College and Research Libraries


64 I College & Research Libraries • january 1978 

sources, Graduate School of Education, 
University of Utah, Salt Lake City. 

Stone, Elizabeth W. American Library De-
velopment, 1600-1899. New York: H.W. 
Wilson, 1977. 367p. $45 U.S. and 
Cana<!a; $50 other countries. LC 77-7881. 
ISBN 0-8242-0418-2. 
This book, a greatly revised version of 

Mrs. Stone's Historical Approach to Library 
Development (University of Illinois, Gradu-
ate School of Library Science. Occasional 
Papers, no.83, 1967) opens with a fifty-
three-page chronological chart in eight col-
umns: private, special, and government li-
braries; academic libraries-school libraries; 
public libraries; technical services; legisla-
tion; publications; professional activities; and 
buildings and miscellaneous. A section of 
some 270 double-colu.mn pages ·follows in 
which each item is expanded into a para-
graph or two, with an abbreviated citation 
to the source quoted or paraphrased. Ap-
proximately 1,000 sources are listed in the 
bibliography; the most recent are dated 
1975. 

This review is concerned with academic 
libraries, but items pertaining to academic 
libraries are found in all sections except 
two. This scattering is one of the first dif-
ficulties encountered in using the book. 
Items about library regulations, for exam-
ple, may be found under professional 
activities, technical services, or academic li-
braries. The appointment of librarians is 
sometim~s reported under professional ac-
tivities, sometimes under academic librar-
ies. Catalogs of the libraries may be noted 
under technical services , publications, or 
academic libraries. If there is a logical plan 
for this arrangement, it is not apparent. 

A more serious difficulty is that a number 
of important sources have not been con-
sulted. Among them are John M. Jennings' 

·Library of the College of William and Mary 
in Virginia, 1693-1193 (Charlottesville: 
Univ. Pr. of Virginia, 1968), and his "Notes 
on the Original Library of the College of 
William and Mary in Virginia" (Papers of 
the Bibliographical Society of America 
41:258-67 [1947]); Henry B. Van Boesen's 
Library of the College or University in the 
English Colony of Rhode Island and Prov-
idence Plantations in New England in 

America, 1767-1782 (Providence, 1938); 
Papers in Honor of Andrew Keogh (New 
Haven, 1938), a storehouse of information 
about the early Yale Library; Herbert. and 
Clara Schneider's Samuel johnson, Presi-
dent of King's College: His Career and 
Writings (New York: Columbia Univ. Pr., 
1929), valuable for both Yale and King's 
College; Ezra Stile's Literary Diary (New 
Haven: Yale Univ. Pr., 1901), which de-
serves to be cited rather than secondary re-
ports about him; and neither Thomas Hard-
ing's College Literary Societies (New York: 
Pageant, 1971) nor his shorter account in 
the Library Quarterly (29:1-26, 94-112 
Uan., April 1959]). 

Still more difficulties appear in the text. 
The section on academic libraries opens 
with a 300-word account of Henrico College 
and a similar plan in New England, al-
though neither the colleges nor their librar-
ies ever existed. Some myths about early 
college libraries are perpetuated, e.g., the 
gift of William Ames' books to Harvard and 
Thomas Clap's account of the founding of 
Yale. The gift of Elihu Yale's books in 1718 
is mentioned only in connection with the 
sale of duplicates thirteen years later. The 
early library gift to the College of New Jer-
sey was from Jonathan Belcher, not Jeremy. 

The appointment of Charles Bellini as li-
brarian of the College of William and Mary 
was in 1780, not 1760. To cite 1723 for the 
establishment of this library ignores the gift 
of Governor Francis Nicholson's library in 
1698 . . What happened in 1723 was the erec-' 
tion of the Brafferton building for Indian 
students and an attempt to tap the bequest 
of Robert Boyle for support of the general 
library . 

The inventory f the Harvard Library or-
dered in 1707 was surely not an unusual 
event; the laws of 1667 required annual in-
ventories. The note on John Harvard's li-
brary omits the most recent identification of 
the titles by Henry J. Cadbury. The 1848 
index to periodical articles in the library of 
the Brothers in Unity at Yale, which pre-
ceded Poole's Index, is surely worth noting. 
And, regrettably, there are other slips. 

Because of its uncritical use of sources, 
unpredictable arrangement of items, and 
too-frequent errors, this book is a less than 
satisfactory guide to American academic li-



brary history.-Joe W. Kraus, Milner Li-
brary, Illinois State University, Normal. 

Conference on Library Orientation, 6th, 
Eastern Michigan University, 1976. Li-
brary Instruction in the Seventies: State 
of the Art. Papers Presented at the Sixth 
Annual Conference on Library Orienta-
tion for Academic Libraries Held at East-
ern Michigan University, May 13-14, 
1976. Edited by Hannelore B. Rader. 
Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Pr., 1977. 
130p. $6.50. LC 77-75678. ISBN 
0-87650-078-5. 
This slim volume contains eleven 

speeches presented at a 1976 conference on 
library instruction. Also included are brief 
guidelines for formulating and implementing 
instructional programs, an annotated review 
of the 1975 literature on library orientation 
and instruction (reprinted from Reference 
Services Review), and a list of conference 
participants. 

Following an introduction by Fred Blum, 
director of the Center of Educational Re-
sources at Eastern Michigan University, 
Sheila M. Laidlaw of the University of To-
ronto discusses library orientation and in-
struction in Canadian academic libraries. 
Carolyn Kirkendahl then describes Project 
LOEX, the national clearinghouse for 
information about library orientation and in-
struction programs. A. P. Marshall of East-
ern Michigan University follows with re-
marks about the involvement of librarians in 
the teaching/learning process. 

In the next speech, Thomas Kirk of Earl-
ham College reviews course-related library 
instruction. Richard H. Dewey then pre-
sents a report on library instruction in 
academic libraries of the Middle East and 
describes his experiences teaching students 
at Sir George Williams University, 
Montreal, and the American University, 
Cairo, including special instructional mate-
rial he developed as an appendix. 

After Dewey's paper, UCLA's Miriam 
Dudley discusses library instruction credit 
courses and library skills workbooks. Next, 
Hannelore B. Rader evaluates Eastern 
Michigan University's library instruction 
program, and Susan Burton of the Univer-
sity of Texas, Austin, analyzes the use of ob-
jective testing in evaluation. In the last two 

Recent Publications I 65 

speeches, Susan Edwards and Ben LaBue of 
the University of Colorado examine library 
use studies and faculty involvement in li-
brary instruction, respectively. 

The publication of this book is question-
able because it contains little in the way of 
new information. Better editing would have 
reduced the number of pages and elimi-
nated typographical errors. The papers are 
generally mediocre in quality. The most in-
teresting ones, including those by Laidlaw, 
Dewey, and Burton, could have appeared as 
individual journal articles.-Leonard 
Grundt, Professor and Chairperson, Li-
brary Department, Nassau Community Col-
lege, Garden City, New York. 

First Printings of American Authors: Con-
tributions Toward Descriptive Checklists. 
V.I. Matthew J. Broccoli, series editor. 
C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr., managing editor. 
Richard Layman, project editor. Benja-
min Franklin -V, associate editor. A Broc-
coli Clark Book. Detroit: Gale, 1977. 
432p. $140 for four-volume set: LC 74-
11756. ISBN 0-8103-0933-5. 
It is nothing short of a pleasure to review 

a work that has the chance of becoming the 
seminal statement on its subject. In First 
Printings of American Authors (FPAA), an 
impressive group of collaborators has pro-
duced the first of a projected four-volume 
set that identifies and bibliographically de-
scribes American and English printings of 
books by selected American authors. The 
selection of authors is, as the preface to 
FP AA notes, "admittedly impressionistic, re-
flecting the editors' sense of collecting and 
scholarly interest-as well as the desire of a 
particular contributor to provide a list." Yet 
the coverage in this first volume includes 
123 authors from James Agee to Richard 
Wright. 

In thirty-four "featured lists," full infor-
mation, including a description and/or a· re-
production of the title page as well as some 
ancillary information for collectors, such as 
colophons and dust-jacket and binding var-
iants, is provided for both the American and 
the English first printings by that author. 
The "standard lists" vary from the featured 
only in that less descriptive information is 
provided for the English publications. Many 
entries provide a photograph of the subject.