500 College & Research Libraries September 2010

works on French publishing history. He 
has also served as a trustee of the New 
York Public library and, early in his career, 
as a reporter for The New York Times. As 
a scholar, author, and reporter, Darnton 
brought an impressive, well-rounded un-
derstanding of traditional print publish-
ing to the negotiating table with Google. 

Given this intimate personal and pro-
fessional history with what he calls “e-
books and old books,” Darnton brings in-
teresting insights to this discussion of the 
role of print and electronic media in the 
present and future. “Far from deploring 
electronic modes of communication,” he 
states that his goal is to “explore the pos-
sibilities of aligning them with the power 
that Johannes Gutenberg unleashed more 
than five centuries ago. What common 
ground exists between old books and 
e-books? What mutual advantages link 
libraries with the Internet?” Darnton’s 
grappling with these questions is the 
subject of this lively and highly readable 
collection. 

As the subtitle suggests, the book is 
divided into three sections: Past, Present, 
and Future, containing a total of eleven 
essays. It’s really a compact anthology of 
Darnton’s thoughts on the modern state 
of the codex, as all the essays were previ-
ously published between 1999 and 2009, 
mostly in the New York Review of Books 
and the Chronicle of Higher Education. The 
content has been revised and edited for 
this volume. 

Darnton covers a range of topics. He 
provides an overview of the “information 
landscape,” drawing on his background 

as a journalist and researcher to place 
the creation and “stability” of informa-
tion into historic context. He discusses 
the significant merits and shortcomings 
of Google’s book digitization project and 
discusses the role of the library in the 
electronic information age. He writes 
about other electronic publishing efforts, 
particularly the American Historical 
Association’s Gutenberg-e project and 
the role of the monograph in the tenure 
process. 

In one essay, he takes on Nicholson 
Baker ’s controversial Double Fold, ad-
dressing each of Baker ’s main points, 
noting that Baker’s text “should be read 
as a journalistic jeremiad rather than a 
balanced account of library history over 
the last fifty years.” Other essays address 
the importance of descriptive bibliogra-
phy and the “heretical” work of Donald 
F. McKenzie, the love of reading and 
the work of seventeenth century British 
bibliophile William Drake, as well as the 
book’s closing essay, the appropriately 
titled “What Is the History of Books?” 

Through it all, Darnton holds true to 
his own love of books, be they electronic 
texts or eighteenth-century French tomes, 
and invites us to share his enthusiasm 
through a series of reasoned, thoughtful 
essays. Any librarian with a love of book 
history or concerns about the future of the 
profession will find much to agree with, 
and much to debate, in this well-written 
volume.—Gene Hyde, Radford University.

Thomas A. Peters. Library Programs 
Online: Possibilities and Practicalities 
of Web Conferencing. Santa Barbara, 
Calif.: Libraries Unlimited, 2009. 159p. 
alk. paper, $40 (ISBN 9781591583493). 
LC2009-027036.

The ways we communicate have changed 
drastically in the last decade. The tradi-
tional in-person, written, and telephone 
communications are now complemented 
by a host of new technologies such as 
smartphones, computers, laptops and 
netBooks. Geographic boundaries and 
time itself are much less significant bar-

Index to advertisers
Annual Reviews 399
Archival Products 466
CHOICE 400
EBSCO cover 2
ISTE 434
Modern Language Assoc. cover 4
Palgrave cover 3
World Scientific Publishing 402-403



Book Reviews 501

riers, and Web conferencing resources 
constitute yet another technology that 
stands to push the limits of communica-
tion further. 

Library Programs Online is a practical 
guide for those involved with implement-
ing online library program services, and 
it is written toward the newly appointed 
managers. It explores a wide range of 
ways that libraries can use this technol-
ogy for live group events, prerecorded 
programs and podcasts, and previously 
recorded archived events. 

Although this book is geared toward 
public and academic libraries, the general 
concepts it covers are applicable to any-
one who deals with Web conferencing 
tools. Several of the topics and examples 
in this book derive from the years of expe-
rience the author has had while working 
with public libraries and Online Programs 
for All (OPAL). 

The author, Thomas A. Peters, lays a 
solid foundation for how to successfully 
and efficiently use online Web conferenc-
ing resources. The chapters are logically 
structured, beginning with the basics of 
human communication and the ways in 
which technology has changed traditional 
modes of interaction. Chapters 1 and 2 
introduce the reader to Web conferenc-
ing and provide glimpses into working 
online library programming services. The 
following nine chapters deal with the nuts 
and bolts of these tools. 

Chapter 3 examines the basic process 
of developing online public programs. It 
includes useful tips for assessing the user 
interface and how to decide on the most 
appropriate types of presentation deliv-
ery mechanism (interviews, open discus-
sions, single-person lectures, and panel 
discussions). A list of eleven common 
Web conferencing systems is provided, 
which combines, but does not specify, free 
and proprietary systems. It also covers 
governing and management strategies for 
single and multiorganization programs. 

Chapter 4, entitled “Web Conferencing 
Systems,” delves into the different types 
of library-related conferencing software 

that one will currently find on the mar-
ket. This chapter is very handy to get ac-
quainted with the unique characteristics, 
tools, capabilities, important criteria for 
selecting platforms, and pitfalls to avoid. 
The downfall is that it does not provide 
specific system names as examples, so the 
reader is left guessing which is free and 
which costs money. 

Chapter 5 serves as a short checklist of 
things to consider for training, orienta-
tion, and required support. It addresses 
the important aspects of preparing speak-
ers as well as participants for programs. 
Chapter 6 covers the traditional topics of 
how to promote and market your pro-
grams, and chapter 7 debates the pros 
and cons of one-shot programs versus 
multiday programs. 

Chapter 8 discusses the various options 
to consider when recording, archiving, 
and podcasting. This chapter deals with 
important issues such as copyright, col-
lection development and maintenance, 
and preservation of digital documents 
associated with the online programs. It 
also touches on postrecording editing. 

Chapter 9 gives useful advice on how 
to obtain and evaluate each aspect of an 
online program: individual programs, 
speakers, efficacy of the technology, pro-
gram formats, attendee demographics, 
and attendee perceptions of the program. 
It ties all of these evaluation methods to-
gether into a more comprehensive evalu-
ation of the entire online program service. 

Chapter 10 outlines some of the main 
issues that surround online programs. 
This section compiles common issues 
brought up about online services and 
resources, such as arguments against 
online library events, in-person versus 
online conferences, collaboration among 
institutions, and sustainability issues. The 
last chapter takes a cursory look into the 
future of Web conferencing, how its use 
continues to evolve as a common method 
for public service and professional use. 

Overall, this book will be useful 
for those who work with Web con-
ferencing resources, and especially 



502 College & Research Libraries September 2010

t o  t h o s e  w h o  a r e  d e ve l o p i n g  a n y 
type of online library programming. 
—John Repplinger, Willamette University. 

Mirjam M. Foot. The Henry Davis Gift: A 
Collection of Bookbindings. Volume III: A 
Catalogue of South-European Bindings. 
London and New Castle, Del.: The 
British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 
2010. 527p. $125 ISBN: 9780712350549 
(British Library) and 9781584562726 
(Oak Knoll). LC80510312.

It is good to see volume three of Mirjam 
Foot’s excellent contribution to the his-
tory of bookbindings. With it, one of our 
foremost scholars in the field brings to 
a conclusion a project that began more 
than thirty years ago. When Henry Da-
vis deeded his spectacular collection of 
bindings to the then–British Museum 
in 1968, the latter acquired an extraor-
dinary array of specimens from the 12th 
through the mid-20th century. In 1978, 
Foot, who served for many years as Di-
rector of Collections and Preservation in 
the British Library, brought out volume I 
of her planned three-volume set. It was 
titled Studies in the History of Bookbinding, 
and it consisted of a remarkable series 
of short pieces on individual bindings, 
binders, and patrons in the collection. 
For it, Foot chose “those bindings which 
have not previously been the object of 
detailed study or about which new facts 
can be told.” With volume II in 1983, Foot 
brought out the first installment of her 
catalogue proper of the collection, and it 
immediately became a standard reference 
work in the field. As A Catalogue of North-
European Bindings, volume II comprised 
short descriptive entries organized by 
country and accompanied by full-page 
illustrations of most of the bindings.

Volume III takes, for its turf, bind-
ings in the Davis gift from France, Italy, 
Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland (with a 
few outliers from exotic spots like New 
York and Mexico). While the general 

format conforms to that of volume II, in-
dividual entries are more generous, with 
the author paying much more attention 
to structural and decorative features. For 
practitioners as well as scholars, Foot’s 
careful descriptions of binding structures 
will be enormously useful. Indeed, if you 
compare the individual entries in volume 
III with those found in the online British 
Library Database of Bookbindings, you 
will immediately appreciate the value of 
the printed text. While the database has 
many winning features and is a breeze 
to use, it does not carry over the rich tex-
tual descriptions that Foot prepared for 
the present volume. (Perhaps they will 
be added at some point in the future.) 
Each entry contains discrete sections on 
provenance, references, and literature, 
supplemented as appropriate with 
separate notes on tools, decorations, and 
relationships to other described bind-
ings. The only regret I have about this 
volume (as well as about the first two) 
is that illustrations are not in color. I am 
sure that there are good reasons for that 
choice, but it would have been better had 
even a selection been reproduced in color. 
Happily, to get the color versions, you 
can go conveniently to the BL Database 
of Bookbindings.

The Davis collection gathers together 
choice bindings from the high end of 
the trade, and Foot makes clear in her 
introduction that one should not draw 
sweeping conclusions from them. That 
said, there is a wealth of information to 
assimilate here, and it will take years 
for scholars and curators to absorb the 
richness of Foot’s commanding work. 
Few have done more than Foot over her 
distinguished career to make the case for 
the importance of the history of bookbind-
ing to bibliography and the history of the 
book in general. As the capstone of her 
Davis project, the present volume will re-
main an essential and enduring reference 
tool.—Michael Ryan, Columbia University.