608 College & Research Libraries November 2012 began working with other practitioners on development of a bank of assessment measures for a U.K. student population. The anthology is clearly intended for a U.K. audience, as evidenced in context- specific terminology and in the institu- tional constraints and opportunities de- scribed. However, in the spirit of its own transnational discourse, international readers may find both inspiration and practical resources in its pages. The case-study format for many of these reports ensures that readers are able to get a clear sense of the specific initiatives studied and conceptualize how certain elements might be adapted to new contexts. Librarians interested in 21st-century teaching practices and their application within library instruction will glean a great deal from Chris Wakeman’s discussion of active learning pedagogies, a topic that arises elsewhere in the collec- tion as well. Several of the authors discuss IL assessment efforts, providing detailed information for anyone considering such issues in their own institutions. Two great examples are Keith Puttick’s article about embedding IL requirements within a law school curriculum, and Katharine Reddy’s and Kirsty Baker’s framework for IL in- tegration from first year through gradu- ation, which features detailed rubrics. With a growing emphasis on assessment and accountability in many academic libraries, the glimpse of assessment-in- action provided by these authors can be quite valuable. The use of figures, tables, and appendices in many of the articles helps concretize the studies further, and a general index assists with way finding. Stylistically, the articles run the gamut from Gareth Johnson’s very practical, nuts-and-bolts treatment of video and film production for IL instruction to An- drew Whitworth’s fairly esoteric discus- sion of IL and “noöpolitics,” a perspective produced, according to Whitworth, when “a resource-based analysis of politics, or ‘geopolitics,’ [extends] into the sphere of information.” A U.K. audience will find relevance here that eludes the rest of us, but there is value for everyone. Outlining specific challenges faced by teaching librarians during a time of radical change in U.K. higher education policy, Pope and Walton call for a shift toward new modes of teach- ing and learning as a means to reinvigo- rate the role of library instruction in the 21st century and enhance its valuation. It is an evolution that aligns IL with some of the new priorities emerging from the broader realm of higher education world- wide and a call to action that deserves attention. The connection between Pope’s and Walton’s impassioned plea and the twelve essays that follow is not always clear, but both are valid. Some of the articles in Information Literacy will likely prove merely tangential to the endeavors of any individual librarian working on an IL initiative, but as a body of knowledge they contribute much.—Linda Miles, Ye- shiva University. Philip F. Gura. The American Antiquar- ian Society, 1812–2012: A Bicentennial History. Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 2012. 454p. alk. paper, $60 (ISBN 9781929545650). LC 2011-27183. Our Independent Research Libraries Association (IRLA) libraries comprise a unique and rich set of special collections and museums. They are also among our oldest extant cultural institutions. Some date from the Colonial era, others from the early years of the new republic: institutional embodiments of a learned patriotism. Celebrating its bicentenary Index to advertisers American Inst. of Physics cover 2 American Psychological cover 3 Archival Products 518 CHOICE 542 Counting Opinions cover 4 Elsevier 612 Joblist 555 MIT Press Journals 517 Philosophy Documentation Ctr. 521 Book Reviews 609 Statement of ownership, management, and circulation College & Research Libraries, ISSN 0010-0870, is published bimonthly by the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795 (the owner). The editor is Joseph J. Branin, KAUST, King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, e-mail: joseph.branin@kaust.edu.sa, and the managing editor is Dawn Mueller, ACRL, 50 East Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Annual subscription price, $75.00. Printed in U.S.A. with second-class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois. As a nonprofit organization authorized to mail at special rates (DMM Section 424.12 only), the purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes have not changed during the preceding twelve months. Extent and nature of circulation (Average figures denote the average number of copies printed each issue during the preceding twelve months; actual figures denote actual number of copies of single issue published nearest filing date: September 2012 issue.) 15a. Total number of copies (Net press run): average 13,071; actual 12,775. 15b(1) Paid/Requested Outside County: average 12,293; actual 12,336. 15c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation: average 12,293; actual 12,336. 15d(1). Free distribution by Mail Outside-County: average 4; actual 4. 15e. Total free distribution: average 4; actual 4. 15f. Total Distribution: average 12,297; actual 12,340. 15g. Copies not Distributed: average 774; actual 435. 15h. Total: average 13,071; actual 12,775. 15i. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation: average 99%; actual 99%. this year, the venerable American Anti- quarian Society (AAS) is of the latter ilk. Created by printer/publisher/collector Isaiah Thomas in 1812, the AAS has re- mained pretty much what it was founded: a collection—and an extraordinary one at that—and a society, at first of amateurs of all things “American,” and later of professional scholars and researchers. The template is European, but the product is authentically American, which in 1812 was also something very new. Indeed, that is what it set out to do: to identify, capture, record, and preserve those things that were truly and uniquely American. To celebrate its past and document its own history, the AAS turned to Philip Gura, a distinguished historian at the University of North Carolina. And Gura, in turn, has given us a very full and detailed look at the AAS from Thomas to its current leader, Ellen Dunlap. The AAS, indeed, has much to cel- ebrate. I once reviewed a Mellon-funded study of several IRLA libraries in the mid- ’90s and recall being impressed with the praise the study gave to the leadership of the AAS for its prudent, steady manage- ment. (Others in that volume did not fare so well.) Since its beginnings, the AAS has been a leader not only in building formi- dable holdings documenting the fullness of the American experience but also in disseminating the information contained in those holdings through bibliographies, journals, monographs, and most recently histories of the book in America. To have sustained these engagements at a high level for two centuries is rather remark- able—especially when you consider the odds against their success: geography (AAS is not in a major urban center like the other IRLA institutions) and branding (just imagine: an American institution proudly blandishing “Antiquarian” in its banner in 2012 and getting away with it!). The Mellon study was not misguided in its praise, and Gura’s patient scholar- ship gives us the important back-channel version: the indomitable curiosity and acquisitiveness of a stream of scholar- librarians on the one hand, and the active involvement of the AAS Council to ensure the administrative and financial well-be- ing of the organization on the other. Nei- ther side of the partnership let the other go to sleep or become complacent, though the temptations were ever present. Gura’s 610 College & Research Libraries November 2012 story illustrates how, together, staff and board worked to continuously shape and reshape the organization without ever los- ing sight of the founder’s intentions and the core mission of the society. The AAS survived and thrives because it has stayed focused without becoming ossified. It will navigate the digital age as it has all of the preceding “ages.” A word of caution: Gura has given us a very big book with a very full story. It may be more detailed than many will want or need, especially for the later 20th century and the beginnings of the present one. I am not sure that we need to know the names and contributions of all the staff who have worked there for the last fifty years or so, though I suspect that Gura was only trying to do his due diligence for the occasion and the sponsors. However, readers can pick and choose their dwell- ing spots. I recommend the earlier parts of the story that describe the origins and early history of the AAS. There we meet the irrepressible Thomas, his successors from Christopher Columbus Baldwin to Clarence Brigham, and the remarkable Salisbury clan, whose wealth, commit- ment, and foresight did much to ensure the survival of the young institution. These are not an especially colorful lot, but then again we probably would not want them to have been. Baldwin’s atti- tude toward his post may seem extreme, but, in his dedication and devotion to the job, he is typical of the group: the “Anti- quarian should not pester himself with a wife: he should do nothing that may diminish his affections with venerable books. You know that we cannot serve two masters, much less two mistresses; and my mistress is my profession, for which I have the most solid affection. I trust we shall never be divorced.” It was Baldwin who was fond of exhorting visi- tors and friends: “If you find any old books, bring them to me!” Over the course of its 200 years, much of the internal debate at the AAS has cen- tered on two themes: that of the proper focus for the collections, and creating a more democratic demographic base for the society (what we would probably label “outreach”). While the AAS does not lack for high spots, treasures, and icons, its real strengths have been more ordinary and documentary: newspapers, pamphlets/ephemera, and graphic ma- terials—and these by purpose. As more specialized institutions began to appear and develop during the 19th century, the AAS was able to prune and weed its collections of many of the artifacts and anthropological material that it had accumulated in its earlier years. “How can we best contribute, uniquely, to the project of creating a solid foundation for the writing of the history of the new na- tion?” the AAS repeatedly asked itself. No one better answered that question than its third Librarian, Samuel Foster Haven, who presided over the society for much of the 19th century. As Gura puts it: “‘Collect the acts and doings of all minor institutions,’ Haven urged in 1855, ‘whether civil, religious, literary, or political, and even the ever-varying popular movements that ruffle the surface of social affairs. Then ‘our successors may not only be able to write the history, but have a perfect panorama, of the age in which we live.’ Nor did Haven restrict his desiderata to books. ‘A ballad,’ he wrote, ‘a political squib, a hand-bill, a school- book, a merchant’s ledger, a dilapidated newspaper, or pamphlet’ might be ‘mat- ters of infinite significancy,’ for from such fragments ‘the framework of society may often be reconstructed.’” Amen. Equally challenging was the issue of the society’s constituency and the problem of creating and sustaining a “national” institution with a broad base of support in Worcester, Massachusetts. Earlier gen- erations of leaders had sought to address this challenge through publications and printed communications. The cataloging of the collections and the dissemination of the catalog in print and eventually online echoed the professionalization of librarian- ship in the later 19th and 20th centuries. The reproduction by film of large chunks Book Reviews 611 of its collection was, perhaps, the special contribution of the AAS to scholarship in the mid-20th century. But it was not until the last quarter of the 20th century that the society was able to develop and fund an ambitious fellows program that helped make it a truly national center for research and learning on American history. I hasten to note that, while the AAS has remade itself as a “national center,” it has not done so at the expense of its core identity. While it could have changed its name to “Center for …”, as so many other places have, it has chosen not to. We have too many “centers,” frankly. So, the AAS is still the American Antiquarian Society, going strong after 200 years. We should all rejoice.—Michael Ryan, Columbia University. Rajendra Kumbhar. Library Classification Trends in the 21st Century. Oxford, U.K.: Chandos Publishing, 2012. Dis- tributed in the U.S. by Neal-Schuman Publishers. 172p. alk. paper, $80 (ISBN 9781843346609). National Library: 015863081. The author of Library Classification Trends in the 21st Century, Dr. Rajendra Kumbhar, an Associate Professor at the Department of Library and Information Science at the University of Pune (India), purports that his work endeavors to “trace the developmental trends in classification as reflected in the library and informa- tion science literature” of the early 21st century. He details a methodology that encompassed a literature review in the Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) that took place on April 3, 2010, and used the keyword “classification” with the applied date limitation of 1999 to 2009. His research is broken into ten chapters entitled: 1. Knowledge Organization and Knowledge Organization Systems 2. Classification and Its Uses 3. Construction of Classification Schemes 4. General Classification Schemes 5. Special Classification Schemes and Classification of Non-Biblio- graphic Entities 6. Automatic Book Classification, Reclassification and Non-Classifi- cactory Approaches to Knowledge Organization 7. Classification Education 8. Modern Knowledge Organization Systems and Interoperability 9. Text Categorization 10. Classification: Theories, Research, Trends and Personalities The resulting work is broad in its cov- erage of various classification systems, schemes, and areas of classification. Topics run the gamut from well-known classification systems such as the Dewey Decimal Classification to more obscure systems that consider for classification such areas as figures of speech, ethnic data, and icons. It covers issues and dis- ciplines that may not be readily apparent to the casual reader, as well as historical treatises of some subject areas. The work, however, fails to highlight or to clearly delineate current trends, development, and modern day influences that are impacting classification in the 21st century. A review of the references found that approximately a third of the sources listed were published in the years 1999–2002, which is an issue because the sources within these publication dates are likely be referencing trends taking place in the 20th century, not the 21st. In gen- eral, when citing sources with more recent publication dates, little of Kumbhar’s text indicates that the authors were writing of trends or developments that are specific to the 21st century. To illustrate the weight given to earlier publications, consider the coverage of Dewey Decimal Classification. A review of the sources cited in the section found that, of the 50+ sources listed, close to half fall into the 1999–2002 publication date range. In comparison, only six sources were published in the last three years of Kumbhar’s date range for his literature review. In this limited selection of re- cent sources, the reader is forced to dig for trends specific to the 21st, most of