and bio- graphical elements with treatises on a great number of different aspects of type, printing, and bookmaking in general, forming a collec- tion which may be picked up or laid down at any point and still fulfill its purpose of adding riches to "the savings account of your mem- ory." With regard to the material included, the editor notes, "Where there was a cho:ce, the preference was for the author with a point of view and the ability to express it interestingly." The measure of his success in selection lies in the realization that disparity of quality be- tween the many parts, which is sometimes great and discouraging in such works, is but little, if at all, apparent here. The opening chapter, Otto F. Ege's "The Story of the Alphabet," traces, character by character, the physical development of our twenty-six letters. Next, Lancelot Hogben's "Printing, Paper and Playing Cards" tells the history of the use of the alphabet. This sets the stage for the essays that fol- low, dealing with the specialized and the general, the theoretical and the practical in all phases of the book arts and typography. There is Ruth S. Granniss on colophons, Edward Rowe Mores on metal flowers, and Edwin Eliott Willoughby, familiar to Library Quarterly readers, on printers' marks. Pres- ent are Wroth and McKerrow, Morison and Gill, Rogers and Updike, and a host of others. Porter Garnett's engaging treatment of fine printing, "The Ideal Book," is included, while W. A. Dwiggins, Desmond Flower, and Robert J osephy each discuss quality of present- day bookmaking, its accomplishments and fail- ures. Two subjects, both of which are cov- ered by a group of interesting essays, are private presses and the concept of "traditional" 397