Book Reviews 101 upon how his strategies and recommenda- tions might be different for different types of library systems. For example, the goals, missions, and user groups are different for a public library than they are for an academic library. Still, some of Huber’s ideas are very controversial and thought provoking. Strategy 10, for instance, dis- cusses alternatives to traditional selectors for collection development. Regardless of whether a reader embraces all of the ideas Huber presents, I think his book will motivate readers to challenge the way they do things in their libraries. Huber points out that, for a library system to implement Lean strategies, the library must embrace Lean concepts from both the top down and bottom up. There- fore, a diversity of library employees from across the workplace hierarchy would benefit from reading this book. Primar- ily, however, I think this book would be of interest to senior library employees in decision-making positions. If a library system is undergoing change to become Lean, I would recommend that staff in that library system read this book as well to help explain to staff what changes are expected and to elicit bottom-up input to augment the change process.—Nicole Nolan, The University of Western Ontario. William S. Peterson and Sylvia Holton Peterson. The Kelmscott Chaucer: A Census. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2011. 272p. alk. paper, $95.00 (ISBN 9781584562894). LC2011-003557. For nearly three decades, Prof. William Peterson has been one of our best and sur- est guides to William Morris and his Kelm- scott Press. Now he has partnered with his wife, Sylvia Holton Peterson, to give us the “other” project they had quietly been working on while doing research for earlier monographs, a census of known ex- tant copies of the Kelmscott Chaucer (KC). And what a census this is! If you have any doubts about the iconic status of William Morris’s chef d’oeuvre, this extraordinary volume will put them all to rest. With this book, Morris’s Chaucer joins the ranks of the Gutenberg Bible and Shakespeare’s First Folio as deserving of a census all its own. But no mere census this. Rather, this dense, detailed, elaborate, and altogether remarkable achievement is nothing less than a fundamental contribution to very late 19th- and 20th century book history. Scholars as well as librarians and cura- tors will want to make its acquaintance. The Petersons have at last shared with us all of their notecards, diaries, databases, and spreadsheets spanning more than thirty years of labor. This book is a fitting capstone to a long and productive career. First, the taxonomy. The core of the cen- sus comprises two meaty chapters: one devoted to the vellum copies of the KC, the other to the paper, and both according to the same layout. The latter consists of: present location; binding notes; detailed provenance notes; biographical capsules of principal owners along the way; and side notes with full bibliographic infor- mation. Photos of many of the collectors are a welcome bonus. In addition, there is a remarkable trove of supplementary detail, arrayed over three chapters: un- located copies; a seemingly exhaustive listing of all dealer and auction catalogues in which the KC has appeared over the years; and an alphabetical listing of all known binders who have contributed to the KC, together with substantial back- ground and bibliographic notes. Finally, three appendices share with us some of the most useful source material that un- dergirds the census: the sales ledger of Bernard Quaritch recording the more than one hundred copies of the KC sold before publication; the mailing list for the Kelm- scott Press (now in the Morgan Library); and a detailed listing of the more useful pieces of correspondence from Sydney Cockerell to various collectors of the KC in the early 20th century (much of which is at the Grolier Club and has been edited and published). In short, all one might ever want to know about the fortunes of the KC, and more, is here. This dry summary, however, does not begin to do justice to the richness of this 102 College & Research Libraries January 2012 census as a contribution to book history. The KC was born a collector’s book, and it has remained so for over a century. This is what makes it such an interesting series of case studies in book history. And it is what makes this census so valuable. Peterson is not interested here in the making of the KC, but rather in its afterlife: its myriad pathways through the book trade. Since the vast majority of vellum and paper copies of the KC have been institional- ized, those fascinating stories have largely ended, but there are many available for the harvesting, chiefly from the pre-WW II period. It will probably come as no surprise that most of the extant copies of the KC repose in U.S. libraries (more than 175), but what is interesting is to see just how quickly the U.S. market responded to the lure of the book. American collectors were there from the start, astutely primed by their principal supplier, Bernard Quaritch. Indeed, it is probably the case that most of the U.S. cache of KCs were initially acquired by collectors before the Depression. The book was, from the beginning, a staple of the trade. And in reading through some of Sydney Cock- erell’s correspondence with American collectors, one gets a fairly vivid picture of how quickly and deeply the Arts & Crafts movement rooted across the pond. Thus, it is not uncommon for institu- tions to have more than one copy of the KC. Yale is the leader here, with six copies, one of which is on vellum. The state of Texas contains within its borders at least twelve copies, with five each at SMU in Dallas and the HRC in Austin, both of which have a vellum copy. Berkeley, Princeton, and Cambridge each hold four copies. And there are (at least for this reviewer) some initial surprises. Carnegie Mellon holds as many copies as the Morgan Library (three), though one of the Morgan’s copies is on vellum. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and the Multnomah County Library in Portland, Oregon, each have a copy. And Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has his very own vellum copy. In the 1980s, copies of the KC began moving to Japan in such quantities that Japan now ranks third on the sweeps list after the United States and the United Kingdom. Space limitations do not allow me to do anything but hint at the stories and anecdotes tucked away in this book. So, let me give you a few from the author’s own summary of the various fortunes of copies of the KC: W. B. Yeats … kept his “Chaucer” on a painted lectern between two candlesticks …Howard Storrs, a Florida newspaper editor/publisher, left his copy on the floor next to a Linotype machine for an entire year until he had fully paid for it …One famous collector of the “Chaucer” was married to an exotic dancer …A copy in Australia was allegedly bartered for several weeks’ lodging …And a copy at Yale was said to have been used as a doorstop…. This remarkable volume should be a key source book for anyone interested in “reception history” in the 20th century. It repays many visits.—Michael Ryan, Columbia University. P.J.M. Marks. Beautiful Bookbindings: A Thousand Years of the Bookbinder’s Art. New Castle, Del.: The British Library and Oak Knoll Press, 2011. 192p. alk. paper, $49.95 (ISBN 9781584562931). LC 2011-016079. P.J.M. Marks is Curator of Western Book- bindings at the British Library. This is her third book, and it has been published by the British Library in collaboration with Oak Knoll Press. Beautiful Bookbindings is precisely what it claims to be: a lavishly illustrated survey of the most beautiful examples of bookbindings created over the last 1,000 years. Marks states that bookbinding has been overlooked as an art form, and she believes that instead it is often regarded purely for its practical function. This book is her attempt to rectify that situation. The bindings she includes are all drawn from the British Library’s collections, selected by members of the staff according to their per- sonal aesthetic preferences but nonetheless