College and Research Libraries


156 I College & Research Libraries • March 1978 

The book starts with a forword by 
Frances Spigai, followed by essays survey-
ing the field of microforms and mi-
cropublishing. Separate chapters are dedi-
cated to the history of micropublishing, or-
ganization, storage, durability, and use of 
microformats, their role in library collec-
tions, national microform services, and mi-
cropublishing of newspapers. The last in the 
collection is a group of articles that have 
forecast for the last forty years the future of 
microphotography. 

The collection is an important contribu-
tion to library literature, and it comes to us 
from a truly authoritative guru in the "mi-
cro" world . The list of contributors reads 
like a page from the who's who in the field. 
Names such as Maurice Tauber, Verner W. 
Clapp, Robert Jordan, Ralph R. Shaw, and 
Charles G. LaHood-to add just a few au-
thors to those already mentioned in the 
review-are all widely recognized leaders in 
this emerging discipline: The editor himself 
is a well-known expert on the subject of mi-
crographics, with experience ranging from 
supervision of a major university photodup-
lication department many years ago to a re-
cent appointment as director of a university 
research library. Allen Veaner is also char-
ter editor of the Microform Review , an out-
standing periodical in the field. 

The typography of the volume is attrac-
tive and practically free of misprints ; this is, 
by now, a well-established trademark of ex-
cellence of Microform Review , Inc. , the 
publisher of this book. The present collec-
tion is part of the publisher's recently estab-
lished series in library micrographics man-
agement , which has already listed half a 
dozen other titles in this field. The price of 
the volume is reasonable, especially when 
compared with prices of other similar books 
published nowadays. 

Micropublishing ought to be of special 
interest to librarians. In addition to being a 
staple in the library, it is, as pointed out in 
this study, the first new medium that has 
been developed with direct help from li-
brarians, while at the same time its continu-
ing success depends heavily on the ac-
ceptance of microforms by libraries. 

Of course, Studies in Micropublishing 
covers only one phase of the expanding 
field. Yet further studies will build on this 

compilation, complementing rather than re-
placing it. 

However, micropublishing itself will not 
come of age until studies about it will not 
be just published, but micropublished. To 
the delight of many readers, the present an-
thology can be read without the assistance 
of a still-clumsy microreader contraption.-
Joseph Z. Nitecki, Temple University Li-
braries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . 

Blumenthal, Joseph. The Printed Book in 
America. Boston, Mass. : David R. Godine, 
in association with the Dartmouth College 
Library, 1977. 250p. $30.00 LC 77-79004. 
ISBN 0-87923-210-2. 
The emphasis of this history is on printing 

as an art, illustrated by seventy plates dup-
licating pages from books chosen by the au-
thor. Most of the examples were selected 
from books in the Dartmouth Library col-
lections. Forty-eight of them represent 
books published since 1890. They deal ex-
clusively with letter press and with typog-
raphy. Illustration draws only incidental at-
tention . 

This is a handsome book. The author 
himself, long the proprietor of the distin-
guished Spiral Press, did the typography. 
The Stinehour Press, Lunenburg, Vermont, 
composed and printed the text. The Meri-
den Gravure Company, Meriden, Connecti-
cut, engraved and printed the plates-
brilliantly. In many cases the reproductions 
seem to outshine the originals in brightness 
of ink and paper. To accommodate the for-
mat, of course, reductions are inevitable for 
many books, but the legends include origi-
nal measurements. 

The F'rinted Book in America invites 
comparison to the author's 1973 guide to an 
exhibit of 125 books in the Pierpont Morgan 
Library, published in hardcover by Godine 
(and in softcover by the library) as The Art 
of the Printed Book, 1455-1955. The text, 
which precedes the plates in both works, is 
longer and more detailed in The Printed 
Book in America. Shining through the text 
is the clear evidence of the author's own 
participation in many of the events he de-
scribes and his personal association with 
many of the figures he discusses. This 
heightens the interest, but the book far 
transcends the limitations of personal re-



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158 I College & Research Libraries • March 1978 

miniscence. The author shows an easy famil-
iarity with the bibliography of the presses 
he discusses, and he draws copiously on a 
long list of historical and critical writings 
("Selective Bibliography, " p. 233-37). 

Although the emphasis of the book is on 
the most artistic products of various presses, 
the author recognizes the importance of in-
novations, conscientious craftsmanship, and 
patterns of influence. Two of his longest 
sections treat Theodore Low De Vinne and 
Daniel Berkeley Updike, for example, con-
cluding, however, that neither was a great 
typographic artist comparable to Bruce Rog-
ers or Frederick W. Gowdy (also treated at 
length). On a different plane, he even pays 
unexpected tribute to Elbert Hubbard and 
the Roycroft Press. He includes and dis-
cusses many examples that do not meet, in 
the author's judgment, the highest 
standards of typographic art. These increase 
the interpretive value of the presentation. 

The History of Printing in America be-
longs on the shelves of most academic li-

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braries. The devil that plagues reviewers 
will not let me pass without noticing two 
minor lapses that attracted my attention. On 
page 36 he seems to date Buffon's Natural 
History a hundred years before its publica-
tion. His citation to Michael Koenig's article 
on De Vinne in his bibliography dates it in 
1941 instead of 1971. These hardly detract 
from the importance of the book-Howard 
W. Winger, Graduate Library School, Uni-
versity of Chicago . 

Coping with Cuts. A Conference to Exam-
ine the Problems Facing Academic Li-
braries in the Late 1970's at Holborn Li-
brary on Wednesday 13th July 1977 . 
Sponsored by the National Book League 
Books and Students Committee. London: 
National Book League, 1977. 98p. £3.20. 
ISBN 0-85353-268-0. 
Academic libraries in England have fallen 

on hard times indeed : Norman Roberts, 
writing in the November 1977 C& RL, 
touched upon some of the dire fiscal 
realities now facing English college and uni-
versity libraries and enumerated several 
steps they are taking to curtail spending; 
the controversial Atkinson Report (reviewed 
in the July 1977 C&RL) , recommended a 
self-renewing library of limited size (a Ia 
Daniel Gore) as the government-imposed 
model for future academic library develop-
ment. 

If this flimsily bound typescript of five 
short speeches (by a librarian, lecturer, stu-
dent, publisher, and bookseller) and two 
discussions represents the only palliative to 
the severe government cuts in book-buying 
money and to astronomical inflation that the 
133 participants in the conference could 
suggest, then our / English colleagues are 
worse off than they realize, and we have 
very little to learn from them in our own ef-
forts to cope with shrinking budgets. 

To an American librarian abreast of the 
professional literature, many of the sugges-
tions for coping seem quaint, outdated, and 
simplistic; they center around where and 
what to cut rather than on such creative re-
sponses as quantitative analysis of collection 
growth and use and subsequent redistribu-
tion of available resources , the use of 
sophisticated management techniques to 
bring more rationality to the budgeting and