College and Research Libraries


tive job. It is possible that a more useful 
book might have resulted from more 
rigorous selection and exclusion of tech-
niques with greater emphasis on critical 
evaluation of those included. On the 
other hand, it may be that we are not yet 
ready to distinguish between wheat and 
chaff. Certainly a detailed appraisal of 
each survey technique presented would 
have resulted in a formidable volume. 

Perhaps the chief weakness of The Li-
brary Survey lies in the limitation of scope 
implied in the author's "role of reporter 
and commentator." Its emphasis on the 
collection of data and upon description of 
the conditions found, with comparative 
neglect of interpretation and synthesis, 
will distinctly limit the value of the book. 
Its failure to go far beyond the reporting 
of techniques which have been used in 
surveys also constitutes a definite limita-
tion. 

Almost every book on research method-
ology gives an impression of greater con-
fidence than the author feels in the efficacy 
of the methods described. M r . Mc-
Diarmid would be the first to deny the 
omnipotence of the survey as a device for 
curing all of our ills. He offers it only 
as one useful diagnostic technique, a tech-
nique whose value is distinctly limited by 
the absence of valid standards. T h e two 
books on methods of library research which 
we now have, Investigating Library Prob-
lems and The Library Survey, serve only 
to introduce us to the field. W e still have 
a long way to go in shaping the method 
of science to our ends. These two volumes 
provide us with a substantial foundation. 
—G. Flint Purdy, Wayne University, De-
troit. 

Practice of Book Selection: Papers Pre-
sented before the Library Institute at 

the University of Chicago, July 31-
August 31, 1939. Louis R . Wilson, ea. 
University of Chicago Press, 1940. 
368p. $2.50. 
T H I S V O L U M E comprises eighteen pa-

pers presented at the Fourth Library In-
stitute of the University of Chicago. 

Until a few years ago, the published 
guides to book selection consisted generally 
of selected lists of books, enumeration of 
book lists and journals of review, and 
some aphorisms designed to aid the li-
brarian in avoiding pitfalls which occa-
sionally engulf book selectors of varying 
degrees of experience. Recently, changes 
in trends of education and restatements 
of the objectives of the public library have 
encouraged more scientific investigations 
in the theory and practice of book 
selection, the results of which have 
been published in several significant 
treatises. 

T h e Practice of Book Selection, how-
ever, does not follow the pattern of any 
of these earlier volumes in the field. T h e 
contributors include professors, editors, li-
brarians, a college president, a bookseller, 
and a typographer; and the subject matter 
ranges from the selection of the manu-
script for publication to the distribution 
and use by the public of the published 
volume. 

T h e papers may be divided into six 
groups of uneven size and significance. 
Into three major groups may be placed 
fifteen of the papers: six on public, special, 
and high school and college libraries; five 
on literary criticism; and four on the 
publisher and designer as factors in selec-
tion. There is one paper each on distribu-
tion, as illustrated in the personal history 
of a book store; books and self-therapy; 
and the teaching of book selection. In 
the first group, Roden and Carnovsky dis-

SEPT EMBER, 1940 367 



cuss the general problem of selection for 
public libraries. Roden says : 

Book selection is not a process that will 
soon or easily come to rest upon a scientific 
foundation to which all its implications can 
be referred or upon which all its problems 
can be solved. 

He concludes, however, that the era upon 
which the public library is entering may 
be one in which its primary objectives will 
shift from recreational to educational. 
Carnovsky develops this theory in "Com-
munity Analysis" in which he argues for a 
library that will give the people what they 
need rather than what they want. Of 
more practical application for the librar-
ian, at the moment, are two papers based 
on actual practice: "Selecting Books for 
a Technical Department" and "Organiza-
tion of Internal Processes in Book Selec-
tion for Public Libraries." "Book Selec-
tion in a Modern High School" and 
"Book Selection in a Liberal Arts College" 
complete the group. 

In "Contemporary Fiction and Non-
Fiction," George Stevens, until recently 
editor of the Saturday Review of Litera-
ture, applies the glass to the book reviewer 
to show how hazardous, and why, has 
become the task of book selection. M a x 
Lerner, in "Important Books of the Last 
One Hundred Years—Political Science, 
Economics, and Sociology," lists ninety-
odd titles with plausible reasons for his 
selection. A quibbler might suggest other 
books of equal importance, but no one can 
deny the excellence of the list as it stands. 
Other papers in the second group include 
"Evaluation of Historical W r i t i n g " by 
Louis Gottschalk, "Literature as Propa-
ganda" by Henry Hazlitt, and "Popu-
larizing Science" by Kaempffert. 

Some interesting and laudable experi-
ments have been made by publishers in 

recent years in the production of inex-
pensive, readable, and beautiful books. 
Illustrative of the papers in this group 
is Melcher's " T h e Publisher as a Factor 
in Popular Reading," in which he describes 
several of these experiments. He men-
tions, further, the publisher's influence in 
establishing new outlets for books, in mak-
ing books more attractive in appearance, 
and in cooperative efforts to establish uni-
form prices throughout the country. 

T h e Practice of Book Selection is the 
most interesting of the four volumes that 
have come from the Chicago institutes. 
It is addressed primarily to public li-
brarians, but several of the papers have 
more general appeal, especially those on 
literary criticism. More attention to 
book selection in college and university 
libraries would have increased its useful-
ness. Without disparaging the quality of 
any of them, the space given to one or 
more of the papers might have been de-
voted to these institutional problems with-
out appreciable loss to public librarians. 

T h e readers of this volume would have 
been interested in the discussions which 
followed each lecture. In subsequent 
publications in this series, perhaps the 
essential and relevant portion of these 
discussions can be cited and included as 
appendices.—Benjamin E. Powell, Uni-
versity of Missouri, Columbia. 

How to Read a Book; the Art of Getting 
a Liberal Education. Mortimer Adler. 
Simon and Schuster, 1940. 398p. 
$2.50. 
" T H E F I R S T R U L E of the first reading 

of any book is to know what kind of book 
it is." So states the author on page 1 5 9 
of the book under review. For those who 
have not yet read the book, it may be 
well to say what kind of book M r . Adler 

368 COLLEGE AND RES E ARC LI L I B R A R I E S