College and Research Libraries


552 College &: Research Libraries 

brary literature) contribute some re-
freshing twists. For example, the belief 
that the traditional library was apoliti-
cal is exposed as an illusion. Similarly, 
concepts such as democracy, freedom, 
equality, and neutrality are shown to be 
contested concepts rather than timeless 
truths-a point made through an amus-
ing comparison of the hacker's ethic of 
free access to all information and the 
only slightly less sweeping claims of the 
American Library Association. Apropos 
of a discussion of gender and librarian-
ship (women do not fare well in the in-
formation age), the authors cite a study 
that "documents the way that men have 
always defined women's ideas as 'un-
original,' thus legitimizing the exclusion 
of women from the upper ranks of the 
class system of the intellect." 

The book concludes with a prolego-
menon "to Library and Information 
Services in the Post-Industrial Era," in 
which the authors offer their own sug-
gestions. This is the most disappointing 
part of an otherwise excellent book. 
Rather than actually taking positions, 
Harris and Hannah merely continue to 
set the stage for the formation of posi-
tions. They remind librarians that capi-
talism is dynamic by nature, and that 
change is inevitable. They advise us to 
acknowledge that the paradigm of li-
brary services "for the public good" is in 
eclipse-advice that may have .already 
been superseded by the "politics of 
meaning" of the 1990s. Their call for a 
"commitment to arguing well" and a 
"struggle to establish a consensus" post-
pones commitment to actual choices. We 
will have to make those choices our-
selves, of course, but at least we have 
been given a new way of thinking about 
them.-fean Alexander, Northwestern Uni-
versity, Evanston, Illinois. 

Towner, Lawrence W. Past Imperfect: Es-
says on History, Libraries, and the 
Humanities. Ed. by Robert W. Karrow, 
Jr., and Alfred F. Young. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1993. 298p. 
alk. paper, $25 (ISBN 0-226-81042-9). 
Lawrence "Bill" Towner was for 

twenty-four years the director of the 

November 1993 

Newberry Library, one of the nation's 
most prestigious independent research 
libraries. This collection of Towner's 
writings, some previously unpublished, 
includes articles, essays, and speeches 
given on a variety of occasions. Pub-
lished to mark his seventieth birthday, 
they are meant to define "the man and 
his vision" -to give us something of the 
flavor of the individual and to document 
his achievements as a historian, librar-
ian, and spokesman for the humanities. 

This volume is likely to be of greatest 
interest to librarians for an uncommon 
view of a visionary leader's personality 
and the library he shaped. The public 
Towner emerges as a man of great erudi-
tion, charm, coherence of vision, definite 
purpose, and adaptability, and he ap-
pears as someone capable of doing a 
great many different things-exemplary 
historical research, planning, adminis-
tering, testifying before committees, cul-
tivating mentors and donors-and using 
the appropriate rhetorical strategies for 
each occasion. 

Towner's career as a historian was 
perhaps too brief to be truly distin-
guished, but his experience as a re-
searcher had a distinct influence on 
some of the projects he undertook and 
promoted as a librarian. His interest in 
primary documents was reflected later 
when, as a librarian, he sponsored 
definitive editions of major American 

· political figures and the microfilming of 
large bodies of documents. His convic-
tions as a liberal historian of the progres-
sive school and his interest in social 
contexts were evident in his own re-
search, which focused on the behavior of 
marginal groups in colonial America-
slaves, indentured servants, apprentices, 
and criminals. This interest in "democra-
tizing'' research is also apparent in his 
vigorous attempts to broaden access to the 
Newberry's beyond-the-usual clientele 
of university-affiliated scholars. 

Towner's role as an articulate and 
forceful spokesman for the humanities 
also sheds an interesting light on his 
career as a librarian. This role is docu-
mented chiefly by his support of the 
National Endowment for the Humani-



ties and in the development of its fund-
ing priorities. Towner's championship 
of the NEH enabled libraries such as the 
Newberry to have access to public fund-
ing for the first time. 

Towner may have been a very good 
scholar but he also turned out to be an 
exceptional administrator. Perhaps the 
most interesting article in this collection 
is a 1971 planning report internal to the 
Newberry entitled "A Plan for the 
Newberry Library," in which he de-
scribed his vision of theN ewberry' s role. 
Towner viewed the library as one of 
"several varieties of educational institu-
tions-museums, colleges, universities, 
academies, institutes, and independent 
libraries-all sharing a common objec-
tive. That objective is the enlargement of 
mankind's knowledge and the sharing 
of that knowledge with as large an 
audience as is practical for the kind of 
institution it is." For Towner, the library 
was an educational institution among 
others, not a mass of materials passively 
awaiting the attention of scholars. He 
promoted the planned use of the 
Newberry by introducing the Newberry 
Library Seminar in the Humanities. Ulti-
mately, by making the library the site of 
the Northwestern-Newberry editions of 
the writings of Herman Melville and the 
Atlas of American History, and by creating 
the Center for the History of Cartogra-
phy, he insured that the "uncommon col-
lection of collections" at the Newberry 
would be utilized by specialists, and he 
brought to the library a community of 
scholars, some for short residences, 
others for permanent stays. 

His plans as outlined in 1971 were 
grand-no less than creating an Institute 
for Advanced Study in History and the 
Humanities. Though the institute did 
not come to be, the Newberry added 
other "centers," such as the Center for 
the History of the American Indian, the 
Center for Family and Community His-
tory Center, and the Center for Renais-
sance Studies. He developed an active 
publication program, found grants to 
bring in scholars, and broadened access 
to the collection. The Newberry insti-
tuted one of the first in-house preserva-

Book Reviews 553 

tion laboratories, in which many librari-
ans received their training. The library's 
collection also grew through judicious 
sales and purchases, a complex process 
described in a fascinating essay, "Every 
Silver Lining Has a Cloud: The Recent 
Shaping of the Newberry Library's Col-
lections." 

How did Towner manage to pay for all 
this? The editors diplomatically re-

• moved from the 1971 planning docu-
ment Towner's list of potential funding 
sources, so we are left to guess about 
where the money came from. In the early 
days, it seems to have come from 
wealthy donors. Foundations also sup-
ported the Newberry's projects. Where 
sources of funding did not exist, Towner 
helped create them. He was instrumen-
tal in the creation of the NEH, which 
later was a source of funding for many 
of the Newberry's projects. Perhaps to 
his own surprise, Bill Towner turned out 
to be as much of an entrepreneur as a 
historian. 

The most recent essay in the collection 
dates from 1983, and, in a way, the library 
world Towner describes seems old -fash-
ioned and remote. Though preservation 
and security problems preoccupied 
Towner, he never mentions automation 
and its attendant benefits and problems. 
His essays on the Newberry, however, 
are well worth reading, not so much for 
solutions to concrete problems as for the 
alternative vision of the library which 
they offer and for the verve and initiative 
below the surface of the controlled prose 
and the formulaic structure of some of 
the pieces.-Eva Sartori, University of Ne-
braska-Lincoln, Lincoln. 

Teaching Bibliographic Skills in His-
tory: A Sourcebook for Historians and 
Librarians. Ed. by Charles A. D' Aniello. 
Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1993. 
385p. $65 (ISBN 0-313-25266-1). 
The animating principle behind this 

work is to gather together material for 
the building of a bibliographic instruc-
tion course in history, but it is pitched to 
too many audiences and is written on too 
many different levels to be effective. It is 
also intended to bring together in one