College and Research Libraries


Resources Handbook 
A Handbook of American Library Resources, 

2d ed. By William Vernon Jackson. Cham-
paign, Ill.: Distributed by the Illinois 
Union Bookstore, 1962. 88p. $ 3.25. 

This paperbound, lithoprinted revision of 
a compilation first issued in 1955 is designed 
to provide supplementary data to be used in 
connection with a course in resources of 
American libraries which has been taught at 
the Graduate School of Library Science of 
the University of Illinois since 1945. The 
data were mostly copied or adapted from a 
great variety of widely sca ttered sources. 

The compilation does bring together a 
considerable amount of interesting statistical 
information dealing principally with aspects 
of higher education, library finance, library 
growth, and library cooperation. Having 
such data pruned, brought up to date, and 
augmented should prove useful to library 
school instructors and students. The fifty-
three statistical tables and six figures are of 
the World-Almanac type, that is, they are 
presented without interpretation or indica-
tion as to why they have been selected. It 
might have been useful to group the tables 
under broad subheadings indicative of the 
structure of the course content. Such a 
structure is revealed by the broad classifi-
cation of the selective bibliography of 407 
items, which forms Part II of the compila-
tion. Both the tables and the bibliography 
appear to have been carefully and conscien-
tiously prepared. However, terse critical an-
notations would have enhanced the value of 
the bibliography. 

The term "Handbook" in the title of the 
publication may lead some prospective users 
to expect more substantive information on 
American library resources than they will 
find in statistical tables of expenditures, 
number of acquisitions, distribution of book 
stocks, or cost estimates for union catalogs. 
One might expect, for instance, descriptions 
of subject concentration or dispersion among 
libraries. The preface makes it clear that 
Professor Jackson had no such aims in mind, 
except to provide general bibliographic 

Review Articles 

pointers to the relevant literature. The com-
pilation might have been more accurately 
and more modestly entitled "Statistics and 
References Relating to American Library 
Resources." 

Some of the impressions gained in perus-
ing the booklet are (1) that research librar-
ies vary greatly in holdings, rate of growth, 
allocation of funds , etc.; (2) that the rela-
tive position of different libraries with re-
gard to these aspects can change substantial-
ly over a period of years; (3) that coopera-
tive efforts among research libraries have 
progressed to some extent but have a long 
way yet to go; and (4) that American li-
brary resources are quite unevenly distribut-
ed.-Robert Muller, University of Mi chigan 
Libraries. 

Chinese Beginnings 
Written on Bamboo and Silk; the Beginnings 

of Chinese Books and Inscriptions. By 
Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien. Chicago: The Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1962. 233p. (The 
University of Chicago Studies in Library 
Science) $7.50. 

Mr. Tsien, associate professor of Chinese 
and librarian of the Far Eastern library of 
the University of Chicago, has drawn on ar-
chaeological evidence buttressed by the criti-
cal use of ancient literature in the prepara-
tion of Written on Bamboo and Silk, a study 
of Chinese writing from its beginnings to 
700. The emphasis is on the nature of the 
materials and their appearance. There is a 
chapter on the fluids and tools used in writ-
ing. Mr. Tsien also discusses the quantity of 
the writings preserved, the types of records 
on the various materials, and their uses in 
the study of Chinese civilization and the de-
velopment of Chinese characters. 

Religious inscriptions on bones and tor-
toise shells are the earliest surviving Chinese 
writings. Large numbers of them from the 
period between 1400 and, roughly, 1150 B.c. 
have been found. During the succeeding 
Chou dynasty (1122?-256 B.c.) inscriptions 
on bronze predominate. The most interest-
ing as well as the longest of the bronze in-

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I 



scriptions are records of political and social 
events or legal documents. Stone, which suc-
ceeded bronze, was used primarily to insure 
preservation of canonical Confucian, Bud-
dhist, and Taoist texts. Jade, clay, and other 
metals besides bronze were also inscribed. 

The earliest Chinese books were made of 
strips and tablets of wood and bamboo tied 
together by two cords. No examples survive 
before the fifth or sixth century B.C. although 
ancient literature records that book produc-
tion flourished several centuries earlier. 
Books were also made of silk and, of course, 
paper following its invention by the Chinese 
in the second century. 

The invention of paper, the various kinds 
of paper and their methods of manufacture 
are well covered, but the finished product, 
the book, is treated very scantily, apart from 
the question of format. Mr. Tsien does not 
tell us about the size of editions, the means 
of their production, book distribution, the 
concept of authorship, and other such mat-
ters of interest to librarians. This volume in 
the University of Chicago Studies in Library 
Science is of interest, therefore, primarily 
to archaeologists and students of Chinese 
civilization. Perhaps in a future volume in 
this series Mr. Tsien will write a work on 
the early history of the book in China as 
exhaustive as this is on early Chinese in-
scriptions and book materials.-Kenneth E. 
Carpenter, Bowdoin College Library. 

Russian Librarianship 
Technical Information in the U.S.S.R. By 

Aram S. Melik-Shakhnazarov. Translated 
by Boris I. Gorokhoff. Bibliographic Prob-
lems in the Natural Sciences; Reports De-
livered at the VI Scientific Conference of 
the Library of the Academy of Sciences of 
the USSR, Leningrad, March 2-4, 1960. 
Translated by Adam Hakane. (Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology Libraries. Li-
brary Monographs Nos. 3 & 4). Cam-
bridge: Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology Libraries, 1961, 1962. 122, ll3p. 
$1.60, $2.88 (paper) . 

It is refreshing to a librarian to find Rus-
sian books on librarianship or related sub-
jects translated into English. This treatment 
of technical literature is common enough in 
chemistry, physics, or aeronautics, but prac-

JANUARY 1963 

tically unheard of in the library field. Our 
knowledge of Soviet libraries and library 
techniques has in the past come from re-
ports of touring librarians or from surveys 
by experts such as Horecky or Gorokhoff. If 
the trend set by the two books reviewed here 
continues, we may expect someday to have 
cover-to-cover translations of Bibliotekaf and 
Sovetskaia Bibliografiia. 

MIT has sponsored two works quite differ-
ent from each other yet fascinating in what 
they both reveal of institutions, people, 
methods, and attitudes in Soviet librarian-
ship. One book is a manual written for the 
guidance of information personnel in Soviet 
industry. The other is a collection of papers 
delivered at a nationally important confer-
ence attended by 170 scientists and librari-
ans. 

Technical Information in the U.S.S.R. is 
the manual for industrial information work-
ers. As might be expected from the compe-
tence he displayed in his own book, Publish-
ing in the U.S.S.R., Boris I. Gorokhoff makes 
a good translator in this subject field. In the 
first half of his book, Melik-Shakhnazarov 
identifies and describes the major informa-
tion agencies and bibliographic sources of 
importance to the Soviet technical librarian. 
This is a clear, concise presentation which 
will no doubt become a handy and valu-
able reference for some American librarians. 

The second half of the book outlines the 
duties and techniques of Soviet information 
specialists in the dissemination of technical 
information. Much of this will seem familiar 
to American special librarians, but, to a de-
gree unknown in this country, the Soviet li-
brarian must play a large role in promoting 
new industrial techniques, popularizing sci-
ence, stimulating production-line morale, in-
troducing new standards, and achieving pro-
duction goals. The Soviet industrial librari-
an's teaching, promotion, and oral-commu-
nication responsibilities make him an active 
organizer of such strange-sounding activities 
as special days for innovators, assistance to 
lagging brigades, planning for multiskill bri-
gades, and workers' excursions to other 
plants. A final brief chapter looks wistfully 
to the prospects of greater mechanization in 
information work. There are eight supple-
ments of varying interest. 

Bibliographic / Problems in the Natural 
Sciences contains six papers delivered by 

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