reviews.indd


Book Reviews 

Bobinski, George S. Libraries and Li-
brarianship: Sixty Years of Challenge 
and Change, 1945–2005. Lanham, Md.: 
Scarecrow Press, 2007. 205p. alk. 
paper, $40 (ISBN: 0810858992). LC 
2006-33503. 

From serving as a page at the Fleet Branch 
of the Cleveland Public Library to direct-
ing academic libraries, to teaching and 
administration in library and information 
science education, George S. Bobinski was 
in the midst of challenges and changes 
that shaped and reshaped the world of 
libraries and librarianship from 1945 to 
2005. His Libraries and Librarianship: Sixty 
Years of Challenge and Change, 1945–2005 
is, in one light, a memoir of how he was 
affected by his unique experiences as a 
librarian, but it is also an overview of a 
significant portion of American library 
history to which his contemporaries can 
relate from having shared the transforma-
tion and from which new librarians can 
view trends, draw conclusions, and learn 
how to plan for the future.

 Chapter one, “Changes in the Core,” 
demonstrates how library technology has 
affected and diversified the formats of 
information available in libraries and how 
it has in turn affected the organization 
and reorganization of library information 
sources, reference services, and library 
management. 

 Chapter two, “Types of Libraries,” 
describes the transformations that have 
occurred in public libraries, school library 
media centers, academic libraries, and 
special libraries generally, and those in 
the Library of Congress specifi cally; and 
discusses the establishment and growth 
of Presidential Libraries and the growth 
of state library agencies.

 Chapter three, “Library Cooperation: 
Systems, Consortia, and Networks,” 
summarizes the growth of cooperative 
and collaborative systems, consortia, and 
networks for sharing library resources 

across physical and political 
boundaries.

 Chapter four, “Federal 
Funding, Philanthropy, and 
the Council on Library and 
Information Resources,” dis-
cusses how these three enti-
ties have transformed libraries through 
federal and state grants, and private gifts 
from foundations and individuals.

 Chapter fi ve, “Library Associations, 
Intellectual Freedom, and International 
Relations,” highlights the role of the 
American Library Association in fostering 
multiculturalism and international rela-
tions within a framework of intellectual 
freedom.

 Chapter six, “Gender and Ethnicity,” 
emphasizes the progress made by the 
library profession in issues of pay equity 
for women and employment of ethnic 
and minority librarians, all in the context 
that constant vigilance and support are 
still needed. 

 Chapter seven, “Library Buildings 
and Preservation,” looks at innovations 
in library architecture and library pres-
ervation methods, particularly the digital 
revolution.

 Chapter eight, “Library and Infor-
mation Science Education and Library 
Literature,” chronicles the growth and 
application of standards for library educa-
tion at the master’s level.

 Chapter nine, “Prominent Leaders in 
the Field of Libraries and Librarianship,” 
consists of a listing of over 100 prominent 
leaders who distinguished themselves 
during the period covered by this book in 
the fields of academic, school, public, and 
special librarianship, including law, medi-
cal, and music librarianship. Bobinski’s 
caveat is that there were many others 
who made important contributions than 
just those listed.

 In Chapter ten, “Summary and Con-
clusion,” Bobinski summarizes major 

458 



events and developments in the same 
areas discussed in the chapters and dis-
cusses current challenges and the future 
status of libraries and librarianship. 

An appendix consisting of three 
chronologies, each covering the period 
from 1944, the end of World War II, to 
2005—the first, of signifi cant historical 
events; the second, of technological ad-
vances affecting libraries; and the third, 
of developments in libraries and librari-
anship—elucidates the text. The book 
concludes with a bibliography of works, 
most of which are mentioned in the text, 
and a thorough subject and personal 
name index. 

 Bobinski’s work will serve generations 
of library historians and library students 
as a concise blending of facts and personal 
insights into American library history 
in the last half of the twentieth century 
and at the turn of the twenty-fi rst cen-
tury.—Plummer Alston “Al” Jones, Jr., East 
Carolina University. 

Brogan, Martha. Contexts and Contribu-
tions: Building the Distributed Library. 
Washington, D.C.: Digital Library 
Federation, 2006. 282p. alk. paper, $35 
(ISBN 9781933645339). LC 2006-22847. 
Also available online at http://purl. 
oclc.org/DLF/pubs/dlf106. 

The creation of a worldwide network of 
interoperable digital libraries has been 
the shared objective of many individuals 
working at the cutting edge of librarian-
ship over the last decade. Great strides 
toward this end have been made and 
advances are occurring at an ever-in-
creasing pace, but there is much left to be 
accomplished before this lofty goal can 
be realized. Martha L. Brogan’s Contexts 
and Contributions: Building the Distributed 
Library is an impressive overview of the 
latest developments toward this ambi-
tious objective. 

A follow-up to a 2003 survey of digital 
library aggregation services, Contexts and 
Contributions is the latest in a series of 
works sponsored by the Digital Library 
Federation (DLF) that uses the Open 

Book Reviews 459 

Archives Initiative Protocol for Meta-
data Harvesting (OAI-PMH) as a lens 
with which to focus and drive the de-
velopment of this interconnected digital 
library network. OAI-PMH is a system 
by which repositories can share catalog-
ing-style data about local digital objects 
(e-publications, theses, photographs, 
manuscript finding aids, and so on) with 
other “aggregating institutions” through 
the use of Web-based “harvesters,” thus 
centralizing access to information that is 
usually widely dispersed. 

As suggested by the title, this work 
investigates the context or “ecosystem” 
of scholarly communications and digital 
libraries, and then illustrates how various 
digital library aggregation services (the 
“contributions” of the title) have adapted 
to best thrive and serve their users in the 
ever-changing digital world. Informa-
tion about these “contributions” make 
up the bulk of the book and are based 
upon survey responses gathered during 
the fall of 2005. The author focuses on a 
core of forty of these services to illustrate 
the “purpose, functions, and challenges 
of next generation aggregation services,” 
before closing with a summary of “next 
generation service characteristics.”

 While not written for the digital 
library beginner, this broad sweep of 
the field could be used by those new 
to digital library concepts to identify 
major issues, players, and projects that 
could be investigated further in other 
resources. The author provides an ex-
tensive bibliography to help with just 
this sort of endeavor. At the same time, 
she also manages to provide those more 
familiar with digital library concepts 
ample fodder for the creation of their own 
analyses, while refraining from revealing 
what it all means and where it is all go-
ing—probably because there is no way 
of making such a forecast at this point, 
scholarly or otherwise. The analysis that 
Brogan does employ is subtle and inher-
ent in the structure of her description of 
the maturing digital library. She does see 
the role of institutional repositories (IR)