College and Research Libraries BOOK REVIEWS Buckman, Thomas R., Suzuki, Yukihisa, Tsuneishi, Warren M., eds. University and Research Libraries in Japan and the United States: Proceedings of the First Japan-United States Conference on Libraries and Information Science in Higher Education Tokyo May 15- 19, 1969. Chicago: American Library As- sociation, 1972, 299p. $13.50. There has been considerable library inter- action between Japan and the United States since the end of World War II. American librarians have assisted in a variety of proj- ects relating to libraries, information access, and library education throughout Japan while a number of Japanese librarians and students have come to the United States for exchange of ideas, observation, and training. This first binational conference was an appropriate vehicle to salute nearly three decades of friendly cooperation, sum- marize accomplishments and articulate areas for future development in university and re- search libraries and the service oriented as- pects of information science in both nations. Financed, in part, by the Council on Library Resources, the Ford Foundation and the Xerox Corporation, the conference was held in the Tokyo Prince Hotel with more than three hundred librarians and educators in attendance. Some judgment may be voiced when it is noted that more than three years elapsed between the conference and the publication of the Proceedings. The volume contains forty-six papers varying in length from one and one-half to twenty pages. Twenty-three were contrib- uted by Japanese educators and librarians, twenty-two by Americans, and one by a British subject. The contributors were pre- ponderantly librarians, known in their re- spective nations as highly competent spokes- men on libraries, professional associations, and matters pertaining to information sci- ence. A few names will suffice to demon- Recent Publications strate the caliber of the official participants: Yoshikatsu Kono, Tatsuo Morito, lyoji Aono, Toshio Iwasaru, Yasushi Sakai, Taka- hisa Sawamoto, Yasumasa Oda, Thomas R. Buckman, Douglas W. Bryant, William S. Dix, R. C. Swank, Lester Asheim, John G. Lorenz, Herman Fussier, Stephen A. Mc- Carthy, Gordon Williams, and others no less distinguished. Forty of the papers are grouped under nine topics of current urgency in the re- search library world: role of university li- braries in higher education; library re- sources and quality in higher education; evaluating university libraries; professional education of library personnel; acquisition ·and exchange of publications; exchange of personnel; national bibliographic controls; application of computers to library manage- ment and information retrieval; and associa- tions, centers, and services. Four papers set the background under the general topic of U.S.-Japanese cultural interactions. Two pa- pers-"Research Design for a Study of the Political Modernization of Japan," by Robert E. Ward, and "Sponsored Tours for Foreign Librarians in the United States," by Lester Asheim-appear as appendices. The papers presented by the Japanese ed- ucators and librarians are, in aggregate, a history of the research library movement in Japan since 1947. Although the statistical information is outdated, anyone interested in the modernization that has taken place in libraries serving higher education and the professional associations during the postwar period will find the Japanese contributions informative and useful. The contributions by the American par- ticipants are, with but few exceptions, val- uable summaries on the major topics under discussion at the conference. They represent thoughtful and knowledgeable approaches to current, major issues in research librarian- ship in America. Of particular importance are the articles by R. C. Swank on "Evalua- tion of American University Libraries," Les- I 161 162 I College & Research Libraries • March 1973 ter Asheim on "Current Problems and Prospects in American Library Education," and Herman Fussier on "Some Aspects of Technology and Change in Relation to Uni- versity Libraries." These papers deserve a wider reading audience than this volume is likely to attract. H the platitudes and rhetoric of amity, usually generated by a conference of this sort, can be ignored in some of the papers, publication of the Proceedings was justified. There would not seem to exist a more use- ful single volume containing a summary of current thinking on research libraries in both nations. The papers are recommended read- ing for all whose interests gravitate toward research libraries, information access, and (most especially) the international aspects of librarianship.-Cecil K. Byrd, Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington. Franklin, Colin. The Private Presses. Ches- ter Springs, Penn.: Dufour, 1969. 240p. $17.50. This brief but appealing work treats the activity of fine printing in England from the late nineteenth century to the Second World War, as created by private presses which were owned or controlled by individuals who put their own stamp on the products. Although Mr. Franklin refers frequently to the works of these presses as representing a movement and does show interesting in- fluences and interrelations among them, his book is essentially composed of separate sketches, each devoted to a selected printer and press. His approach in presenting these rather discrete essays is not unlike that which he attributes to bibliophiles, of whom he says: "Collectors look at their things with love, preserve them worthily and show them to those who can appreciate." Recognizing that "accounts of books can be tedious to read," Mr. Franklin concen- trates upon lively sketches of the printers and the general tenor of their production. He does make good and generally succinct analytical comments on specific books and he provides some interesting allusions to the tastes of the times, as in his amusing ac- count of the arts and crafts movement of guild socialism, although he does not at- tempt a fully unified narrative nor a devel- oped critique of printing style. But Mr. Franklin has a nice eye for typography and a well-cultivated taste in approaching it so that he is able to draw from the books them- selves a sense of their printers and the pur- poses of their presses. This allows him to make some sharp comparisons: Morris had merry pleasure from most of the Kelmscott books-the medieval world he loved, the old poems and stories. There is aesthetic gaiety in some of the Vale Press books, French charm in Eragny, and Hom- by's press could be domestic, entertaining, homely as well as serious. Nothing less than a fixed moral vision governed the taste of the Doves Press; with Cobden- Sanderson at the heart of it . . . Upon occasion Mr. Franklin finds a need to take issue with the idea of judging these works by what he once calls "the awe of the sale room," yet he himself seems quite af- fected both by book prices and by the names of collectors, and the work concludes with a so-called Bibliography by David Lin- coln whose only real contribution is the fur- nishing of auction prices. Indeed, Mr. Franklin himself addresses his last chapter to the collector's concerns rather than end- ing on a summation of typographic history or an analysis of the art of bookmaking. Yet, despite some disparity in purpose and tone, here is a useful, lively, and perceptive study.-]ames D. Hart, University of Cali- fornia, Berkeley. Schlebecker, John T. Bibliography of Books and Pamphlets on the History of Agri- culture in the United States ••. 1607- 1967. Santa Barbara, Calif.: American Bibliographical Center-Clio Press, 1969. Paper $5.50. Cloth $15.00. This is an updated version of the classic A Bibliography of the History of Agricul- ture in the United States, by Everett E. Ed- wards, published in 1930 as U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture Miscellaneous publica- tion no. 84. The biennial Eunice Rockwell Oberley Award was presented to Mr. Schle- becker in June 1971 for his work. It is a listing of 2,042 histories, govern- ment reports, biograp'hies, and literary works which portray farming and rural life in all parts of the United States from the earliest settlement through 1967. Except for its subject, the new work differs consider- ably from the Edwards bibliography. For ( \ I