College and Research Libraries 566 I College & Research Libraries • November 1979 New! Heritage on Microfiltn Rare and out-of-print titles and documents on 35mm silver halide microfilm. • French Books before 1601 • Scandinavian Culture • 18th Century English Literature • Victorian Fiction • Literature of Folklore • Hispanic Culture Send for catalog and title information today. GENERAL MICROFilM COMP/t\IY 100 Inman St. , Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel. (617) 864-2820 . . . and again, the most complete catalog of Library an Equipment, Furniture & Supplies ever published. Write today for your free copy. Highsmith P.O. 25 CR9 Fort Atkinson, WI 53538 tic excellence of the book, it is probably worth it.-David Kaser , Indiana University, Bloomington. Book Selling and Book Buying: Aspects of the Nineteenth-Century British and North American Book Trade. Edited by Richard G. Landon. ACRL Publications in Librar- ianship no.40. Chicago: American Library Assn. , 1978. 118p . $10. LC 78-31812 . ISBN 0-8389-3224-X. This volume consists of seven papers read at the eighteenth conference of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of ACRL in Toronto, June 14-17, 1977. In his preface William Matheson of the Library of Con- gress states that this is only the fifth occa- sion for which conference papers have ap- peared in book form. The topic for the 1977 conference was "Aspects of the Book Trade in England and America ," and five of the participants chose the aspect of popular lit- erature, mostly British , but with some American titles, and featuring many women writers. "Publishers of Victorian Children's Litera- ture " was the topic of Judith St. John , curator of rare children's books at the To- ronto Public Library. She traces the rise of didactic stories, climaxed by the pheno- menal popularity of the American Peter Par- ley books and their many British imitators. This was followed by a reaction resulting in more fantasy , folklore , and less obvious moralizing. To reduce the cost of books to readers from the poorer classes, innovative pub- lishers started selling books in cheap in- stallments, like magazines, through charis- matic "canvassers " hard-selling books piecemeal throughout the country. The en- tertaining story of this "numbers trade" is told by Mihai Handrea of the Pforzheimer Library of New York . An even cheaper method of marketing popular literature was serially in newspa- pers. Michael Turner of the Bodleian relates how the Tillotson family of Lancashire, owners of a chain of newspapers , developed their Fiction Bureau that syndicated popular novels to newspapers all over England and abroad. These novels were also very popular in book form, but of the thousands published THEBETTEI SERVICE Baker & Taylor makes it happen. Currently; more than 3,000 librarians, including major research libraries, are participating in Baker & Taylor's Continuation Service. 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NV 89564 380 Edison Way (702) 786-6700 The Librarian's Library Midwestern Division Momence. IL 60954 Gladiola Avenue (81!;) 472-2444 Eastern Division Somerville. NJ 08876 50 Kirby Avenue (201) 722-8000 L ~~~6..:_3~~ _____ ~~~1_! _ J Southern Division Commerce. GA 30529 (404) 335-5000 568 I College & Research Libraries • November 1979 few remain today, obviously a challenge to rare book collectors. Franklin Gilliam , pro- prietor of the Brick Row Bookshop in San Francisco, in his "The Case of the Vanishing Victorians" explains this situation and dis- cusses four collectors-Sadlier, Wolff, Ray, and Parrish-who had the foresight to col- lect these books in their original editions. Canadian popular publishing was dis- cussed by Douglas Lochhead , Davidson pro- fessor of Canadian studies at Mount Alison University , who is writing a book o.; J. Ross Robertson , publisher of the Toronto Eve- ning Telegram . From this research Loch- head describes Robertson's foray into pub- lishing cheap paperback editions mostly of popular American writers from 1877 until the International Copyright Act of 1891 , time enough for him to make a contribution to Canadian popular culture, or at least its Americanization. The two remaining papers are not con- cerned with popular literature but make valuable contributions to the overall picture. Terry Belanger, of the Columbia University School of Library Service, writes on aspects of eighteenth-century publishing and their influence on later publishing. Robert Nikirk , librarian of the Grolier Club, nar- rates the activities of two members William Loring Andrews and Beverly Chew, famous rare book collectors of the late nineteenth century. This modest paperback in the ACRL Pub- lications in Librarianship series makes a genuine contribution to the somewhat ne- glected area of nineteenth-century popular bibliography . It will be a must for all library school libraries , and should have interest for more general collections in nineteenth- century literature, bibliography, and social history as well.-Budd L. Gambee, Unive r- sity of North Carolina , Chapel Hill . Sign Systems for Libraries: Solving the Wayfinding Problem. Compiled and edited by Dorothy Pollet and Peter C. Haskell. New York: Bowker, 1979. 271p . $24 . 95. LC 79-11138. ISBN 0-8352- 1149-5. Pollet and Haskell have produced a truly exciting book that brings to bear the collec- AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. ; AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. "serving academic and research libraries" 42 Chasner Street • Hempstead, NY 11550 Call us 516/489-4011 collect!