College and Research Libraries 574 College & Research Libraries have organized such a project. Both edi- tors are well known to historians of American science, and both have much experience with the history of science at Harvard. Elliott, associate curator at the Harvard University archives, is himself a scholar and in the past twenty years has produced a series of reference books that have become indispensable tools for research in science history. Rossiter is professor of history of science at Cornell; her senior thesis at Radcliffe College dealt with Louis Agassiz, a central figure in nineteenth-century Harvard biology, and her subsequent publications include The Emergence of Agricultural Science: Jus- tus Liebig and the Americans, 1840-1880 and Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940. Perhaps, though, it is just as well that publication of this volume was delayed for six years. While the anniversary cele- bration might have called for a series of synoptic essays, each providing an over- view of the history of a particular scien- tific discipline· in the Harvard context, Science at Harvard University makes no pretense of such completeness. Rather, it is a collection of eleven articles on fairly narrow topics-ranging from Toby Appel's sketch of Jeffries Wyman and the significance of personal character in mid-nineteenth-century Harvard natu- ral history, to Rodney Triplet's analysis of the delay in founding a Harvard de- partment of psychology until the 1930s, to an essay on the university's coopera- tion with IBM in the development of com- puters, prepared by I. Bernard Cohen (who as emeritus professor of history of science at Harvard was present at much of the history he relates). The absence of essays on the history of certain disciplines is quite conspicuous. Only a small portion of one chapter deals with the basic biomedical sciences. In addition, chemistry and physics are vir- tually absent in this book; the period before 1800 is represented only by Sara Genuth' s discussion of the role of comets in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century astronomy at Harvard; and discussions of the twentieth century, with one excep- tion, omit the life sciences completely. In November 1992 a sense, then, this book is simply the locus for yet a few more studies of mixed quality which fill in some of the gaps left in the already copious work on the his- tory of science at Harvard. But even in assembling a collection of assorted empirical studies, Elliott and Rossiter have made · a worthwhile contribution. For example, Bruce Sinclair's analysis of the evolving relationship between Har- vard and MIT, and how it reflected com- peting ideas about the goals of technical education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is first rate. Other particularly noteworthy contribu- tions include the study of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and geography at Har- vard by David Livingstone, and John Parascandola's article on the biochemist turned sociologist turned philosopher, Lawrence J. Henderson. Incidentally, Livingstone, along with Curtis Hinsley who writes on museums and anthro- pology, also gives at least a nod to the role of libraries in discipline formation. What makes Science at Harvard Univer- sity special, though, are the editors' brief preface outlining the problems inherent in a project such as this, Rossiter's intel- ligent introductory chapter on the role of patronage in the institutionalization of the scientific disciplines at Harvard, and Elliott's three contributions: a historio- graphical essay, a select bibliography, and a chronology of major events (in- cluding some library developments). This book is far better than the sort of celebratory exercise that frequently ac- companies major institutional anniver- saries. If it is also less than it could have been, it is nonetheless a good and useful compilation of studies on science at one of America's oldest and most influential institutions.- Ed Morman, Institute of the History of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Idea of the Univer- sity: A Reexamination. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Pr., 1992. 238 p. (ISBN 0-300-05725-3). LC 92-2928. John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University is the most famous sustained commentary on the nature, purpose, and function of the modern academic institu- tion. But Newman's book was occa- sioned by an ambitious undertaking that ended in failure. The Catholic University oflreland that he founded and led struck no roots in the parochial world of nineteenth century Dublin, and it took two further foundings to give the idea of a university a lasting footing on that soil. Jaroslav Pelikan's essay follows New- man so closely that the CIP information identifies it as "a commentary on" New- man's book. For all that, it is the most serious, sustained, and thoughtful essay in this vein to appear in many years. Every aspect of the intellectual mission of the university is addressed in a series of thoughtful chapters, while other non- academic obsessions (dormitory life, athletics, for example) are left aside. Pelikan ha!? been professor at Yale for a quarter century and graduate dean for a substantial term during that time, but his book is not deformed by an administra- tor's preoccupations· and penchants. He is pragmatic but substantial, con- cerned to help us academics think our way into the future with a rigorous sense of our past and a sharp sense of the difference between what is essential and what is accidental about the institu- tion's structures. A further irony occurs in this book's appearance in the spring of 1992, a time when the affairs of Pelikan's own uni- versity had been shaken by controversy that led to the downfall of the president, provost, and two senior deans, all in a matter of weeks. Is it quite fair that so thoughtful and balanced a book about the idea of the university should be al- ready nearly swamped by the troubles of the real, tangible university that gave it birth? Pelikan is a major historian of Chris- tian thought and the author of a magis- terial five-volume series, The Christian Tradition. Intellectually, he is a centrist and a moderate: many readers will share that position, but it puts him in the tradi- tion that has unconsciously tended to make of the university the church of the unchurched. Pelikan . himself confesses this: "Because I have been disappointed Book Reviews 575 While other publications gather dust, ours gather readers ... Publications that gather dust on a library shelf are the stuff that canceled subscriptions are made of. But then librarians tell us time and time again that the CQ Weekly Report is the one- stop resource for all their questions about Congress and national affairs. The Weekly Report is an essential part of any reference collection or government documents department. It crystallizes the key issues bef9re Congress, gives patrons readable bill summaries and Supreme Court decisions, offers the texts of presidential speeches and news conferences, and out- lines the results of key votes. Your library subscription also includes useful wall posters, special reports, and that sought -after reference- the CQ Almanac. By now you should be getting the picture. The CQ Weekly Report is more than a magazine. It's the publication of record. Your patrons' ticket to following Congress. Find out how you can subscribe and leave others in the dust. Call Gigi Perkinson toll-free at 1 (800) 432- 2250ext. 279. ~ In Washington, ~ D.C. call .., 887-6279. -.,;"" ~~ rc::l ;;~ .. ~ ~~~ L---~--------------------------------------------------~--------------~ 576 College & Research Libraries so often in institutional Christendom and because, by contrast, the university has been for almost half a century the chief repository of truth and the commu- nity of wisdom to me personally ... I have sometimes been in danger of re- garding it as the embodiment of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church af- firmed in the Nicene Creed." He goes on to say that of course it is not that; but the analogy is important and determinative in much of our educational tradition. A short review cannot engage a book of this depth and richness on all points. Perhaps it will suffice here to comment briefly on the chapter devoted to the cen- tral position in the university of the li- brary, whose function Pelikan quotes Newman as calling "the embalming of dead genius." Pelikan takes a high view of the institution's function as under- taker: "This vocation of preserving the common memory represents a moral ob- ligation for the ethos and the curriculum of every school and department of the university." To speak of "obligation" blurs the fact that this view of education as cumulative and texts as the pre-emi- nent repository of the common memory is a contingent choice, depending on the available technology and the predilec- tions of the culture. I know no university library that regards its function as embrac- ing that part of the common memory now contained on film, video and audiotape to the degree that it attempts to comprehend the range of printed memory sources. So Pelikan is often more retrospective than prospective. He makes no mention in his library chapter of electronic storage and retrieval, and his only allusion to the technology elsewhere is cautious to the point of aversion: "There is no guarantee that the university will not, as it has all too often in the past, permit itself to be corrupted also in the cultivation of this technology." Here, as elsewhere, Pelikan avoids, or floats above, controversy and his recommendations are mainstream and unremarkable. He cherishes libraries, and in particular their special collections, and he commends others to do likewise. This book's value lies in the firm footing he places under our prejudices. November 1992 While sharing much of Pelikan's love of the past, the books of the past, and the glorious institutions that house them, I cannot help but be brought up short by the language in which he speaks of his own ambitions and inadequacies: "I must confess that I am, to an alarming extent, a bibliographical autodidact. I did not learn about many of the standard manuals in my fields from my professors in seminars or lectures or libraries but more or less had to stumble upon these reference works myself. And in some cases, to my acute embarrassment, I have learned about such guides only de- cades after completing graduate study." Yes, it seems as though the library is the systematic repository of everything there is to know, and as though the right catalog, the right index, the right stan- dard handbook will reduce all that pol- ymorphous buzz of information to an order serene and divine. The scholar then will be a tranquil master of the Glass Bead Game, playing a kind of chess with the texts of the past, to com- pelling if perhaps slightly sterile results. But is it not better to imagine the li- brary as a kind of Wild West frontier, and graduate school as wilderness survival training? Our catalogs and indices are in fact more like the maps of Ptolemy's time, wild approximations at best, than the satellite-generated correct-to-within-fifty- meters wonders of our day. If I knew all the man~als and guides in my field, and knew that I knew them all, I think I would be in grave danger. Our libraries need all the serenity and order they can get precisely because they are in fact raging waterspouts of words. We who use them must grab what life preservers we can and swim for it. And what is true of libraries in this way is true of universities. The final risk that high mandarin dissection of the in- stitution runs is that the liveliness and diversity of the place and its capacity to change and effect change are sacrificed in the name of the quest for order. It would be churlish to greet this book, so very much better than so many others in the same vein, with anything less than a grateful and thoughtful respect. But it is also a book that demands to be argued with, doubted, and wrestled with: for indeed, that kind of greeting is the highest form of respect that a university can, or at least should, condition us to offer our most learned colleagues.- James J. O'Donnell, University of Pennsyl- vania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. SHORT NOTICES Educating Black Librarians: Papers from the 50th Anniversary Celebra- tion of the School of Library and In- formation Sciences, North Carolina Central University. Ed. by Benjamin F. Speller, Jr., Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1991. 158 p. alk. paper, $28.50 (ISBN 0- 89950-574-0). LC 90-53526. The title of this collection of sixteen papers conveys the significance of the occasion that brought it forth. The title does not, however, convey the scope of this work, which is the ongoing struggle of African Americans for equal opportu- nity and status in the professions gener- ally, and in librarianship in particular. Especially informative are E. J. Jossey (''The Role of the Black Library and In- formation Professional in the Informa- tion Society: Myths and Realities"), Joyce C. Wright and Margaret Myers in two papers on issues relating to minority employment in libraries, and Kathryn C. Stevenson on the remarkable career of Annette Lewis Phinazee, the first woman and the first African American to get a Ph.D. in Library Science at Colum- bia. This volume is a timely reminder of the ways in which libraries share the legacy of American racism, and it con- veys a sense of the will and energy of those who have committed themselves to overcoming it. (Stephen Lehmann) University and Society: Essays on the Social Role of Research and Higher Education. Ed. by Martin Trow and Thorsten Nybom. London: Jessica Kingsley, 1991. 251 p. $60 (ISBN 1- 85302-525-9). The volume is, in effect, a Festschrift for Eskil Bjorklund, retiring director of the Re- search on Higher Education Program at the Swedish National Board of Universities Book Reviews 577 ... And even more readers. just like the CQ Weekly Report mentioned a couple of pages back, The CQ Researcher has its own loyal followers to ensure it never gathers dust on the shelf. Each week, The CQ Researcher takes a topic of controversial or current interest and gives its readers a thorough and objective immersion- the background, chronologies, facts, pros and cons, and outlook. Topics like 'Sexual Harassment,' 'Youth Gangs,' 'Nuclear Proliferation,' 'Garbage Crisis,' 'Gene Therapy,'- current issues that normally defy easy, one-stop research. The CQ Researcher guides the reader with crystal-clear explanations, easy-to- apply graphics, and bibliographies that invite rather than inhibit further research for even the most reluctant student. Find out how you can subscribe to The CQ Researcher and leave others in the dust. Call Gigi Perkinson toll-free at l (800) 432-2250 ext. 279. In Washington, D.C. call 887-6279. ~ ~ ,¢\ct:~ \~'\~ -:>~ ~~;::;:~::=:~~;. ,, ~ II II ~- -/~- --~. c \ < .............. ..,.·.,... ....... ~, ~ ...... ·~ Q ~~-"t ~