College and Research Libraries


176 I College & Research Libraries • March 1976 

search collections and scholarly work of 
large public libraries as they may relate to 
his major theme. 

Davies argues that public libraries, 
founded by nineteenth-century upper- and 
middle-class philanthropists convinced of 
the perfectibility of humankind, eager to 
uplift the masses, and persuaded that read-
ing was intrinsically virtuous and refining, 
were, like other educational and cultural 
institutions, started by similar people and 
for similar re~sons (lyceums, athenaeums, 
literary and scientific societies, mechanics' 
institutes), paternalistic and elitist. Being 
neither initiated by the people they were 
endeavoring to improve nor, as it turned 
out, heavily patronized by them, libraries 
suffered from the contradiction between the 
high aims of their founders and the low 
level of their use. Most people simply did 
not read, and even fewer would read · seri-
ous books. So public libraries, unlike schol-
arly libraries with their ready-made and 
motivated clienteles, resorted to "nonbook" 
activities to .attract the populace: classes, 
festivals, exhibitions, lectures, contests, ex-
cursions, slide shows, performances of 
plays, film showings, concerts, even karate 
demonstrations. The object was thus to 
stimulate somehow the reading of books, 
and failing that, to make libraries "centers 
of culture" or "social and entertainment 
centers"-all without evidence of success 
and in face of a perpetually small reading 
public and competition from more powerful 
and more efficient purveyors of culture, 
social services, and entertainment. Unable 
or unwilling to confront these realities, pub-
lic libraries .remain anachronistic institu-
tions on the nineteenth-century uplift mod-
el, mindlessly emulating the long gone 
lyceums, et al. They would do well instead 
to confine themselves to a perfectly respect-
able and useful role as specialized agencies 
dealing with books and with information 
gleaned from books. 

This is an awfully simple solution to a 
not-so-simple set of problems, and therein 
is the basic limitation of Davies' book. The 
subject is bigger and more complex than his 
slender treatment of it, so that the strength 
of his views makes the book thesis-ridden. 
As a work of history, it is a sketchy survey, 
mildly provocative, slightly idiosyncratic, 

and highly opinionated. This is too . bad, as 
Davies does have something to say.---Phyl-
lis Dain, Associate Professor,. School of Li-
brary Service, Columbia University. 

Faculty Status for Academic Librarians: A 
History and Policy Statements. Compiled 
by the Committee on Academic Status 
of the Association of College and Re-
search Libraries. Chicago: American Li-
brary Assn., 1975. 55p. $3.50. (LC 75-
29403) (ISBN 0-8389-5455-8) 
The object of this booklet, compiled by 

the Committee on Academic Status of 
ACRL, is to make available basic docu-
ments related to faculty status for academi~ 
librarians. It includes the · "Standards for 
Faculty Status for College and University 
Librarians" (adopted by ACRL in June 
1971); the 1974 "Statement on Faculty 
Status of College and University Librari-
ans" as drafted by a committee of the 
ACRL, AAC, and AAUP; and a "Model 
Statement of Criteria and Procedures for 
Appointment, Promotion in Academic 
Rank, and Tenure for College and Univer-
sity Librarians" (approved by the ACRL 
in 1974). 

It is good to have all of this material now 
available in one place. A special addition 
to this volume is the essay by the late Ar-
thur M. McAnally, "Status of the Universi-
ty Librarian in the Academic Community," 
reprinted from the 1971 volume, Research 
Librarianship: Essays in Honor of Robert 
B. Downs (Bowker). As a review of 
the literature, it is excellent; and what he 
says is eminently sensible, especially about 
the evolution of librarian faculty status. As 
a brief summary of future developments, 
it is particularly interesting since four years 
have passed; and the budget situations at 
many schools now make some of his pos-
sibilities seem more elusive than ever, par-
ticularly the nine-montl_l year .. What he 
does emphasize is that the whole question 
of faculty status is complex and interrelated 
with many factors. 

All library faculties or departments 
should reread the June 1971 ACRL "Stan-
dards for Faculty Status for College and 
University Librarians" and ·apply the . cri-
teria to themselves. How many: can say 
"We dol" to all nine standards? Finally, 



the "Model Statement of Criteria" . would 
be useful to any library setting up by laws 
and personnel procedures. 

All in all, this collection is useful to have 
at hand and will be referred to again and 
again.-John V. Crowley, Assistant Direc-
tor, Milne Library, State University Col-
lege, Oneonta, New Y ark. 

Anderson, Charles B., ed. Bookselling in 
America and the World: Some Observa-
tions & Recollections in Celebration of 
the 75th Anniversary of the American 
Booksellers Association. New York: 
Quadrangle/The New York Times Book 
Co., 1975. 214p. $9.50. (LC 74-24294) 
(ISBN 0-8129-0539-3) 

Delavenay, Emile. For Books. (Unesco 
and its Programme) Paris: Unesco, 
1974. 74p. $1.00. (Available from Uni-
pub, Inc., P~O. Box 433, New York, NY 
10016) (ISBN 92-3-101147-2) 
The booktrade and book distribution are 

essential to the intellectual universe of 
which libraries are also part. Yet, all too 
many books we see about bookselling focus 
on a single facet: the lore of the antiquarian 
book shop and the memoirs of famous rare 
bookdealers. One, therefore, turns with 
considerable anticipation to two new vol-
umes promising to deal more broadly with 
this important phase of information ex-
change. The collection edited by Ander-
son, a well-known bookdealer and former 
ABA president, is an "olla podrfda" of pre-
sumably original essays and selections from 
previously issued materials. In the former 
category, John Tebbel and Sigfried Taubert 
offer short histories of American and world 
bookselling respectively. These are followed 
by brief sketches of the association since its 
founding in 1900 by former Publishers 
Weekly editor Chandler B. Grannis and a 
glimpse of best-sellers over the same period 
by Alice Payne Hackett. The other items 
are snippets and snappets by such book-
dealers and book lovers as Sylvia Beach, 
H. L. Mencken, and Adolph Kroch. 

My initial expectations were dampened 
by the fact that Anderson's book is more a 
keepsake of an event than a serious work. 
Although a memorial, it was put on tlle 
market for a price, and thus we are entitled 
to rate it for - content and utility. Some-

Recent Publications I 177 

times, it is difficult to tell what is original 
and what is not. Large chunks of Tebbel's 
otherwise rather good piece are quarried-
almost word for word-from his monumen-
tal History of Book Publishing in the Unit-
ed States ( 1972- ) . Taubert draws heavily 
on his earlier studies for his text and all his 
illustrations from his fascinating Bibliopola 
(1966). His essay proper is weakened by 
its nation-by-nation structure. This frag-
mentary approach is of doubtful validity. 
It leads, for example, to his offering a sec-
tion on the Australian/New Zealand trade 
but none on those of the more important 
Lowlands, Switzerland, and Italy. Hackett 
merely updates her earlier chronicles on 
best-sellers and provides none of the insight 
or depth afforded by works like those of 
J. Hart and F. L. Mott on the subject. 
Somewhat more informative is Grannis on 
the association and its activities. One would 
dearly like to know more about the ABA 
as a trade lobby, how it applies pressures, 
and to what ends; also, which types of 
bookdealers wielded organizational strength 
and how. I was particularly intrigued by 
the several passing references to the expan-
sion of the chain bookstore phenomenon 
and dearly wanted to know mo're about it. 

Commemorations of the personal book-
store ("gentlest profession," "the happiest 
fraternity") are a recurring theme in the 
collection and must be pronounced unob-
jectionable in themselves. I for one have al-
ways rather enjoyed the treacly, nostalgic 
evocations of Christopher Morley and com-
pany. But, to strike a rural parallel, we 
ought not allow the persistent and haunting 
dream of "family farms" to shield us from 
the reality that the large-scale, corporate 
agribusiness is fast becoming the character-
istic mode in agriculture. So, too, it appears 
that the number of full, personal bookstores 
may be declining with the growth of the 
chains which monotonously stress best-
sellers and remainders as well as seH-ser-
vice. Is not this concentration-in-distribu-
tion, if true, a potentially ominous develop-
ment in the free exchange of ideas? 
Librarians and others must remain vigilant 

· to changes in this trend. 
Anderson's collection, then, is less a han-

dy compendium of current bookselling than 
a mish-mash of materials mostly available