College and Research Libraries ords. Then follow some thirty A.S.A. stand- ards which have a bearing on the photo- graphic aspects of microrecording. The final section covers microfilming services, listing both commercial agencies and research li- braries with photoduplication facilities. This book suffers somewhat from being written by two authors. There is considerable duplication between chapters and a certain roughness in transition of style from one chapter to the next. There are numerous ex- amples of careless editing. T w o chosen at random are: (1) On page 161 the Leica cam- era is described as being produced in East Germany, and on page 280 it is correctly lo- cated in West Germany. (2) On page 247 (in the text) the Griscombe Portable Reader is priced at $150, and on page 265 (in the table of equipment) it is correctly listed at $165. Though a careful consideration is given to the distinction between primary preserva- tion (storage and preservation of the origi- nal) and secondary preservation (by fac- simile, such as microrecording), there are a number of cases where secondary material is cited in footnotes where it would have been just as easy to give primary references. These are perhaps minor criticisms, as they can easily be corrected in another edition of this book. All in all, a volume such as this one is needed. It will fill a definite space on the reference shelf of any library engaged in extensive handling of microrecords. It will certainly not supplant, but it will assuredly supplement Fussler's classic in this field.— Hubbard W. Ballon, Columbia University Libraries. American Book Binding Kurze Geschichte der Handbuchbinderei in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika, von Lawrence S. Thompson. Stuttgart, Max Hettler Verlag [1955]. 44p., 32 plates with 51 illus. 12 DM. Lawrence S. Thompson, director of librar- ies of the University of Kentucky, is well known in this country for his contacts with foreign librarians and bibliographers and his translations of their writings, as well as for his interest in bookbinding. Now the tables are turned, and his own short treatise on American binding has been put into German by Max Hettler, under the auspices of G. A. E. Bogeng, editor of the series (Meister und Meisterwerke der Buchbinderkunst) of which this is the third number. This compact account of the craft of bind- ing in the United States duplicates essentially the author's article in English in Libri: In- ternational Library Review, V (1954), but it lacks the footnotes of the English version. It begins with a useful resum£, based chiefly on Hannah French's essay Early American Book- binding by Hand (1941), covering the Colon- ial Period and the young republic to 1820. Information for more recent times has been for the most part obtainable by searching through ephemeral material, much of it un- critical, in periodicals, newspapers and simi- lar sources, and it is a real service to students of binding history to have it sorted out and definitely cited. In the early decades of the nineteenth cen- tury, when mechanical processes of book pro- duction were developing, binding deterio- rated in both quality and artistry. The Scotch- born William Matthews, whom Mr. Thomp- son calls the first great American binder, was largely responsible from mid-century onward for keeping up the standards of the craft. In 1895 with a group of distinguished book col- lectors he founded the famous Club Bindery, of which a study by Elbert A. Thompson was issued on microcards in 1954 by the Uni- versity of Rochester Press. This bindery gave employment to a remarkably skillful staff of craftsmen from abroad. Indeed the influx of foreigners after the Civil War is one of the significant features of the development of fine binding, and their names illumine any account of it in this country from mid- century to the present day. They came from the British Isles, Germany, France, even Bo- hemia, and work awaited them in the li- braries of the great book collectors who were in their element around the turn of the cen- tury. Moreover the book clubs organized by these collectors, for example the Grolier Club in New York, had work to be done. Eventu- ally there was opportunity in rare book li- braries, such as the Morgan Library, in uni- versity and public libraries which had rare book departments, and in a few forward- looking publishing firms, for instance the Lakeside Press in Chicago. There seemed no limit to the demand from patrons who could NOVEMBER, 1956 523 afford the luxury of hand binding, and there was constant need for expert repair and res- toration of both printed books and manu- scripts. Incidentally one might add that after the collector had learned to cherish the pre- cious shabbiness of "original condition," there was work for the binder in making slip and solander cases to enclose the worn covers. T o these foreign binders may be attributed something like the apprentice system, for many students, especially women, were trained by them both in this country and abroad. In fact the number of women is striking, and of the bindings chosen for il- lustration in this short account, fully half were made by women. Important in stimulating interest in bind- ing have been the exhibits from the 1890's onward. Many of them were fostered by the book clubs, and the illustrations in their catalogs, as well as in the craft periodicals, are helpful in studying the styles of individu- al binders. For those interested in the book arts in general and the handicraft of binding in par- ticular Mr. Thompson has gathered together in these less than fifty pages a vast amount of valuable scattered information. He not only mentions scores of binders but often locates examples of their work, and shows the special contribution to the craft of various centers on the East Coast, West Coast and in mid- country too. Anyone who has tried to sys- tematize the profusion of names of nine- teenth- and twentieth-century binders in this country will appreciate the research involved, and teachers of courses in the book arts espe- cially would be glad if the valuable matter in English in the Libri article could be made available for wider circulation.—Eunice Wead, HartfordConn. One Librarian One Librarian. By Katherine Smith Diehl. New Brunswick, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1956. 165 p. $3. This is a book on how to live as the only professional in a college library; and it is affected as to content and presentation by the fact that the author's college is church related. Thus the hortatory note: the reader is addressed as "One Professional," perhaps not ad nauseum; but this expression is so constantly repeated, that it becomes a heavy burden for the book to carry. The reviewer read the book twice, and the second time he wrote * down the num- bers of the pages which he felt contained material of permanent value, either for the manner of expression or for the material set forth. There are 29 of these pages. This is very good, for as the author herself says in another connection: "Ideas don't come so frequently as does their restatement. Re- statements fill many libraries." The book is marred by too much spright- liness, too much striving for effect, and too much attention to whether or not the plants get watered; but these defects are offset by a deep-seated and wholly satisfying love for the job, and by an appealing statement of the inner reward when the librarian does his job well. There are a few surprises: one being a spirited defense of closed stacks, even in so small a library, and another being the narrow limits to which student assistants must be confined in dealing with other stu- dents. A surprise of a different nature is the policy for dealing with faculty who put books on reserve which do not get read. The author wrote as a small college li- brarian for her fellows in the field, and a very good field it is; for there is none to whom the buck can be passed, and one is in there pitching all the time. But more than this, the author makes one statement, or credo, rather, which all college librarians, whether they are in large or small institu- tions, should hold as their goal. This state- ment begins on page 70 under the heading "The Policy Committee." Any librarian who can say, "This is the way it is in my place," has indeed reached the summit.—Wayne Shirley, Finch College Library. Recent Foreign Books on the Graphic Arts, Bibliography, and Library Science The first volume in the general series of the great Yugoslav encyclopedia was issued late in 1955 under the title of Enciklopedija Leksikografskog Zavoda, including 720 double-columned pages and extending as far 524 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES