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Volume 32 / Number 4 / Fall 1997
Libraries
&
Culture
a journal of library history
University of Texas Press

Libraries
&
Culture
a journal of library history
Volume 32 / Number 4 / Fall 1997
Editor: Donald G. Davis Jr.
Associate Editors: Robert L. Dawson, David B. Gracy II, Joan
A. Holladay, David Hunter, Francis L. Miksa, Irene Owens,
Loriene Roy, Michael B. Winship
Advisory Board: Michele V. Cloonan, University of California,
Los Angeles, representing the Library History Round Table,
American Library Association; John Y. Cole, Library of Congress;
Phyllis Dain, Columbia University; D. W. Krummel, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Mary Niles Maack, University of
California, Los Angeles; Peter F. McNally, McGill University;
Wayne A. Wiegand, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Ian R.
Willison, British Library
Assistant to the Editor: Bette W. Oliver
University of Texas Press

Libraries & Culture is an interdisciplinary journal that explores the significance of collections
of recorded knowledge—their creation, organization, preservation, and utilization—in
the context of cultural and social history, unlimited as to time or place. It is
edited at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, The University of
Texas at Austin, and is published quarterly by the University of Texas Press. All views or
conclusions are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the editorial staff, the
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Contents
Articles
403 The Wonderful World of Books: Librarians, Publishers, and Rural
Readers
Jean Preer
427 Blazing the Way: The WPA Library Service Demonstration
Project in South Carolina
Robert M. Gorman
456 The Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library of Shanghai
Gail King
Notes & Essays
470 Libraries & Philanthropy, The Proceedings of Library History
Seminar IX, Spring 1995, The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
P. Toby Graham
474 The Cover
Everett C. Wilkie Jr.
479 Contributors
Book Reviews
480 Careering Along with Books: Studies in the History of British Public
Libraries and Librarianship, in Honour of the 85th Birthday of Dr.
William A. Munford edited by K. A. Manley
Peter F. McNally
481 Puritans in Babylon: The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual
Life, 1880–1930 by Bruce Kuklick
Edwin M. Yamauchi
482 Libraries and Librarianship during Muslim Rule in India by Shaikh
Allauddin and R. K. Rout
Mohamed Taher
483 The French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585–1715 by
Henri-Jean Martin
Robert L. Dawson
485 The Odyssey of a German National Library by Michael P. Olson
J. Periam Danton

486 Hunger for the Printed Word: Books and Libraries in the Jewish Ghettos
of Nazi-Occupied Europe by David Shavit
Andrew B. Wertheimer
487 Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939– 1961 by Robin W.
Winks
Eugene B. Jackson
488 Fiction as History: Nero to Julian by G. W. Bowersock
Kenneth Calvert
490 World Guide to Libraries edited by Bettina Bartz, Helmut Opitz,
and Elisabeth Richter
World Guide to Special Libraries edited by Helmut Opitz and
Elisabeth Richter
World Guide to Scientific Associations and Learned Societies edited by
Michael Zils
Who’s Who in European Research and Development, 1995
Directory of European Research and Development, 1995
Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers, 1996
Eugene B. Jackson
492 Children’s Literature Research: International Resources and Exchange
edited by the International Youth Library
Gillian Adams
493 Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad by
Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine B. Stern
Book Collecting as One of the Fine Arts, and Other Essays by Colin
Franklin
Michele V. Cloonan and Sidney E. Berger
496 ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter
The Art & History of Books by Norma Levarie
Encyclopedia of the Book by Geoffrey Ashall Glaister
Five Hundred Years of Printing by S. H. Steinberg
Donald G. Davis Jr.
498 Cycles of Time and Scientific Learning in Medieval Europe by Wesley
M. Stevens
Alan Cottrell
500 Index to Volume 32

The Wonderful World of Books: Librarians,
Publishers, and Rural Readers
Jean Preer
Convened in 1951 by the Cooperative Extension Service of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, the Conference on Rural Reading explored ways
to stimulate reading and make books more available in rural America.
Bringing together librarians, publishers, government officials, and farm
and civic organizations, the conference reflected the major challenges facing
the library profession in the early 1950s. From a small meeting on
rural reading in 1951 to a nationwide promotion of a conference-inspired
paperback, The Wonderful World of Books, published in 1953, the conference
mirrored the very changes it sought to address: the shift from rural to
national concerns, from specialized to mass audience, from books to nonprint
media.
Organized in cooperation with publishers and librarians, the Conference
on Rural Reading, held in September 1951, marked a midway point
in decade-long efforts to expand the market for books and to secure
federal aid for public library service. In the early years of the postwar
era, economic concerns and societal changes had prompted self-scrutiny
among librarians, publishers, educators, and farmers. The Conference
on Rural Reading focused the overlapping interests of these groups on
the promotion of books and reading. Just as census figures revealed the
decline of the nation’s farm population and television threatened the
demise of the book, publishers and librarians joined forces to promote
reading in rural America.
Although officially sponsored by the Extension Service of the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, the conference grew out of a conversation between
Theodore Waller, executive director of the American Book
Publishers Council, and Luther Evans, Librarian of Congress. Waller and
Margie Malmberg of the American Library Association worked closely
with Eunice Heywood of the Extension Service who convened a planning
committee in spring 1951. 1 Also represented on the committee were the
National Education Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation,
the National Grange, the National Home Demonstration Council, the
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 1997
1997 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

404 L&C/Rural Readers
American Institute of Co-operation, and the land-grant colleges. In various
combinations, these groups were already working together on a variety
of issues. In 1950 a liaison committee between librarians and
publishers had begun to consider copyright questions, postal rates for
books, and censorship. 2 The ALA was cooperating with the National Education
Association on funding for rural schools. In late 1950 Waller had
met with the National Home Demonstration Agents in hopes of using
county agents to promote reading among farm families. 3 While each
organization had its own priorities, by 1951 their shared interests had
crystallized into the related issues to be addressed at the conference:
how to stimulate reading and make books more readily available in rural
America.
On 4 September 1951 M. L. Wilson, head of the Extension Service of
the U.S. Department of Agriculture, issued an invitation to the conference.
‘‘Knowing of your interest in the intellectual benefits that come
from the printed word,’’ he wrote, ‘‘we are extending to you a cordial
invitation to attend a small conference here in Washington which we
hope will have a significant influence upon rural reading habits.’’ 4 Appropriately,
more than one hundred conferees convened the three-day
meeting on 24 September 1951 in the Jefferson Auditorium of the Department
of Agriculture. Participating extension workers, publishers, librarians,
and educators could all claim Thomas Jefferson as their patron
saint. Farmer, author, book collector, Jefferson had seen the American
farmer as the embodiment of American values and the surest safeguard
of the new democracy. In his elegiac keynote address, Carl Woodward,
president of the University of Rhode Island, played on these themes as
he recalled the titles in the home library of his family’s New Jersey
farmhouse. ‘‘Nothing has contributed more to the wholesome, progressive
atmosphere of the farm home than do the books and other reading
material that have come into it,’’ he observed. 5 As the nation faced the
threat of world communism, he said, America must have
an enlightened, intelligent, clear-thinking rural citizenry, whose vision
reaches beyond their own special interests and their own community;
who are informed about current world affairs, who
understand America’s new responsibility of leadership, and are
aware of the threat of false ideologies to our free democratic
institutions. 6
In his 1948 study, Farming and Democracy, Yale University president A.
Whitney Griswold had noted the irony in such uses of the agrarian
symbol.

It is the daydream of city-dwellers, the inspiration of poets and
artists, the biographer’s security of youth of great men. It stands
for democracy in its purest and most classic form. For millions of
Americans it represents a better world, past but not quite lost, one
to which they may still look for individual happiness or, maybe,
national salvation. 7
According to Griswold,
The same sources that document the agricultural boom document
a rural disadvantage in living standards and cultural opportunities—in
housing, medical and health facilities, schools, and libraries—even
greater than the disparity of income. These things are
as much the essence of the farmer’s way of life as his independence
and his landscapes. The boom has not yet made good to him the
democratic promise of equal opportunity in either the economic or
cultural sphere. 8
405
In addressing the reading needs of rural America, conference participants
faced this contradiction between agrarian symbol and rural reality.
Despite growing affluence in rural America, the facts documenting its
inadequate supply of books and library service were well known. In The
Geography of Reading, published in 1938, Louis Round Wilson had mapped
the inequitable distribution of public library service and other means of
communication, including bookstores, radio stations, and newspapers. 9 A
1948 survey of weekly newspaper publishers conducted by The American
Press showed that 67 percent of the towns having weekly newspapers had
no bookstores. Book club memberships and pocket books sold on newsstands
or in drug stores were the main sources of books in rural America.
10 According to the ALA’s 1948 National Plan for Library Service,
‘‘The rural resident in America has been the forgotten man in library
service.’’ 11 More than 35 million Americans, 27 percent of the population,
were without public libraries. Of those, 91 percent lived in small villages
or the open country. Over half the rural population lacked public libraries.
Of the 661 counties without libraries, many were rural; threequarters
were in the South. 12
In a further irony, America in 1951 could no longer even think of itself
as a rural nation. As the conference planning committee met, 1950 census
data showed that America’s farm population had reached its lowest
point since the government began keeping such figures in 1910. The
estimated total of 24,335,000 for April 1950 was nearly five million below
the number recorded in the 1940 census. 13 While farm population had
declined, however, farm income had risen as a result of greater farm

406 L&C/Rural Readers
productivity and agricultural price supports. Those who remained on the
farm faced a different way of life.
In part, the Department of Agriculture had hastened the agricultural
revolution which now seemed to threaten rural America. Its Extension
Service, through county and home demonstration agents, provided for
‘‘the diffusion of useful and practical knowledge to the people, particularly
to the rural people, of the United States.’’ 14 Farmers improved their
techniques with the help of the USDA Yearbook and bulletins from state
agricultural experiment stations. The Rural Library Committee of the
Department of Agriculture issued lists advising rural residents what to
read, and because of the difficulty in obtaining the recommended titles,
other agencies, such as state libraries, helped distribute the publications.
15 The 1947 list, for example, filled thirty-four pages and included
scholarly monographs, government publications, farm and education
pamphlets, and such novels as Louis Bromfield’s The Farm, Pearl Buck’s
The Good Earth, Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s
The Yearling, and Conrad Richter’s The Trees. 16
Concerned that it had not tapped the rural market, the American
Book Publishers Council had worked with farm organizations to explore
it. At the Conference on Rural Reading, Maurice Wieting described cooperative
efforts between the ABPC and the Ohio Farm Bureau starting
with a 1948 conference on ‘‘Books and the Rural Reader’’ at the Ohio
State University College of Education. A survey of 4,000 Ohio rural residents
showed that book reading on farms was seasonal; that farm
women read somewhat more than farm men; that those with more
schooling read more; that fiction was the most popular type of reading,
followed by travel, historical novels, biographies, and poetry. Forty-three
percent did not read books; 39 percent most often got books from a
friend or a neighbor, while 36 percent visited a library; 21 percent went
to bookstores; and 16 percent ordered books through the mail. 17 In 1949
the 1,500 advisory councils of the Ohio Farm Bureau discussed book
needs. Most in demand were better local library service and better written
materials on new farm methods and contemporary problems. 18
Just as publishers sought to expand the rural market for books, librarians
sought to stimulate rural demand for public library service. Rural
America not only represented the area of greatest need for public
library service, it also provided precedents for federal programs to assist
farm communities. New Deal programs, including the Works Projects
Administration and the National Youth Administration, had introduced
library service to rural communities; the Tennessee Valley Authority
demonstrated the usefulness of cooperation among local libraries in
county and regional library systems. 19 Central points of the ALA’s
National Plan had rural implications, particularly the need for state

407
planning for library service and the importance of larger service units
for increased effectiveness. Federal legislation creating land-grant universities,
agricultural experiment stations, and cooperative extension
programs demonstrated how federal assistance could promote state planning
and enhance local service. These efforts were featured in USDA
bulletins on rural library service, prepared in cooperation with the ALA. 20
Because the gap between library service in rural and urban areas
stemmed largely from disparities in income, librarians sought ways to
equalize expenditures. In 1946 Representative Emily Taft Douglas of
Illinois introduced a bill providing funds for demonstration projects in
communities without libraries. Sponsored by the ALA, the bill would
authorize $25,000 to each participating state for four years to show how
library service might reach underserved, primarily rural, areas. Douglas
saw the problem as a national one.
Books have become a necessity in an unstable world and we cannot
afford to deny large numbers of our people the chance for this basic
means of education. Nor can the big cities, with well-stocked libraries,
be oblivious to the lack elsewhere. The cities are forever
being repopulated by people from the country, and the quality of
urban citizenry is therefore dependent on the quality of the whole
country. 21
In emphasizing service to rural areas in their quest for federal funds,
librarians also made a shrewd political choice. The demonstrable insufficiency
of rural library service was matched by the undeniable political
power of the farmbelt. Although other areas suffered from inadequate
library service, the concentration of rural and poor states in the South
meant that librarians would turn to southern congressmen for political
support and would emphasize the rural aspects of the problem. As various
bills for federal aid were introduced, the rural focus became more
pronounced. Testimony in support of federal aid to libraries at hearings
organized in 1948 by the ALA was dominated by representatives of organizations,
including the National Grange and the National Farmers
Union, which later participated in the Conference on Rural Reading. A
similar library demonstration bill was narrowly defeated in 1950 despite
broad support among farm and education organizations. At the Conference
on Rural Reading, however, M. L. Wilson cautioned participants
against mentioning the Library Services Bill. ‘‘This conference naturally
is not concerned with legislative matters, nor does it have a specific kind
of program which it seeks to propagandize.’’ 22
Thus, in the early 1950s librarians and publishers each sought, in the
phrase of critic and commentator Gilbert Seldes, to create an audience. 23

408 L&C/Rural Readers
Librarians sought to do this by federal legislation which would demonstrate
the value of library service to underserved areas. They were confident
that communities which experienced library service would be
willing to continue its support. Publishers sought to create a new reading
audience by expanding the market for books in underserved areas using
new means of distribution and cheaper formats. The expansion of public
library service was one way to accomplish this.
Among themselves, however, publishers debated the existence of a
rural market and whether it was unique. Robert West Howard, writer
and editor for various farm publications and a conference participant,
argued that as farm communities became less isolated and more affluent,
‘‘an annual market of one billion dollars for the right kind of books is
waiting in rural America.’’ According to Howard, ‘‘A whole lot more than
the shift from horse-to-tractor, kerosene-to-electricity, party-line-tovideo,
one-room-school-to-consolidated, root-cellar-to-deep-freeze, country-buyer-to-country-farmer-owned-co-operative
has occurred during the
past thirty years.’’ 24 To deal with the technological changes transforming
rural America, Howard felt that farmers needed more works
in the realms of soil-research, of photosynthesis and photo periodism,
in family-living and home-making, in better crops and better
livestock, in better distribution and more direct contact between
the grower and the consumer, in nutrition, in community-action,
in safer highways, less juvenile delinquency and greater equanimity
of the human spirit. 25
William Miller, in his study of the book industry for the Public Library
Inquiry, challenged this view of the rural market, arguing that if such a
market existed, publishers and authors would already be issuing books
for it. 26
The commercial, mass market side of the book world was represented
at the Conference on Rural Reading by Sanford Cobb, head of the Book
Department at Sears, Roebuck and Company. Sears already reached
farm families through its mail order catalog and book clubs offering a
potpourri of classic tales, reference works, pulp fiction, mysteries, westerns,
and detective stories. Cobb’s view of the rural market was firmly
grounded in the bottom line:
I am a little ashamed to tell you this, but our best-selling adult
fiction in the Sears, Roebuck catalog is the Zane Grey, Grace
Livingston Hill reprint series. If I were a missionary and not a
merchandiser, I would throw those things out of the catalog and
give people the things that I thought they ought to have. If I did

that we would be out of the book business, and then my missionary
work would not have done any good at all. 27
409
But the rural market for books, like rural America generally, was increasingly
affluent, sophisticated, and diverse. As Cobb admitted, ‘‘We
are not doing so well in adult fiction. I think if we are going to sell fiction
in the rural markets we will have to get different books.’’ 28
During the war Sears had appealed to the changing rural reading market
with the People’s Book Club, founded in 1943 with Simon and Schuster
and the Consolidated Book Publishing Company. 29 Unlike the
Book-of-the-Month Club, which relied on the judgment of its editorial
board, the People’s Book Club relied on the reactions of its members,
polled by Dr. George Gallup. Not surprisingly, the choices strongly resembled
those of other book clubs, with offerings such as the latest bestseller
by Frances Parkinson Keys, Here Is Your War by Ernie Pyle, and
The Robe by Lloyd Douglas. Response to the club seemed to confirm the
existence of an untapped rural market. Aiming for 100,000 members, it
drew 250,000 in its first year. Questionnaires sent to members produced
a more detailed profile of that market and supported many of Louis
Round Wilson’s earlier findings. 30
The success of the People’s Book Club and the sale of cheap books
through the Sears catalog suggested that librarians and publishers might
reconsider their approach to rural readers. At the conference, Cobb suggested
that impersonality was part of the appeal of clubs and catalogs.
I have had the opinion for a long time that there are people who
are afraid of books and afraid of people who deal with books. There
are many people who are afraid to go into a public library and ask
a question because they will show their ignorance. There are many
people who won’t go into a book store because some snooty clerk
makes them feel uncomfortable. 31
To stimulate reading, Cobb thought that people should learn that books
are fun.
One of the things that have to be done is to remove the fear of
books from people. You can take a quarter book on the train with
you and throw it out of the window when you have finished. You
don’t have to look upon a book as a sacred article to be held until
you die and them passed on to your children and grandchildren. 32
At the conference others joined Cobb in his implicit criticism of librarians.
Since most people relied on the recommendations of friends, one

410 L&C/Rural Readers
participant suggested that ordinary readers rather than librarians write
book reviews for farm periodicals. Margaret Scoggin of the New York
Public Library employed that technique on the radio show, ‘‘Young Book
Reviewers,’’ which featured teenagers reviewing and recommending
books. ‘‘They learn,’’ she said, ‘‘that books are not sacrosanct and that
their opinions are valuable; they learn also that no criticism is valid
unless they can explain why they do or do not like what they criticize.
...Notreading alone, but critical reading is the cornerstone of
all education.’’ 33 Young people in rural areas, she concluded, should be
consulted in planning for public library service.
To share their own experiences and formulate recommendations for
further action, conference participants divided into smaller work groups.
In discussions lasting four hours, they tackled the two major problems
posed by the conference: stimulating interest in reading and making
reading materials available to rural people. Although the conference eschewed
political purposes, many of the recommendations from the work
groups supported aspects of the library demonstration bill.
The work group chaired by ALA president Loleta Fyan compiled a
lengthy list of things already being done by public libraries, schools, and
universities to stimulate rural reading. It concluded that efforts by public
libraries, such as bookmobiles, book and art exhibits, reading clubs, carnivals,
and storytelling, needed to be used more generally and adapted
widely to local conditions. While this group did not recommend extended
public library service to promote reading, it did advocate the employment
of trained librarians to replace volunteers, adequate salary scales to
make library jobs attractive, and programs to inform young people about
the library profession as a career. 34
In contrast to this upbeat assessment, the work group chaired by
Marjorie Luce, state home demonstration leader from the University of
Vermont, found that public libraries were failing to make reading material
available to rural people. To the question ‘‘Are present library
facilities in rural areas being fully used?’’ it responded with stark realism
and disappointment.
Your discussion group is fully aware of the valiant services given in
the field of the rural library by our small corps of underpaid and
often unpaid librarians. We offer them our deep thanks and our
future support. In furtherance of that support, we conclude that
the answer to the first question above is ‘‘no.’’ 35
Recounting the statistics of unserved communities and unfunded libraries,
this group saw failure in every area, even in those aspects most
frequently touted by rural library enthusiasts.

Little cooperation exists among service clubs, fraternal organizations,
government agencies, and farm organizations in exploring
the realms of greater library service. ...Forthevery reason that
exceptional results have been achieved in rural library services in
some areas through cooperation between PTA, Home Demonstration
Councils, Extension Service, and local libraries, we feel that
rural libraries as a whole have failed to explore this potential. 36
411
While this group’s report, drafted by Robert West Howard, gave the
gloomiest assessment of current library service in rural areas, it also
painted the rosiest picture of future library potential. Urging real cooperation
among community organizations, it saw an enhanced role for
library and librarian in virtually every aspect of community life. 37
While neither work group specifically endorsed federal aid for rural
public libraries, both favored larger units of library service. Fyan’s group
concluded, ‘‘State libraries need to be greatly strengthened so that they
can do a more adequate job of stimulating the improvement of local
libraries and of serving as a source of reading materials.’’ 38 Luce’s group
concluded that
although it is the group’s firm conviction that the control of library
facilities, and both moral and financial support of the library, must
remain at the community level, belief exists that rural libraries will
not adequately develop until larger units, such as the county unit,
function with the local unit to improve the latter’s service. 39
Statewide planning and county or regional library systems were fundamental
aspects of proposed library legislation.
In seeming paradoxes, improved local library service required action
at the national level; the promotion of reading among farmers required
the use of the nonprint mass media. Almost every conference speaker
alluded to the potential impact of radio, television, and films on rural
reading. Speakers saw, with some ambivalence, that the same media of
mass communication which brought farm families into the mainstream
of American life also threatened to diminish the hours left for reading.
Woodward described the change:
Whereas, in our family homestead we would spend an evening
around the living-room table, with mother reading aloud to the
family circle, today, my nephew who operates the farm, packs his
family in his car and drives to town to see the movies. Or if it isn’t
the movies, there is the radio, or a television feature, that occupies
the evening. Although he is a college graduate, and he and his

412 L&C/Rural Readers
children have access to more books and periodicals than I had as
a boy, I don’t believe they are doing as much real reading as I
did....They are living in a different day and age. Who will say
which was better off? Whatever the answer, any appraisal of the
place of reading in rural life today must make allowances for the
competition of the movies, radio, and television as sources of both
information and entertainment. 40
Many conference participants reported how radio and television were
already being used to promote reading and to help make books available
in rural America. Representing the Children’s Books Council, Margaret
McElderry observed that local radio stations often gave air time for story
hours and discussion of books for children. The National Broadcasting
Company promoted books nationwide on ‘‘The Carnival of Books’’ program.
Home demonstration agent Mary Switzer, from Erie County, New
York, reported that ‘‘Reading is Fun’’ was one of the most successful
programs of the Extension Service television broadcasts. 41 Like Scoggin’s
radio show, it featured children, rather than librarians, as book
reviewers.
The work group chaired by Lulu Evanson of the North Dakota Farmers
Union concluded that ‘‘Most of the present book-reviewing services are
of little value and many times are unavailable to rural people.’’ 42 Only
a few farm publications, like The Progressive Farmer, carried book reviews directed
to the interests of rural readers. Where television had been used, it
had been effective, and her group recommended a greater use of local
radio and television stations for book reviewing. Similarly, Wieting’s
group on the commercial distribution of books recommended that more
should be done to play up the values of reading in radio, television, and the
movies. 43 At the end of the conference, T. V. Smith of Syracuse University
evoked the same halcyon vision of rural life as had Carl Woodward
at its start. In a talk entitled ‘‘Our Reading Heritage,’’ Smith described
himself as a confirmed addict of radio and television even as he defended
the role of books in bringing information, providing inspiration, and furnishing
sublimation. ‘‘Books, more than anything else,’’ he said, ‘‘give
you a new dimensional enlargement of the life of imagination. ...Itis
of a more enduring form, and it is more realistic in its amplitude than
that which you get out of other mediums of culture.’’ 44
Publication of the conference proceedings as a government pamphlet
in March 1952, and its subsequent transformation into the mass market
paperback bestseller, The Wonderful World of Books, mirrored these shifts
from rural to national concerns, from specialized to mass audience, from
book to nonprint media. Extension Service Circular No. 472, Report on Conference
on Rural Reading, September 24-26, 1951 filled forty-eight double-

413
columned pages in small type. Without illustration, the circular was
intended primarily as a record of the conference for members of the
planning group and for conference participants. 45 According to a January
1952 memo from Extension Service staff member Harry Mileham, 60 of
the 1,134 copies were to go to experiment station libraries, 180 to state
library commissions, state departments of education, and the ALA, 100
to the American Book Publishers Council, 130 to registered conference
participants, and 300 for requests already on hand. Most of the rest were
to go to Extension Service directors, editors, sociologists, public policy
people, home demonstration and 4-H leaders, and land-grant college
libraries. 46
From the early stages, however, organizers of the Conference on Rural
Reading had aimed to reach a wider audience. In a letter to the planning
committee on 10 September 1951, chair Eunice Heywood reported that
Alfred Stefferud, Lester Schlup, Caroline Sherman, and Ralph Shaw had
already agreed to do preliminary work on plans for a conference report. 47
The foreword to the Extension Service circular explained:
Plans are underway to supplement this report with a book of permanent
value for use by extension workers, librarians, discussion
groups leaders, high-school teachers, parents, children, and others
interested in encouraging people to read books. It will be prepared
with the widest possible readership in mind.
While the volume would include chapters by people attending the conference
and speeches delivered at the conference, other experts would
be invited to contribute as well. 48
Chosen to edit this expanded version was Alfred Stefferud, a former
Associated Press correspondent and the editor of the Yearbook of Agriculture.
In his article, ‘‘Billion Dollar Furrow,’’ Howard had quoted Stefferud
to support his point that publishers lacked an understanding of the book
interests of rural readers:
‘‘Farm people,’’ roared Alfred Stefferud, ‘‘. . . are not given to buying
books, but that is not a deficiency on their part. Which of the current
books should anybody read? Surely not all these sex-historical
books, not the turgid books on sociology and economics and foreign
relations which mean so little, not those sweet things on the beauties
of nature. One cannot force upon farmers spurious culture,
escape stuff, alarums and excursions in remote areas on remote
subjects. ...Anhonest, serious publisher who knows how to
manufacture a durable book and sell it in the right way has a

414 L&C/Rural Readers
tremendous field . . . [ellipses in text] one so big that no one knows
its size because no one has entered it.’’ 49
In the introduction to The Wonderful World of Books, Stefferud explained
the origins of the volume and the current importance of reading to all
Americans:
We came together, about a hundred of us, to talk about reading
and, after talking, to do something to encourage more people to
read. ...Now, more than ever, we felt, a reminder is needed that
books can instruct and help us in a competitive world, in which
more and more knowledge is needed to keep up with scientific developments;
that we need their advice on problems and worries
besetting us in education, in politics and foreign affairs, in domestic
issues and economics, in agriculture, and in social matters; that
they can provide fun and relaxation and inspiration in our distraught
times; that in a world of television, radio, automobiles, of
getting and spending and laying waste our powers, books can give
us perspective and depth and fulfillment.’’ 50 The volume was dedicated:
‘‘To those who bend twigs—the librarians of America,
teachers, Extension workers, leaders—and to the twigs themselves
we dedicate this book. 51
Most remarkably, publication of the volume was a nonprofit enterprise
made possible by the same coalition that had convened the conference,
in particular the Extension Service, the American Book Publishers Council,
and the ALA. A list of organizations participating in the conference
demonstrated the cooperation of farm, library, publishing, education,
and religious groups; the acknowledgments explained their contributions.
Two aspects were especially important. Participation by the American
Book Publishers Council facilitated contributions by writers who had
not attended the conference but who donated chapters for the enlarged
volume. Financial support from the Sears, Roebuck Foundation freed the
editor from the constraints of publication under government sponsorship.
In the introduction, Stefferud explained that although the book had its
genesis in a government-sponsored conference, its preparation, writing,
editing, and publication were personal undertakings, ‘‘involving no time
taken from official duties or outlays from official funds. Responsibility
for it rests on us as citizens, not as Government employees. For the
publishers, writers, and editors the book is a non-profit enterprise.’’ 52
Thus, The Wonderful World of Books afforded publishers an opportunity to
promote books beyond rural America and librarians a chance to advocate
federal aid for public library demonstration projects.

415
Published jointly in February 1953 by Houghton Mifflin and the New
American Library, The Wonderful World of Books bore little resemblance to
its drab and serious forerunner. With lively drawings by Robert Osborn
throughout, the volume seemed to embody the advice from Wieting’s
conference work group: ‘‘Reading should be fun, not a chore.’’ 53 In vivid
contrast to the Extension Service circular, it was bound in red and yellow
cloth and decorated with an Osborn drawing of an open book with arms
and legs extended and a huge smile. The message was unmistakable:
books are your friends, reading is fun. The smiling book greeted the
reader on the title page as well. The table of contents continued the
same friendly tone: Books Are Friends, The Pleasures of Reading, Reading
Among Friends.
The new volume retained a core of selections by conference participants,
opening with Smith’s address on ‘‘Our Reading Heritage’’ and an
offering by Robert West Howard. Almost every section included something
from the conference: Margaret Scoggin on reading for teenagers,
Richard Crohn of the New American Library on ‘‘Good Reading for
the Millions,’’ ABPC president John O’Connor on the publishing industry,
Sanford Cobb of Sears, Roebuck on getting books by mail, Ruth
Gagliardo of the PTA on ‘‘Parents, Teachers, and Libraries.’’ The section
‘‘City and Country’’ featured remarks by Caroline Sherman of the Bureau
of Agricultural Economics, Woodward’s keynote address, Wieting
on the Ohio Plan, and another selection by Howard. Stefferud did not
include, however, Robert Leigh’s presentation on the Public Library Inquiry,
thus omitting the idea that the public library was to serve the
reading needs of influential members of society. The Wonderful World of
Books provided tools so that everyone could make use of libraries and
enjoy the pleasures of reading.
The materials added by Stefferud were also telling. Much of the discussion
at the conference had been critical of the quality of public library
service, particularly in rural areas, but government sponsorship precluded
calls for federal aid to libraries. Free of governmental constraints,
Stefferud added a major section, ‘‘Libraries Are For You.’’ Chapters on
the USDA library and the Library of Congress demonstrated ways in
which the federal government was already involved in libraries. The ALA,
which had helped plan the conference but played a backstage role at the
meeting itself, was strongly represented. Helen Geer contributed ‘‘ALA’s
Seventy-Five Years of Service’’; Margie Malmberg, a member of the conference
advisory committee, recounted ‘‘How Our Libraries Developed’’;
ALA president Fyan added ‘‘Your State Library Belongs to You.’’ Harry
Lydenberg, of the New York Public Library, described library work as a
profession; Beatrice Russell told how to start a public library; and
Gretchen Schenk explained the financing of small libraries. Each

416 L&C/Rural Readers
reiterated the need for coordinated, well-funded libraries staffed by professionals.
Three chapters, including ‘‘We Need a Library!’’ by Winona
Wheelock Sparks, advocated rural bookmobiles. Stefferud even included
a chapter by Alabama Senator Lister Hill. A supporter of federal aid for
library demonstration projects, Hill had introduced a bill in the Senate
in 1946 to match Douglas’s bill in the House. His article, ‘‘Freedom and
Responsibility,’’ called on publishers to recognize their role as instruments
of education. 54
Just as The Wonderful World of Books served the interests of librarians
in promoting federal library legislation, it served the interests of publishers
in promoting books and reading to the widest possible audience.
Just as it added contributions that bolstered the case for the Library
Services Bill, it added representatives of the mass media to extend the
reach of publishers. These additions suggested two things relevant to
both librarians and publishers: that new communication media might be
used to encourage reading and that mass market techniques might be
used to promote serious and important works.
Again the volume used a light-hearted approach to make its case.
Opening the section ‘‘The Pleasures of Reading,’’ Bennett Cerf contributed
a chapter, ‘‘It’s Fun to Read.’’ Pioneering editor of the Modern
Library, as well as a popular writer and radio personality, Cerf described
the most unfortunate people in the world as ‘‘those who have never
learned the soul-satisfying pleasure of reading good books.’’ 55 Like Cerf,
contributor Gilbert Highet combined a serious interest in literature with
efforts to reach a broad popular audience. Professor of Latin at Columbia
University and author of The Classical Tradition, Highet was more widely
known for his radio broadcasts sponsored by Oxford University Press. 56
He was represented in The Wonderful World of Books by two of his radio
talks, ‘‘The Historian’s Job’’ and ‘‘The Making of Literature.’’ Indeed,
just as Highet’s radio talks made perfect chapters in Stefferud’s anthology,
the book itself resembled radio programming: fast-paced, short presentations,
direct, congenial, informative and non-threatening. The
Wonderful World of Books not only promoted the reading of books through
mass market techniques, but used the nonprint format as a model to
make itself agreeable and accessible to the broadest possible audience.
Beginning with an article in November 1952, The Wonderful World of
Books was mentioned frequently in Publishers’ Weekly as the centerpiece of
an industry-wide promotion for the following spring.
What promises to be the biggest promotion of the book business
ever staged is in the planning stage these days, aimed for a nationwide
launching on February 25. Highlight of the promotion and
focal point about which it all hinges is ‘‘The Wonderful World of

Books’’ a collection of reading for pleasure, profit and inspiration,
written by leading educators, librarians, publishers, authors, booksellers
and farm leaders.
417
Scheduled to appear simultaneously in clothbound and paperback
editions,
The book will be sold at bookstores and newsstands in this country
and abroad and will be backed by an industry-wide promotion program
rivaling if not actually exceeding anything of its kind ever
done before. All profits from the sale of both editions will be turned
back into advertising, promotion and publicity for the book. 57
An article in the 10 January 1953 issue of Publishers’ Weekly entitled ‘‘The
Widespread Promotion for ‘The Wonderful World of Books’’’ detailed
plans for the advertising campaign. Publishers had prepared 100,000 circulars
for trade and organizational promotion and a special circular for
bookstore use. Each featured Robert Osborn drawings and pictured the
cover of the paperback edition with the text:
This is a book that can change your life and the lives of those
around you. With its help you can win greater success and happiness,
benefit from the world’s wisdom and knowledge, explore fascinating
realms of adventure and entertainment and make valued
new friends—all through the magic of reading. 58
Facing pages in the same issue of Publishers’ Weekly, again with Osborn
drawings, featured suggestions for book projects from the ‘‘Things To
Do’’ section of The Wonderful World of Books. 59
The planned publication in simultaneous clothbound and paperback
editions attracted wide attention. Much of the postwar concern about
the availability of sexually explicit material had focused on the enormous
sale of paperback books, or quarter books, particularly those sold on
newsstands. The publishing industry had been intensely criticized for
exploiting this market with lurid covers even on the most stolid literary
classics. In December 1952 the Gathings Committee, specially constituted
by the House of Representatives, had looked into the dangerous
influence of these cheap, readily available publications. 60 Although the
committee’s final report did not call for stricter censorship laws, the
publicity surrounding the hearings spotlighted the darker side of book
merchandising.
In contrast the appearance of The Wonderful World of Books in a $.35
edition highlighted the benign, respectable aspect of the paperback

418 L&C/Rural Readers
trade. The New American Library stressed this respectability in Publishers’
Weekly ads showing how its Signet and Mentor series made available
at a low cost to large audiences such indisputably worthwhile works as
Edith Hamilton’s Mythology 61 and Albert Schweitzer’s Out of My Life and
Thought. 62 The Wonderful World of Books appeared in two of these ads. One,
in the 17 January 1953 issue, featured what the NAL considered its own
list of ‘‘ten Signet and Mentor Books published during 1952 which illuminate
aspects of the New American Library’s publishing program that
have particular significance to booksellers, librarians, publishers and authors.’’
Along with a dramatic version of Erskine Caldwell’s Tobacco Road,
science fiction by Robert Heinlein, and The Seven Storey Mountain by
Thomas Merton was The Wonderful World of Books, ‘‘The Non-Profit Book
of Any Year,’’ listed tenth, although it had not yet been published. 63 The
ad for 31 January 1953 began, ‘‘When publishers, booksellers, librarians,
educators and the government all get together to promote a book—that’s
news.’’ It ended:
We hope you will read THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF BOOKS
and then sell it, recommend it or even give it away. Because we
wager that anyone who reads a copy of THE WONDERFUL
WORLD OF BOOKS will be powerless to resist the impulse to go
out and read, buy and give away many more books by many more
authors. And that, we believe, is one of the noblest impulses of
them all! 64
Writing in The Saturday Review, Aaron Sussman linked the work of the
Gathings Committee with the publication of The Wonderful World of Books.
‘‘While Congress was indulging itself with its own special brand of book
burning, another committee, no less powerful, but wiser, more tolerant,
and infinitely wittier, was proving that books are one of the seven pleasures
and that great things are done by devotion to one idea. The idea,
in this case, was to do something to encourage more people to read.’’ After a
glowing review, Sussman concluded,
To say that ‘‘The Wonderful World of Books’’ is a book worth owning
is like saying that life is worth living. It can’t be much of a life,
however, unless books are involved. If you want the news and gossip,
the art and science, the strategy and tactics of books and reading,
this is your book. It’s worth much more than twice what you’ll
pay for it, so get two copies, one for a friend. 65
Organizations that had participated in the Conference on Rural Reading
featured The Wonderful World of Books in their publications. Publishers’

419
Weekly for 10 January 1953 included Wieting’s ‘‘A Farmer Looks at Reading,’’
which described a follow-up rural reading conference held in Ohio
in March 1952. 66 The February 1953 Bulletin of the ALA reprinted
Smith’s talk, ‘‘Our Reading Heritage.’’ 67 The English Journal ran a boxed
ad for The Wonderful World of Books: ‘‘This book can change the lives of
your students . . . Endorsed and sold by the National Council of Teachers
of English.’’ 68 A review in a later issue strongly recommended it. 69
The Sears catalogs for spring and fall 1953 offered both the clothbound
and paper editions to its mail-order customers:
The Wonderful World of Books . . . [ellipses in text] can help you
win greater success and happiness, benefit from the treasures of
the world’s wisdom and knowledge. Friendly and stimulating guide
to the rewards of reading. ...Tells how to find the right book,
how to find time to read, how to read intelligently. Illustrated. 70
The ad recalled Cobb’s concern that people feared books and the people
who worked with them. The Wonderful World of Books, with its friendly tone
and cheery illustrations, promised to dispel those fears. The People’s Choice,
newsletter of the People’s Book Club, ran a two-page feature on the book
and enclosed a prepaid order card. 71
While publishers used The Wonderful World of Books to promote reading
and book sales, supporters of federal aid for library services used the
occasion to promote federal library legislation. On 20 January 1953 Congressman
George Miller of California described the book in remarks to
the House of Representatives, later printed in the Congressional Record.
Noting the origins of the book in the Conference on Rural Reading,
Miller praised the cooperative effort ‘‘among the individuals and organizations
of our country which are most concerned with education in its
broadest sense.’’ He reported that an entire section of the book was
devoted to organizing reading programs and to using and improving local
library facilities, pointing out the contributions of T. V. Smith and Senator
Lister Hill. 72
Arranging to hold a reception at the Library of Congress to mark the
publication of The Wonderful World of Books, Robert Frase, Washington
representative of the American Book Publishers Council, furthered its
political aspect. Recalling the early involvement of the Library of Congress
in the Conference on Rural Reading, Frase wrote Luther Evans on
22 January 1953, asking if the library might host the celebration:
Verner Clapp was kind enough to say that the American Library
Association and we might use the Whittal Pavilion on February
25th, the publication date of THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF

420 L&C/Rural Readers
BOOKS, for a reception to mark that occasion. I wonder whether
you would care to join in issuing the invitation since the Library of
Congress was involved in the Rural Reading Conference from
which the book emerged and since the reception was to be held in
the library. 73
In a letter dated 29 January 1953, Evans agreed. 74
In a sense, the reception reconvened the Conference on Rural Reading.
The invitation drafted by Frase read,
To mark the publication of The Wonderful World of Books, edited
by Alfred Stefferud, A guide to the wealth of our literary heritage
sponsored as a public service by several national organizations as
a sequel to the National Conference on Rural Reading, 1951, the
Librarian of Congress, the American Library Association [and] the
American Book Publishers Council cordially invite [blank space to
fill in name] to a reception on Wednesday, February 25th, 1953,
the Whittal Pavilion, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Invitations were sent to conference sponsors, organizers, speakers, and
participants, contributors to The Wonderful World of Books, and members
of the press. In addition, the guest list included congressmen and senators
from committees that might consider library legislation. 75
In its feature, ‘‘From Day to Day in the Library of Congress,’’ the LC
Information Bulletin of 2 March 1953 reported that more than two hundred
people had attended the event. Distinguished guests included Senators
Theodore Francis Green (Rhode Island) and Lister Hill, and Representatives
Richard Bolling (Missouri), Joseph Bryson (South Carolina),
George Miller, Olin Teague (Texas), and Emanuel Celler (New York). 76
A member of the Gathings Committee, Celler had filed a minority report,
dissenting from its findings, and had sponsored copyright legislation
of interest to both librarians and publishers.
On 18 March Senator George Aiken of Vermont introduced another
library services bill in the Senate. 77 Explicitly directed to rural areas, the
bill called for $40,000 for each state for five years to support library
demonstration projects. Additional money would be distributed according
to a state’s rural population and per capita income. In April Carey
McWilliams, editor of The Nation, invited Luther Evans to write an article
on the need for expanded library services. 78 Evans declined. In a letter
to McWilliams dated 5 May 1953, he wrote, ‘‘I have testified in Committee
for it in the past and will be glad to do so again. I have not felt
free, however, to campaign for it in other ways. Hence, it would not be
possible for me to write anything for publication. I am sorry.’’ 79 By host-

421
ing the reception for The Wonderful World of Books, Evans had already done
his share in promoting books and reading for rural America.
As its planners had hoped, publication of The Wonderful World of Books
prompted numerous and varied celebrations of reading. But the nature
of these events reinforced the transformation of the Conference on Rural
Reading to a nationwide promotion of books by New York–based publishers
using mass market appeals and nonprint media to attract readers.
The promotional campaign suggested again the irony of holding a conference
on rural reading when the future of rural life and the role of the
book were both threatened by seemingly irreversible changes in American
life. At the same time, the very success of these efforts demonstrated
the way in which new means of communication could be used to promote
serious reading and the consideration of important issues.
The New York Public Library used The Wonderful World of Books as the
centerpiece of exhibits in nearly all its branches and subbranches starting
with the book’s publication on 25 February and running through
March. In a 10 December 1952 letter to ALA executive director David
Clift, John MacKenzie Cory, Chief of Circulation, outlined the library’s
plans:
The smaller sub-branches will have table displays of the book itself
both in the bound and unbound editions; the medium sized
branches will have one to three display panels dealing with the
book and the large branches will have more extensive displays including
related books on sub-topics chosen from the sub-headings
in the books themselves. We will be ordering several hundred copies
of the bound edition so that there will be copies available both
for exhibition and immediate loan, and we will be buying at least
l000 copies of the unbound edition. 80
Mounted on peg-board, a typical exhibit featured copies of the book and
an Osborn drawing of a happy reader.
Similarly, a lecture series offered by the University of Chicago on
‘‘Who Reads What—American Reading and Writing in 1953’’ reflected
the promotion’s distance from the agricultural origins of the conference.
81 Like the country’s own move from country to city, the conference
theme migrated from the campuses of state agricultural colleges to the
urban home of Robert Hutchins and the Great Books movement. The
Wonderful World of Books did, in fact, include a chapter on the Great Books
by Charles F. Strubbe Jr., president of the Great Books Foundation,
which had not been represented at the conference. 82 The lecture series,
sponsored jointly by the University College and the Women’s National
Book Association, began with a discussion of ‘‘The Book and TV’’ by

422 L&C/Rural Readers
George Heineman of NBC-TV, examined ‘‘The Crisis in American Fiction’’
and ‘‘The Place of Science Fiction in Society,’’ and concluded with
conference participant Richard J. Chron of the New American Library
considering ‘‘Democracy’s Library—Paper-bound Books.’’ 83
A radio series, ‘‘The Festival of Books,’’ broadcast over New York
City’s municipal station WNYC further demonstrated the urban nature
of the promotional campaign. An endeavor of the Committee on Reading
Development of the American Book Publishers Council, the program
reflected the same participation by publishers, booksellers, and librarians,
but lacked the rural focus of other ABPC projects. Originally modeled
on WNYC’s art and music festivals, by the time of the broadcast,
from 29 March to 4 April, ‘‘The Festival of Books’’ featured programs
and speakers drawn from The Wonderful World of Books. 84 Listeners could
write to the station for a free copy.
Like the book, these programs adopted a celebratory air to promote
serious concerns and popular enjoyment. Panels of experts considered
inspirational reading, discussed how to read better and faster, and examined
the work of book reviewers. Listeners could learn more about
creative writing, book designing, paperbound books, ‘‘The Making of a
Poem,’’ and ‘‘The Excitement of Editing.’’ Bennett Cerf explored ‘‘The
Pleasures of Publishing,’’ while Gilbert Highet appeared twice to consider
‘‘How to Survive 2000 Years’’ and ‘‘The Biography of Books.’’ Despite
its festive air, however, the series did not shy away from the serious,
important, or controversial. Former Librarian of Congress and National
Book Award winner Archibald MacLeish recited his poem ‘‘Act 5.’’ Actors
Frederic March and Florence Eldridge presented readings originally
given at the Library of Congress. Judge Curtis Bok, author of a widely
cited decision in a Philadelphia censorship case, discussed the freedom
to read. Novelist Sterling North commented on book-burning. A panel
considered the works of contemporary Negro authors. 85
In response to the series, WNYC received more than four thousand
pieces of overwhelmingly enthusiastic mail. Many requested copies of The
Wonderful World of Books for use in classrooms. Others praised its approach.
One listener wrote, ‘‘I expected it to be something like INVI-
TATION TO LEARNING, which is beyond me, but this is just the right
key.’’ 86 In many cases, the serious nature of the programs was appealing.
An older listener wrote, ‘‘Tho I’m nearing 75, I enjoyed Tennessee
Williams’s reading. U-0-2 repeat it when U have a bigger listening audience.’’
87 Another reported that the discussion of Negro writing ‘‘made
me set up and take notice, so to speak. Revealing is the word.’’ 88 Commenting
on the same program, a more critical listener recalled an observation
by one of the panelists that ‘‘reaching the Negro market and
the American market in general was difficult, and that there were not

423
too many bookstores in the U.S. outside of the large towns.’’ This listener’s
questions echoed the very concerns of the Conference on Rural
Reading. ‘‘What and how much does America read? So next year why
not broaden the geographical area a little?’’ 89
Indeed, what had grown to a nationwide campaign to promote books
and libraries had its roots in a conference to address concerns about the
availability of books in rural America. Underlying the challenges identified
by conference planners as unique to rural communities were issues
which transcended geography. The transformation of rural life reflected
changes in the nation as a whole: the advent of new technology which
speeded migration from farm to city, the impact of new means of communication
which created a mass market for books but diminished time
for reading. The Conference on Rural Reading and the publication of
The Wonderful World of Books mirrored these changes: the shift from rural
to national concerns, from specialized to mass audience, from books to
nonprint media. Emphasizing the needs of rural America, librarians
sought to improve local library service through federal aid. Seeking a
market for books in rural America, publishers launched a promotional
campaign using the tools of mass communication to reach a national
audience. Librarians and publishers alike used the needs of rural America
and the symbols of the nation’s agrarian past to create enthusiasm
and support for libraries and books that reached far beyond the farm
origins of the Conference on Rural Reading.
Notes
The author gratefully acknowledges grants from the National Endowment for
the Humanities and The Catholic University of America which helped support
the research for this article.
1. Heywood to Schmidt, 14 November 1951, National 4-H Council Resource
Center, Meetings-Conferences-Rural Reading File. Hereafter cited as Meetings
File. The author wishes to thank Elsie J. Carper at the National 4-H Council for
her assistance in locating this letter and other conference-related material.
2. ‘‘ALA Liaison Committee Meets with Publishers,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 158
(11 November 1950): 2137.
3. ‘‘Rural Agents Welcome Council’s Plan to Stimulate Home Reading Demand,’’
Publishers’ Weekly 158 (16 December 1950): 2488–9.
4. Wilson [to invitees], 4 September 1951, Meetings File.
5. Carl Woodward, ‘‘Reading and Rural Life,’’ in Report on Conference on Rural
Reading, September 24– 26, 1951, Washington, D.C. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department
of Agriculture, 1952), 3. (Extension Service Circular No. 472—March
1952.) Hereafter cited as Rural Reading.
6. Ibid., 6.
7. A. Whitney Griswold, Farming and Democracy (New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1948), 5.
8. Ibid., viii.

424 L&C/Rural Readers
9. Louis Round Wilson, The Geography of Reading (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1938).
10. ‘‘Books Unavailable to Residents of 67% of Small Towns; Survey Shows,’’
The American Press 67 (December 1948): 14–5.
11. Carlton B. Joeckel and Amy Winslow, A National Plan for Library Service
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1948), 34.
12. Ibid., 19.
13. ‘‘Farm Census at New Low,’’ New York Times, 19 July 1951, 25.
14. M. L. Wilson, ‘‘Introductory Remarks,’’ in Rural Reading, [n.p.].
15. U.S. Department of Agriculture Library, Rural Reading List (Washington,
D.C.: 1947), 1. (Library List No. 39.)
16. Ibid., 20–1.
17. C. Maurice Wieting, ‘‘What Ohio Farmers Read and Why,’’ in Rural Reading,
12. See also ‘‘The Ohio Project Studies Farm Markets for Books,’’ Publishers’
Weekly 155 (12 March 1949): 1231–2.
18. Robert West Howard, ‘‘The Farmer and the Book,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 155
(12 March 1949): 1235–9.
19. A. L. McNeal, ‘‘Reading in Rural Communities in Tennessee,’’ in Rural
Reading, 10–1.
20. Rural Library Service (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture,
1949), 27. (Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1847.)
21. Emily Taft Douglas, ‘‘Library Demonstration Bill, Speech in the House of
Representatives, March 12, 1946,’’ [broadside] (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1946).
22. Wilson, ‘‘Introductory Remarks,’’ 2.
23. Gilbert Seldes, The Great Audience (New York: Viking Press, 1950).
24. Robert West Howard, ‘‘The Billion Dollar Furrow,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 153
(22 May 1948): 2121.
25. Robert West Howard, ‘‘Green Grow the Books—Oh!’’ Publishers’ Weekly 160
(22 September 1951): 1313.
26. William Miller, The Book Industry (New York: Columbia University Press,
1949), 109.
27. Sanford Cobb, ‘‘Panel Discussion on Availability and Distribution of Reading
Materials through Commercial Channels,’’ in Rural Reading, 23.
28. Ibid.
29. ‘‘People’s Books Club Announced in Sears Catalog,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 144
(17 July 1943): 188–9. See also Sears Catalog Fall/Winter 1943 (Chicago: Sears,
Roebuck and Co., 1943), 596A–96D. The author wishes to thank Vicki Cwiok,
Archivist, Sears, Roebuck and Co., for her assistance in locating information on
the People’s Book Club.
30. ‘‘People’s Book Club Circulation Analyzed,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 145 (13 May
1944): 1841–2.
31. Cobb, ‘‘Panel Discussion,’’ 24.
32. Ibid.
33. Margaret C. Scoggin, ‘‘Books and Young People,’’ in Rural Reading, 27–8.
34. Report of Work Group on Problem I, Topic A, in Rural Reading, 43.
35. Report of Work Group on Problem II, Topic A, in Rural Reading, 45.
36. Ibid., 46.
37. Ibid.
38. Report of Work Group on Problem I, Topic A, in Rural Reading, 44.
39. Report of Work Group on Problem II, Topic A, in Rural Reading, 47.

425
40. Woodward, ‘‘Reading and Rural Life,’’ 5–6.
41. Mary Switzer, ‘‘Panel Discussion on Availability and Distribution of Reading
Materials through Commercial Channels,’’ in Rural Reading, 25.
42. Report of Work Group on Problem I, Topic C, in Rural Reading, 45.
43. Report of Work Group on Problem II , Topic B, in Rural Reading, 47.
44. T. V. Smith, ‘‘Our Reading Heritage,’’ in Rural Reading, 41–2.
45. Heywood to Order Department of Minneapolis Public Library, 30 October
1952, Meetings File.
46. Mileham to Tucker, 24 January 1952, Meetings File.
47. Heywood to Members of the Planning Committee for Conference on Rural
Reading, 10 September 1951, Meetings File.
48. Foreword, Rural Reading, [n.p.].
49. Howard, ‘‘Billion Dollar Furrow,’’ 2152.
50. Alfred Stefferud (ed.), The Wonderful World of Books (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1953), 13. Hereafter cited as Wonderful World.
51. Ibid., [5].
52. Ibid., 15.
53. Report of Work Group on Problem II, Topic B, in Rural Reading, 47.
54. Lister Hill, ‘‘Freedom and Responsibility,’’ in Wonderful World, 212–4. Hill’s
article was reprinted as ‘‘Freedom and Responsibility in Publishing,’’ Publishers’
Weekly 163 (10 January 1953), 123–4.
55. Cerf, ‘‘It’s Fun to Read,’’ in Wonderful World, 24–6.
56. ‘‘Summary of Events and Trends, 1952, in the American Book Trade,’’
Publishers’ Weekly 163 (24 January 1953): 275. Pictured was a published collection
of Highet’s broadcasts, People, Places, and Books (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1952).
57. ‘‘Industry-Wide Promotion Planned for Spring ’53,’’ Publishers’ Weekly
162 (29 November 1952): 2163–4. See also [Frederic G. Melcher], ‘‘The Promotion
of Reading Will Be Vigorous in 1953,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 163 (10 January
1953): 133.
58. ‘‘The Widespread Promotion for ‘The Wonderful World of Books,’’’ Publishers’
Weekly 163 (10 January 1953): 112–3.
59. ‘‘Suggestions for Book Projects From ‘The Wonderful World of Books,’’’
Publishers’ Weekly 163 (10 January 1953): 114–5.
60. House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, Investigation
of Literature Allegedly Containing Objectionable Material, 82d Cong., 2d sess.,
1953.
61. ‘‘Classic Taste,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 163 (30 May 1953): 2227.
62. ‘‘Albert Schweitzer and the Mentor Goal,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 163 (28 February
1953): 1093.
63. ‘‘Strictly Personal,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 163 (17 January 1953): 215.
64. ‘‘The Wonderful World of Books,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 163 (31 January 1953):
551.
65. Aaron Sussman, ‘‘Brief for the Book,’’ The Saturday Review 36 (14 February
1953): 20.
66. C. Maurice Wieting, ‘‘A Farmer Looks at Reading,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 163
(10 January 1953): 116–23.
67. T. V. Smith, ‘‘Our Reading Heritage,’’ in Wonderful World, 17–20; T. V.
Smith, ‘‘Our Reading Heritage,’’ ALA Bulletin 47 (February 1953): 56, 73, 75.
68. [Ad] English Journal 42 (March 1953): 180.
69. [Review] English Journal 42 (May 1953): 287.

426 L&C/Rural Readers
70. Sears Catalog Spring 1953 (Chicago: Sears, Roebuck and Co: 1953), 503;
Sears Catalog Fall 1953 (Chicago: Sears, Roebuck and Co.: 1953), 595.
71. The Peoples Choice 10 (5) [n.p.].
72. House of Representatives, Rep. George Miller, ‘‘The Wonderful World of
Books,’’ 82nd Cong., 2d sess., Congressional Record (29 January 1953), 650.
73. Frase to Evans, 22 January 1953, Library of Congress Archives, Central
File, MacLeish-Evans, Container 868, Library Cooperation Folder 14-1. Hereafter
cited as Library Cooperation Folder.
74. Evans to Frase, 29 January 1953, Library Cooperation Folder.
75. Dudley to Evans, 12 February 1953, Library Cooperation Folder. The author
wishes to thank Robert Frase for his enthusiastic support of research into
this event.
76. ‘‘From Day to Day in the Library of Congress,’’ Library of Congress Information
Bulletin 12 (2 March 1953): 9.
77. ‘‘Library Services Bill Reintroduced in Senate,’’ Publisher’s Weekly 163 (28
March 1953): 1431.
78. McWilliams to Evans, 27 April 1953, Library Cooperation Folder.
79. Evans to McWilliams, 5 May 1953, Library Cooperation Folder.
80. Cory to Clift, 10 December 1952, New York Public Library Archives, RG
6 Director’s Office, General Files, 1934–1954, Box 30, file NYPL CD Exhibitions.
81. ‘‘WNBA Co-Sponsors Talks on American Reading,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 163
(24 January 1953): 293–4.
82. Charles F. Strubbe Jr., ‘‘The Great Books Program,’’ in Wonderful World,
215–7.
83. The University of Chicago Calendar LVII, No. 26, 22 January 1953; No. 28, 5
February 1953; No. 30, 19 February 1953; No. 32, 5 March 1953.
84. ‘‘WNYC to Broadcast Festival of Books,’’ Publishers’ Weekly 162 (20 December
1952): 2377.
85. Lucy Johnson, ‘‘Radio Book Festival,’’ New York Times, 29 March 1953, sec.
2, p. 11.
86. ‘‘Comments on WYNC’s First Annual Festival of Books, March 29–April
4, 1953,’’ Library Cooperation Folder, 5.
87. Ibid., 8.
88. Ibid., 7.
89. Ibid., 20.

Blazing the Way: The WPA Library Service
Demonstration Project in South Carolina
Robert M. Gorman
In 1935 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) began sponsoring
nationwide library demonstration projects designed to encourage the development
of library service to underserved populations while simultaneously
providing temporary work for the unemployed. This paper reviews
the WPA’s statewide library program in South Carolina and analyzes the
impact it had on public library development in the state. Prior to the WPA,
South Carolina had no funded state library agency and only three of fortysix
counties had countywide library service. Although the statewide library
demonstration project was not entirely successful in all of its activities, the
WPA project greatly improved public library conditions in the state. Libraries
were started or expanded, bookmobile service was initiated, and
library service to rural and African-American citizens was enhanced. When
the project ended in 1943, South Carolina had twelve publicly funded
county libraries, one regional library, and a funded state library agency.
The Works Progress Administration, later renamed the Work Projects
Administration, was the largest emergency work relief program in the
history of the United States. Created by President Franklin Roosevelt in
1935 at the height of the Great Depression, the WPA, a program steeped
in controversy from the very beginning, was designed to provide temporary
work for millions of Americans left unemployed by the nation’s
economic collapse. Both men and women were employed in hundreds of
projects ranging from road and building construction to education, art,
and music programs. Of direct benefit to libraries was a series of library
demonstration projects sponsored by the WPA. The nature of these projects
varied from state to state, but most were concerned with extending
library service to rural and other underserved populations and with providing
library workers for clerical, cataloging, indexing, circulation, book
binding and repair, and bookmobile activities. Although small in comparison
to other WPA activities, the library demonstration projects had
an enormous impact on libraries. 1 Perhaps in no case was this truer than
in the South, especially in South Carolina.
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 1997
1997 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

428 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
The South, traditionally one of the poorest regions of the country, was
devastated by the Great Depression. Referred to by President Roosevelt
as ‘‘the nation’s No. 1 economic problem,’’ the predominantly rural and
agricultural South saw its per capita income decline to $252 in 1933, the
lowest in the nation. The economic conditions were aggravated by deep
racial divisions in the region. Nearly two-thirds of all African Americans
lived in the South, comprising nearly a third of the population of the
region. Customs, practices, and laws dictating separate, but not equal,
facilities and services for Blacks and Whites placed additional financial
burdens on an area with very limited economic resources. 2
The status of libraries in the South reflected these conditions. A 1935
study found that two-thirds of the population in the thirteen southern
states had no public library service. Expenditures for southern libraries
averaged eight cents per capita, compared to a national average of thirtyseven
cents. Library conditions in South Carolina were among the worst
in the nation. At the beginning of the Depression, the state ranked fortysixth
nationally in library development. A 1933 report on South Carolina
libraries revealed that of the state’s forty-six counties, only three, Greenville,
Richland (Columbia), and Charleston, had libraries that came even
close to providing countywide service. 3
Service for the state’s African-American citizens was almost nonexistent.
Of the fifty-six public libraries in South Carolina, only four offered
service to Blacks. Although private activities such as the Faith Cabin
library movement, which created a number of small libraries comprised
of donated books, attempted to address these gross inequalities, only 15
percent of the state’s African-American population received any type of
library service. One critic contended that these library inequities ‘‘nullif[ied]
the Negro’s full civil rights which the Fourteenth Amendment
attempted to guarantee him.’’ 4
As daunting as library conditions were in South Carolina prior to 1935
when the WPA library demonstration project began in the state, there
were some positive signs for the development of public library service.
Beginning in 1915 the South Carolina General Assembly passed a series
of library acts that eventually enabled the creation of countywide and
regional (multicounty) library systems. A related act in 1929 created
the South Carolina State Public Library Association, governed by a
five-member state library board appointed by the governor. South Carolina
was the last of the southern states to create such a state library
agency. Sadly, the general assembly did not fund the new agency, the
only southern state other than Alabama not to do so. 5
In 1930 money was secured from a private educational foundation, the
Julius Rosenwald Fund, to hire Parmalee Cheves, a professional librarian,
as the first South Carolina state library field agent. Cheves served

429
in this capacity, promoting public library development throughout the
state, until funding ended in March 1932. She worked with Winthrop
College professor and library advocate Mary Frayser to conduct a survey
of school and public libraries. The resulting report provided the first
accurate picture of the deplorable status of library resources in the state.
This document also served as the basis for future library development. 6
Other events in the state lay the foundation for the significant library
development that would occur under the WPA. In 1929 the Julius
Rosenwald Fund, as part of its commitment to educational development
for both Blacks and Whites in the South, funded eleven public library
demonstration projects in seven southern states. These projects were to
extend library service to Black as well as White citizens. Two counties
in South Carolina, Richland (Columbia) and Charleston, received funding
under this project. The two projects in South Carolina were of limited
success but did demonstrate the need and desire for expanded public
library service in the state and did increase service for African
Americans. 7
Public sentiment in favor of public library development in the state
was growing. A Citizens’ Library Association was formed in 1930 to stimulate
interest and support for public libraries. In early 1934 Clemson
College president Dr. E. W. Sikes, the state library board, and the South
Carolina Library Association convened the first Citizen’s Conference to
discuss the status of libraries in the state. The conferees were unsuccessful
in their primary objective of securing public funding for the state
library agency, but they did serve as a core of library advocates and
leaders within South Carolina. 8
By 1935, then, the stage was set for a significant improvement in the
status of public library service in South Carolina. All that was needed
was a galvanizing force that could provide funds and central leadership.
That force would come from the WPA.
The Organization of the WPA
Although it was the largest and most significant of the New Deal work
relief efforts, the WPA was not the first federal program to impact library
development and extension. Early Roosevelt relief programs such as the
Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), the Civil Works Administration
(CWA), and the Civil Works Service (CWS) provided limited
funding of library projects. These hastily planned and executed
programs did not result in significant public library development, but
they established the precedent of federal funding of library activities.
They paved the way for the WPA, a much better organized and longer

430 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
term program, and aroused the library community to the possibilities of
federal involvement with libraries. 9
By 1934 it became abundantly clear to many in the Roosevelt administration
that stop-gap work relief programs such as FERA, CWA, and
CWS were insufficient to meet the economic crisis. Many believed public
assistance would need to continue indefinitely. As a result, more durable
solutions had to be found. 10 The creation of the WPA was a partial answer
to these concerns.
Administratively, the WPA functioned at four levels: the central administration
in Washington, regional offices throughout the nation, state
administrations, and district offices within each state. The head of the
WPA was the Commissioner of Work Projects. Within the central administration
were a number of divisions concerned with such WPA operations
as training, employment, construction projects, and service
projects. The state offices were responsible for the overall supervision
and administration of the WPA program within the state and for securing
federal approval and funding for work projects within the state. The
state district offices were responsible for direct management and oversight
of WPA projects and for working with local sponsors.
All work projects receiving WPA funding had to be formally proposed
and sponsored by a public agency. Although many projects were sponsored
by state agencies, the majority were sponsored by county or city
governments and their agencies. Sponsors agreed to pay a portion of
project costs and to complete a project if for any reason it was not completed
by the WPA. All completed projects belonged to the sponsor.
The National Library Service Program
The WPA’s Division of Service Projects, originally called the Division
of Women’s and Professional Projects, was responsible for work projects
employing clerical, professional, white-collar, and women workers. The
national library service project was part of this division. Initially, there
was no formal ‘‘unit’’ or ‘‘section,’’ or official administrator at the national
level to coordinate and direct library projects under the WPA. The
WPA did bring in two librarians as temporary advisors on library projects
and sought the advice of the American Library Association concerning
activities appropriate for funding. 11 Edward Chapman, who became director
of what was to be the Library Service Section, observed that during
this early stage, library projects were ‘‘a multitude of separate and unrelated
local projects approved only for the purpose of giving employment
to needy people and without specific reference to acceptable
operating plans.’’ 12

431
By 1938 it was apparent that a more defined structure and organization
was needed to better coordinate library activities and to ensure
greater efficiency and effectiveness. In February 1938 the Library Service
Section was set up under the Division of Service Projects. Chapman, who
had been the assistant librarian at the Indiana State Library, was appointed
the first, and only, director of this section.
The primary functions of the Library Service Section, according to
Chapman, included ‘‘coordination of all WPA project activity in libraries;
the designation of governing objectives and policies[;] and the preparation
of official operating instructions and technical procedures.’’
Furthermore, the section’s field services provided a ‘‘supply of professional
advice and interpretation of administrative requirements to project
supervisors, sponsors and other qualified persons participating in
project operation.’’ 13
Even under this more formalized structure, the various state library
projects remained autonomous. As long as the states met WPA guidelines
and requirements governing employment, expenditures, and related
matters, the states were free to define their own library service
activities. The numerous statewide library projects ‘‘adapt[ed] policies
and procedures set forth by the Library Service Section, at the Federal
level,’’ Chapman wrote, ‘‘not as operating controls per se but as uniform
approaches to a common job with common problems and objectives.’’ 14
Library projects funded under the WPA had two overriding and often
conflicting goals. First and foremost, library projects, as with all WPAfunded
activities, had to provide work for the unemployed. Any gains in
library service achieved as a result of these projects, Chapman surmised,
‘‘had to be by-products of employing people as a primary function.’’ 15
Over 90 percent of the workers, mostly semi-skilled and unskilled laborers,
had to come from the public relief rolls. Only 5 percent of all employees
on library projects could be professional supervisory personnel
not on relief. 16 Consequently, most workers supplied by the WPA did not
have a formal library education. Even with the on-the-job training provided
by the WPA, these workers would never be able to provide the level
and quality of service that could be provided by professional librarians.
They were unfamiliar with library operations and untrained in the principles
of librarianship. From a library development perspective, this requirement
was one of the weakest aspects of the WPA library
demonstration project.
After providing employment, the secondary goal of the library projects
was to demonstrate ‘‘logical plans of service over wide areas to the end
that permanent development, through the stimulation of local and state
funds for library service, [would] result.’’ 17 To achieve this end, projects

432 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
were first to extend library services, primarily to rural areas, and then
to enhance existing services and resources. 18
As was the case with the Rosenwald program, WPA library projects
were to be ‘‘demonstration’’ in nature. They were not to be a substitution
for permanent library service funded by local and state sources. Chapman
believed the ‘‘project demonstration unit merely was a device, strictly temporary
in nature, to stimulate local responsibility for the demonstrated
service.’’ 19 Nor were they to compete with existing programs and services.
‘‘The statewide service project is a means to an end and not the
end itself. There is no desire on the part of the state Works Project [sic]
Administrations,’’ Chapman argued, ‘‘to set up an independent or rival
system of service . . .’’ 20
The South Carolina Library Service Demonstration Project
The heart and soul of WPA library activities were the multitude of
statewide library service demonstration projects throughout the country.
By the end of 1939 forty such projects were in operation. Two more came
into existence before the WPA ceased activities in 1943. Only Maine,
Delaware, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, and Idaho failed to initiate statewide
projects. 21
Although in most cases WPA library project funds were distributed in
proportion to the total population of the individual states, South Carolina
actually received far greater project assistance than it would have
received based strictly on its population. 22 This distribution, however, was
not based on the library needs of the individual states, with those states
with the most need getting the greater proportion of the funding. In
fact, when viewed regionally, the Southeast received only a fourth of total
library assistance provided by the WPA, even though more than a third
of the nation’s unserved population resided in this region. Based on a
‘‘Suggested Federal Grants’’ for libraries formula developed in 1938, the
Southeast received nearly $5,000,000 less than it should have under
the formula, while the Midwest received over $4,000,000 more, and the
Northeast nearly $2,000,000 more. Although the distribution of assistance
was inequitable from a library need perspective, it did reflect the
work relief mission of the WPA. Like other WPA projects, assistance
under the library demonstration project was distributed mainly on differences
in population and work relief loads. 23
The WPA began operations in South Carolina on 31 August 1935,
when thirty-one projects employing 1,734 persons were initiated under
the direction of Lawrence M. Pinckney, South Carolina WPA State Administrator.
Within six months, 36,531 persons were employed on WPA
projects, 96.6 percent of whom were from the public relief rolls. 24

433
While most South Carolinians seemed to readily accept WPA assistance
in the state, 25 such was not always the case in other areas of the
South. In Georgia, for example, many residents viewed New Deal programs
like the WPA with suspicion, seeing them as a threat to states’
rights and the racial conventions of the region. This opposition was most
pronounced during the governorship of Eugene Talmadge (1933–1937,
1941–1943), a virulent racist and vocal opponent of Franklin Roosevelt.
Even some southern librarians, in spite of their philosophical support of
federal aid, resented the intrusion of outsiders into their domains or
feared the new federal library program might somehow damage the
hard-won gains they had so recently achieved in their states. To assuage
these concerns, WPA library officials attempted to work closely with state
library agencies and with local library leaders. 26
Columbia was the site of state headquarters for WPA operations in
South Carolina. Pinckney divided the state into four districts: Charleston,
covering nine counties; Columbia, with fourteen counties; Florence,
encompassing nine counties; and Greenville, comprising fourteen counties.
Each district was supervised by a district manager. Initially, Pinckney
created four divisions within the state office in the areas of
operations, finance, employment, and women’s work. Margaret Davies
was appointed head of the Women’s and Professional Projects Division,
the unit responsible for library and other service and professional projects.
Each of the district offices also had the same divisions. 27
State library leaders immediately began to lobby for projects under
the WPA. Shortly after her appointment as head of the Women’s Division,
Davies was contacted by Fanny Taber, librarian at the Greenville
Public Library and then president of the South Carolina Library Association,
about possible WPA funding for library activities. Davies, being
favorably disposed toward the idea, asked Taber to recommend someone
to organize and help initiate library projects throughout the state. Taber
suggested Ida Belle Entrekin, a professional member of the Greenville
Public Library staff. 28 Entrekin, noted for ‘‘her tact, professional ability,
and her sympathy for WPA objectives,’’ 29 traveled throughout the state,
visiting with county leaders and influential citizens and organizing citizens
library organizations. Within six weeks of her appointment in the
fall of 1935, she had established her office and laid the foundation for
library projects across the state.
The primary goals of the library service demonstration project were
established early on, remaining essentially the same throughout the existence
of the program. First, according to Entrekin, the project was ‘‘to
extend the service of school and public libraries already established.’’
Second, the project was ‘‘to give demonstrations of books service in areas
hitherto unprovided for with the expectation that such areas will

434 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
continue the service with adequate financial support.’’ And finally, the
project was ‘‘to crystalize library sentiment in the state and to develop
the individual workers on the projects.’’ 30
Public support on behalf of the WPA’s library efforts was essential if
the library service demonstration project was to achieve its most important
goal, the creation of permanent, publicly funded county libraries
in South Carolina. ‘‘Thus the purpose of the demonstration,’’ Edward
Chapman concluded,
is to so prove the need and value of library service to local taxpayers
that at the end of the demonstration period they will vote to retain
the demonstrated service as a permanent, local, public utility; the
demonstration is to help people to decide whether or not library
service has a place in their everyday living. 31
To this end, the WPA staff worked tirelessly in arousing public interest
and creating citizens’ library organizations.
Typically, project staff visited the counties to determine whether interest
and support existed for new or expanded library service. Local
librarians, organizations, and other interested individuals were contacted.
If there was interest in a project, a sponsor was found and plans
were developed. All WPA-funded projects had to have public sponsors
who agreed to share some of the costs involved. Since South Carolina
lacked a funded state library agency, local county boards of education
often sponsored the projects under the authority of the State Department
of Education. Other local sponsors included local library boards
and organizations such as the Grange, the Farm Women’s Council,
women’s clubs, citizens’ library committees, and other civic clubs. 32
A contractual agreement was written outlining the responsibilities and
obligations of the parties involved. The WPA supplied personnel and
some books; the sponsors provided suitable quarters for the service, supplies
and equipment, and funds for the purchase of books and magazines.
Other items such as the rental of bookmobiles might also be part of the
agreement. Usually the agreement was for a specified period of time,
often one year. 33
WPA personnel also assisted with the formation of citizens’ library
associations within the counties. These groups were not designed to replace
local friends of the library organizations. Rather, Chapman directed,
they were formed to
recognize and publicize the need for adequate and permanent library
service; be temporarily responsible for the partial financial
support of the demonstration and make a concentrated effort

toward securing local tax support; and further assist by expressing
and representing particular community library service needs, and
by securing community participation. 34
435
A second Citizens’ Conference on the Library Needs of South Carolina,
held at the University of South Carolina on 8 January 1936, complemented
the work of WPA personnel in arousing public interest in library
development. Private citizens, educators, and librarians gathered together
to discuss library conditions within the state, the activities of the
WPA library service demonstration project, and steps needed to improve
library service. The conference concluded with a resolution urging the
general assembly to provide the state library board with funds ‘‘sufficient
for it to carry out its purpose of stimulating public library service for all
of the people of the state.’’ 35 Although the resolution did not result in
state funding for the state library board, the conference did help keep
the issue of library development before the public.
By 1 March 1936, $188,000 was secured from the WPA for book binding
and library extension work in South Carolina. Sponsors provided
$15,275 in cash in addition to in-kind contributions. Because the Department
of Education was the state’s official sponsor of the library demonstration
project, much of this and future funding was used for school
library projects as well as public library projects. 36 Although many of the
early projects involved the repair and binding of school textbooks and
library books, a concerted effort was made to initiate countywide library
service throughout the state. By early 1936 public, subscription, and private
libraries in twenty-two counties were sharing books, magazines, and
other materials as the first step toward full county service. 37
The backbone of countywide service in South Carolina was the library
bookmobile, a truck converted to carry library materials to rural residents
of the state. The WPA agreed early on to rent cabs and chassis for
a county if the local project sponsor supplied the body. This rental agreement
was usually for no more than one year, after which the county was
expected to assume the full cost of the truck. These trucks traveled
across the back roads of the state. They would leave books at deposit
drops, usually a school, or stop at crossroads, community centers, grocery
stores, filling stations, and other gathering spots. By mid-1937 the WPA
library project’s twenty-three bookmobiles stopped at over 1,200 stations.
38 It was unquestionably one of the most popular features of the
library service demonstration project.
By early 1936, 734 women were employed by the WPA in various library-related
projects ranging from book binding and repair to assisting
with circulation services, staffing longer library hours, compiling bibliographies
and lists of special materials, and organizing story hours for

436 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
On May 18, 1937, Daisy Browning, driver (l), and LaVerne McLane, bookmobile librarian
(r), prepare for the maiden journey of the WPA-funded Chester County Library bookmobile.
Courtesy of Nichols’ Studio of Chester and the Chester County Library.
children. These women were sometimes assigned duties such as opening
and staffing branch reading rooms. 39
One of the more important programs initiated in the early days of the
library demonstration project was a cooperative cataloging service for
school libraries. The service was begun in early 1936 in order to help the
high schools of the state meet accreditation standards mandated by the
Southern Association of Secondary Schools and Colleges, the regional
accrediting body. South Carolina high schools were directed to have their
library collections cataloged by 1941. A cataloging unit was set up at the
University of South Carolina under the direction of professionally trained
staff. The State Department of Education supplied the materials; the
WPA funded the staff. 40
Titles cataloged were limited to specific standard lists approved by the
State Department of Education. This requirement had the effect of forcing
schools to weed their collections of outdated and questionable materials
and to purchase materials recognized for their quality. The unit
maintained a catalog of all items processed, listing on the back of each
card the school or schools owning that item. Thus the nucleus of a union
catalog for the state was developed. Libraries unable to answer reference
questions locally sent them to this unit to be handled. 41

437
This service was so well organized and executed that it served as an
example for other states wishing to develop their own cataloging project.
In fact, the South Carolina experience was the basis for a technical circular
on centralized cataloging services issued by the Library Service
Section in Washington. 42
The cataloging unit also was responsible for processing books purchased
by the state WPA for demonstration purposes. These books
formed a core collection of materials used by the library service demonstration
project to stimulate interest in and support for local library
collections. When a project was begun in a county, a portion of these
books was loaned to the county on a temporary basis. They were not a
substitute for local collections; rather, they were to capture the public’s
imagination on the importance and need for good library collections.
These materials were moved from county to county as the local community
either began funding libraries on their own or letting the project
expire. By 1943 there were over 25,000 books in this collection. 43
Restructuring the Library Project
On 1 January 1938 all the WPA-funded library projects were brought
together administratively into one statewide project. Prior to this date,
projects operated on the county level with little concern for duplication
of effort. It quickly became apparent that a more formal structure and
tighter organization at the state level was needed to maximize efficiency
and effectiveness and to provide a better sense of direction and purpose.
Emphasis was placed on worker training and the development of statewide
standards of service.
Under the new statewide structure, the state library supervisor was
administratively and technically responsible for all aspects of the project
and for the worker training program. Agnes Crawford was the state library
supervisor when the restructuring took place. Crawford, who earlier
had conducted a survey on library work with African Americans in
South Carolina, had been appointed state supervisor when Ida Belle
Entrekin resigned in mid-1937. Crawford was assisted by the four district
supervisors who were administratively responsible for library activities
within their districts. Each district had four assistant district supervisors
who handled the technical aspects of book repair and binding, publicity,
extension service, and training workers in the use of library materials
and resources. Each county was headed by a unit supervisor, later called
area supervisor, administratively responsible for the county activities.
The assistant district supervisors and the unit supervisors were directly

438 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
responsible for the individual worker. Because of restrictions on the number
of non-relief personnel allowed, many of these supervisory positions
were either unfilled, or the same individual served in two positions at
once. 44 Consequently, the statewide project was limited in the amount
of supervision and direction it could provide the local operations.
To improve the skills and work habits of WPA library employees, most
of them unskilled or semi-skilled female workers, and to help prepare
them for eventual private employment, the statewide library project
mandated formal monthly training courses. According to Crawford, these
training courses were designed
first to improve his [the worker’s] moral[e], that is to teach selfassurance
and self-reliance; second, to teach thriftiness in the use
of tools and in the use of free and inexpensive material; third, to
teach the correct use of tools used in daily work; and lastly, simple
hygiene or neatness in person and work. 45
Library topics included arrangement and classification, circulation systems,
basic reference tools, the card catalog, publicity, bookmobile service
and operation, and the mending and binding of all types of library
materials. 46 Since the library projects were dependent upon these workers,
training them was a perennial concern. In counties with existing
programs, many of these individuals worked under the supervision of a
trained librarian. In counties without a librarian, these women worked
under the direction of library project personnel. In no case were these
workers to replace existing employees. 47
According to reports from the field, these training courses did result
in improved skills and a greater satisfaction with the individual worker.
Because the WPA limited employment to eighteen months in most cases,
the constant turnover in workers resulted in some inefficiency and loss
of continuity that the training program helped address. The library project
had only limited success in placing workers in private employment. 48
Patterns of Library Development
By 1938 the basic structure and direction of the South Carolina library
service demonstration project was set. The orientation was toward countywide
library service for every county in the state. By mid-year, thirtytwo
countywide projects were in operation. Bookmobiles were making
nearly 1,900 stops serving 62,529 borrowers. Circulation from these
trucks was nearly one million items, averaging over fifteen books per
patron. The bookmobile experiment was so successful that nineteen of

439
the twenty-eight counties using the service assumed full funding for the
trucks. 49
In counties with existing libraries, the WPA supplied workers to extend
service to the entire county and to free permanent staff from more
routine duties. These workers were used to extend hours, to assist with
clerical duties, to help with bookmobile operations, and to perform other
support duties. In Charleston, for example, WPA workers were used to
open new branch libraries that were later run by employees of the
Charleston Free Library. The project also maintained a mending unit to
repair books for the public and school libraries of Charleston, as it did
with many other county library projects throughout the state. 50 WPA
employees were used in a similar capacity in many school libraries.
In counties with little or no existing public library service, the WPA
assistance was more basic. WPA library-trained workers often performed
the many functions usually handled by professional librarians. A case in
point was in Chesterfield County in the northeastern part of the state.
The Chesterfield County Board of Commissioners and the local Council
of Farm Women sponsored the demonstration project which began operation
in 1937. A bookmobile was rented with WPA assistance, and
reading rooms were established in the towns of Chesterfield, Cheraw,
Pageland, McBee, Ruby, and Jefferson. In 1938 the county assumed full
operation of the bookmobile. 51
At the same time, the town of Cheraw in Chesterfield County asked
for assistance in opening its own public library. A small subscription
library, which had closed in July 1938 due to lack of funding, served as
the basis for the new public library. The building in which it was housed
was in need of repair, the books were worn and damaged, and there were
few furnishings. Two civic organizations agreed to establish a book fund,
the town council provided money for the repair of the books and building
and provided equipment and furnishings, and the WPA supplied a deposit
from its own book collection, cleaned and repaired the existing
collection, processed the new books, and assigned two workers to run the
library. The Cheraw Public Library opened its doors on 4 November
1938. Within a short period, the library registered over 700 borrowers
and circulated over 2,000 volumes a month. 52
A third pattern of library development in South Carolina emerged in
early 1937 when libraries in Colleton and Dorchester counties combined
to share library services, thus becoming the first regional library system
in the state. This event underscored the growing realization among library
leaders that it made better financial and administrative sense for
small counties in a poor rural state like South Carolina to share limited
resources rather than attempt to maintain individual county libraries.

440 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
Although a relatively new concept of library governance, the regional
library idea was not unknown in South Carolina or the South as a whole.
An American Library Association preconference meeting of southern library
leaders in New Orleans in 1932 endorsed the regional library structure,
and Tommie Dora Barker, the ALA’s southern field representative,
was active in promoting the concept. In the mid-1930s, regional libraries
were created in Tennessee under the aegis of the Tennessee Valley Authority
and the direction of Mary Rothrock, the TVA library coordinator.
These projects were a good example of the regional concept in practice.
In fact, by the mid-1930s ten of thirteen southern state library plans,
including South Carolina’s, supported the creation of regional libraries. 53
South Carolina had made legal provision for regional libraries with a
change in the state library law in 1934. All of these events were part of
a national trend that began earlier in the century with a move away
from municipal libraries to countywide libraries as more effective and
efficient. Regional libraries were the next logical step in this development.
Still, the county form of government was near and dear to the
hearts of most southerners. 54 As a result, regional libraries that crossed
county lines would be more the exception than the rule, at least for the
time being.
The Colleton-Dorchester library was governed by an eight-person
board comprised of four representatives from each county. Bookmobile
service was begun in April 1938 when the WPA loaned the system a
confiscated automobile. It initially made stops at fifty stations in the two
counties. With the assistance of the WPA, a regular bookmobile was
acquired in late 1939. 55 Service to African-American citizens in the two
counties was begun for the first time as a result of WPA support and the
donation of 5,000 books in late 1938 and early 1939 by Harvey D. Kelsey,
a Black philanthropist from Washington, D.C. The WPA processed the
materials and made them available through the Black schools in the
bicounty area. 56
This first state experiment in regional library service was never adequately
supported by the local communities. In 1939 each county appropriated
only $300 for library services. When WPA funding ceased,
Dorchester County withdrew from the system. Although the regional
library system did not survive, it did serve as an early example of how
smaller counties could share limited resources and funds. 57
A second, better planned multicounty system began in November 1940
when the counties of Georgetown, Horry, and Marion formed a tricounty
regional library. A tricounty library board was created, and a formal
agreement between the WPA and the three counties was drafted. The
counties agreed to share existing library resources, to provide $1,000
each for the purchase of books, and to work toward the development of

441
permanent regional library service. The WPA lent the project 1,200
books, provided a trained librarian to supervise the regional library, employed
workers, and assisted with the rental of a third bookmobile to
serve the three counties. 58
Unfortunately, this second experiment in regional library service did
not survive either. The project suffered greatly when Margaret D.
Hedbring, the WPA-funded librarian in charge of the regional library,
resigned in June 1941. Because a 37 percent reduction in the quota of
WPA workers in the statewide library project had been implemented, a
replacement could not be secured. Eventually the system was dissolved
when the WPA ceased funding in 1942. 59
A third, ultimately successful regional system was begun in March
1941 when Allendale, Hampton, and Barnwell counties agreed to institute
cooperative library service. The WPA supplied workers, books, and
a bookmobile. When WPA funding ceased the following year, Barnwell
County withdrew from the system. However, Allendale and Hampton
continued to work together, mainly on the strength of a small appropriation
from each county and the dedication and volunteer help of interested
citizens in the area. In 1947 Jasper County joined with Allendale
and Hampton to form a tricounty regional library. Thus, one of the three
attempts by the WPA to develop regional library service did eventually
become permanent. 60
Finally, in addition to supporting the development of county and regional
library service, the WPA in South Carolina made a concerted, if
limited, effort to provide expanded service to Black residents. Early in
the project, the WPA trained and placed African-American workers as
library aides in a number of Black schools in the state. In 1937 it funded
the first bookmobile to provide direct service entirely to Blacks. Operating
in Greenville County, this truck was stocked with books loaned by
the WPA. A second WPA-funded bookmobile served Blacks in Calhoun
County through deposits left at Black schools and other sites throughout
the county. This service was supplemented by an African-American
teacher who delivered books in her car. By mid-1938 the WPA reported
a circulation of 158,528 books to 5,819 African-Americans. 61
The WPA also established separate libraries and branches of White
public libraries to serve African Americans. Agnes Crawford found the
WPA’s efforts in this arena to be ‘‘hard up-hill work in South Carolina.
It is not only because of the high percentage of illiterates within this
race, but also due to lack of real leadership within the communities that
can afford a library.’’ 62 In other words, most Whites were not interested
in funding efforts to expand library service to Blacks. In spite of these
roadblocks, by 1939 the WPA supported twenty-nine separate libraries,
most in Black schools which also served the general Black public.

442 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
African-American library workers operated twenty-four of these libraries.
Out of a bookstock of 32,238 titles available for use by Blacks (as compared
to 252,387 titles for Whites), 20,022 African Americans borrowed
157,110 items. 63 By early 1940 thirty WPA-funded libraries made 42,893
titles available to Blacks, an increase of 10,000 titles over the previous
year. Unfortunately, quota reductions in the number of WPA workers
allowed reduced the number of libraries to nineteen later in 1940. 64
In no sense were WPA library activities in support of Blacks equivalent
to that provided to Whites. The number of book titles available was
considerably smaller, and the number of projects funded significantly
fewer. In some cases, as with the Tri-County Regional Library experiment
in Horry, Marion, and Georgetown counties, the WPA avoided the
issue of library service for Blacks because of White opposition. 65 Still,
library service for Blacks under the WPA was a considerable improvement
over what had existed previously, and WPA efforts did pave the
way for future development.
Activities of the State Library Board
Because the South Carolina State Library Board was not funded, the
WPA statewide library service demonstration project during its existence
was to all intents and purposes the state library agency for South Carolina.
Only it had the financial resources and staffing to carry out the
duties performed by library agencies in other states. This situation did
not mean, however, that the state library board was inactive.
Marion Wright, attorney and chair of the state library board, and library
activists such as Mary Frayser sacrificed time and money to promote
public libraries. They were active in speaking to civic and
educational organizations and in lobbying the general assembly for state
funding for public libraries. In late 1938 the board secured a grant from
the state to hire Dr. Helen Stewart, a renowned Canadian librarian and
acting director of the library school at Louisiana State University, to
assist in the reorganization of the Citizens’ Library Association formed
in 1930.
The impetus for Dr. Stewart’s consultation was a series of reports
issued by President Roosevelt’s Advisory Committee on Education. These
reports covered all aspects of education, including library service, and
focused on the need for federal aid to education. As a result, several bills
for federal aid to schools and libraries were introduced in the U.S.
Congress in 1938. One aspect of this proposed legislation was that a
state would receive federal aid for libraries only if it had a funded state
library agency. Thus, Dr. Stewart’s visit was designed to achieve this end
by arousing public support through the Citizens’ Library Association. 66

443
The state library board organized a meeting on 16 November 1938 to
discuss the status of libraries in the state, the role of the Citizens’ Library
Association in library development, and the possible goals and activities
of a funded state library board. Dr. Stewart spoke at this meeting.
The Citizens’ Library Association was reorganized with a state committee
at the head. Committees at the county and local levels were also
created to involve as many local citizens as possible. Dr. Stewart was
charged with visiting each county in the state to help organize these
county committees. She assisted in the development of twenty-eight
county citizens’ library organizations. 67 Mary Frayser identified the goals
of the Citizens’ Library Association as being threefold: ‘‘to arouse and
mobilize public opinion in support of a state-wide program sponsored by
the State; to take advantage of the opportunity for federal aid; to work
out with the State Board, plans for each local district.’’ 68
As a consultant, Dr. Stewart advocated regional tax-supported public
libraries as the most cost effective and efficient structure, an indication
of the growing recognition that in the mostly rural South a multicounty
structure was a more financially viable alternative for many of the
smaller counties. She recommended that the state library board, if
funded, should perform three functions initially. First, it should acquire
a collection of books which would be loaned to local libraries to supplement
their collections. Second, the state library board should create a
union catalog of the library resources in the state to allow libraries to
locate and lend books to each other. Finally, the board should assist local
libraries through grants and library planning. 69
Unfortunately, none of the proposed federal aid for education and
libraries was funded by Congress. Nor was the South Carolina Citizens’
Library Association successful in securing funding for the state library
board. Dr. Stewart’s ideas would not be implemented until a statesupported
library board was created years later. In the meantime, interested
parties such as the Citizens’ Library Association continued to serve
as advocates for public library development.
Zenith of the Statewide Library Project
In 1939 Agnes Crawford was appointed as an assistant director of the
Library Service Section in Washington, D.C. Roberta O’Hear Bonnoit, a
librarian at the Charleston Free Library, was selected as her successor
to head the South Carolina statewide library service demonstration
project. By this time, the project had achieved some very real successes.
Six former WPA county demonstration projects (Aiken, Darlington,
Greenwood, Lancaster, Orangeburg, and Sumter counties) now had permanent
tax-supported county libraries, bringing the total number of

444 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
county library systems to ten. In addition, the statewide project was
providing assistance in all but four of the state’s forty-six counties. The
cooperative cataloging service had cataloged thousands of school library
books in its effort to help the high schools meet accreditation standards.
Seventy high schools had availed themselves of this service. The
number of registered borrowers had reached 189,040, nearly twice the
number as had registered the year before. These patrons borrowed over
4,000,000 books, accounting for an average circulation of 20.6 items per
borrower. 70
Although library service in South Carolina continued to rank among
the lowest in the country, a committee of educators appointed to review
WPA education programs statewide found the library service demonstration
project to be one of the most successful WPA activities being conducted
in the state. ‘‘Probably no other project of the W.P.A. will, in the
long run, be of so much benefit in raising the educational and cultural
level of so many people as the Statewide library project,’’ the committee
concluded. ‘‘These effects promise to a great extent to be enduring.’’
The committee found that the WPA had ‘‘blazed the way’’ in demonstrating
the importance and effectiveness of countywide public library
service in South Carolina. 71
Early 1940 saw the statewide project at its height. Nancy C. Blair,
head of the county department of the Richland County Public Library,
was appointed state supervisor of the project when Roberta Bonnoit resigned
to become a WPA district supervisor in charge of extension services.
Blair remained as supervisor until 1943, when the WPA ceased
operations. Seven professional librarians and thirteen district and assistant
district supervisors provided supervision and training throughout
the state. There were also up to twenty unit or area supervisors in charge
at the county level. Manuals on library procedures, extension services,
publicity, and book repair had been written to ensure uniformity of service
and policies. 72 There were now eleven counties with permanent publicly
funded county library systems. The WPA funded twenty-five projects
in the remaining thirty-five counties. Cash contributions from sponsors
had reached a high of $66,367, over four times what it had been in 1936.
Thirty-one bookmobiles were totally owned by the counties; the statewide
project assisted in the rental of just two. 73
In addition to its cataloging service, in February 1940 the statewide
project began offering a book selection service for libraries throughout
the state. Interested librarians indicated the amount of funds they
wanted to spend for books and how they wanted it allocated between
fiction and non-fiction and adult and children’s books. The project prepared
a list of appropriate titles chosen from various standard book

445
Nancy Blair, state supervisor of the South Carolina library project (1940–1943), inspects a
model of the bookmobile used to provide countywide library service in South Carolina. Courtesy
of the South Carolina State Library.
selection aids. The requesting library used the lists to assist with book
selection. In its first six months, the project compiled lists for eleven
public libraries. 74
The statewide project in South Carolina gained attention within the
library profession in mid-1940 when an exhibit on its activities and progress
was prepared and displayed at the American Library Association
annual conference held in Cincinnati, Ohio. ‘‘W.P.A. Rural Library Service
in South Carolina,’’ a motion picture about project activities and
services in the state, and a miniature bookmobile were included in the
exhibit. The film was later loaned to other states. 75
End of the WPA
By 1940 the WPA nationwide was beginning its final phase. A growing
improvement in the U.S. economy resulted in reduced appropriations for
WPA activities and a drastic reduction in worker quotas. At the same
time, the nation became more concerned with national defense issues as
war in Europe and Asia broke out. The WPA began a shift toward defense-related
projects. South Carolina was not immune to these changes.

446 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
By June 1941, 63.4 percent of all WPA employment in the state was for
national defense projects. 76
Reductions in the number of WPA workers allowed had a direct impact
on the statewide library service demonstration project. The project responded
by curtailing some activities and consolidating some of its operations.
Book repair and binding services were centralized in the
counties to reduce duplication and improve the quality of work performed.
In most counties there was now only one mending unit; in some
cases a unit served more than one county. 77
A visit by Agnes Crawford, in her capacity as an assistant director of the
Library Service Section, resulted in a recommendation for further consolidation
and centralization of the statewide library project. Crawford
found the project to be ‘‘hampered by the lack of professional supervisors
on a district level’’ and by a reduction in WPA library workers. To address
these reductions, Crawford recommended a reorganization of the
statewide library project administrative structure so that the project
would require fewer supervisors, a further centralization of the book repair
program so that there would be just one unit per district, and ‘‘the
culmination of a few of the areawide demonstration systems now being
operated by the project.’’ 78
America’s entry into the World War II marked the beginning of the
end of the WPA. With the economy booming because of war-related
industrial expansion, thousands of men being drafted into the military,
and federal funds being directed toward defense activities, the WPA’s
funding and reasons for existence disappeared. Although the WPA continued
to fund library activities, most of its projects from 1942 onward
were redirected toward the war effort. The national WPA library program
was absorbed into a larger consolidated project known as War Services.
In South Carolina only those libraries in defense areas, such as
those with military bases, received WPA support. Demonstration projects
in seventeen counties were discontinued. 79
Finally, on 4 December 1942 President Roosevelt gave the WPA an
‘‘honorable discharge,’’ decreeing that WPA activities would cease as of
30 June 1943. 80 When word came from Washington that the South Carolina
statewide library project would end operations on 1 March 1943,
state library leaders worried about the future of the library programs
begun under the WPA. South Carolina had become very dependent upon
the WPA for funding and directing basic library operations. When the
project came to a close, South Carolina was the only southern state and
one of just two states nationwide without a state-funded library agency.
Unless this situation changed, the progress and success in library service
achieved under the WPA would disappear.

Funding the State Library Board
447
With the end of the WPA in sight, library advocates in South Carolina
redoubled their efforts to secure funding for the state library board.
Throughout the winter of 1942–1943, individuals and state organizations
such as the Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Congress of Parent-
Teachers, and the Federation of Business and Professional Women’s
Clubs, contacted and met with public officials responsible for appropriating
state funds. Early in 1943 their efforts paid off. The State Budget
Commission allocated $1,000 for the extension work of the state library
board. At the same time, the general assembly approved $2,000 from the
State Emergency Fund to support the state library board through the
remainder of the fiscal year ending 30 June 1943. Finally in the spring
of 1943, the general assembly appropriated $15,000 for use by the state
library board during fiscal year 1943–1944. The board itself was reorganized
with Mary Frayser appointed chair. At long last, South Carolina
had a fully constituted and publicly funded state library agency. 81
The amount initially appropriated was certainly minuscule in comparison
to amounts expended in neighboring states. Georgia, for example,
allocated $100,000 for library services, and North Carolina received
$250,000 in state funds. It was considerably less than the $480,000 expended
by the WPA for South Carolina libraries during the previous
fiscal year. Regardless of the amount, it was the first real commitment
by the state government to support statewide library development. 82
When the WPA statewide library project ended, there were twelve
publicly funded county libraries in the state under the supervision of
professional librarians. There were fourteen other WPA demonstration
county libraries and one regional system not permanently established
operating under the supervision of former WPA-trained library workers.
Four other counties maintained libraries at the county seat but could
not afford to continue bookmobile service to the rest of the county.
Residents of these counties, however, were permitted to come to the
library itself. The remaining fourteen counties were unable to continue
county library service in any form. Thus, the state library board’s first
goal was to devise a system to support and encourage the continued
development of countywide and regional library service throughout the
state. 83
One of the first acts of the state library board was to hire Nancy Blair,
the former WPA statewide library supervisor, as executive secretary and
field representative of the board. Her job was to assist the board in
organizing a plan for state aid to the counties and to oversee the continued
development of countywide and regional library systems. Based

448 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
on Dr. Stewart’s earlier recommendations, a formal framework for state
aid was developed.
First, a central collection of books was established in Columbia to be
loaned to libraries and individuals throughout the state. The core of this
collection was the nearly 26,000 WPA-owned books which had been
turned over to the state library board by the state board of education.
During its first full year of operation, the state library board added 3,677
more books. 84
To encourage the development of countywide and regional library systems,
the board set aside funds to be used by these systems for book
purchases. To qualify for this aid, a county had to have a county library
board which agreed to work toward increased support for the library, to
provide countywide service, and to hire a professional librarian as quickly
as possible. In return, the county could submit book orders to the board
totaling $200. In actuality, because many counties did not meet state
requirements the first year, each that did qualify received $300 worth of
books. The board ordered, processed, and returned the books to the qualifying
county. The board retained ownership of these books in the event
the county stopped supporting the library system. Counties combining
to form a regional system would receive a bonus of $50 per county for
book purchases. During the first year, twenty-three counties and two
regional systems, Allendale-Hampton and Abbeville-Greenwood, shared
in this state aid. 85 In addition, the board provided counties with advice
and consultation in planning and developing library services. It held conferences
in thirty-seven counties the first year and provided assistance
with preparing book orders, weeding collections, cataloging, and budget
preparation. 86
Thus, by the end of its first full year of operation, the state library
board had established itself as the leader in public library development
in South Carolina. Even with limited funds, it had successfully replaced
the WPA statewide project as the primary agent in extending library
service to all residents of the state. The course was set; there would be
no turning back.
Conclusions
The WPA was one of the most controversial programs of the Roosevelt
administration. Critics often characterized it as a giant boondoggle, an
agency dedicated to wasting taxpayer money on useless projects. One
common image advanced by detractors was that of the lazy ditch digger
lounging on the side of the road: ‘‘Here we stand asleep all day/While
F.D. shooes the flies away/We just wake up to get our pay/What for? For
leaning on a shovel!’’ 87

449
Undoubtedly, some WPA projects were poorly conceived and executed.
The WPA was, after all, a program begun quickly to address the most
harrowing economic crisis in the history of the United States. However,
it was successful in putting millions of Americans back to work and in
injecting billions of dollars into an ailing economy. Many of its projects
continued to have an impact long after the demise of the agency.
The South Carolina library service demonstration project was a prime
example of the WPA at its best. Prior to 1935, there were only three
countywide library systems in the state. The remainder of libraries were
local operations serving a limited number of residents. By the end of the
WPA project, four times as many countywide and one struggling bicounty
system had been created, and an equal number of counties were well on
their way to permanently establishing their county libraries. Much remained
to be done, but the WPA had forced a quantum leap in the
development of library service in the state.
This is not to say the South Carolina project was perfect. One critic
faulted the statewide program for attempting to demonstrate service in
all counties rather than putting its limited resources into a few select
county or regional projects. Consequently, many counties that began projects
with WPA funding could not afford to continue countywide library
services once federal funding was withdrawn. In these counties the WPA
failed ‘‘to provide a strong basis for a permanent, efficient, independent
library system.’’ 88 However valid this criticism may be, the social and
political realities dictated the form the project would take. With the
state’s library advocates oriented toward developing countywide service
for every county in the state, with the South’s general orientation toward
the county as the most appropriate form of local government, with no
central direction from an active state library agency, and with local politicians
and citizens actively lobbying for all the WPA aid they could get,
it was inevitable that the statewide project would attempt to serve every
county. Eventually, library leaders recognized that the small counties
could not sustain a county system and began encouraging the development
of regional systems in which limited resources were shared. Furthermore,
dependence on unskilled labor diminished the impact of the
demonstration projects. These workers, no matter how enthusiastic or
willing to learn, were not adequate substitutes for professional librarians.
The quality of the services suffered as a result.
Nonetheless, during its existence the WPA statewide project was the
state library agency for South Carolina. It supplied the leadership and
direction necessary to demonstrate the importance, need, and demand
for better public libraries. The growth in borrowers, circulation, services,
and collections provided a testimony to its success. Without the WPA’s
example, it is doubtful that the state library board would have been

450 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
funded so early. Public pressure and concern over the loss of library
service initiated under the WPA forced the state to assume responsibility
for funding a state library agency. The state library board, once permanently
funded, used the WPA experience to build its program of state
aid to libraries.
Finally, the WPA library project did have limited success in addressing
the library needs of Black South Carolinians. In the opinion of Edward
Chapman, national director of the WPA’s Library Service Section, among
the southern states South Carolina was second only to North Carolina
in expanding services to Blacks. 89 New library programs were started for
African Americans, although certainly not at the level of service offered
to Whites. Racism and the desire to avoid conflict over racial issues predetermined
that the project would not accomplish as much in this area.
It would be years before Blacks were allowed equal access to resources
and services.
If not for the WPA, statewide library service in South Carolina probably
would have been delayed until well after World War II. The WPA
statewide library project had indeed ‘‘blazed the way’’ for the rapid development
of public library service in the state.
Notes
1. Federal Works Agency, Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935– 1943 (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1947; reprint, Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1976), iii, 7, 52, 62, 67. Also, a good overview of the library
demonstration projects is found in Edward B. Stanford, Library Extension Under the
WPA: An Appraisal of an Experiment in Federal Aid (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1944).
2. Louis R. Wilson and Edward A. Wight, County Library Service in the South:
A Study of the Rosenwald County Library Demonstration (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1935), 5–15; National Emergency Council, Report on Economic
Conditions in the South (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1938), 1.
3. Tommie D. Barker, Libraries of the South: A Report on Developments 1930– 1935
(Chicago: American Library Association, 1936), 88–90; Louis R. Wilson, The Geography
of Reading: A Study of the Distribution and Status of Libraries in the United States
(Chicago: American Library Association and the University of Chicago Press,
1938), 186; Mary E. Frayser, The Libraries of South Carolina (Clemson College:
South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station, 1933), 7–12, 23–6.
4. Eliza A. Gleason, The Southern Negro and the Public Library: A Study of the
Government and Administration of Public Library Service to Negroes in the South (Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1941), 18–24, 185–6; Wilson, Geography of Reading,
33; Dan R. Lee, ‘‘Faith Cabin Libraries: A Study of an Alternative Library
Service in the Segregated South, 1932–1960,’’ Libraries & Culture: A Journal of
Library History 26 (Winter 1991): 172–3. Because of the racial conditions in the
South, service figures are in question. In her survey of South Carolina libraries,
Mary Frayser stated that 688,757 residents had access to public library service.

451
Dr. Gleason points out that Black residents were often included in public library
service figures even though they received no service. Dr. Gleason’s service figures
found on pages 95–7 seem more accurate.
5. Frayser, Libraries of South Carolina, 19–21; South Carolina, Acts and Joint
Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina Passed at the Regular
Session of 1929, Statutes at Large of South Carolina 36 (1929): 261–2; ‘‘Revised Library
Law,’’ Library Journal, 15 December 1935, 979; South Carolina, Acts and Joint Resolutions
of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina Passed at the Regular Session
of 1934, Statutes at Large South Carolina 38 (1934): 1480–3; Mary E. Anders, ‘‘The
Development of Public Library Service in the Southeastern States, 1895–1950,’’
Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1958, 166.
6. The Rosenwald Fund, founded in Illinois in 1917 by Julius Rosenwald,
philanthropist and president of Sears, Roebuck, and Company, was concerned
primarily with the educational, social, and medical needs of African Americans.
See Edwin R. Embree and Julia Waxman, Investment in People: the Story of the Julius
Rosenwald Fund (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1949); Parmelee Cheves, Untitled
report on goals and activities, typewritten document by Cheves as State
Library Field Agent, November 1930, [1–2], Mary E. Frayser Papers, Archives,
Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.; Mary E. Frayser,
‘‘The State Library Board,’’ Typewritten document, April 1939, [1], Mary E.
Frayser Papers, Archives, Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock
Hill, S.C.
7. Wilson and Wight, County Library Service, v–vi, 37–41, 92–101, 200–2;
‘‘Voted Permanent Support,’’ Wilson Bulletin for Librarians, November 1934, 147.
An excellent analysis of the problems confronting the Rosenwald projects is
found in James V. Carmichael, ‘‘Tommie Dora Barker and Southern Librarianship,’’
Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1988,
283–326.
8. Barker, Libraries of the South, 9–10; ‘‘Citizens Library Plan for South Carolina,’’
School and Society, 17 February 1934, 205; E. W. Sikes, ‘‘Why the Citizens’
Library Conference,’’ Library Journal, 1 June 1934, 464; Marion Wright, ‘‘Some
Social and Political Trends and Their Implications for Libraries,’’ Library Journal,
July 1934, 559; Frayser, Libraries of South Carolina, 34; ‘‘Citizens Library Plan,’’
205.
9. ‘‘Library Projects Under Public Works, Civil Works, and Relief Administrations,’’
Bulletin of the American Library Association, December 1933, 539–40; ‘‘The
Month at Random,’’ Wilson Bulletin for Librarians, May 1937, 620; Stanford, Library
Extension, 30–2.
10. Federal Works Agency, Final Report of the WPA Program, 6.
11. Stanford, Library Extension, 36–7.
12. Edward A. Chapman, Work Projects Administration Library Service Assistance
Program: A Record of Organization, Administration and Operation Submitted to the Administrator
as a Closing Report Upon the Liquidation of the Administration, June 30, 1943
(Washington, D.C.: Division of Service Projects, Work Projects Administration,
Federal Works Agency, 1943), 1.
13. Ibid., 136.
14. Ibid., 137.
15. Ibid., 13–4.
16. Ibid., 17.
17. Edward A. Chapman, ‘‘Theory and Practice in the Organization and Operation
of WPA Library Service Projects,’’ National Association of State Libraries
Papers and Proceedings 42 (1939): 25.

452 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
18. Chapman, Library Program, 14.
19. Ibid., 55.
20. Chapman, ‘‘Theory and Practice,’’ 24.
21. Chapman, Library Program, 12.
22. Such was not the case for WPA expenditures as a whole. Many Southerners
resented the fact that other regions of the country received a far greater share
of relief assistance than the South did. U.S. Senator James Byrnes of South Carolina
pointed out that through early 1938, WPA expenditures in New York totaled
over $737,000,000 while the thirteen Southern states received only
$600,000,000 even though the region’s population was over twice the size of New
York’s. See Stanford, Library Extension, 54–5; Jack I. Hayes, ‘‘South Carolina and
the New Deal, 1932–1938,’’ Ph.D. dissertation, University of South Carolina,
1972, 137–8.
23. Stanford, Library Expenditures, 79–86.
24. Lawrence M. Pinckney, The Story of the WPA in South Carolina: Permanent
Achievements Through the State’s Sponsors (Columbia, S.C.: The Information Service,
South Carolina Works Progress Administration, 1936), [1].
25. Although there was political opposition in South Carolina to the New
Deal, especially after 1936, the state’s politicians generally supported New
Deal legislation like the CWA, FERA, and the Social Security Act. In 1935, for
example, South Carolina’s Senator James Byrnes was instrumental in securing
passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act, the legislation that created
the WPA among other things. All members of the South Carolina delegation
supported the act. Most average South Carolinians regarded Roosevelt as
a savior even though they might disagree with a particular policy of his. For a
thorough analysis of the New Deal in South Carolina, see Hayes, ‘‘South Carolina
and the New Deal,’’ especially pages 83–5, 115–7, 134–51, 173–215, 232–63,
463–522.
26. Robert M. Willingham, ‘‘Bookish Bureaucracy: the Work of the American
Imprints Inventory in Georgia, 1937–1941,’’ The Georgia Librarian, August 1982,
3–6; Carmichael, ‘‘Tommie Dora Barker,’’ 333–4; Anders, ‘‘The Development of
Public Library Service,’’ 132–3.
27. Lawrence M. Pinckney, ‘‘Final report on the South Carolina Work Projects
Administration, 5 March 1943,’’ 2–3, 10, in Archives of the Work Projects Administration
and Predecessors, 1933– 1943: Series One: the Final State Reports (Sussex, England:
Harvester Microform, 1987), reel 6.
28. Fanny T. Taber, ‘‘Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth,’’ Library Journal, 15
December 1936, 939; ‘‘Second Citizens Conference on Library Needs of State,’’
Columbia (S.C.) State, 17 February 1936, 6.
29. Taber, ‘‘Looking a Gift Horse,’’ 939.
30. Ida B. Entrekin, ‘‘W.P.A. Library Projects in South Carolina,’’ Typewritten
document, 1 March 1936, [1], Mary E. Frayser Papers, Archives, Ida Jane Dacus
Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.
31. Chapman, Library Program, 69–70.
32. Entrekin, ‘‘W.P.A. Library Projects,’’ [1–2].
33. Chapman, Library Program, 75–7.
34. Ibid., 73–4.
35. ‘‘Second Citizens Conference,’’ 6.
36. Entrekin, ‘‘W.P.A. Library Projects,’’ [1]; Nancy C. Blair, Statewide Library
Project Annual Report July 1, 1939– June 30, 1940 (Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina
Work Projects Administration, Federal Works Agency, 1940), [20].
37. Pinckney, Story of the WPA, [10]; Entrekin, ‘‘W.P.A. Library Projects,’’ [1].

453
38. Agnes D. Crawford, ‘‘Report of WPA Library Projects in South Carolina
as of July 1, 1937,’’ Typewritten document, 1 July 1937, [1, 4], Mary E. Frayser
Papers, Archives, Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.
39. Entrekin, ‘‘W.P.A. Library Projects,’’ [3]; Crawford, ‘‘Report of WPA Library
Projects,’’ [1].
40. Entrekin, ‘‘W.P.A. Library Projects,’’ [3]; Agnes D. Crawford, Annual Report
Statewide Library Project July 1938– July 1939 (Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina
Works Progress Administration, 1939), [11].
41. Crawford, Annual Report July 1938– July 1939, [12].
42. Chapman, Library Program, 101–2.
43. Blair, Annual Report July 1, 1939– June 30, 1940, 6; Chapman, Library Program,
85–6; James H. Hope, Columbia, South Carolina, to Mary E. Frayser, Rock Hill,
South Carolina, signed letter, 19 March 1943, Mary E. Frayser Papers, Archives,
Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.
44. Crawford, Annual Report July 1938– July 1939, [1]; Stanford, Library Extension,
157.
45. Crawford, Annual Report July 1938– July 1939, [5].
46. Ibid., [2–4].
47. Blair, Annual Report July 1, 1939– June 30, 1940, 4–5.
48. Ibid., 5.
49. Agnes D. Crawford, Annual Report Statewide Library Project July 1937– July
1938 (Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina Works Progress Administration, 1938), 6.
The library profession as a whole did not embrace the concept of countywide
library service until the beginning of this century. As late as 1923, the American
Library Association passed a resolution advocating the county as ‘‘a logical unit
of library service for most parts of the United States.’’ Only later did the profession
see the potential of regional libraries as perhaps more suitable to the
conditions of smaller counties. See ‘‘Proceedings,’’ ALA Bulletin, July 1923, 153;
Anders, ‘‘The Development of Public Library Service,’’ 183–92; Louis R. Wilson,
‘‘The County Library: An Agency to Promote General Reading,’’ The American
City, April 1919, 340–2; Carleton B. Joeckel, ‘‘The Library and Its Relationship
to Government in the South,’’ Papers and Proceedings of the Joint Meeting of the Southeastern
Library Association and the Southwestern Library Association, October 1934,
13–24.
50. Charleston District Office, South Carolina Writer’s Project, ‘‘State Wide
Library Project,’’ news release, 24 April 1940, 1–3, Mary E. Frayser Papers, Archives,
Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.
51. WPA Statewide Library Project, Recent Library Development in South Carolina
(n.p., [1940]), [15].
52. Ibid., [15]; Crawford, Annual Report July 1938– July 1939, [22–3].
53. Carmichael, ‘‘Tommie Dora Barker,’’ 335–41, 354–5, 368–9; Tommie D.
Barker, ‘‘A Summary of Progress in State Planning in the South,’’ Papers and
Proceedings of the Joint Meeting of the Southeastern Library Association and the Southwestern
Library Association, October 1934, 58–66.
54. Charlotte Templeton, ‘‘County Libraries for Southern Conditions,’’ North
Carolina Library Bulletin, December 1921, 5.
55. WPA Statewide Library Project, Recent Library Development, [15]; Crawford,
Annual Report July 1937– July 1938, 6; Estellene Walker, ed., ‘‘So Good and Necessary
a Work’’: the Public Library in South Carolina 1698– 1980 (Columbia, S.C.: South
Carolina State Library, 1981), 21.
56. WPA Statewide Library Project, Recent Library Development, [15]; Crawford,
Annual Report July 1938– July 1939, [24–6].

454 L&C/The WPA in South Carolina
57. WPA Statewide Library Project, Recent Library Development, [15]; Walker,
‘‘So Good and Necessary,’’ 21.
58. ‘‘Monthly Narrative Report Statewide Library Project: June Report,’’ typewritten
document, June 1941, 4–5, 10; WPA Central Files: State 1935–1944,
Record Group 69, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
59. Ibid, 1.
60. Walker, ‘‘So Good and Necessary,’’ 6.
61. Crawford, Annual Report July 1937– July 1938, 8–9.
62. Crawford, Annual Report July 1938– July 1939, [24].
63. Ibid., [24, 28].
64. Blair, Annual Report July 1, 1939– June 30, 1940, 12.
65. Stanford, Library Extension, 177–8.
66. Frayser, ‘‘State Library Board,’’ 2–3.
67. Ibid., 3.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid., 4.
70. Crawford, Annual Report July 1938– July 1939, [9, 11, 28].
71. State of South Carolina, U.S. Community Improvement Appraisal, Report
of the State Appraisal Committee (Columbia, S.C.: Works Progress Administration,
1938), [11–2].
72. Blair, Annual Report July 1, 1939– June 30, 1940, 4.
73. Ibid., 6, [20], 22.
74. Ibid., 8.
75. Ibid., 13
76. Lawrence M. Pinckney, A Statistical Summary of WPA Operations in South
Carolina (Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina Work Projects Administration, Federal
Works Agency, 1941), 16; Chapman, Library Program, 2–3.
77. Blair, Annual Report July 1, 1939– June 30, 1940, 5, 9.
78. Agnes D. Crawford, ‘‘Report of Visit to South Carolina, April 21–2, 1941,’’
typewritten document, 1 May 1941, [1–3], WPA Central Files: General 1935–42,
Record Group 69, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
79. Chapman, Library Program, 2–3; Mary E. Frayser, ‘‘Talking Points for a
State Appropriation for Libraries and Federal Aid to Education Including Aid to
Libraries,’’ typewritten letter, [28 November 1942], Mary E. Frayser Papers, Archives,
Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.
80. Federal Works Agency, Final Report on the WPA Program, v.
81. Mary E. Frayser, letter to county librarians, typewritten letter by Frayser
as Chairman of the South Carolina State Library Board, 20 March 1943, Mary
E. Frayser Papers, Archives, Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock
Hill, S.C.; South Carolina State Library Board, First Annual Report July 1, 1943–
June 30, 1944 (n.p., 1944), 1–2.
82. State Library Board, First Annual Report, 3; Mary E. Frayser, Letter to
Friends of Libraries, typewritten letter by Frayser as Chairman of the South
Carolina State Library Board, 27 February 1943, Mary E. Frayser Papers, Archives,
Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.
83. State Library Board, First Annual Report, 2.
84. Ibid, 5.
85. Ibid., 4; Nancy C. Blair, Columbia, South Carolina, to Mary E. Frayser,
Columbia, South Carolina, typewritten letter, 11 August 1944, Mary E. Frayser
Papers, Archives, Ida Jane Dacus Library, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, S.C.;
South Carolina State Library Board, State Aid for South Carolina Libraries 1943–
1944 (Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina State Library Board, [1943]), [1–2].

455
86. State Library Board, First Annual Report, 5.
87. John LaTouche, ‘‘Leaning on a Shovel,’’ in Roosevelt: His Life and Times: An
Encyclopedic View, ed. Otis L. Graham and Meghan R. Wander (Boston: G. K.
Hall and Company, 1985), 462.
88. Stanford, Library Extension, 194.
89. Anders, ‘‘The Development of Public Library Service,’’ 140.

The Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library of Shanghai
Gail King
The Xujiahui Library was begun in 1847 as a part of the Jesuit mission
complex at the village of Xujiahui outside of Shanghai and grew over the
next one hundred years to become a scholarly repository of over 200,000
volumes. It was known for its local gazetteers of China; long, complete
runs of newspapers; reference books; and mission-related writings in Chinese
and European languages. The advent of the People’s Republic of
China brought an end to the Jesuit Xujiahui mission, but its legacy continues
in various forms. One of these is the Xujiahui Library, which since
1957 has been part of the Shanghai Library.
In the mid–nineteenth century, in a village to the southwest of Shanghai,
China, the Society of Jesus began construction of a mission complex
that within a few decades was known worldwide for its charitable works
and original research in the physical and natural sciences. Chinese students
at schools there were introduced to Western learning, and mission
priests were expected to be scholars as well as pastors. The missionaries
saw themselves as heirs of an earlier generation of Jesuits in China, and
like them they strove to build a mission based on scholarship, scientific
endeavor, and respect for Chinese culture. The library that grew out of
this undertaking became one of the finest in China. Collected by scholars
and intended for scholarly use, the holdings of the library reflected its
heritage of Chinese-Western interaction. This paper begins with a look
at the historical background of the library and then moves on to discuss
its founding, collections, and recent history.
Historical Background
The Jesuits who came to China in the late sixteenth century developed
an approach to evangelization unique in their time, one based on an
understanding of and respect for Chinese civilization. 1 Their goal was
not many quick converts, but a sure, slow rooting of the gospel in China,
beginning by making friends among the scholar-officials. They hoped to
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 1997
1997 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

457
gain acceptance for themselves as scholars of both Western learning and
the Confucian learning of the literati of China and in this way eventually
to win a place for Christianity in Chinese life. This approach necessitated
a strong emphasis on study and scholarship, precisely what St. Ignatius
Loyola prescribed for the educational formation of young men entering
his new Society of Jesus, which had been granted formal recognition as
a new religious order by Pope Paul III on 27 September 1540. 2 The education
of aspiring young Jesuits at the Roman College, the Jesuit seminary
founded in 1551, included the finest training then available in
theology, classics, mathematics, and science; and newly arrived Jesuits
in the China mission were immediately put to intensive studies of Chinese
language, culture, and the classic Confucian works, standard to the
education of an aspiring Chinese scholar.
Books were essential to the success of this mission strategy. When they
left Europe bound for China, Jesuits brought with them books in all the
subjects they had studied. In their house in Zhaoqing in Guangdong
Province, site of the first Jesuit mission in China (1583–1589), Frs. Matteo
Ricci (1552–1610) and Michel Ruggieri (1543–1607) exhibited their
collection of books—the foundation of the first library of European books
in China. 3 Bringing back up-to-date books in the sciences was one of the
charges given to Fr. Nicholas Trigault (1577–1628) when he was sent to
Europe in 1613 to take care of several matters regarding the China
mission. The volumes he brought back with him in 1620 were the beginning
of a library in the Beijing residence of the Jesuits and the foundation
of the collection eventually housed in the Beitang [North Church]
and known as the Beitang Library. 4
The tradition of scholar missionaries was continued by the Jesuits in
China throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, until the
suppression of the Society of Jesus by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, after
which the last Jesuits left Beijing. 5 Earlier, in 1724, an imperial decree
had prohibited the preaching of Christianity in China and ordered the
deportation of missionaries from the empire, with the exception of those
working at the court. Furthermore, Christian churches were to be converted
to public buildings, and Chinese Christians were ordered to renounce
their faith. 6 Their work as scientists kept the Jesuits at Court in
imperial favor, but the hope of Christianity winning a recognized place
in Chinese society was lost. Local persecutions became more frequent
and severe. The Chinese Christian community, scattered and demoralized,
existed on the economic and social fringes of society, increasingly
cut off from help from Europe and viewed with suspicion by their own
society. 7 By 1840 there were fewer than forty European missionaries and
ninety Chinese priests to care for the 200,000 to 250,000 Chinese
Christians. 8

458 L&C/The Xujiahui Library
Beleaguered Chinese Christians recalled the esteem and influence the
early Jesuits had enjoyed in the courts of the late Ming and early Qing
emperors. If only the Jesuit missionaries would return, they believed,
their situation as Chinese Christians would improve and the prestige of
Christianity would be restored. 9 They sent numerous petitions during
the 1830s to the Society of Jesus, restored by Pope Pius VII in 1784, to
the Queen of Portugal, and to the Pope, requesting the return of the
Society of Jesus to China. 10 In response to these petitions, three Jesuit
missionaries—Frs. Claude Gotteland (1803–1856), named head of the
mission, François Estève (1804–1848), and Benjamin Brueyre (1808–
1880)—were sent to China, landing at Wusong near Shanghai on 11 July
1842. 11 Fr. Gotteland had been instructed to renew the scientific work
of the early Jesuit fathers and win the respect of educated Chinese, while
Frs. Estève and Brueyre were to engage in the direct apostolate. 12 The
latter two immediately set themselves to tending to the spiritual and
material needs of the Catholics in the region.
As the work of the mission progressed over the next five years, it
became clear that a permanent place of residence was needed to allow
the Jesuit missionaries to rest, recuperate from illness, and see each
other, as well as to provide a place for newly arrived missionaries to study
Chinese and prepare for their work. 13 The site chosen was the village of
Xujiahui (pronounced Zikawei in the local dialect), five miles southwest
of Shanghai. 14 Xujiahui, which means ‘‘the Xu family [home] where the
[Zhaojiabin and Fahuajing] waterways meet,’’ was the ancestral home of
Xu Guangqi (1562–1633), one of the early Jesuits’ most famous and
influential converts. 15 Xu Guangqi, baptized in 1604, served as a Ming
Dynasty court official—rising to the position of grand secretary—from
1610 until his death. He collaborated with Matteo Ricci and other Jesuit
fathers to translate Western mathematical and scientific works into Chinese
and polished or rewrote most of Fr. Ricci’s writings in Chinese. Xu
Guangqi was the strong support and defender of the early Catholic
Church in China, and with his help and personal witness congregations
were begun in Hangzhou and in Shanghai. 16 Xu’s remains were interred
in Xujiahui in 1641 after his death in Beijing in 1633, and one branch
of his descendants still living in the village over two centuries later remained
staunchly Catholic. 17 The small chapel they had built next to
the Zhaojiabin canal northeast of Xu Guangqi’s grave was a popular
pilgrimage site for local Christians. 18
In March of 1847, Fr. Gotteland’s superior, Fr. Mathurin Lemaitre,
purchased a plot of land in Xujiahui adjacent to the chapel of the local
Christians and began construction of the Jesuit residence. 19 By the end
of July the residence was completed and the Jesuits moved to their new
quarters in Xujiahui, 20 there to begin anew a Christian mission based

on scholarship and an understanding of Chinese culture that Matteo
Ricci had pioneered two and a half centuries earlier.
Establishment of the Xujiahui Library
459
Though pastoral work among the local Christians took most of the
missionaries’ time and energy, Fr. Gotteland was ever mindful of the
charge given him to renew the scholarly apostolate of the early Jesuits.
A seminary was started in 1843 to encourage development of a Chinese
clergy, 21 and at a retreat in the same year it was decided to make every
effort to strengthen or found local village schools in the Christian communities
of the area. 22 While such efforts were far from pure scholarship,
they did reflect Fr. Gotteland’s determination to give the mission a foundation
of concern for learning. So too did his decision to set aside space
for a collection of books supporting the missionaries’ study and work just
as soon as they moved to Xujiahui. However modest, this was the first
small beginning of the Xujiahui Library (Zikawei Library), which would
become one of the two foremost Jesuit libraries in China, the other being
the previously mentioned Beitang Library.
At first the library was housed very simply in three rooms in the mission
priests’ quarters on the north side of the existing chapel. Then in
1860 the Jesuits added to their land holdings in Xujiahui, and the library
was moved east of the Zhaojiabin canal and the building enlarged. By
1897 the library’s holdings had outgrown that building, and plans were
drawn up for a new two-story, twelve-room library divided into a Chinesestyle
first floor area for materials in Chinese and a Western language
section on the second floor. In 1906 the building was completed, and the
library holdings were moved to their new quarters. 23
The name of the library was never written on the building. In fact, it
was referred to by several names, known from the stamps of ownership
inside the books in the library: Zi-ka-wei Reservata Bibliotheca, Bibliotheca
Zi-ka-wei, Zi-ka-wei Bibliotheque de Mission, Zi-ka-wei Bibliotheca
Major, and in Chinese, Shanghai Xujiahui Tianzhutang Cangshulou
(‘‘Library of the Catholic Church of Xujiahui, Shanghai’’). Local people
in the area called the big building among the old gingko trees ‘‘The
Great Library.’’ 24
Administration
The Xujiahui Library was one of a number of libraries in the Xujiahui
mission complex, such as the libraries of the various schools, the Jesuit
Seminary, the orphanage, the observatory, and the museum. The care of
the library, until 1875, was assigned by the superior of the Xujiahui

460 L&C/The Xujiahui Library
mission to one of the Xujiahui mission priests as one of his various responsibilities.
After that, from 1875 until 1949, the mission priest chosen
to oversee the work of the library and the maintenance of its collections
was directly appointed by the Society of Jesus. 25 As we have seen, Fr.
Claude Gotteland, first superior of the Xujiahui Jesuit mission, gave the
library its start in 1847 when the mission moved to Xujiahui. Following
him, Frs. Angelo Zottoli and Henri Havret laid a firm foundation for the
library as a repository of scholarly materials for Sinological studies. 26
Angelo Zottoli (1826–1902), who joined the Jesuits in 1843, first arrived
in Xujiahui in 1848 and was one of the first European Jesuits to
complete university and seminary studies together with Chinese students
at Xujiahui. From 1853 on, Fr. Zottoli was a teacher and headmaster of
the College of St. Ignatius, a boarding school founded in 1849 to prepare
Chinese leaders for the Christian community. Many of the leading educators
and Chinese priests of the following decades received their formative
training under his direction. During his years at Xujiahui, Fr.
Zottoli wrote a multivolume textbook of Chinese for incoming missionaries
and several studies of Chinese literature, compiled a Chinese
dictionary, and wrote numerous theological works in Chinese. 27 Fr. Henri
Havret (1848–1902) entered the Society of Jesus in 1872, arrived in
China late in 1874, and, following final theological studies at Xujiahui,
was ordained a priest. From 1874 to 1876 he was assigned responsibility
for the Xujiahui Library at the same time he taught philosophy and
theology in the Jesuit mission schools at Xujiahui. After spending a number
of years doing mission work in the lower Yangtze River region, Fr.
Havret served as director of the Xujiahui Jesuit Seminary from 1894 to
1898. The founder of the scholarly series Variéte´s Sinologiques, Fr. Havret
is best known for his study of the Nestorian tablet found near Xi’an in
central China about 1625, La Stèle chretiénne de Si-gnan-fou, (3 vols., Shanghai:
Mission Catholique, 1897). 28
In their work in the Xujiahui Library, Frs. Zottoli and Havret were
assisted by two of Fr. Zottoli’s students from his early years as headmaster
of the College of St. Ignatius, Ma Xiangbo and Li Wenyu. 29 Ma
Xiangbo (1840–1939) joined the Society of Jesus in 1862 and was ordained
a priest in 1870. He left the priesthood in 1876 and devoted the
remainder of his life to various efforts to modernize China and improve
education, all the while maintaining close ties to the Jesuit community
in Shanghai. 30 Li Wenyu (1840–1911) was a friend of and fellow student
with Ma Xiangbo. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1862 and was ordained
a priest in 1872. A pioneer of Chinese journalism, he was the
founding editor of Yiwenlu [General Report] (1879), the first Chinese
Catholic periodical, and Shengxinbao [Sacred Heart Messenger] (1887).

461
From 1906 until his death, Fr. Li was headmaster of Aurora Academy,
which Ma Xiangbo began in 1906. 31
From 1868 to 1874 and from 1876 to 1881 the library was headed by
Fr. Louis Pfister (1833–1891). Fr. Pfister arrived in China in 1867 and a
year afterward was assigned to the Xujiahui Library. He reorganized the
books, manuscripts, and other materials in the library. His knowledge of
the holdings of the library aided the research of many Sinologists of the
time. Fr. Pfister is best known for his invaluable reference work, Notices
biographiques et bibliographiques sur les Jésuites de l’ancienne mission de Chine
1552– 1773 (Shanghai: Imprimerie de la mission catholique, 1932), which
he compiled over the course of twenty years using the resources of the
Xujiahui Library. 32
Following Fr. Pfister, nine Chinese Jesuits headed the Xujiahui Library.
33 The last director of the library was Fr. Xu Zongze (1886–1947),
a twelfth generation descendant of Xu Guangqi, who headed the library
from 1923 until his death. 34 Under Xu Zongze the policy of allowing only
Jesuits to use the library was relaxed beginning in the 1920s to allow
anyone who was introduced by a Jesuit, and approved by the library’s
administrator, to be given reading privileges. 35 While the library was still
restricted in use, nonetheless certain Chinese researchers were thus able
to make use of the materials in the Xujiahui Library. For example, the
historian of Chinese journalism Ge Gongzhen, after securing an introduction
by Ma Xiangbo, was able to consult the library’s rich holdings
of newspapers and journals in writing his study Zhongguo baoxue shi [The
history of Chinese journalism]. 36 Besides teaching in the schools of Xujiahui,
Fr. Xu also served as editor of Shengjiao zazhi (Revue Catholique),
and he frequently inquired on the pages of the journal for news about
old, new, or different editions of gazetteers from the various areas of
China and then expended much effort to acquire them for the library.
Under his direction the Xujiahui Library’s collection of local gazetteers
of China grew to become one of the largest in China. Fr. Xu was responsible
for a revised edition, issued in 1933, of the collected writings
of his ancestor Xu Guangqi that had originally been compiled by Fr. Li
Wenyu in 1896. Using the resources of the Xujiahui Library, Fr. Xu
compiled Ming-Qing jian Yesuhuishi yizhu tiyao [Abstracts of writings by
Jesuits during the Ming and Qing dynasties] (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju,
1946), which lists 401 Chinese works from the seventeenth century by
Jesuit missionaries and related works by Chinese scholars. It was Fr. Xu’s
hope following World War II to modernize the library and allow public
access, but these suggestions were not approved by his superiors. Xu
Zongze continued his work at the library until his death in June 1947
from an attack of malaria. 37

462 L&C/The Xujiahui Library
Facilities
The library was designed for quiet reading and study. Jesuits and
other approved patrons were freely permitted to choose and use books
in the reading room, but there were no borrowing privileges. Current
periodicals and books for general reading were placed in the Fathers’
commons room. In the Western stacks on the second floor were a reading
counter, two tables, and several chairs. In the Chinese stacks on the first
floor, besides several tables, there was a stand with bookshelves for writing
characters and a stand for use in book binding and repair. Reference
tables in the Western area were designed with sections to hold Chinese
and Western reference books with drawers above and cabinets below,
each with sections for notecards, bound indexes, and other tools of the
researcher. The bookcases throughout the library stretched from floor to
ceiling and were painted with scarlet lacquer. There were twelve shelves
per bookcase in the Chinese section—three wide lower shelves, and nine
narrow upper ones—and six shelves per bookcase in the Western section.
In the Chinese section the higher shelves were reached by a bamboo
ladder hooked to an iron bar that ran along the top shelves. In the
Western section the upper level was reached by climbing one of three
ladders up to a walkway supported by iron columns that circled the
room. 38
Collections
At its height, the Xujiahui Library collection included over 100,000
titles in 200,000 volumes—80,000 volumes in European languages and
120,000 volumes in Chinese. 39 It was, after the destruction of the Dongfang
[Asia] Library in 1932 by Japanese militarists, the largest library in
Shanghai. 40 The books in the Chinese section of the library were classified
into five categories—the four traditional Chinese bibliographic
classes of classics, history, philosophy, and belles lettres, plus a fifth,
collectanea. The Chinese section was rich in local gazetteers of the provinces,
prefectures, and counties of China. In 1930 they numbered 2,531,
and eventually their number totaled over 2,700 separate titles. 41
Ninety-eight of the gazetteers were the only extant copies, the rarest
being a five-volume manuscript gazetteer from Zhenjiang Prefecture in
Jiangsu Province dating from the reign period which lasted from 1330
to 1332. 42
Besides its extensive holdings of gazetteers, another distinction of the
Xujiahui Library was its early, rare newspapers and magazines and its
complete runs of newspapers, including the English-language North China

463
Herald, Shanghai’s first newspaper, and the influential Shanghai daily
Shen pao. The Xujiahui Library held every issue of Shen pao published
from its founding on 30 April 1872 until it ceased publication 27 May
1949 (except 17 October 1909). Important, hard-to-acquire newspapers
from the 1870s held by the Xujiahui Library included the Huipao (1874),
Yipao (1875), and Xinbao (1876). Early journals included Jiaohui xinbao
[Church news], also called Zhongguo jiaohui xinbao [Chinese church news],
begun in 1868 and continued from 1874 under the title Wan’guo gongbao
[Universal news]; Xiaohai yuebao [Children’s monthly], begun 1876;
Yiwenlu [General report], begun 1879; and Huatu xinbao [Variety news],
begun 1880. 43
The European-language collection of the Xujiahui Library was made
up of books in over ten different languages, including Hebrew, Latin,
Greek, and other European languages, arranged on the shelves by subject
categories. 44 The library owned major dictionaries and encyclopedias
from all over the world and important scholarly journals to aid the Jesuits
in their studies. 45 One rare reference work in the library’s collections
was the remainder of a dictionary compiled in the mid–nineteenth century
by the French consul in Canton, by order of Louis-Napoleon. The
dictionary, Han-yang zidian [Chinese foreign (language) dictionary], when
first compiled included Chinese, French, and Latin entries. To reduce
the size, the French portion was later excised. In 1853 the dictionary was
sent to Hong Kong for printing, but before the job was done, a fire broke
out in the printer’s shop, and only a few portions of the dictionary, those
later held by the Xujiahui Library, survived. 46
Four double-faced glass cabinets in the Western section held manuscript
copies of early writings in Chinese by the Jesuit missionaries, including
Lifa xichuan [History of European astronomy] by Adam Schall,
S.J. (1591–1666), Zhili shugao [Draft memorial on calendar reform], and
Dizhen gao [On earthquakes—draft]. 47 The library also owned many
rarely seen woodblock prints and early typeset editions from Catholic
mission presses throughout China. 48
In all, the library held over two thousand pre-1800 rare editions, 49
among them an incomplete copy of Sapientia Sinica (Zhonghua zhanyan),
the earliest Latin translation of certain of the Confucian classics, printed
in 1662 in Jiangxi Province. The copy of this translation in the Xujiahui
collection was Sinensis imperii classici sex (Prague, 1711) by Francois Noël,
S.J. (1651–1729), the first complete translation of the Confucian Four
Books to appear in Europe. The Xujiahui Library collection also included
Gujin jingtian jian tianxue [An examination of the ancient and modern
(Chinese) worship of Heaven: the essentials of the Heavenly Teaching]
by Joachim Bouvet, S.J. (1656–1730), and variant editions of Tian Ru

464 L&C/The Xujiahui Library
yinzheng [On the true conformity of Christianity and Confucianism] and
Zhengxue liushi [The touchstone of true learning] by the Spanish missionary
Antonio Caballero a Santa Maria, O.F.M. (1602–1669). 50
A catalog of the Chinese books in the library existed in the 1930s, 51
but this catalog seems to have disappeared; its whereabouts are unknown.
52 There is a handwritten catalog of European books in two volumes,
the latest entry dated 1952, that includes approximately 25,000
titles, or a fairly complete listing of the European books in the Xujiahui
Library. 53 There seems never to have been any record made of the library’s
copious archival materials—manuscripts, letters, and journals.
The Xujiahui Library 1949–1976
The last foreign Jesuits left Xujiahui in 1951, after the mission schools
and scientific establishments had been taken over by the Chinese government.
54 In November 1956 the Xujiahui Jesuit Seminary was occupied
by the People’s Liberation Army. 55 The Xujiahui Library was placed,
along with other libraries formerly run by foreign groups, under the control
of the Shanghai Municipal Library, which had been established in
1952. Subsequently the Xujiahui Library became a unit of the Shanghai
Library, while remaining in its original building, and was opened in January
1957 for limited use. 56 Beginning in 1956 other specialized libraries
in Shanghai were merged with the Xujiahui Library. The first of these
was the Yazhou Wenhui Tushuguan [Literary library of Asia], followed
by the Hong Ying Library, the Shanghaishi Baokan Tushuguan [Shanghai
Newspaper Library], which included the archives of the Shen pao and
Xinwen pao, and finally, in 1958, the Shanghaishi Lishi Wenxian Tushuguan
[Shanghai Municipal Library of Historical Documents]. These libraries
brought to the Xujiahui Library fine collections of books on Asian
studies, historical documents, and many issues of early newspapers of
China from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, increasing
its total volumes to 1,070,000. 57
In October 1957 a draft catalog titled Xujiahui cangshulou socang guji
mulugao chubian [Preliminary draft catalog of rare books in the Xujiahui
Library] was issued by the Shanghai Library. The catalog includes approximately
8,500 Chinese titles arranged according to the four traditional
Chinese bibliographic divisions plus a fifth, collections, the same
divisions that the Chinese holdings were divided into on the shelves of
the library. No mission-related works are listed in the draft catalog. 58
After this catalog was issued, no doubt because of political events in
China, little more was done in the way of organizing and cataloging the
collections for over two decades.

465
Through the courage and determination of the staff, the library building
and its holdings survived the Cultural Revolution undamaged. In late
August of 1966, 59 at the height of the campaign against the ‘‘Four Olds’’
(old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits), the Red Guards
came to the Xujiahui area of Shanghai. They first looted the Catholic
church next door to the library of all its books and burned them, and
then, several days later, attacked the library, yelling, ‘‘Down with the
Four Olds!’’ While some of the staff guarded the doors and windows of
the library, others went out to conciliate the mob, and the crisis was
averted. 60 The library was closed after this incident and did not reopen
until 1977. Though the contents of the Xujiahui Library did not suffer
in the Cultural Revolution, the staff were not so fortunate. A number of
them suffered persecution, imprisonment, and physical harm (even
death) simply because they worked there. 61
Recent Developments
After the Xujiahui Library reopened in 1977, the staff began two major
projects: a thorough reorganization of the materials of the library
and repair and preservation of its many rare books. 62 Evidence of this
effort is the publication in 1992 of Shanghai tushuguan xiwen zhenben shumu:
Shanghai Library Catalog of Western Rare Books by The Publishing House of
the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. This catalog lists 1,800 European
books published between 1515 and 1800 formerly held in the libraries
of the foreign concessions in Shanghai, among them the Xujiahui
Library, which are now a part of the Shanghai Library. 63 Of the books
listed in this catalog, 126 include the annotation that the book has the
Xujiahui Library stamp in it. Cataloging and organization of the materials
in the Xujiahui Library, with the goals of improved access and bibliographic
control, continues. For example, a recent article includes a
brief report of an assessment of the manuscripts of Western works translated
into Chinese held in the Xujiahui Library, noting that there are
305 manuscripts on religious topics, forty on society and the arts, and
sixty-three in the sciences. Many of these manuscripts are unpublished
drafts, and many are written in the local dialects of the area. 64 Such
reports are a welcome indication of the ongoing work to preserve and
make known the rich resources of the Xujiahui Library.
Access to the Xujiahui Library collections remains limited for several
reasons. In addition to its origins as a mission library and the nature of
the materials held in it, there is the further problem that half of the
library’s materials in Chinese appear to have not yet been properly cataloged.
65 Use of the library’s materials by foreigners is restricted to those

466 L&C/The Xujiahui Library
having prior permission. In 1986 an American professor, although not
allowed inside the Xujiahui Library building itself, was allowed to examine
books from the library by selecting them from the previously mentioned
catalog of European books, after which the books were brought
from the Xujiahui Library to him in the Rare Books Reading Room of
the Shanghai Library. 66
After nearly ninety years in its old quarters, the Xujiahui Library was
moved in 1993 because construction of a subway under North Caoxi
Road, where the library was located, was affecting the building. 67 Consequently,
the contents of the library were moved to another location
until the new Shanghai Library, now under construction at a site on
Nanhaizhong Road, is completed. 68
Conclusion
The Xujiahui Library, whose roots go back to the earliest Jesuit missionaries
and their converts and to the Chinese Christian on whose family
land holdings it was built, is a part of the heritage of the Catholic
Church in China and an important monument of Chinese-Western scholarship.
The materials collected in the library and the history of the library
itself are primary sources of information about the early Church
in China, Chinese Christians, Westerners in China, Chinese society, and
Sino-Western relations.
Notes
1. For a discussion of the distinctiveness of the Jesuit mission to China, see
the introduction to Andrew C. Ross, A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and
China, 1542– 1742 (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1994), xi–xvii, and the Prologue
and Chapter 1 of George S. Dunne, S.J., Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits
in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty (Notre Dame, Indiana: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1962), 3–22.
2. William A. Bangert, S.J., A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: The
Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1986), 26–8.
3. Dunne, Generation of Giants, 28.
4. J. Van den Brandt, C.M., ‘‘La Bibliotheque du Pe-t’ang,’’ Monumenta Serica
4:2 (1940): 616.
5. J. de la Servière, S.J. Les anciennes missions de la compagnie de Jésus en Chine
(1552– 1814) (Shanghai: Tusewei Press, 1924), 69.
6. La Servière, Les anciennes missions, 63–4.
7. Ann Nottingham Kelsall, ‘‘Zi-ka-wei and the Modern Jesuit Mission to the
Chinese, 1842–1952,’’ Master’s thesis, University of Maryland, 1978, 34.
8. Ibid., 41.
9. Ibid., 44–5.
10. J. de la Servière, S.J., La Nouvelle mission du Kiang-nan (1840– 1922) (Shanghai:
Tusewei Press, 1925), 2.
11. Ibid., 2; Kelsall, ‘‘Zi-ka-wei,’’ 51.

467
12. Kelsall, ‘‘Zi-ka-wei,’’ 51.
13. Ibid., 78; 113–4.
14. J. de la Servière, S.J., Histoire de la mission du Kiang-nan (Shanghai: Tusewei
Press, 1914), 1: 112.
15. Ibid.
16. Xu Zongze, ‘‘Fengjiao gelaode zuanlue’’ [Biography of the Catholic Grand
Secretary], Shengjiao zazhi (Revue Catholique) 22:11 (November 1933): 9–19. The
date of Xu Guangqi’s baptism is from H. Verhaeren, C.M., ‘‘Nos anciens catechismes,’’
Bulletin catholique de Pekin 30 (1943): 238.
17. La Servière, Histoire, 112.
18. Boxi Ge, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou jianshi’’ [Brief history of the Xujiahui Library],
Tushuguan zazhi [Library Journal] 4 (1982): 69.
19. La Servière, Histoire, 113.
20. Ibid., 114.
21. Ibid., 55.
22. Kelsall, ‘‘Zi-ka-wei,’’ 66.
23. Zhiwei Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou—The Xujiahui (Zi-ka-wei) Library,’’
trans. Norman Walling, S.J., Tripod 70 (July–August 1992): 23.
24. Ge, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou jianshi,’’ 69; Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’
24–5.
25. Ge, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou jianshi,’’ 70.
26. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 23–4.
27. Kelsall, ‘‘Zi-ka-wei,’’ 80, 128–9 and note 71, 128–9; Hao Fang, Zhongguo
Tianzhujiaoshi renwuzhuan [Biographies of people in Chinese Catholic history], 3
vols. (Hong Kong: Catholic Truth Society, 1970–1973), 3: 260–2.
28. Fang, Zhongguo, 262–5.
29. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 23–5.
30. Fang, Zhongguo, 292–8; and Howard L. Borman, ed., Biographical Dictionary
of Republican China, 4 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 2: 470–3.
31. Fang, Zhongguo, 284–6.
32. Ibid., 276–7; Henri Cordier, ‘‘Necrologie,’’ T’oung Pao Series I, Vol. 2
(1891): 460–4.
33. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 24–5. Chinese Jesuit directors of the Xujiahui
Library were Frs. Shen Jinbiao, Xu Li, Mao Benquan, Xu Yunxi, Zhang
Rouyu, Zhang Yushan (author of Synchronismes Chinois [Shanghai: Tusewei Press,
1905]), Yang Weishi, Cui Tingcai, and Xu Zongze. Frs. Xu Yunxi and Xu Zongze
were, respectively, eleventh- and twelfth-generation descendants of Xu Guangqi.
34. Fang, Zhongguo, 323.
35. Ibid., 323; Hu Daojing, ‘‘Wo dushu zai Shanghaide tushuguanli’’ [The libraries
of Shanghai where I studied,] in Shanghai zhanggu [Anecdotes of Shanghai]
(Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 1982), 44.
36. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 26.
37. Fang, Zhongguo, 322–5.
38. The description of the physical facilities of the Xujiahui Library in this
paragraph is compiled from details given in Ge, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou jianshi,’’
70, and Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 25.
39. Hu Daojing, Shanghai tushuguan shi [History of libraries in Shanghai]
(Shanghai: Shanghaishi tungzhiguan, 1935), 57.
40. Shanghai chunqiu [Annals of Shanghai] Section 4.a, ‘‘Tushuguan’’ [Libraries]
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong Nantian Book Company, 1962), 91.
41. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 26. ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou socang difangzhi
mulu chugao’’ [Preliminary draft bibliography of local gazetteers held in the

468 L&C/The Xujiahui Library
Xujiahui Library], mimeographed, 1957, lists a total of 2,732 gazetteers. Fang,
Zhongguo, 323.
42. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 26.
43. Ge, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou jianshi,’’ 70; Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 31.
44. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 26.
45. Daojing, Shanghai tushuguan shi, 59.
46. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 26–7.
47. Ge, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou jianshi,’’ 70; Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 32.
48. Ge, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou jianshi,’’ 70; Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 29.
49. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 29.
50. D. E. Mungello, ‘‘The Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library of Shanghai in 1986,’’
China Mission Studies (1550– 1800) Bulletin VIII (1986): 48–50.
51. ‘‘Aurora University of Shanghai,’’ The Far Eastern Review 32:9 (September
1936): 391; ‘‘Le nouveau batiment de l’Universite,’’ Bulletin de l’Université Aurore
2:34 (1936): 69.
52. Jon W. Huebner, ‘‘L’Universite l’Aurore, Shanghai, 1903–1952,’’ Papers on
Far Eastern History 1989 (40): 148, note 69.
53. Mungello, ‘‘Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library,’’ 43–5. Professor Mungello examined
these catalogs of the Xujiahui Library at the Shanghai Library in late September
and October, 1986.
54. Kelsall, ‘‘Zi-ka-wei,’’ 187.
55. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 29.
56. Shang Tuwen, ‘‘Shanghai tushuguande sishi nian,’’ [Forty years of the
Shanghai Library] Tushuguan zazhi [Library Journal] 4 (1992): 2.
57. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 29, 31–2.
58. Mungello, ‘‘Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library,’’ 43–5.
59. The dating of this incident is uncertain. One source says ‘‘early in the
Cultural Revolution’’ (Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 32). Another source gives
a date of 1970 (‘‘Xujiahui dashiji’’ [Main events in Xujiahui], Tripod July–August,
1992, 78). Another source refers to the looting of St. Ignatius Church in Xujiahui
in August of 1966, at the height of the campaign against the Four Olds, and an
attempt to enter the Xujiahui Library at that time. (Ye Yonglie, Zhang Chunqiao
fuchenlu [The life of Zhang Chunqiao] [Hong Kong: South China Press, 1989],
248–9.) The Cultural Revolution began in November 1965, and the Campaign
against the Four Olds was begun in August of 1966. Churches were ‘‘stripped of
crosses, statues, icons, decorations, and all church paraphernalia’’ about 24 August
1966 (Lynn T. White III, Policies of Chaos: The Organizational Causes of Violence
in China’s Cultural Revolution [Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
1989], 283, quoting an article from the South China Morning Post of 30 August
1966, by a Russian correspondent who was in Shanghai on 24 August and saw
Red Guards at work stripping churches throughout the city and burning their
books. 283, Note 48). I conclude that late August 1966 is the most probable date
for the attempt by Red Guards to enter the Xujiahui Library.
60. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 32–3.
61. Wang Lili, ‘‘Dangdai Shanghai gonggong tushuguan shiye gaishu 1949–
1988 I’’ [Overview of contemporary public libraries in Shanghai 1949–1988 Part
I], Tushuguan zazhi [Library Journal] 6 (1992): 39–40.
62. Wang Lili, ‘‘Dangdai Shanghai gonggong tushuguan shiye gaishu 6’’ [Overview
of contemporary public libraries in Shanghai, Part 6] Tushuguan zazhi [Library
Journal] 5 (1993): 48.
63. ‘‘Preface,’’ Shanghai tushuguan xiwen zhenben shumu: Shanghai Library Catalog
of Western Rare Books (Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, 1992), v.

469
64. Lu Diaowen, ‘‘Tianzhujiao zai Zhongguode Han yi Xixue tushu,’’ [Western
books translated into Chinese by the Catholic Church in China] Tushuguan zazhi
[Library Journal] 1 (1995): 55.
65. Mungello, ‘‘Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library,’’ 45, 52.
66. Mungello, ‘‘Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library,’’ 43.
67. Huang, ‘‘Xujiahui cangshulou,’’ 34; Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal
XVI (1994): 71. The exact location to which the materials were removed is not
known.
68. He Dayong, ‘‘Weilaide Shanghai tushuguan,’’ [The future Shanghai Library],
Tushuguan zazhi [Library journal] 4 (1992): 9.

Notes & Essays
LIBRARIES & PHILANTHROPY, THE PROCEEDINGS OF
LIBRARY HISTORY SEMINAR IX, SPRING 1995, THE
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, TUSCALOOSA
P. Toby Graham
Students of library history will be pleased to learn that the Graduate
School of Library and Information Science at the University of Texas at
Austin has published the proceedings of Library History Seminar IX,
titled Libraries & Philanthropy. The proceedings originally appeared as the
Winter and Spring 1996 issues of Libraries & Culture, but are reprinted
in a single, hard-bound volume edited by Donald G. Davis Jr. Major
improvements over the journal version are the combined tables of contents
and an index compiled by Hermina G. B. Anghelescu.
The twenty-eight research papers and five prefatory essays of Libraries
& Philanthropy bear witness to the exciting exchange of ideas at the seminar,
and they provide extensive coverage of the issues and themes associated
with the history of libraries and their benefactors. The papers
offer diversity in chronology and geography; topics range from the ancient
world to the computer age and cover five continents. These scholarly
works provide a meaningful contribution to the historiography of
libraries. They also carry a particular relevance to the present funding
troubles confronting many libraries, a fact not lost on the seminar
participants.
The Library History Seminar is a quinquennial event bringing together
an international library history community for three days of scholarly
interaction and collegiality. The University of Alabama hosted the
ninth and most recent gathering on 30 March–1 April 1995. Approximately
eighty librarians and scholars attended, representing twenty-four
states and nine countries. Library History Seminar IX was dedicated to
Edward G. Holley, William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus and former
dean of the School of Information and Library Science at the University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 1997
1997 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

471
The thematic choice of Library History Seminar IX, ‘‘Libraries & Philanthropy,’’
proved to be a timely one. The planning committee received
more than the usual number of submissions on the conference topic and
was able to accept many fine manuscripts directly related to library benefaction.
Listeners received these papers with a recognition of their current
relevance, often making ad lib comparisons to the budgetary crises
threatening the library world.
Three plenary papers by an interdisciplinary group of distinguished
scholars provide a broad context for the philanthropy theme. Together,
these papers provide a sense that the history of libraries has been closely
associated with philanthropy and that studies of funding and organizational
patterns in the past speak to the financial challenges of the present.
Peter Dobkin Hall’s essay on ‘‘Libraries and the Origins of Civil
Society in the United States’’ asserts that America lacks an adequate
understanding of its fundamental institutions, an understanding that
might prove helpful in the post–Cold War atmosphere of restructuring
and shrinking resources. He believes that scholars can learn from the
variety of organizational possibilities represented in the history of library
development. Dr. Hall is the Associate Research Scientist for the Yale
University Program on Non-Profit Organizations. Neil Harris, professor
of history at the University of Chicago, provides the second plenary
paper, entitled, ‘‘Public Funding for Rarity in America.’’ He examines
the mixed public-private system of collecting rare books and manuscripts
in the United States, finding a general reluctance on the part of American
legislators to pay for rarities with public funds. Studying ‘‘American
Public Libraries and the Third Sector,’’ Phyllis Dain asserts that philanthropy
and nonprofit organizations have been as much a part of
American library development as has governmental support.
The majority of the remaining twenty-five papers elaborate on the
central theme. Selected from over a hundred proposals, they highlight
research on library philanthropy within specific historical contexts. The
diversity of the papers selected creates an interdisciplinary appeal and
provides opportunities for comparison. Topics covered include women
and philanthropy, libraries in India and Ancient Greece, Rockefeller
gifts, philanthropy by beer and tobacco tycoons, reading during the Cold
War, the Council on Library Resources, and libraries and literacy in
Europe.
No general work on library philanthropy would be complete without a
study of Carnegie’s gifts, and Libraries & Philanthropy offers five. Notable
among these is Maxine K. Rochester’s paper on the Carnegie Corporation
British Dominions and Colonies Fund in which she asserts that Carnegie
philanthropy abroad served to ‘‘Americanize’’ international
librarianship. Nancy Becker Johnson highlights the influence of two

472 L&C/Libraries & Philanthropy
previously neglected figures, ALA Associate Secretary Sarah C. N. Bogle
and Andrew’s wife, Louise Whitfield Carnegie, on the Carnegie Corporation.
Johnson argues that these women helped to ‘‘shape the face of
philanthropy’’ (433). In a paper on ‘‘Melvil Dewey’s Designs on Carnegie’s
Millions,’’ Wayne A. Wiegand contends that Dewey failed to obtain
Carnegie support for his work largely because of damage done to
his reputation by charges of anti-Semitism and sexual improprieties.
Wiegand’s presentation of the study provided one of the lighter moments
of the seminar. He adopted the character and dress of Dewey to deliver
the paper and afterwards ‘‘Mr. Dewey’’ fielded questions—and several
good-natured barbs—from the audience.
Three papers address philanthropy within the context of the American
South. Edward G. Holley describes the rise of the University of North
Carolina as an institution of national prominence within a region that
generally lagged in higher education. Robert Sidney Martin and Orvin
Lee Shiflett study the development of library training for African Americans
in the segregated South. In his paper on North Carolina’s public
libraries, Patrick Valentine asserts that philanthropists helped to create
a public expectation of library service. He emphasizes, however, that
these benefactors failed to promote systematic library development, especially
where African Americans were concerned. On this issue, a study
of the Julius Rosenwald Fund County Library Demonstrations would
have been an illustrative addition to Libraries & Philanthropy.
Four papers on European libraries demonstrate the international nature
of the issues involved in library organization and funding. These
papers are significant contributions in their own right, but they also inspired
insightful comparisons by the Americanists during the discussion
at LHS IX. A paper by Ilkka Mäkinen addresses the social and political
implications of fund-raising efforts among the masses for Finnish public
libraries in the nineteenth century. Margaret S. Dalton examines Germany’s
Borromäus Verein, a Catholic library organization that worked
to promote library development in the interest of ‘‘good reading.’’ Two
papers cover philanthropy in France, Martine Poulain’s ‘‘American Philanthropy
and Libraries in France, 1917–1929’’ and Mary Niles Maack’s
‘‘Study of the Role of Libraries in Contemporary Efforts to Combat Illiteracy
in France and the United States.’’ Paul Sturges provides a
well-received study of the library philanthropy of beer magnate Michael
Thomas Bass.
Libraries & Philanthropy bears witness to the exciting exchange of ideas
that characterized Library History Seminar IX, and it chronicles the
participation of library historians in the renewed scholarly activity associated
with philanthropy. The papers that are a result of the event
make a meaningful contribution to the historiography of libraries, and

473
also for some engaging reading. In his plenary paper Peter Dobkin Hall
warns of a historiographical gap regarding libraries; one result is a lack
of understanding of the association of librarianship with its benefactors.
This volume of essays has done something to narrow that gap by providing
a timely exploration of the role of philanthropy in the history of
library organization and development.

THE COVER
The Reverend Thomas Robbins (1777–1856) received on 28 July 1844
a letter from educator Henry Barnard offering him the position of librarian
in The Connecticut Historical Society at Hartford. In his diary,
Robbins, after noting receipt of the letter, remarked: ‘‘It is all of the
great mercy of God.’’ A month later, on 25 July 1844, Barnard followed
up that letter with another one that enthusiastically called Robbins, ‘‘the
man of the Historical Society.’’ With those letters, Barnard relieved
Robbins of a considerable embarrassment and ensured that The Connecticut
Historical Society would have the services of one of the more
eminent book collectors and antiquarians of the time. Robbins, a bachelor
Congregational minister in Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, and involved
in a sex scandal over an innocent kiss, was in search of a new
position; the historical society, trying to renew itself after fifteen years
of lifeless inactivity and flush with the success of moving into new quarters
at the newly constructed Wadsworth Atheneum, was in search of a
librarian. With this appointment, a circle had come fully around. It was
Bookplate courtesy of The Connecticut Historical Society.
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 1997
1997 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

475
Robbins in 1822 who publicly called for the creation of a Connecticut
historical society and when one was officially established in 1825 became
its first corresponding secretary.
At the time of his removal from Mattapoisett to Hartford, Robbins
was possessed of a substantial library of about 3,600 volumes concerning
history and theology and about as many pamphlets. The society’s elders
were clearly just as interested in somehow acquiring the library as they
were in acquiring Robbins’s services. When Robbins was settled on as
the society’s librarian, one of his demands was an annual salary of $300,
a sum intended to cover not only his living expenses but also his bookcollecting
activities. When the society’s funds could not cover that demand,
Barnard personally guaranteed Robbins that amount. Later, when
the society could not cover even the $300, Robbins proposed to deed over
his library to the society upon his death provided the society would pay
him an annual salary of $600. That condition was met, and upon
Robbins’s death in 1855, his library became the society’s property, where
it has remained ever since, each volume marked with the handsome
bookplate shown on the cover.
Robbins’s diaries detail the problems of moving such a substantial
library. On 5 September 1844, he remarks that the books already filled
forty crates. On 10 and 11 September they were loaded aboard a ship
bound for Hartford, where they arrived on 19 September. In his diary
Robbins expresses his concern about the arrival of the shipment; his
anxiety over the matter was probably increased by the fact that as the
shipment was being put aboard, ‘‘One box was broken and some books
were injured. A very confused scene.’’ But his mind was soon eased when
upon unpacking the crates he discovered that the books had nicely survived
the week’s trip. Robbins had also had the foresight to request that
his Mattapoisett congregation pay to remove his effects to Hartford.
The congregation paid about $450 for the privilege, a sum more than
Robbins’s annual salary as society librarian and the bulk of which went
toward paying the freight on the book crates. The day after the ship
sailed for Hartford, Robbins remarked in his dairy of his library and
personal finances: ‘‘I am not worth as much aside from my library as
when I came to Mattapoisett, but would bless God for what I have.’’
Once the library arrived in Hartford and was unpacked and arranged
in the society’s rooms, it was the marvel of the city, a status it would
hold for as long as Robbins lived. As he noted often in his diary, visitors
were frequent even before the entire library was unpacked and put on
the shelves, which delayed putting the books in order. Other problems,
such as lack of an adequate heat source and improper shelves that had
to be modified, also delayed the full opening of the library. But on 25

476 L&C/The Cover
October 1844, Robbins remarked: ‘‘We finished putting up the books of
my library. It was nearly done before the present week. It is much admired.
It has required great labor.’’ Robbins, however, seemed mindful
of his role as librarian of the society. When Benjamin Lossing visited in
1847, his recollections indicate quite clearly that Robbins spent a good
deal of time showing him the objects possessed by the society, as opposed
to his own library, which he apparently kept separate from the society’s
collections. Many distinguished visitors, such as Peter Force, called on
Robbins, and his library was visited regularly by people from far and
wide. Robbins apparently treated each visitor with courtesy and respect
and seems to have given a tour that would be the envy of any librarian
to this day.
The library is rich in history and theology, with most volumes still
in their original condition. Unlike some other collectors of his time,
Robbins did not rebind his books into Morocco or other flashy bindings,
so most of the bindings are original. Robbins does not appear to have
been an extravagant collector, because all his bookplates record the
prices he paid for the books to which they are affixed, and most of those
prices are not exorbitant. He paid $3.00 each for two slightly defective
copies of the second edition of the Eliot Indian Bible, both of which he
bought at the same time. He paid 50¢ for a copy of the first edition of
Phyllis Wheatley’s poems. One of the more amazing items in the library
is a complete run of the Journal des Sçavans, in 385 volumes, the first
scholarly periodical ever published, for which Robbins paid $100. Because
of his historical interests, Robbins also bought much older books. He
owned two incunables: a copy of Aquinas’s Super quarto libro sentantiarum
(Venice: Jensen, 1481), bought in 1839 for $3.00; and a copy of Nicolaus de
Lyra’s commentaries on Matthew (Nuremberg: Koberger, 1493), one volume
of the original four, which he bought in 1846 for $8.00. He also owned
a copy of Marcus Musurus and Aldus Manutius’s Venice 1513 edition of
Plato’s works, which he bought in 1846 for $30.00. But for the most part,
the books were the substantial fare of the day: a copy of Jared Sparks’s
edition of Franklin’s works (10 vols.; Boston, 1840), bought in 1848 for
$15.00; an edition of Jonathan Edwards’s works (10 vols.; New York,
1829), purchased in 1834 for $17.50; an edition of John Witherspoon’s
works (4 vols.; Philadelphia, 1800–01), acquired in 1819 for $6.00; and a
copy of Sparks’s edition of George Washington’s letters (12 vols.; Boston,
1838–39), for which he paid $42.00 in 1840. One minor indication of
bibliographic worldly vanity, against which Robbins continually asked
God for strength, may be seen in his copy of Robert Watts’s Psalms of
David (London, 1783). Robbins’s copy is in a magnificent contemporary
binding of red straight-grain Morocco with gilt working. To this copy he
added a small black leather label at the foot of the spine on which his

477
name is tooled in gilt letters. Other than this one manifestation, however,
Robbins seems to have been content to leave his books as he found
them.
Ironically, Robbins rarely recorded from whom he bought any of the
books, so precisely how he built his library is a mystery. The first book
in his collection is dated 1793, while he was a student at Yale, and was
a gift from his father. His diaries do contain numerous mentions of booksellers
and his dealings with them, but specifics are rarely revealed. He
had an account with the Boston firm of Little & Brown, for example, and
at one point in 1845 expresses his delight that it turns out he has a
credit with them of $22.00, when he believed instead that he owed them
that amount. He also sometimes mentions buying books at auctions, such
as a ‘‘public auction’’ he attended in November 1844, while in New York
City for the fortieth anniversary celebration for the New-York Historical
Society. On occasion, he also traded books, as in January 1845, when he
noted: ‘‘Exchanged some of my books and pamphlets that were valuable
for some large volumes very valuable.’’ But the diaries rarely reveal the
specific circumstances surrounding the acquisition of any particular volumes.
Whatever book bills were in his personal papers have not survived.
Robbins’s library has undergone numerous vicissitudes since it was
bequeathed to the society. At some point, all the pamphlet volumes were
disbound, and their contents disappeared into the general collections.
Many of the individual volumes were also dispersed among the general
collections, although that process was never completed, and in the early
1980s many of the volumes from Robbins’s library sat as an uncatalogued
group on the society’s shelves. The society suffered a disastrous flood in
1955 and another in 1972, both of which resulted in the destruction of
some volumes from Robbins’s library. The latter flood was particularly
disastrous to the collection, because it heavily damaged most of the folio
and quarto volumes. The survivors were disbound and the sheets left on
the shelves. Robbins’s diaries make it clear that he also lent his books
and contain complaints that borrowers failed to return items. To this
day the society encounters and buys books in the marketplace that were
alienated from Robbins’s library, readily identifiable by their distinctive
bookplate. In one case a book was restored to the library only through a
shadow. The bookplate itself had been removed, but its image, still legible,
had been offset to the front flyleaf.
In the past decade efforts have been made to restore Robbins’s library.
The pamphlets are impossible to recover, of course, but because of
Robbins’s steadfast habit of affixing a bookplate to every volume, most
individual titles have been identified, removed from the general collections,
and regrouped once again, sitting on the shelves in the order he
intended. A conservation program, underwritten by a grant from the

478 L&C/The Cover
State of Connecticut, has resulted in the rebinding of most of the damaged
quarto and folio volumes. Other volumes are restored with the
society’s own funds. Thus, Robbins’s library begins again to resume its
former shape. Most of these titles have now been catalogued on OCLC.
As part of Robbins’s legacy, the society also received all his personal
manuscripts. Among those manuscripts are the annual inventories he
made of his library, thus allowing us to see exactly how the library grew
over the years. As his library increased, Robbins had to have new furniture
made to hold the volumes. The society also possesses all that
furniture, including his original library tables.
Robbins was a deeply religious man who sought God’s guidance and
discipline in all things. The formation of his library was no exception,
and the item bearing bookplate #1 is a Bible. Deep in contemplation
about what was to become of the collection, he noted in his diary for 4
November 1845, ‘‘Last evening endeavored to consecrate myself anew to
the disposal of God, particularly with regard to my property.’’ He altered
his will numerous times to provide different methods of ensuring his
library’s continued existence after his death, before finally contracting
with the society on 27 May 1846 to bequeath the library to the society
in exchange for an annual salary of $600. Robbins was at one time considering
giving the books to Harvard but heeded his sister’s advice concerning
the problem of adding to Harvard’s ‘‘duplicates.’’ Upon his
death, the library became the society’s property. Ever mindful of his
mission, however, Robbins also left the society the sum of $1,000 to be
used for ‘‘the preservation and increase’’ of the society’s library. To this
day not only his library but also his bequest is being used for the benefit
of all researchers at The Connecticut Historical Society.
Everett C. Wilkie Jr.
Hartford, Connecticut

CONTRIBUTORS
Robert M. Gorman is head of reference at Winthrop University’s Dacus
Library in Rock Hill, South Carolina. He holds an undergraduate degree
from Florida State University in Tallahassee, a master’s degree in history
from Georgia College in Milledgeville, and an M.L.S. from Emory University
in Atlanta. He has written on collection development, intellectual
freedom, library cooperative programs, and British fascism. His professional
interests include library instruction, reference services, and library
history.
Patterson Toby Graham is a doctoral candidate in librarianship at the
University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he serves as an adjunct instructor
in the School of Library and Information Studies. He holds an
undergraduate degree in social science and history from James Madison
University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and a master’s degree in history
from The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. He also earned a Master
of Library Service degree from The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
He has worked as a graduate assistant at the University of Alabama’s
W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, and has authored the ‘‘CSS Alabama
Digital Collection.’’ He is active in library and information science
organizations, including the Library History Round Table of the
A.L.A.
Gail King is curator of the Asian Collection of the Harold B. Lee Library
at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She holds a doctorate
in Chinese literature from the University of Chicago. Her special interests
focus on Christianity in China from the 1580s to 1700, the Catholic
mission press, and libraries in China and East Asia.
Jean Preer is associate dean and associate professor at the School of
Library and Information Science at The Catholic University of America
in Washington, D.C. In addition to a bachelor’s degree in history from
Swarthmore College and an M.L.S. from the University of California at
Berkeley, she holds a J.D. and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from
George Washington University. Her articles have appeared in Prologue,
the quarterly journal of the National Archives, Special Libraries, American
Libraries, and Libraries & Culture, and she is currently working, with
Elizabeth Stone, on American Library Development, 1900–1976. Her interests
encompass the role of libraries and information in society, which includes
the access to information and professional ethics.
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 1997
1997 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

Book Reviews
Careering Along with Books: Studies in the History of British Public Libraries and Librarianship,
in Honour of the 85th Birthday of Dr. William A. Munford. Edited by K. A.
Manley. London: The Library History Group of the Library Association, 1996.
viii, 276 pp. £28.00. ISBN 0-9527919-0-0.
This book has successfully accomplished the admirable tasks of honoring Britain’s
leading library historian and presenting examples of current historical
scholarship relating to aspects of British libraries and librarianship dealt with in
W. A. Munford’s own publications.
Of the four parts of this festschrift, three deal specifically with Munford: part
one, ‘‘Tributes and Autobiography,’’ contains biographical, autobiographical, and
bibliographical essays; part three, ‘‘Studies in Public Library History,’’ deals with
the public libraries of Portsmouth, Ilford, Dover, and Cambridge where Munford
spent parts of his career; and ‘‘Appendices’’ includes both a reprint of Munford’s
history of the National Library for the Blind, where he served for many years as
librarian, and also the 1962–1968 minutes of the Library Association’s Library
History Group, which he founded. Taking these three parts together, a wellrounded
portrait emerges of a scholar-librarian, possessing the instincts of a
bookman and the administrative skills necessary for a successful career.
Of particular value to those with historiographical interests will be Peter
Hoare’s ‘‘W. A. Munford as Library Historian,’’ David Gerard’s ‘‘The Writing of
Library History: A Conversation with Dr. Munford,’’ ‘‘W. A. Munford: A Select
Bibliography,’’ and ‘‘Library History Group 1962–1968: the Early Minutes.’’ What
remains elusive, however, after reading these essays is a clear sense of whether
Munford’s historical writing is an extension of his professional activities or an
expression of a scholarly passion. What does become clear is his particular focus
upon biography and his ability to inspire others with an enthusiasm for library
history.
Important and helpful as are these sections relating to Munford, the general
essays in part two, ‘‘Studies in British Librarianship,’’ along with those by P.
Sturges and K. C. Harrison that have strayed into part three, will prove equally
fascinating for many readers. The insights afforded into nineteenth- and twentieth-century
transformations of the British scene will permit comparisons with
contemporaneous events in other parts of the world. Such diverse topics as the
British national library to 1837 by Ian Willison, Scottish working-class libraries
by John Crawford, St. Martin’s Subscription Library by Peter Hoare, and public
library readership, 1850–1900, by Paul Sturges raise fascinating questions on
whether libraries emerge as elite or popular institutions. Essays by E. Hanson,
K. Manley, R. Busby, P. Morrish, N. Webber, R. Duckett, G. Jefcoate, and
Libraries & Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 1997
1997 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819

481
K. Harrison detail the growing professionalism of British librarianship over the
past one hundred years or so. Jefcoate’s essay on the roll of honor for librarians
killed in action during World War I is most illuminating. A wealth of information
is contained in these essays that would be very difficult to find elsewhere.
If one essay can be said to summarize this collection, it is probably Alistair
Black’s ‘‘Edward Edwards and Modernity: Personality, Progress and Professionalism.’’
This is not only because Munford himself has written significant studies
on Edwards, but also because Black’s insightful analysis provides a perspective
from which to analyze Munford. The postmodern world of the 1990s has given
commentators a sense of distance about modernism that permits its analysis as
something different. Within the context of this collection, it becomes clear that
Edwards and Munford were united in their commitment to the fundamental
principles of modernism: social betterment and bureaucratic mechanisms. To the
extent that the two men differed, it is largely a factor of the extent to which
they did or did not align themselves with modernism’s tripartite program of
personality, progress, and professionalism.
This collection contains twenty-seven essays plus a foreword and a preface.
The contributors are generally well-known figures in the field of British library
history and are identified in a separate section. The only non-British contributor
writes usually on Canadian themes. There is an all too brief index. A few blackand-white
photographs are included. The collection has been issued as volume
12 (1996) of Library History.
Peter F. McNally, McGill University
Puritans in Babylon: The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life, 1880–1930.
By Bruce Kuklick. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. xii, 253 pp.
$29.95. ISBN 0-691-02582-7.
Bruce Kuklick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has written
histories of American philosophy and of baseball in Philadelphia, has written a
fascinating account of the earliest American involvement in the archaeology of
the Ancient Near East. Scholars from Pennsylvania began the first American
excavations by digging at the ancient Sumerian site of Nippur.
Kuklick describes the difficulties of the first excavations, the conflicts between
individuals and institutions, and the emerging academic disciplines of the halfcentury
between 1880 and 1930. He focuses upon the controversies swirling about
Hermann V. Hilprecht and his critics. Hilprecht was a pious German Lutheran
who originally came to the U.S. in 1886 to edit the Sunday School Times. As a
student of the famed scholar Friedrich Delitzsch, he was also a competent Assyriologist
who began teaching at Penn. Hilprecht was brilliant but also egotistical
and abrasive. He managed to turn many scholars, even his colleagues,
against him. Particularly bitter were his relations with John P. Peters and John
H. Haynes, who had directed the Nippur excavations. Hilprecht was not an excavator
himself, but he was an epigrapher who examined the cuneiform documents.
Hilprecht was criticized for claiming in a book which he edited, Exploration
in Bible Lands (1903), to be the discoverer of the tablets. He was eventually denied
access to the 17,000 tablets in the University Museum in Philadelphia and was
accused of keeping 2,500 tablets at his home in Jena, Germany.

482 L&C/Book Reviews
The author has done admirable research in the diaries and letters of the key
participants in the Penn expeditions to Nippur. His knowledge of the rise of
universities in America and the intellectual history of the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries enables him to place American involvement in the Near
East and the consequent academic developments in clear perspective. But in
concentrating in such minute detail on the participants in Penn’s excavations at
Nippur, he neglects completely the key excavation of Ephraim A. Speiser at the
important Hurrian site of Nuzi (1925–1931) and the important role played by
James A. Montgomery as a teacher of Semitics at Penn. [Despite all of the information
the author provides about the personalities involved at Nippur, he does
not give a very good account of the importance of the texts, buildings, and objects
discovered there. See E. Yamauchi, ‘‘Nippur,’’ in E. M. Blaiklock and R. K.
Harrison, eds., The New International Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 339–41.]
In assessing the contributions of his subjects, Kuklick makes a rather gratuitous
observation, ‘‘They were certainly sexist, racist, and homophobic’’ (199), as
he has not presented evidence to substantiate some of these charges. There are
some surprising omissions from his discussions about Jewish scholarship and the
secularization of the universities, such as Samuel E. Karff, ed., Hebrew Union-
College Jewish Institute of Religion at One Hundred Years (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union
College Press, 1976), and George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
The author concedes that he lacks firsthand knowledge of archaeology and
Semitic languages (237). Despite consulting leading scholars, there are a few
minor misspellings such as Sinoor for Sinor (205), Wallace E. A. Budge for E. A.
Wallace Budge (210), and Margolies for Margolis (236). A more serious error is
the identification of the site of Telloh with ancient Lagash (167). Scholars have
known for some time that Telloh is to be identified with ancient Girsu and that
ancient Lagash is to be identified with another mound, al-Hiba. See Vaughn E.
Crawford, ‘‘Lagash,’’ Iraq 36 (1974): 29–35.
Edwin M. Yamauchi, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
Libraries and Librarianship during Muslim Rule in India. By Shaikh Allauddin and
R. K. Rout. New Delhi: Reliance Publishing House, 1996. 298 pp. $77. ISBN
81-85972-95-8.
This book is an improved doctoral work of the first author. It deals with the
history of libraries that emerged between the tenth and twentieth centuries during
the period of Muslim rule, which in due course were either lost or were taken
over by other libraries. The book traces the reasons for this growth of libraries
and describes how Muslim rulers brought to India the art of making paper and
improved binding techniques, as well as emphasis on literacy and cultural influences—all
of which contributed to an improved concept of libraries and librarianship.
As a result, many libraries emerged. Interestingly, mosque libraries in
this era became the kind of libraries which are known today as public reading
rooms.
The book has the following chapters: Delhi Sultanate; Mughal Dynasty; Deccani
Kingdoms; Special Libraries; Regional Libraries; and Calligraphy, Binding,
Illustrations and Book Production. The book has done some justice to the topic

483
and is quite elaborate in its details. Each chapter not only gives the size of a
particular library but also includes a note on how and why the collection grew
and what precursors and factors motivated and supported the development process.
A few titles that were available in the respective libraries are listed—giving
a picture of the interests which each library tried to develop and promote.
A few errors need correction, like Ushmania University for Osmaina University
(206) and Hindu’s library for libraries of non-Muslims, i.e., Hindus (144). In one
case the book extends its survey to 1990 (204), whereas the Muslim rule ended
in 1858, and in 1947 all power of the Muslim monarchs ended; this focus by
period is essential for a historical study, which may be added in a revised edition.
The index lacks cross references, say from ‘‘Library of Khuda Bakhsh’’ (the way
it is listed), to ‘‘Khuda Bakhsh Library’’ (as a user might look it up).
Despite these errors, this book is yet another resource to evaluate the intellectual
trends that have prevailed in this country. With its documentation and
analysis of some significant collections—with descriptive notes—the book is a
valuable source for those interested in textual studies and in the growth of the
book in India during that age, as well as for historians.
Mohamed Taher, American Studies Research Center, Hyderabad, India
The French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585– 1715. By Henri-Jean
Martin; trans. by Paul Saenger and Nadine Saenger. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996. xii, 117 pp. $35.00 ($13.95 pbk.). ISBN 0-8018-
5179-3.
A small, handsome book, presented in a form worthy of its author who has
done so much to further studies in the field of ‘‘histoire du livre,’’ The French Book
is comprised of the following: a foreword (by Orest Ranum) preceded by a list
of the illustrations; Chapter 1: ‘‘The Catholic Reformation and the Book
(1585–1659)’’; Chapter 2: ‘‘Absolutism and Classicism’’; Chapter 3: ‘‘The Reading
Public and Its Books’’; Chapter 4: ‘‘The French Classical Book: Text and
Image’’; conclusion, notes, and index. (No bibliography, alas.) This study grew
out of series of lectures given by Martin at The Johns Hopkins University in the
autumn of 1993 (the Schouler Lectures) and is an original work, rather than the
translation of something previously published.
The first section begins with a succinct explanation of printing in the handpress
period, decoding a sixteenth-century engraving after Jan Van der Straet,
also featured (in part) on the cover of the paperback: men at the composing
table, a press-man clamping down, sheets of paper hung up to dry. A review of
the printing situation in Europe is provided, rounded out with elegant maps and
tables, the fruit of an enormous amount of labor. Collections in the British Library
have been used for one, those in the Bibliothèque Nationale for another.
The Frankfurt (and Leipzig) Messkataloge play a part in helping Martin examine
the printing and movement of books during the period. The fair catalogs were
published regularly, from 1564 on (6) and provide a wealth of information concerning
the printing and distribution of books of all kinds during the hand-press
period—and later. (Most of the first two and a half centuries have been made
available, thanks to the efforts of Berhard Fabian, Die Messkataloge des sechzehnten,
siebzehnten und achtzehnten Jahrhunderts or Kataloge der Frankfurter und Leipziger Buchmessen,
Hildesheim; New York: Olms Microform, 1977–1986.)

484 L&C/Book Reviews
Martin discusses the importance of the Reformation and the Counter-
Reformation in the production of books during the early period, and he has some
interesting things to say about censorship: first from Rome, then in individual
countries. Which leads to the seventeenth century, ‘‘Absolutism and Classicism,’’
the growth of publishing in the vernacular, and the decline of Latin (when measured
against the vernacular). The Edict of Villers-Cotterets had substituted
French for Latin early on (1539) in the judicial system. Libraries were formed
and expanded. These were among the important steps in the cultural politics of
the crown which, over the years and throughout the centuries, had viewed French
and its predominance as an important if not vital part of national and foreign
policy. In a way, the recent opening of the Très Grande Bibliothèque, now termed
the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, in its new site can be viewed as the modern
culmination of this policy.
Early in the seventeenth century (1618), the printers, publishers, booksellers,
and binders of Paris officially organized into a corporation or kind of guild, which
would prove a decisive factor in the bookmen—and bookwomen—of the capital
exercising monopolistic power over their provincial brethren. All this and much
more is lucidly explained by Martin as he takes us through the age of Louis XIV
and the setting of his sun, marked by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)
and the subsequent flight of the Huguenots to Holland (and to England, America,
and many other places). Martin is also interested in readers and how they
can be defined, identified, and classified—a crucial element in understanding the
demand and supply of the book market.
In chapter 4, Martin remarks, ‘‘Historians must always remember that a text
is by no means an abstract entity but rather a concrete object bearing many
languages’’ (77). A discussion follows of the ‘‘mise en page’’—the ‘‘mise en livre,’’
really. The ‘‘modern’’ look developed in the sixteenth century. Not only does
Martin trace aspects of this, but he treats the reader to thoughtful insights about
emblems, illustrations, and more. Founder of a new discipline, Martin is respectful
of the monuments of French thought and erudition which preceded him, and
he ends by invoking Paul Hazard’s wonderful Crise de la conscience européenne and
sees his own book as a sort of postlude or complement to it. The conclusion of
The French Book sketches a history of the ‘‘histoire du livre,’’ paying just tribute
to the likes of Lucien Febvre even as Martin points the way to the future.
I would like to end my review with a citation from this fine, erudite, and
eminently readable book. After outlining the various subdivisions of ‘‘histoire du
livre’’ to which scholars have turned over the past couple of decades, Martin
writes: ‘‘All these different areas of interest stimulated a rapprochement between
the history of the book and analytical bibliography, fields that were destined to
unite into what was already being called the sociology of reading. The result was
a return to the study of the book as an artifact (an approach that I have attempted
to follow in this volume) and a new effort to delineate the functions
and the status of the author, this somewhat mythical and complex personage
who becomes problematic to define when he is no longer equated with the
‘writer.’ Thus, the history of the book has not ceased to evolve over the past
thirty-five years. Let us not be mistaken, however. A veritable history of the book
will not be written if historians are influenced solely by the latest trends, and
new paths of research will prove fruitful only when they take into account earlier
achievements and employ a variety of research methods’’ (99). Any person of
sense could not help but agree.
Robert L. Dawson, University of Texas at Austin

The Odyssey of a German National Library. By Michael P. Olson. Wiesbaden, Germany:
Harrassowitz Verlag, 1996. 122 pp. DM78. ISBN 3-447-03648-6.
485
The subtitle of this slim paperback reads, ‘‘A Short History of the Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Deutsche Bücherei and the
Deutsche Bibliothek.’’ Michael Olson, head of Harvard’s Germanic collections,
has produced a largely chronological, sociopolitical history of the abundantly documented
origin and growth of the four principal institutions having some claim
to be called ‘‘national.’’ Olson has used this documentation well. He has also
been able to interview the librarians, directors, and other officials of the four
libraries.
There are actually five physical entities. Besides the four in Munich, Berlin,
Leipzig, and Frankfurt noted above, there is also the rebirth of the building of
the former Prussian State Library that, at the end of World War II, was an empty
ruin and is now a part of the Berlin State Library.
Olson relates clearly and persuasively enough the histories of these institutions
to the times in which they existed. It is consequently unfortunate that he has
chosen to begin his study as follows: ‘‘Throughout this book, ‘Die Deutsche Bibliothek’
will refer to the Deutsche Bibliothek, the Deutsche Bücherei, and the
German Music Archive (Deutsches Musikarchiv). ‘The Deutsche Bibliothek’ refers to
the library in Frankfurt am Main. Die Deutsche Bibliothek, the Deutsche Bibliothek, and
the Deutsche Bücherei will remain untranslated in order to avoid confusion with each other,
as ‘German Library’ is the translation in each instance’’ (Preface, [vii]; emphasis added).
The reader who, despite the author’s assurance, is left somewhat confused here
is urged to persevere; it all becomes quite clear eventually. Following a general
outline, Olson traces ‘‘the development of libraries in key periods: 1558–1806,
1806–1900, 1900–1933, 1933–1945, 1945–1970.’’
Two final chapters deal primarily with cooperative ventures in book preservation
and book collecting, with the problems brought about by unification, and
with unifying library policies and services. These efforts have culminated in many
good results. An example is the creation, for the first time in half a century, of
a biographical, statistical, and descriptive handbook of all scholarly (wissenschaftliche)
libraries and librarians in all of Germany. (Jahrbuch der Deutschen Bibliotheken,
Vol. 56. [Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1995].)
Of the major libraries considered, the best known to the educated public is
no doubt the former Prussian State Library ‘‘Haus’’ on Berlin’s Unter den Linden.
The library or significant parts of it has borne many other names: the
Electoral Library of Cölln on the Spree (founded in 1661), the Royal Library
(1701), Libraries for Public Research, the German State Library, Hessian Library,
West German Library, and the Berlin State Library of Prussian Cultural
Foundation. This, along with the magnificent new building in the Tiergarten, is
now the State Library ‘‘Haus’’ in Berlin—Prussian Cultural Foundation, with a
total of close to nine million volumes. Some readers may wish that the author
had devoted more attention to the status and activities of this institution. After
all, it is not only the inheritor of the internationally famous Prussian State Library,
it is also the site of most of the country’s supranational, supraregional,
and international library responsibilities and services: e.g., Publishers’ International
ISBN Directory; Foreign Periodical Holdings in German Libraries; Union
Catalog of Congress Publications—more than forty altogether.
This is the largest of the German ‘‘national’’ libraries. It was for most of its
life and is now again in the national capital. From the end of the nineteenth

486 L&C/Book Reviews
century to 1945, the Prussian State Library was the national library de facto if not
de jure. The library played the leading role in German librarianship from before
the end of the nineteenth century to World War II, and its dozen directors were
convinced of its leading role. Despite all this the library was never de jure the
national library, and Olson is at pains to make clear why neither it nor any of
the other three in Munich, Leipzig, or Frankfurt is ever likely to be. This is an
important contribution. The four libraries comprise, however, as Olson suggests,
an effective ‘‘national library system.’’
Olson has a propensity for making statements that are likely to cause kneejerk
reactions of doubt or denial: ‘‘How does a historian summarize nearly 250
years of German history . . .’’ ([9]). Immediately thereafter he begins with the
university libraries of the fourteenth and, later, the court libraries of the sixteenth
centuries. ‘‘The best of all possible worlds—another of Leipniz’s phrases
...’’ ([9]). Surely the source of this world-famous phrase is not Leipniz, but
rather Voltaire, whose Pangloss in chapter 1 of Candide uses it in ridiculing
Leipniz’s philosophical optimism.
Remarkable and most unfortunate omissions occur in the otherwise commendable
index. The title of not a single one of the national-level libraries appears
in it, either in English or German, nor by city of location—Berlin, Leipzig,
Munich. No Deutsche Bibliothek, no Prussian State Library, no Royal Library,
no Berlin State Library, no State Library of the Prussian Cultural Foundation.
Nothing.
The publication is in other respects virtually error-free. It is well printed and
an ‘‘easy read.’’ On the whole, a useful and interesting contribution.
J. Periam Danton, University of California, Berkeley
Hunger for the Printed Word: Books and Libraries in the Jewish Ghettos of Nazi-Occupied
Europe. By David Shavit. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1997. xi, 178
pp. $37.50. ISBN 0-7864-0203-2.
Poland in the 1930s was home to the world’s largest community of Jews. While
Polish Jewry had established large libraries in their seminaries, a more recent
development was the creation of community libraries by young and active Zionist
and socialist organizations. The Nazi occupation devastated their libraries as well
as readers. In a few short years, the holdings of these libraries were systematically
looted by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg and other Nazi agencies.
What remained were the legal and clandestine libraries in the ghettos of Eastern
Europe—holding pens for the victims until they were shipped to the death camps,
died of starvation or disease, or were executed.
Shavit’s slim book is the first monograph in English to deal with this important
albeit depressing history. His work takes the reader into the various libraries in
the ghettos of Warsaw, Lödz, Kovno, Vilna, and Theresienstadt. He also includes
a chapter on books and readers, which allows for contemplation of the rationale
for reading in such a hell.
The book is an expansion on Shavit’s 1982 Library Quarterly article, although
that did not deal with the libraries in Kovno or Theresienstadt. He has added
an amazing number of details to his previous account given that he relies mostly
on secondary sources. There are a few people who could have provided further
insight as both surviving librarians and readers if Shavit had used oral histories.

487
Still, Shavit should be commended for being able to piece together such a moving
study. It is obvious that he has reviewed large amounts of material (much of it
without indexes) in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish, the most interesting source
being the Yizkor [memorial] books compiled by survivors of a specific community,
recalling life in their former home and its destruction. The existence of a large
number of Yizkor books containing chapters on their library and their ghetto
further belies the book’s claim to be a comprehensive study of ghetto libraries.
There is still more to be researched, some of which will hopefully emerge in
Shoah Foundation video testimonies and in the files of the once-closed archives
of the former Soviet bloc. The works published by Laurentius and the two-volume
Bibliotheken während des Nationalsozialismus [Libraries during the Nazi period, 1992]
indicate that there is much that remains to be discovered. Shavit has done an
excellent job of explaining both Jewish and Nazi terms in the text, so the lack
of a glossary is forgivable, although the reader with little background in the
Holocaust may not perceive the significant distinctions between the different
Judenrat administrations of the ghettos or the ideological differences between
libraries, which are some of the most important details of this period of history.
These could have been fleshed out if compactness had been less of a concern.
Another option would have been to treat Theresienstadt separately, since it was
more like a ‘‘model concentration camp’’ than a ghetto, and its inhabitants were
quite different in background from those of other ghettos (German-speaking
Western/Central Europeans as opposed to, for the most part, Eastern European
Yiddish/Polish/Russian speakers) and thus had different reading interests and
attitudes. The text is, alas, replete with typos and erroneous romanizations—
partly (but not wholly) due to incomplete copyediting. Most noticeably, page 40
is entirely missing.
There are, then, criticisms to be made, but this book does impress the reader
with the spirit that drove the Jews to create folks-bibliotekn before and during the
war. It is the spirit of librarians who risked execution in smuggling and hiding
books and endangered themselves by circulating books which often were contaminated
by typhus. By sharing these librarians’ stories, Shavit honors them and
all who fight those who wish to destroy books and readers.
Andrew B. Wertheimer, Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies
Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939– 1961. 2d ed. By Robin W. Winks. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1987, 1996. 607 pp. $22.95. ISBN 0-300-06524-8.
Winks’s locale—an Ivy League university with distinguished faculty, wellprepared,
socially well-connected student body, financially secure alumni, and
brilliant administrators—is the accepted prime source of a supply of brilliant
undercover operators in the World War II era. Further, its campus libraries have
a high percentage of subject matter specialists on their staffs. The willingness
of the Yale University Press to publish two editions of this work shows its belief
that Yale responded to a wartime national challenge in a commendable way.
That the volume has a chapter on ‘‘The Library’’ (116–51) probably would be
sufficient justification for the present review despite its concluding statement
(151), ‘‘There was, for those addicted to the cloak and dagger, really very little
to the story of Joe Curtiss and his time in Istanbul. That was what made it his
part of the real world.’’ Basically, Yale Library got some agency funds to set up

488 L&C/Book Reviews
an expediting office in Istanbul for current European books, periodicals, and
newspapers, but the university president was not aware of the source of the funds.
(Incidentally, a little before this time period, the University of Illinois Library
had been getting its Continental newspapers and some periodicals through its
long-term agents, and they arrived stamped ‘‘Via Siberien.’’) In the amateurish
efforts to provide ‘‘secure cover’’ for the Istanbul operation, the ALA financial
office got involved in tangled accounts of ‘‘civilian’’ libraries that wished to get
their Continental acquisitions expedited too. The Farmington Plan (108–9) ‘‘got
into the act’’ also. Curtiss, Yale ’23 (Assistant Professor of English), Walter
Pforzheimer (a Yale Dad), and Thomas C. Mendenhall, Yale ’32, (Assistant Professor
of History) were involved, but no one from the Yale Library acquisitions
staff was.
There was a steady refrain (too many instances to list) praising both British
and agency analytical card files as being master information sources. This reviewer
has over the years ‘‘inherited’’ Ms. Hope Thomas’s Special Documents
Collection, Wright Field Reference Library, Dayton, Ohio, that had over 250
entries for a single technical report; all prewar analytics were done by newly
commissioned flight engineers (including such as ‘‘Jimmy’’ Doolittle) and are
still available ‘‘with time delays’’ from DTIC, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. (See ERIC
Report ED 184,503, 1978). The corresponding civilian file was Ms. Maude
Muller’s Office of Aeronautical Intelligence, National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics, Washington, also started in 1915, which included reports from her
Paris Liaison Officer (who also had the social connections mentioned as necessary
in this volume. Her primary power plant engineer/analyst lives in Florida in
retirement).
There are repeated references to the fact that a huge portion of the information
needed in intelligence work (say 90%, or 95%, or . . .) can be found in
the open literature, but the time factor is a crucial limiting one. This combined
with a need for subject-background-aided reference assistance means that the
library’s reference profession (including the special library portion) have not
done a good enough job of public relations with those outside our chosen profession.
Perhaps Dr. Wines could be ‘‘co-opted’’ for a major association presentation
to outsiders?
The confession that ‘‘I barely have adequate Malay’’ (482) reminds that a
major ‘‘fallout’’ from government funding was an emphasis on area studies and
less common languages. This lead must not be lost. ‘‘The individuals chosen for
looking at closely were meant to represent a variety of intelligence work . . .
Thus I focus in turn on administration, research and analysis (R&A), secret
intelligence (SI), secret operations (SO), counterintelligence (X-2) and evaluation
(ONE) . . . I have, therefore, sought to remember the motto of the great
French Biographie Universelle: ’To the living we owe some consideration, but to the
dead we owe nothing but the truth’’’(482).
Eugene B. Jackson, University of Texas at Austin
Fiction as History: Nero to Julian. By G. W. Bowersock. Berkeley, Calif.: University
of California Press, 1994. xiv, 181 pp. $15.95. ISBN 0-520-08824-7.
In The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (Yale University Press, 1984) R. L.
Wilken wrote, ‘‘The distinctive traits of the new religion and the tenacity of

489
Christian apologists ...opened up new horizons for Greco-Roman culture and
breathed new life into the spiritual and intellectual traditions of the ancient
world’’ (205). In Fiction as History G. W. Bowersock offers an analysis of Christian
influences in various genres of Greco-Roman novels, stating that ‘‘Parallels in
form and susbtance between the writings of the New Testament and the fictional
production of the imperial age are too prominent to be either ignored or dismissed
as coincidence’’ (124). In these lectures, delivered at Berkeley in 1991,
Bowersock sketches specific developments in Hellenistic fiction from the principate
of Nero to the rule of Julian, arguing that the Greco-Roman novels of this
period serve as evidence of a crisis in cultural boundaries as well as polytheistic
responses to the influence of Christianity.
Bowersock introduces his reader to these tensions through Celsus and Lucian,
whose works (which he calls ‘‘True Lies’’) used myth, historical truth, and wild
fantasies to expose fabrications within other fictions. Celsus, in particular,
through his ‘‘True Discourse’’ attempted to expose the Christian abuse of history.
According to Bowersock, both writers were responding to a crisis in which traditional
definitions of history and fiction were blurred.
Such tensions were partly related to a broadening Hellenic scope, an ecumenism
more inclusive of ‘‘barbarian’’ influences than the Roman Empire.
Bowersock states that this form of Hellenism in late antiquity would ‘‘become the
voice of the barbarians as they cried out against the tide of Christianity’’ (52–3).
Among the works that Bowersock uses to illustrate this development is the ‘‘Chaereas
and Callirhoe’’ of Chariton which he rightly identifies as traditional. But he
does not mention the possible Christian influences or, more likely, the opposition
to Julio-Claudian ideology found in Callirhoe’s child, a son destined for greatness
(3.8). Nor does he thoroughly examine how this text might itself be indicative
of ‘‘Homeric revisionism,’’ an important problem in the overall crisis. And, finally,
Bowersock might have noted that this new ecumenism more closely matched
Christian ecumenism, a point that would have informed his argument.
Elsewhere Bowersock finds more direct reflections of Christian influence. The
‘‘wounded savior’’ motif was attached, over time, to the ‘‘revised’’ Homeric character,
Philoctetes, who was transformed from a despised, weak-spirited man in
Greek literature to the Roman political ideal. He represented self-sacrifice and
the Stoic acceptance of duty, a trait that Celsus and (later) Julian saw lacking
in Jesus who ‘‘cried out’’ from the cross. Bowersock states that this development,
originating soon after the time of Nero, ‘‘ought now to guide us surely and unerringly
to a better understanding of the way in which the Greeks and Romans
of the period responded to an extraordinary story that came out of Palestine in
the middle of the first century ...TheGreeks and the Romans of the early
centuries of the Christian era had made their savior in their own image and
likeness’’ (74, 76).
In the following chapters Bowersock identifies dreams and resurrections in
these novels as even further evidence of interaction with Christian influences.
Bodily resurrections, in particular, were utterly new. Bowersock states that in
such fiction, ‘‘For resurrection in the flesh...there are virtually no examples
before the 2nd half of the first century’’ (102, cf. 116). Even links between this
theme and a ‘‘cannibalistic’’ meal are in widespread use and create unusually
great interest. This suggests, for Bowersock, that the Greco-Roman writers understood
what Christians were teaching and were responding with their own
‘‘fictions’’ to buttress Greco-Roman tradition. He argues that the results of these
efforts were the polytheistic fictions or ‘‘scriptures’’ which competed with the
Christian texts.

490 L&C/Book Reviews
While intensely detailed this work leaves unanswered a number of crucial questions.
The first is that of dating. If many of these themes emerged at the time
of Nero, particularly the resurrection/‘‘cannibalistic’’ meal motif, which gospels
or gospel traditions most influenced Greco-Roman literature? Much of the parallels
Bowersock cites sound suspiciously Johannine, which, by most accounts, is
a Christian tradition that emerged very late in the first century. If we accept the
general dating that Bowersock has proposed for the origins of these influences
(Neronian, 124) then we would have to accept that Christian docrine and the
Christian gospels were well-developed at an early date. This position opposes
much of modern higher-critical thinking regarding the gospels. In this work
Bowersock seems to argue for Christian primacy on such doctines as the
‘‘wounded savior’’ and the bodily resurrection. What has happened to the assumption
made within modern scholarly orthodoxy that such doctrines arose
from polytheistic mystery religions and gnostic influences? Does Bowersock not
realize this problem? Or perhaps he is using the skills of a classicist rather than
those of a biblicist, a contrast that often produces such variations.
On a final note, Bowersock takes on the very modern question of historical
interpretation by tackling the same question as it was asked in the ancient world.
The Christians made outrageous claims to historical truth. Bowersock points out
that the Christian apologist Origen bemoaned the same abuses of history in his
culture that Celsus attacked while still affirming the veracity of the gospels.
Indeed, the Christian claims were a problem then, as they are now. And it is
important that the Christian message was being made on the basis of events
that were within the lifetime of many who claimed their truth (the Neronian
period), whereas much of the fiction produced by the polytheists reflected Homeric
traditions stretching back thousands of years. Just why Christian motifs
entered so powerfully into the novels of this period must have had something to
do with this immediacy as well as the conviction of the Christians that these
truths were history, not fiction.
Kenneth Calvert, Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan
World Guide to Libraries. 11th ed. Edited by Bettina Bartz, Helmut Opitz, and
Elisabeth Richter. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1993. xxvii, 1179 pp. $350.00. ISBN 0936-
0085. ISSN 0936-0085. [WGL]
World Guide to Special Libraries. 3d ed. Edited by Helmut Opitz and Elisabeth
Richter. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1995. 2v. [v.1, xxx, 644 pp.; v. 2, 613 pp.] $325.00.
ISBN 3-598-22234-3. ISSN 0340-1332. [WGSL]
World Guide to Scientific Associations and Learned Societies. 6th ed. Edited by Michael
Zils. Munich: K. G. Saur, 1994. xiv, 542 pp. $245.00. ISBN 3-598-20580-5. ISSN
0939-1959. [WGSALS]
Who’s Who in European Research and Development, 1995. London: Bowker-Saur, 1995.
xxvii, 800 pp. $400.00. (European R&D Database.) ISBN 1-85739-097-0.
[WWER&D]
Directory of European Research and Development, 1995. London: Bowker-Saur, 1995. 2v.
$400.00. (European R&D Database.) ISBN 1-85739-092-X. [DER&D]

491
Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers, 1996. 19th ed. Detroit, Gale
Research, 1995. 3v. $900.00 set. ISBN 0-8103-9105 (set) 4. ISBN 0-8103-9106-6
(Pt. 1) ISBN 0-8103-9107-4 (Pt. 2). [DSL]
With the publication of these mid-1990s titles, the boundaries between special
libraries, science biography, and science professional organizations are becoming
transparent and more international. The pioneer publishers in these fields have
been Gale Research and Bowker (for North America), while K. G. Saur (Munich)
has been aggressive for Europe. (Note the imprint for WWER&D & DER&D is
‘‘London: Bowker-Saur’’.) Reviews of earlier editions of some of the above titles
have appeared previously in issues of this journal, including JLH 20 (Spring
1985): 230–231; JLH 21 (Summer 1986): 585–599; L&C 24 (Summer 1989): 400–
401; and L&C 27 (Winter 1992): 606–607.
The most comprehensive of these works is WGL, which states that it includes
45,773 libraries from 181 countries (v), but the core of special libraries remains
as stated in the last mentioned review—the National, General Research, University/College,
Government, Ecclesiastical, Corporate Business and ‘‘Other Special
Libraries’’ for a total of 17,892 in the U.S., Germany (reunited), Italy, and
a virtual tie among France, Canada, and the U.K.. The remaining 175 countries
would have about 17,000 more ‘‘hard-core’’ special libraries. The book’s main
arrangement is under the country’s English name in the seven categories listed
above plus two additional very general ones. There is an alphabetical list of
libraries as well. All Saur prefaces mention the dislocation in Eastern Europe
and the Baltic countries and solicit aid in purifying entries from those areas.
The editorial deadline for WGL was 4 December 1992.
WGSL claims to have 41,600 libraries listed under about 800 subject headings
with subarrangement by English country name. The test subject selected for the
directories was ‘‘Friction and wear in internal combustion engines.’’ Closest
terms were ‘‘Automotive engineering,’’ ‘‘Mechanical engineering,’’ or ‘‘Combustion.’’
The first was selected, although it was misspelled in the list. Pages 113–
116 had 117 special libraries from nineteen countries, including Slovenia and
Yugoslavia. One U.K. entry had been entered under five additional headings.
Features included on-line services available and professional association memberships
held. ‘‘Note on Use’’ (ix) listed the thirteen elements a complete entry
held. A full alphabetical index occupies pages 1083–1258. Editorial deadline was
30 September 1994. WGSALS had 17,200 entries including culture as well as
scientific/technical. Entries were alphabetical under English name of country.
Page 411 listed seventeen associations for automotive engineering in seven countries.
The publications index occupied pages 501–542. Deadline date was 31 December
1993. WWER&D contains more than 10,000 names of researchers from
all Eurpean countries that were asked to submit in English a questionnaire comparable
to those for American Men and Women of Science and which were verified
from London by telephone in fall 1994. Although the comparable volume arranged
by the 20,272 R&D institutions (DER&D) was not available until very late
in the review process, access via the index of WWER&D yielded ninety-nine valid
entries under ‘‘automotive engineering’’ of twenty-seven nationalites—most of
whom were with universities. DER&D turned out to be more interesting to the
international marketer looking for partners in technical projects. But there were
350 organizations listed under ‘‘automotive engineering’’ of which 38 percent
were German; Italy and the U.K. had 17 percent each, and France and Sweden
had 13.5 percent each.

492 L&C/Book Reviews
While it is beholden upon readers who are special librarians to remember the
pioneering efforts in the post–World War II years of ASILB and its subunits to
identify Continental scientific/technical librarians, libraries, and special collections,
most would agree that the Bowker-Saur European Data Base (2 CD’s, 20,272
organizations, sublisted under 650 subject headings—200,000 total subject entries,
and 120,000 individual researchers’ names) is an exceptional resource
($1,595.00). Annual editions are planned.
Opportunity was taken to review the most senior special library directory, DSL,
in its unbound signature state. The subject headings for the index continue to
improve and there are twenty-five data elements per entry as compared to
WGSL’s thirteen. Still lacking a clear statement for the basis on which foreign
entries are selected, it is noted that the 260 new ones bring the DLS total to
2,789. Both editorial groups are strong and eager to improve. In the subject index
for DSL, the order is U.S., Canadian, and foreign (country names are similar to
airport tags). While larger libraries would need the latest editions of both titles,
medium-size libraries could alternate between the annual editions, and small
libraries would get the one edited in their hemisphere periodically.
Eugene B. Jackson, University of Texas at Austin
Children’s Literature Research: International Resources and Exchange. First International
Conference, April 5–7, 1988. Edited by the International Youth Library. New
York: K. G. Saur, 1991. 247 pp. $48.00. ISBN 0-598-10912.
This volume of the proceedings of the First International Conference held at
the International Youth Library in Munich is a grab-bag of items, many of which
were outdated by the time the volume was published in 1991. Some opening
remarks and two keynote addresses (15–35) given at the conference are followed
by sixteen reports on the situation of children’s literature research by country.
The reports vary greatly in quality, ranging from Betsy Hearne’s excellent ‘‘Research
in Children’s Literature in the U.S. and Canada: Problems and Possibilities’’
(109–121), a model for what this work might have contained, to the
extremely sketchy ‘‘Children’s Literature Research in Austria,’’ by Gertrud
Paukner (152–54). Many reports list collections, awards, bibliographical references,
and names and addresses of institutions and scholars, but there is no
consistent format; given this circumstance, an index would have been helpful.
The usefulness of the reports varies greatly. Some of them, for example those
on Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Nepal, remain valuable because so little information
is available on these countries. Other contributions, such as the report on the
USSR (in German) and on Eastern European countries, are no longer pertinent
because of the collapse of the Soviet system. And one, that on Cuba by a Cuban
scholar, Alga Marina Elizagaray, seems hopelessly one-sided in the light of more
balanced reports by scholars who have visited Cuba recently.
Children’s Literature Research also contains a section on ‘‘International Organizations
and Their Work,’’ a somewhat useful source for information on the International
Youth Library, the International Research Society for Children’s
Literature, the Banco del Libro in Venezuela, and IBBY, the International Board
on Books for Young People. Nevertheless, much of the information here is also
dated, and current information on these institutions is readily available in IBBY’s

493
journal Bookbird: World of Children’s Books; for example, they are covered in 33:3/
4, the Fall-Winter 1995–1996 issue.
Large research institutions, particularly those with an interest in international
literature or children’s literature, might want to purchase this volume for its
references and the names and addresses of individual institutions and scholars.
In a perfect world, Children’s Literature Research would be reissued and updated,
with all the countries contained (as well as those omitted; for example, South
Africa) following the model of Hearne’s report. Failing such an eventuality, however,
most libraries interested in keeping up-to-date with the international situation
in children’s literature would be better served by subscribing to Bookbird.
Gillian Adams, Children’s Literature Abstracts; Children’s Literature Association Quarterly,
Austin, Texas.
Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad. By Leona Rostenberg
and Madeleine B. Stern. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 1996. viii, 175 pp.
$45.00. ISBN 1-884718-18-3.
Book Collecting as One of the Fine Arts, and Other Essays. By Colin Franklin. Brookfield,
VT: Scolar Press, 1996. x, 138 pp. $39.50. ISBN 1-85928-262-8.
The two books under scrutiny for this review were written by booksellers with
long and distinguished careers, not only in their profession, but also in the world
of scholarship. They approach their subjects idiosyncratically, so readers may be
fascinated or bored with these books, depending on each reader’s predilections.
Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern grew up in New York City. Both were
students at Columbia University during the Depression, majoring in history and
English respectively. Rostenberg wrote her doctoral dissertation on the role of
the printer in the dissemination of learning in Strassburg at the beginning
of the Reformation. Her advisor—the renowned but inflexible scholar Lynn
Thorndike—rejected her dissertation in 1938, unconvinced of the importance of
the printers, whom he considered illiterate and uneducated. Her scholarship was
clearly ahead of its time. (Columbia did not reverse that decision, but made
amends in 1973 when it accepted Rostenberg’s books in lieu of the dissertation
and awarded her the doctorate.)
Rostenberg’s unfortunate fate at Columbia led to a distinguished career as a
bookseller. She worked for the Austrian émigré bookseller Herbert Reichner
before establishing her own business in 1944. And she became a prolific writer
of works on printing, publishing, and the book trade.
Madeleine Stern ended her formal studies in English after receiving her M.S.
from Columbia. Her first book, The Life of Margaret Fuller (New York: E. P. Dutton,
1940), received excellent reviews. It was followed by a biography of Louisa May
Alcott and a host of other writings on American writers and publishers. She
joined Rostenberg as a junior partner in 1945. Scholarship, creativity, moxie, and
business acumen have made these women important booksellers and scholars.
With their characteristic lively, witty, and candid style, Rostenberg and Stern
have entertained and informed us in several books and essays about literary and
bibliographic sleuthing. The most recent memoir by these octogenarians is Old
Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad, an account of their
annual buying trips to Europe from 1947 to 1957.

494 L&C/Book Reviews
The book contains excerpts of journal entries and letters home written by each,
interspersed with current notes headed ‘‘Retrospect.’’ The text contains many
photographs from these trips. The authors note that ‘‘To retain the spontaneity
and informality of the originals, extracts from our journals and letters have been
transcribed as they were written, often in the heat of the moment’’ (vii). The
freshness and frankness of their writings often make for captivating reading and
recapture the passions and indignities of their youth. For example, an entry from
London, 9 and 11 August 1947: ‘‘We have seen many a bombed-out building in
our walk along Park Lane. ...Itis still appalling’’ (20); and the following year
on 22 August, ‘‘visited Grafton Sat. a.m. where that old hex Miss Hamel . . .
still guards her wares in flounces of black satin, a broad hat & a large piercing
brooch. ...OldPeddie was schlobbering about, dilating upon his Index—now
containing 250,000 entries & in the 4th Supplement’’ (36).
The spontaneity of their early reflections tends to become bogged down by
their retrospective notes, which, while interesting early on, become dreary as
these notes consist primarily of accounts of what their purchases would be worth
in today’s market or else which library or collector wound up owning the books
that they acquired on these trips.
Judicious editing might also have kept the book moving at its early lively pace.
Stern and Rostenberg ‘‘schmoosed,’’ had a ‘‘schmoose’’ or a ‘‘schmoos,’’ or engaged
in ‘‘schmoosing’’ some dozen times. The collector Miriam Holden is mentioned
five times, three in which she is referred to as ‘‘the feminist collector’’ or
‘‘feminist friend’’ (82, 93, 99).
The book provided enough memorable passages to send me back to their Old
& Rare: Thirty Years in the Book Business (New York: Abner Schram, 1974). Their
earlier work admirably covers their postwar buying trips and also provides the
reader with a more sustained narrative coupled with a circumspect perspective.
It is the superior work. Rather than provide us with diary excerpts and choppy
retrospectives, Stern and Rostenberg should simply have treated us to their unexpurgated
diaries. As biographers they surely know how much more valuable those
would be to us. But the task of bringing out their diaries, it appears, must fall
to their own biographers. Such an insight into the lives of these admirable women
would be a lagniappe indeed.
***
Colin Franklin’s collection of essays does not quite captivate the reader. His
title snags our attention since there is a wide readership of books about book
collecting. But this is disappointing since there really is little about book collecting
here. The subtitle—in smaller type—says it best: ‘‘and Other Essays.’’
The first piece, somewhat rambling and unfocused, does talk a bit about collecting,
but the author’s style—in his own admission ‘‘It is the privilege of a bookseller
to wander across subjects’’ (5)—leaves the reader wondering what all this
is about. He seems to talk about what to collect, how to collect, whether to use
(i.e., read) the books in one’s collection, the sense of ‘‘a separation from practical
affairs’’ (5) that collecting affords, collecting as investment, finding one’s own
optimal area of collecting, and so on. There is nothing new here, nothing that
collectors did not already know and that many authors have not covered in
abundance.
The redeeming feature here is the author’s relaxed style: it is almost as if he
and the reader are sitting beside his fireplace, a jar of his home-gathered honey
on the coffee table beside a plate of toast, and he is reminiscing about a passion
he has pursued for half a century. The advice is not so much advice as it is his

495
discussing with a restrained enthusiasm a long-standing passion of his, recollected
in tranquillity. We might not learn much, but we feel rewarded, nonetheless,
by mere contact.
The ‘‘Other Essays’’ yield the same ‘‘reward.’’ The eleven other pieces range
from one topic to another—often only peripherally related to books—the way
one’s evening conversation might roam around. ‘‘So, Colin, I like this Doves Press
book. Great type face!’’ ‘‘Oh, it was one of those proprietary types, you know.’’
‘‘Ah!’’ And so the second essay launches into what Franklin knows about proprietary
types—Doves, Vale, Eragny—and their ultimate disposal in the Thames.
‘‘This is a nice little item, The Garland for Rachel. What can you tell me about
it?’’ ‘‘Funny you should ask—I just wrote an essay about it and the Daniel Press.’’
The inspiration for much of the writing here comes from the books and manuscripts
in Franklin’s own collection. But he has also traveled widely and become
familiar with the many tools of his trade: books and the libraries they reside in.
He has, for example, written about the typography and illustration of early editions
of Shakespeare (chapter 4); chiaroscuro illustration, especially the work of
the English artist John Baptist Jackson (chapter 5); Lord Chesterfield’s writing—not
just his well-known letters to his son (who died in 1768, ‘‘worn out
perhaps,’’ Franklin speculates, ‘‘by three decades of advice,’’ [51]), but also his more
controversial volume of ‘‘Characters,’’ sketches of his contemporaries (chapter 6);
the work of William Combe, the prolific nineteenth-century writer who published
most of his work from debtor’s prison (chapter 7); the Sette of Odd Volumes (the
English club) and its many publications (chapter 8); and so on. The last four
chapters deal with Dante Gabriel Rossetti (chapter 9) and the Brownings (10–
12)—various aspects of their interests, writings, or experience. The last chapter
is on Elizabeth’s fascination with seances, ‘‘table-rapping’’ (133), and other paranormal
experiences brought to her by Daniel Dunglas Hume; Robert Browning’s
skepticism and the tensions created in their marriage because of this interest;
and his poem ‘‘Mr. Sludge, ‘The Medium,’’’emanating from these experiences.
This chapter is punctuated by Franklin’s own lively tale, paralleling the Browning
story, of his own childhood paranormal experience: his lying about being able to
dowse and being taken seriously by his family for many years.
The book is not without problems (a phrase, I am sure, the reader anticipated).
To begin with, while many of these essays introduce us to things somewhat bookish,
not all of these essays are even slightly captivating. Second, and perhaps the
most problematic feature of this for me, most of these essays talk about the
physical objects of Franklin’s trade and his collecting: books and manuscripts.
And he talks of them specifically as physical objects: their varying levels of beauty,
their typography and illustrations, their bindings. The fourth essay, for example,
is solely about the look—typography, illustration, bindings, sizes, papers, and
leathers—of eighteenth-century editions of Shakespeare. But there is no single
facsimile or illustration of any kind. This is true of the entire volume, with its
essays on the Sette of Odd Volumes books, the chiaroscuro and other illustrations
of Jackson and his contemporaries, the looks of many editions of Elizabeth
Browning’s sonnets, the volume of poems to Rachel, the many printings of Robert
Browning’s Pied Piper, and the interesting manuscript scrapbook of William
Combe. We are tantalized (in at least half of the essays) by Franklin’s telling us
of how such and such an item looks, but we are not shown a single one of them.
For $39.50 we get only 138 pages of intriguing, provocative prose: not a satisfying
purchase. Without pictures to show us what Franklin is talking about, many of
these essays are soporific.

496 L&C/Book Reviews
I have been reading and profiting from Colin Franklin’s scholarly work for
three decades. He is one of those rare combinations of prominent and eminent
bookseller and learned scholar—like Rostenberg and Stern. His writing does not
border on the boastful or egocentric, as does that of Rosenbach, Fleming, and
Randall, to name only three. He is truly a gentleman scholar, a gentleman bookseller,
and a relaxed and friendly writer. This is not his most compelling or
informative endeavor, but it is a congenial stroll down a few new or slightly worn
paths with a kind interlocutor.
Michèle V. Cloonan, University of California, Los Angeles
Sidney E. Berger, University of California, Riverside
ABC for Book Collectors. By John Carter. 7th ed. with corrections, additions and an
introduction by Nicolas Barker. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 1995. 224 pp.
$25.00. ISBN 1-884718-18-05-1.
The Art & History of Books. By Norma Levarie. With a foreword by Nicolas Barker.
New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, and London: The British Library, 1995. xx,
316 pp. $45.00. ISBN 1-884718-02-7, hardback. $29.95. ISBN 1-884718-03-5,
paperbound.
Encyclopedia of the Book. By Geoffrey Ashall Glaister. 2nd ed., with a new introduction
by Donald Farren. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, and London: The
British Library, 1996. xxiii, 551 pp. $75.00. ISBN 1-884718-15-9, hardback. $49.95.
ISBN 1-884718-14-0, paperbound.
Five Hundred Years of Printing. By S. H. Steinberg. New ed., revised by John Trevitt.
New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, and London: The British Library, 1996. xx,
262 pp. $45.00. ISBN 1-884718-19-1, hardback. $29.95. ISBN 1-884718-20-5,
paperbound.
With the republication of these four titles alone, Oak Knoll Press can lay
rightful and impressive claim to be the premier publisher of reference works and
standard texts in the field of the history of books and printing. These revised
and reprinted classics lend new distinction to a publisher that has long been a
friend of book people in the English-speaking world. Though the publisher’s fall
1996 catalogues reveal its continuing commitment to publishing books on ‘‘printing,
bookbinding, illustration, papermaking, marbling, bookselling, publishing,
typography, bibliography, book collecting, etc.,’’ it is its newest venture into
bringing back out-of-print works of worth that is its current spectacular
achievement.
Many publishers, trade and scholarly, have produced single printings, and even
occasional reprintings, of noteworthy works; but they frequently abandon them
nowadays when the demand declines to that of a steady backlisted item. To its
credit and with the gratitude of many, the thoughtful leadership of Oak Knoll
Press has rescued and resuscitated these excellent works, brought them up to
date when needed, and reissued them at a very fair price—including a complete
and undisguised publishing history on the verso of each title page. It has immediately
become the publisher of record for the professions that take the history
and care of books seriously. The fact that the Bibliographical Society of America

497
and The British Library have determined to work with this publisher also suggests
that it has earned its enviable position. These four works illustrate the
enlightened practice and promise of this press.
Carter’s succinct ABC for Book Collectors has been a gem to discover and a
favorite with students of the book since it first appeared in 1952 from Rupert
Hart-Davis. Now, several editions later, this little classic is still available at a
very reasonable cost, thanks to an arrangement with HarperCollins. Barker’s
brief introduction provides good insight into why this title has been invaluable
to beginners and seasoned book workers for more than four decades.
Levarie’s The Art & History of Books, an illustrated survey of the book from
ancient times to the present century, has been an excellent introduction to the
subject since it first appeared in 1968 from James H. Heineman; it was reissued
by Da Capo Press in 1982, but then was out of print for a number of years. With
its full size and reproductions of book title pages, text pages, and illustrations—that
occur on almost every other page—this work, published by arrangement
with Heineman, will be highly appreciated by a new generation of book
lovers and students. Again, Barker’s extended introduction provides an evaluation
and supplementary assessment in light of recent scholarship.
Glaister’s Encyclopedia of the Book became a friend to many in the profession as
a unique and sturdy reference work in a field that had few others in English.
Originally produced in 1960 under the modest title of Glossary of the Book by
George Allen & Unwin Publishers, its completely revised second edition appeared
as Glaister’s Glossary of the Book from the University of California Press. Farren’s
thirteen-page introduction to the present reprinting of the second edition presents
a fascinating portrait of Glaister, the British Council librarian who for
nearly thirty years worked overseas and who used a Swedish work as the basis
for his reference work. This reissued volume published by arrangement with
HarperCollins, London, and available in paperback binding, brings the work
again into the reach of virtually anyone who has an interest in the history and
technology of the book arts.
Steinberg’s Five Hundred Years of Printing, as revised and brought up to date by
John Trevitt, is a classic that students always appreciate. Though not perhaps
intended to be a definitive text, it has aided many in their understanding and
appreciation of the Western historical tradition of moveable type printing. This
short work from a prolific author was originally published by Penguin Books as
a Pelican Original; second and third editions appeared in 1961 and 1974. Now
with expanded page size, completely reworked text and illustrative matter, and
an extended addition that covers the twentieth century, the availability of this
work again will ensure its being the standard text, notwithstanding the widespread
use of Warren Chappell’s A Short History of the Printed Word (various publishers
from 1970). The revised selective bibliography is welcome.
In sum, Oak Knoll Press has gifted its profession by bringing back these exceptional
books and not allowing them to languish, to be forgotten, or to be
available only for collectors. Along with the far more selective and specialized
reprints of Dover Publications of New York, this press has made a conscientious
attempt to keep classic works available to the broadest possible audience. As a
professor who has taught courses in the history of books and libraries, I can speak
from experience and with thanksgiving. We can look forward to other efforts of
Oak Knoll Press—especially as we support its recent achievements.
Donald G. Davis Jr., University of Texas at Austin

498 L&C/Book Reviews
Cycles of Time and Scientific Learning in Medieval Europe. By Wesley M. Stevens.
Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum, 1995. ix, 336 pp. $92.95. ISBN 0-86078-471-1.
In this collection of eleven articles previously published from the early 1970s
to mid-1990s, with corrections and revisions conveniently marked, Wesley Stevens
weaves together several topics crucial for medieval studies in general as well as
manuscript and library studies in particular. The pattern woven is one too frequently
neglected by scholars despite its value. It is a book suited for trained
medievalists rather than general readers; one article is in German. This reviewer
approaches the work as an historian specializing in codicology and the history of
scholarship, including scientific scholarship.
The articles’ topics include calendrical and astronomical reckonings, sidereal
reckoning in Anglo-Saxon England, Bede’s scientific studies, Isidore’s representation
of the cosmos, scientific instruction in early insular schools, several articles
on the scientific efforts of Hraban, Strabo, and the scribes of the scriptorium at
Fulda as well as specific manuscripts therefrom.
There is an important theme that unites these articles. Stevens argues—with
reason!—that the interrelations between what moderns call scientific labors and
the religious, social, and intellectual life of early Christian Europe deserve
broader acknowledgment among scholars today, if we are not to risk ignoring an
exceedingly great amount of historical sources for this period. He focuses on
manuscripts from the eighth to eleventh centuries, thus from the period before
the influx of Aristotelian manuscripts and translations following the initiation of
the crusades into Iberia.
By this view of scientific manuscripts, Stevens reinforces the theoretical nature
of the traditional quadrivium and trivium of the Roman model for education,
replacing it with the practical nature of grammatica, cantica (applied music) and
computistica (time reckoning). Computistica, calculations of various elements of
time as well as fields related to such endeavors, was a critical, pervasive element
of medieval education and academic activity. This account serves as a needed
check on the customary descriptions of educational systems and curricula, such
as those by H. Marrou or M. L. W. Laistner. However, it is not a matter of
supplanting them, contrary to Stevens (e.g., IX, 28), but one of amplification.
Indeed, in agreement with Stevens, the ordinary student in early medieval monasteries
concerned himself with applying his studies to resolve quotidian problems.
From this sort of training in calendrical and arithmetical calculations,
scholars were then able to go on to other logically related fields, such as advanced
studies in astronomy, geometry, and mathematics as well as theology. For the
medievalist today, examination of such scientific texts and curricula reveals their
far-reaching impact. For example, tracing how the Easter date was resolved—
however tedious the process can seem to many today—shows the flow of ecclesiastical
influence. It must be remembered that it was the religious life of Christian
Europe that served as the impetus for scientific studies, rather than that
they occurred separate from common society. Yet, scholars’ choices of manuscripts
for study usually serve to reinforce a division between literary and scientific
manuscripts. This division is natural, of course, but Stevens shows that
the scientific texts have much to offer scholars concerned primarily with the
literary ones.
For readers of this journal, Stevens’s articles bear special weight. Medieval
library holdings included large numbers of scientific manuscripts. Even literary

499
manuscripts frequently contain marginalia of scientific material. Stevens demonstrates
how computational texts are integral to understanding the early medieval
context. The majority of his articles concern actual practice within
scriptoria, especially at Fulda, and specific manuscripts. Two articles on a ninthcentury
codex from Fulda but conserved in the Bodleian library provide a precise,
exemplary model of codicological description and analysis. This collection can
thus serve very well as a working guide for those scholars interested in expanding
their current literary-oriented studies of manuscripts or libraries to include the
abundant riches of scientific texts. Stevens offers a superb work of scholarship
and, equally important, explains how his studies help illuminate many other
fields, including codicology, paleography, bibliography, and library history.
Alan Cottrell, Cottey College, Nevada, Missouri

Index to Volume 32
Compiled by Hermina G.B. Anghelescu
General Index
A
Academic libraries. See also Libraries; and names of specific universities
in Mexico, 32(2):238
Academies
Cracow Academy, Poland, 32(1):94–103
Acquisition
of European books for U.S. libraries during the Cold War, 32(4):487–488r, 32(4):493–
496r
‘‘Advance and Retreat: Aspects of Public Library Services in New South Wales during
World War II’’ (Jones), 32(3):337–348
‘‘Almost a Unified Library: Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore College Library
Cooperation during the 1940s’’ (Freeman), 32(1):1–37
American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 32(2):169, 32(2):176, 32(2):178,
32(2):180–182
American Bible Society Library, 32(3):324–336
American Book Publishers Council, 32(4):413–414, 32(4):419
American Library Association
‘‘Books for China’’ campaign, 32(2):198–220
censorship at University of Montana Library during the 1930s, 32(2):176–180
Committee on International Relations during World War II, 32(2):197, 32(2):212
National Library Service Program, 32(4):430–432
reading in rural U.S. during the 1950s, 32(4):403–423
YMCA traveling libraries for the military, 1916, 32(1):117–120
Annales, 32(2):257–258r
Archaeology
U.S. involvement in the Near East, 32(4):481–482r
Archives
National Archives and Records Service (NARS), 32(3):391–392r
in the U.S., finding aids, 32(2):272–274r
Australia
library legislation, 1939–1945, 32(3):341–346
public libraries in New South Wales during World War II, 32(3):337–348
B
Beckwith, George, 32(1):132–133r
Berlin State Library, 32(4):485–486r
‘‘ ‘Best Books’ and Excited Readers: Discursive Tensions in the Writings of Melvil
Dewey’’ (Frohmann), 32(3):349–371
Bibliographers
Thomas James Wise, 32(3):385–386r
Bibliographies
of American literature, 32(2):270–272r

on book history, 32(2):268–270r
compilation of, 32(1):155–157r
of finding aids to archives and manuscript collections in the U.S., 32(2):272–274r
for literary students, 32(1):155–157r
in Mexico, 32(2):227
Polish Bibliography, 32(1):101
of serials, 32(2):262–265r
usefulness to historians and librarians, 32(1):154–155r
Biographies
Frick family in Pittsburgh, Pa., 32(2):258–262r
George Boole, 32(1):81–93, 32(1):83
Blacks
history and culture, Houston, Tex., 32(1):146–148r
library services for, South Africa, 32(1):57–76, 32(1):70, 32(1):71, 32(1):72
library services for, South Carolina, 1935–1943, 32(4):429, 32(4):439–450
Blair, Nancy C., 32(4):444, 32(4):445, 32(4):445–446
‘‘Blazing the Way: The WPA Library Service Demonstration Project in South Carolina’’
(Gorman), 32(4):427–455, 32(4):436, 32(4):445
Book clubs
in Kalamazoo, Mich., 1852–1892, 32(1):45–47
People’s Book Club, 32(4):409
Book collecting, 32(4):493–496r, 32(4):496–497r
Book destruction
in China, 332(2):191
Book illustration, 32(3):393–395r
Book trade
European books for U.S. libraries during the Cold War, 32(4):487–488r, 32(4):493–
496r
France, 1585–1715, 32(4):483–484r
Great Britain, 32(1):139–140r, 32(3):381–382r
Italy, 16th–20th century, 32(3):381–382r
Spain, 16th century, 32(2):256–257r
U.S., during the 1950s, 32(4):405, 32(4):409
Bookmobiles, 32(4):427, 32(4):430, 32(4):435–436, 32(4):438–439, 32(4):441, 32(4):444
Bookplate designers
Armin von Foelkersam, 32(1):125, 32(1):125–127
Bookplates
‘‘Books for China’’ campaign, 32(2):212
Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University,
32(2):245, 32(2):245–247
Mexican libraries, 32(2):238, 32(2):239
Myra Jo Moon, Colorado State University, 32(3):372, 32(3):372–374
Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, 32(1):125, 32(1):125–128
Reverend Thomas Robbins, 32(4):474, 32(4):474–478
‘‘Books for China’’ campaign, 32(2):198–220, 32(2):212
Boole, George, 32(1):81–93, 32(1):83
Brown, Charles Harvey, 32(2):202–207
Bryn Mawr College Library
cooperative programs, 32(1):1–37
C
Carnegie Corporation
support for American libraries, 1890–1920, 32(3):377–378r
501

502 L&C/Index to Volume 32
support for cooperative library programs, 32(1):17–29
support for libraries, 32(4):471–472
support for libraries in New South Wales, Australia, 32(3):342–346
support for library services in South Africa, 32(1):64–76, 32(1):70, 32(1):71, 32(1):72
support for Polish libraries, 32(1):102
Catalogs, 32(1):134r, 32(1):135–136r, 32(3):364, 32(3):366–369
in Chinese libraries, 32(4):464–465
Catholic Church
in China, 32(4):456–459, 32(4):466
Censorship
in Chinese libraries, 332(2):191
University of Montana Library during the 1930s, 32(2):170–190
in U.S. libraries, 32(1):148–149r
‘‘Chartophylax: Archivist and Librarian to the Patriarch in Constantinople’’ (Wehmeyer),
32(1):107–112, 32(1):110
Cheraw Public Library, S.C., 32(4):439
Children’s literature
in Great Britain, 1850–1945, 32(3):393–395r
international directory of, 32(3):395–396r
in the U.S., 1870–1945, 32(3):393–395r
Children’s materials
international literature research, 32(4):492–493r
China
book destruction, 332(2):191
European books in libraries, 32(4):457
Jesuit mission, 32(4):456–457
library development before World War II, 332(2):192–194
supply of American library materials during World War II, 332(2):191–226
Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library, Shanghai, 32(4):459–466
Chinese Library Association, 32(2):196–197
Christianity
in China, 32(4):456–459
influence of, on Helenistic novels, 32(4):488–490r
in South Africa, 32(1):58–61
Circulating libraries
in Michigan, 1852–1892, 32(1):43–44
Citizens’ Library Association, 32(4):442–443
Clement XIV, Pope, 32(4):457
Cobley, Alan G.
‘‘Literacy, Libraries, and Consciousness: The Provision of Library Services for Blacks in
South Africa in the Pre-Apartheid Era,’’ 32(1):57–80, 32(1):70, 32(1):71, 32(1):72
Cold War
acquisition of European books for U.S. libraries, 32(4):487–488r, 32(4):493–496r
Collections
of medieval manuscripts in Europe, 32(4):498–499r
Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, 32(4):474, 32(4):474–478
Cooksey, Elizabeth B.
‘‘George Boole: The Man behind ‘And/Or/Not’,’’ 32(1):81–93, 32(1):83
Coons, Lorraine A.
‘‘ ‘Special Collection’ in Nineteenth-Century New York: The American Bible Society
and Its Library,’’ 32(3):324–336
Cracow Academy, Poland, 32(1):94–103

D
Denmark
Royal Library, 32(2):258–262r
Dewey, Melvil
Library Bureau, 32(3):377–378r
writings on library services, 32(3):349–369
Digitization
of library materials, 32(1):150r
Directories, 32(4):490–492r
Druids
history of, 32(3):378–379r
E
Eastern Europe
libraries and reading, 32(2):278–279r
libraries in Jewish ghettos of Nazi-occupied countries, 32(4):486–487r
Elliker, Calvin
‘‘From the People of the United States of America: The Books for China Programs
during World War II,’’ 32(2):164, 32(2):166, 32(2):169–190, 32(2):172
Enlightenment
journalism in France, 32(1):139–140r
Europe. See also names of specific countries
information science, 32(2):279–281r
medieval manuscripts, study of, 32(4):497–498r
public libraries, 32(2):278–279r
F
Fairbank, John K., 32(2):202–209
Fairbank, Wilma, 32(2):202–209, 32(2):213–214
Festschrifts
honoring William A. Munford, 32(4):480–481r
Finding aids. See also Guides
to U.S. archives, 32(2):272–274r
France
Annales, 32(2):257–258r
journalism, 18th century, 32(1):139–140r
printing, 17th century, 32(1):137–139r
publishing, 1788–1799, 32(1):140–141r
publishing and reading, 1585–1715, 32(4):483–484r
reading of erotic literature, 18th century, 32(3):379–381r
Freeman, Michael Stuart
‘‘Almost a Unified Library: Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore College Library
Cooperation during the 1940s,’’ 32(1):1–37
Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pa., 32(2):258–262r
Frohmann, Bernd
‘‘ ‘Best Books’ and Excited Readers: Discursive Tensions in the Writings of Melvil
Dewey,’’ 32(3):349–371
‘‘From the People of the United States of America: The Books for China Programs during
World War II’’ (Zhou & Elliker), 32(2):164, 32(2):166, 32(2):169–190, 32(2):172
G
‘‘George Boole: The Man behind ‘And/Or/Not’ ’’(Cooksey), 32(1):81–93, 32(1):83
503

504 L&C/Index to Volume 32
Germany
Berlin State Library, 32(4):485–486r
International Youth Library, Munich, 32(4):492–493r
Gorman, Robert M.
‘‘Blazing the Way: The WPA Library Service Demonstration Project in South
Carolina,’’ 32(4):427–455, 32(4):436, 32(4):445
Great Britain
book trade, 16th–20th century, 32(3):381–382r
children’s literature, 1850–1945, 32(3):393–395r
library architecture, 32(2):258–262r
public libraries, 32(4):480–481r
Renaissance, 32(1):135–136r
Griswold, Whitney A., 32(4):404–405
Guides
to Mormon sources and collections in the U.S., 32(2):274–275r
to Slavic materials, 32(1):152–154r
Gutenberg, Johannes
as printer and inventor, 32(2):253–254r
H
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, Tex., 32(2):262–265r
Harter, Margaret H.
[‘‘Bookplate of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction,
Indiana University’’], 32(2):245, 32(2):245–247
Haverford College Library
cooperative programs, 32(1):1–37
Higher education
in the U.S., 1650–1870, 32(3):387–388r
in the U.S. and tenure process, 1937–1939, 32(2):163–190
Historical research
in Mexico, 32(2):228–241
role of bibliographies, 32(1):154–155r
Historiography. See also Historical research
African-American, in the U.S., 32(1):146–148r
Annales, 32(2):257–258r
‘‘History of the Jagiellonian Library’’ (Nowak), 32(1):94–106
Hovde, David M.
‘‘YMCA Libraries on the Mexican Border, 1916,’’ 32(1):113–124
I
Ifould, W. H., 32(3):339–345
India
history and development of libraries, 32(3):399–400r
libraries during Muslim rule, 32(4):482–483r
Indiana University
Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, 32(2):245, 32(2):245–247
Information
production and distribution in the U.S., 32(2):282–284r
Information centers, 32(4):490–492r
Intellectual freedom. See also Censorship
and tenure in U.S. universities, 1937–1939, 32(2):163–190

International Youth Library, Munich, 32(4):492–493r
Internet
handbook, 32(2):281–282r
Islam
libraries in India during, 32(4):482–483r
Italy
book trade, 16th–20th century, 32(3):381–382r
books and schools during Renaissance, 32(1):131–132r
J
Jagiellonian Library, Cracow, Poland, 32(1):94–103
Jefferson, Thomas, 32(2):260r, 32(2):265–266r
Jones, David J.
‘‘Advance and Retreat: Aspects of Public Library Services in New South Wales during
World War II,’’ 32(3):337–348
Jones, Karen
[‘‘Bookplate Myra Jo Moon Preservation Reference Collection, Colorado State
University’’], 32(3):372, 32(3):372–374
Journalism
in France, 18th century, 32(1):139–140r
Julius Rosenwald Fund, 32(4):428–429
K
Keeney, Mary Jane Daniels, 32(2):165–190, 32(2):166
Keeney, Philip, 32(2):163–190, 32(2):164
King, Gail
‘‘Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library of Shanghai,’’ 32(4):456–469
Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University
bookplate of, 32(2):245, 32(2):245–247
L
Ladies’ Library Association
Kalamazoo, Mich., 1852–1892, 32(1):38–52, 32(1):41
Ladies’ Literary Club
Kalamazoo, Mich., 1852–1892, 32(1):42–52
Librarians
Archibald MacLeish, 32(2):184–185
Charles Harvey Brown, 32(2):202–207
Charles Shaw, 32(1):2–29
gender differences, 32(3):397–399r
John Metcalfe, 32(3):341, 32(3):345
Mary Jane Daniels Keeney, 32(2):166, 332(2):165–190
Nancy C. Blair, 32(4):444, 32(4):445, 32(4):445–446
to the patriarch in Constantinople, 32(1):107–111, 32(1):110
Philip Keeney, 32(2):164, 332(2):163–190
Ralph Munn, 32(3):341, 32(3):343–344
Thomas Robbins, 32(4):474, 32(4):474–478
in the U.S. during the 1950s, 32(4):403–423
W. H. Ifould, 32(3):339–345
women as, in the U.S., 1900–1917, 32(1):145–146r
Libraries. See also Librarians, Museum libraries, National libraries, Private libraries,
Public Libraries, Religious libraries, Special collections; and names of specific libraries
505

506 L&C/Index to Volume 32
in China during World War II, 32(2):191–226
in Eastern Europe, 32(2):278–279r
history of, 32(3):400–401r
in India, 32(3):399–400r, 32(4):482–483r
in Jewish ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe, 32(4):486–487r
Oxford University Library, 32(2):258–262r
and philanthropy, 32(4):470–473
as research institutions, 32(1):149–151r
University of Colorado Library, 1876–1972, 32(3):390–391r
in the U.S., 1650–1870, 32(3):387–388r
in Western Europe, 32(2):278–279r
Library architecture
in Oxford, 32(2):258–262r
Library Association
History Group, 32(4):480–481r
Library cooperation, 32(1):1–37
cataloging in school libraries, South Carolina, 32(4):436
Library history
in Mexico, 32(2):227–244, 32(2):233, 32(2):234, 32(2):235, 32(2):236, 32(2):237, 32(2):
239
Library History Seminar IX, 32(4):470–473
Library legislation
in Australia, 1939–1945, 32(3):341–346
U.S. during the 1950s, 32(4):407–408, 32(4):411, 32(4):414, 32(4):420
Library of Congress, 32(2):258–262r, 32(3):400–401r
and Archibald MacLeish, 32(2):184–185
and the Conference on Rural Reading, 32(4):419–420
Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, 32(2):265–266r
Library science education
in Europe, 32(2):279–281r
Library services
for Blacks in South Carolina, 1935–1943, 32(4):429, 32(4):436–450
to rural areas in the U.S., 32(4):403–423, 32(4):427–450
Literacy
in South Africa, 32(1):58–61
‘‘Literacy, Libraries, and Consciousness: The Provision of Library Services for Blacks in
South Africa in the Pre-Apartheid Era’’ (Cobley), 32(1):57–80, 32(1):70, 32(1):71,
32(1):72
Literature, American
bibliographies, 32(2):270–272r
Literature, English
mnemonic devices, 32(3):382–383r
Literature, Helenistic
Christian influences, 32(4):488–490r
M
MacLeish, Archibald, 32(2):184–185
Management
of museum libraries, 32(2):275–277r
Manuscripts
finding aids to collections in the U.S., 32(2):272–274r
medieval, in Europe, 32(4):497–498r

McReynolds, Rosalee
‘‘Trouble in Big Sky’s Ivory Tower: The Montana Tenure Dispute of 1937–1939,’’
32(2):164, 32(2):166, 32(2):169–190, 32(2):172
Medicine
history of, 32(3):396–397r
Medieval studies, 32(4):497–498r
Metcalfe, John, 32(3):341, 32(3):345
‘‘Mexican Library History: A Survey of the Literature of the Last Fifteen Years’’
(Zamora), 32(2):227–244, 32(2):233, 32(2):234, 32(2):235, 32(2):236, 32(2):237, 32(2):
239
Mexico
academic libraries, 32(2):238
early libraries, 32(2):227–228
library history research, 32(2):227–244, 32(2):233, 32(2):234, 32(2):235, 32(2):236,
32(2):237, 32(2):239
National Autonomous University of Mexico, 32(2):228–229, 32(2):238, 32(2):240–
241
private libraries, 32(2):238
public libraries, 32(2):233, 32(2):233–237, 32(2):234, 32(2):235, 32(2):236, 32(2):237
religious libraries, 32(2):232–233
Middle Ages
books and readers in Spain, 32(1):133–134r
women during, 32(2):251–252r
Milam, Carl
appeal from Chinese libraries, 32(2):197–198, 32(2):204–206, 32(2):208, 32(2):210–
211
and censorship at University of Montana Library during the 1930s, 32(2):177
Mnemonics
in English literature, 32(3):382–383r
Moon, Myra Jo
bookplate in memory of, 32(3):372, 32(3):372–374
Mormonism
sources and collections in the U.S., 32(2):274–275r
Munford, William A.
festschrift to, 32(4):480–481r
Munn, Ralph, 32(3):341, 32(3):343–344
Museum libraries
management of, 32(2):275–277r
N
National Archives and Records Service (NARS), 32(3):391–392r
National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), 32(2):228–229, 32(2):238, 32(2):
240–241
National libraries. See also Library of Congress, Royal libraries
in Germany, 32(4):485–486r
National Library of Beijing, 32(2):193–194, 32(2):197, 32(2):203–204, 32(2):217
Polish National Library, Warsaw, 32(1):99, 32(1):102
Near East
U.S. involvement in archaeology, 32(4):481–482r
Netherlands
University of Groningen, 32(1):137r
New-York Historical Society, 32(3):388–389r
507

508 L&C/Index to Volume 32
New York Public Library
and the American Bible Society Library, 32(3):332–333
and reading in rural areas, 32(4):410, 32(4):421
Slavic materials, 32(1):152–154r
Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia
bookplate of, 32(1):125, 32(1):125–128
Nowak, Maria J.
‘‘History of the Jagiellonian Library,’’ 32(1):94–106
O
Orthodox Church, 32(1):107–111, 32(1):110
‘‘Outpost of New England Culture: The Ladies’ Library Association of Kalamazoo,
Michigan’’ (Ring), 32(1):38–56, 32(1):41
Oxford University, 32(2):258–262r
P
Paul III, Pope, 32(4):457
People’s Book Club, 32(4):409
Periodical presses
in France, 18th century, 32(1):139–140r
Philanthropic foundations. See names of specific foundations
Photographs
in serial publications, 32(2):262–265r
Pius VII, Pope, 32(4):458
Poland
Jagiellonian Library, Cracow, 32(1):94–103
libraries in Jewish ghettos during the Nazi occupation, 32(4):486–487r
Polish Bibliography, 32(1):101
Preer, Jean
‘‘Wonderful World of Books: Librarians, Publishers, and Rural Readers,’’ 32(4):403–
426
Preservation
at Colorado State University, 32(3):372, 32(3):372–374
Printers
Johannes Gutenberg, 32(2):253–254r
Printing
bibliographies, 32(2):268–270r
in France, 1585–1715, 32(4):483–484r
in France, 17th century, 32(1):137–139r
history of, 32(1):151–152r, 32(2):253–254r, 32(4):496–497r
during the Renaissance, 32(2):254–256r
in Spain, 16th century, 32(2):256–257r
Private libraries
Emperor Nicholas II, 32(1):125, 32(1):125–128
in England, during the Renaissance, 32(1):135–136r
in Mexico, 32(2):238
in Spain, 1229–1550, 32(1):134r
Progressive Librarians Council (PLC), 32(2):184–185
Public libraries
Eastern Europe, 32(2):278–279r
Great Britain, 32(4):480–481r
Mexico, 32(2):233, 32(2):233–237, 32(2):234, 32(2):235, 32(2):236, 32(2):237
New South Wales, Australia, during World War II, 32(3):337–348

South Carolina, 1935–1943, 32(4):427–450
U.S. during the 1950s, 32(4):403–423
Western Europe, 32(2):278–279r
Public Library Inquiry, 32(4):408
Publishing
in France, 1585–1715, 32(4):483–484r
in France, 1788–1799, 32(1):140–141r
history of, 32(1):151–152r, 32(4):496–497r
periodicals in France, 18th century, 32(1):139–140r
in the U.S. during the 1950s, 32(4):403–423
R
Reading
in antebellum Boston, 32(3):285–323, 32(3):286, 32(3):300
early Christian texts, 32(2):250–251r
in Eastern Europe, 32(2):278–279r
in France, 1585–1715, 32(4):483–484r
in France, 18th century, 32(3):379–381r
in the U.S., rural areas, during the 1950s, 32(4):403–423
in the U.S., 19th century, 32(1):142–145r
in Western Europe, 32(2):278–279r
‘‘Reading and Everyday Life in Antebellum Boston: The Diary of Daniel F. and Mary D.
Child’’ (Zboray & Zboray), 32(3):285–323, 32(3):286, 32(3):300
Reading circles
in Michigan, 1852–1892, 32(1):45
Reference materials. See also Guides, Finding aids
32(2):277–278r, 32(4):490–492r
Religious libraries
and early Christian texts, 32(2):250–251r
in Mexico, 32(2):232–233
Renaissance
books and readers in Spain, 32(1):133–134r
books and schools in Italy, 32(1):131–132r
in England, 32(1):135–136r
printers during, 32(2):254–256r
Research
in U.S. universities, 32(2):266–268r
Resource sharing
in South Carolina, 32(4):439–442
Richard King Mellon Foundation
support for cooperative library programs, 32(1):1–2
Ring, Daniel F.
‘‘Outpost of New England Culture: The Ladies’ Library Association of Kalamazoo,
Michigan,’’ 32(1):38–56, 32(1):41
Robbins, Thomas, 32(4):474, 32(4):474–478
Rockefeller Foundation
support for ‘‘Books for China’’ campaign, 32(2):202, 32(2):208, 32(2):210, 32(2):213,
32(2):218–220
support for cooperative library programs, 32(1):26–29
support for Polish libraries, 32(1):102
support for traveling libraries for the military, 1916, 32(1):116
Roosevelt, Franklin
and relief programs, 32(4):427, 32(4):428, 32(4):429, 32(4):446, 32(4):448
509

510 L&C/Index to Volume 32
Royal libraries
Royal Library of Denmark, 32(2):258–262r
S
Serials
bibliographies of, 32(2):262–265r
Shanghai Municipal Library, 32(4):464, 32(4):466
Shaw, Charles, 32(1):2–29
Simmons, George, 32(2):171–174, 32(2):172, 32(2):178, 32(2):185
Slavic materials
at the New York Public Library, 32(1):152–154r
Smithsonian Institution
‘‘Books for China’’ campaign, 32(2):198–220
support for Polish libraries, 32(1):102
South Africa
library services for Blacks, 32(1):57–76, 32(1):70, 32(1):71, 32(1):72
South African Institute of Race Relations, 32(1):64
support for library services from the Carnegie Corporation, 32(1):64–76, 32(1):70,
32(1):71, 32(1):72
South African Institute of Race Relations, 32(1):64
South Carolina
public libraries, 1935–1943, 32(4):427–450
South Carolina Library Association, 32(4):429, 32(4):433
Spain
books and readers, 1229–1550, 32(1):133–134r
printing and book trade, 16th century, 32(2):256–257r
‘‘ ‘Special Collection’ in Nineteenth-Century New York: The American Bible Society and
Its Library’’ (Wosh & Coons), 32(3):324–336
Special collections
American Bible Society Library, 32(3):324–336
in children’s literature, 32(3):395–396r
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, Tex., 32(2):262–265r
New-York Historical Society, 32(3):388–389r
Special libraries, 32(4):490–492r
museum libraries, 32(2):275–277r
Studemeister, Marguerite
[‘‘Bookplate of the Last Russian Emperor, Nicholas II’’], 32(1):125, 32(1):125–128
Subscription libraries
in Michigan, 1852–1892, 32(1):42
Swarthmore College Library
cooperative programs, 32(1):1–37
T
Traveling libraries
for the military, 1916, 32(1):113–121
‘‘Trouble in Big Sky’s Ivory Tower: The Montana Tenure Dispute of 1937–1939’’
(McReynolds), 32(2):164, 32(2):166, 32(2):169–190, 32(2):172
U
United States
children’s literature, 1870–1945, 32(3):393–395r
federal aid for public libraries during the 1950s, 32(4):403, 32(4):407

production and distribution of information, 32(2):282–284r
publishing and reading during the 1950s, 32(4):403–423
reading, 19th century, 32(1):142–145r
reading in antebellum Boston, 32(3):285–323, 32(3):286, 32(3):300
rise of universities, 32(4):481–482r
universities, 1650–1870, 32(3):387–388r
Universities
Oxford University, 32(2):258–262r
rise of, in the U.S., 32(4):481–482r
in the U.S., 1650–1870, 32(3):387–388r
in the U.S., and tenure process, 1937–1939, 32(2):163–190
in the U.S. since World War II, 32(2):266–268r
writings on, 32(3):383–385r
University of Colorado Library
during 1876–1972, 32(3):390–391r
University of Groningen, Netherlands, 32(1):137r
University of Montana
and tenure process, 1937–1939, 32(2):163–190
511
W
Wehmeyer, Jeffrey M.
‘‘Chartophylax: Archivist and Librarian to the Patriarch in Constantinople,’’ 32(1):
107–112, 32(1):110
Wilkie, Everett C., Jr.
[‘‘Bookplate of Reverend Thomas Robbins’’], 32(4):474, 32(4):474–478
Winsor, Justin, 32(3):358–361, 32(3):364
Wise, Thomas James, 32(3):385–386r
Women
Ladies’ Library Association, Kalamazoo, Mich., 1852–1892, 32(1):38–52, 32(1):41
as librarians, in the U.S., 1900–1917, 32(1):145–146r
in the Middle Ages, 32(2):251–252r
reading in the U.S., 19th century, 32(1):142–145r
writing in the U.S., 19th century, 32(1):142–145r
Wonderful World of Books, 32(4):412, 32(4):414–423
‘‘Wonderful World of Books: Librarians, Publishers, and Rural Readers’’ (Preer), 32(4):
403–426
Works Progress Administration (WPA)
and library service in South Carolina, 1935–1943, 32(4):427–450
World War II
American Library Association, Committee on International Relations, 32(2):197, 32(2):
212
public libraries in New South Wales, Australia, 32(3):337–348
supply of American library materials to China, 332(2):191–226
universities in the U.S. after, 32(2):266–268r
Wosh, Peter J.
‘‘ ‘Special Collection’ in Nineteenth-Century New York: The American Bible Society
and Its Library,’’ 32(3):324–336
Writing
of early Christian texts, 32(2):250–251r
X
‘‘Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library of Shanghai’’ (King), 32(4):456–469

512 L&C/Index to Volume 32
Y
‘‘YMCA Libraries on the Mexican Border, 1916’’ (Hovde), 32(1):113–124
Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA)
traveling libraries for the military, 1916, 32(1):113–121
Z
Zaluski, Andrzej, 32(1):99
Zamora, Rosa María Fernández
‘‘Mexican Library History: A Survey of the Literature of the Last Fifteen Years,’’
32(2):227–244, 32(2):233, 32(2):234, 32(2):235, 32(2):236, 32(2):237, 32(2):239
Zboray, Mary Saracino
‘‘Reading and Everyday Life in Antebellum Boston: The Diary of Daniel F. and Mary
D. Child,’’ 32(3):285–323, 32(3):286, 32(3):300
Zboray, Ronald J.
‘‘Reading and Everyday Life in Antebellum Boston: The Diary of Daniel F. and Mary
D. Child,’’ 32(3):285–323, 32(3):286, 32(3):300
Zhou, Yuan
‘‘From the People of the United States of America: The Books for China Programs
during World War II,’’ 32(2):164, 32(2):166, 32(2):169–190, 32(2):172
Book Review Index
A
ABC for Book Collectors. 7th ed. (Carter), 32(4):496–497
Adams, Gillian (reviewer)
Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History (Hunt), 32(3):393–395
Children’s Literature Research: International Resources and Exchange, 32(4):492–493
Allauddin, Shaikh
Libraries and Librarianship during Muslim Rule in India, 32(4):482–483
Ambition, Discrimination, and Censorship in Libraries (Selth), 32(1):148–149
Anghelescu, Hermina G. B. (reviewer)
Les Bibliothèques publiques en Europe (Poulain), 32(2):278–279
Regards européens: La lecture d’est en ouest, 32(2):278–279
Annotated Index of Medieval Women (Echols & Williams), 32(2):251–252
Arks for Learning: A Short History of Oxford Library Building (Barber), 32(2):258–262
Art & History of Books (Levarie), 32(4):496–497
B
Barber, Giles
Arks for Learning: A Short History of Oxford Library Building, 32(2):258–262
Bartz, Bettina
World Guide to Libraries. 11th ed., 32(4):490–492
Bede and His World, Vol. I: The Jarrow Lectures (1958–1978), 32(1):132–133
Bede and His World, Vol. II: The Jarrow Lectures (1979–1993), 32(1):132–133
Beeth, Howard
Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston, 32(1):146–148
Berger, Sidney E.
Design of Bibliographies: Observations, References, and Examples, 32(1):155–157
Berger, Sidney E. (reviewer)
Book Collecting as One of the Fine Arts, and Other Essays (Franklin), 32(4):493–496

513
Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad (Rostenberg & Stern),
32(4):493–496
Bhatt, R. K.
History and Development of Libraries in India, 32(3):399–400
Bibliographic History of the Book: An Annotated Guide to the Literature (Rosenblum), 32(2):268–
270
Bibliography of American Literature: A Selective Index (Winship et al.), 32(2):270–272
Bierbaum, Esther Green
Museum Librarianship: A Guide to the Provision and Management of Information Services, 32(2):
275–277
Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston (Beeth & Wintz), 32(1):146–148
Blackwell, John D. (reviewer)
Research Libraries—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Welsh), 32(1):149–151
Block, David (reviewer)
Sixteenth-Century Spanish Bookstore: The Inventory of Juan de Junta (Pettas), 32(2):256–257
Book Collecting as One of the Fine Arts, and Other Essays (Franklin), 32(4):493–496
Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (Gamble), 32(2):250–
251
Books and Schools in the Italian Renaissance (Grendler), 32(1):131–132
Boorstin, Daniel J.
Library: The Drama Within, 32(3):400–401
Boutier, Jean
Les Imprimés Limousins, 1788–1799, 32(1):140–141
Bowers, Fredson
Principles of Bibliographic Description, 32(1):155–157
Bowersock, G. W.
Fiction as History: Nero to Julian, 32(4):488–490
Bracken, James K. (reviewer)
Epitome of Bibliography of American Literature (Winship et al.), 32(2):270–272
Brignano, Mary
Frick Art & Historical Center: The Art and Life of a Pittsburgh Family, 32(2):258–262
Brodhead, Richard H.
Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America, 32(1):142–
145
Brown, Richard D.
Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650–1870, 32(3):387–
388
C
Calvert, Kenneth (reviewer)
Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Bowersock), 32(4):488–490
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. Vol. 12, No. 2. (Connor & Connor), 32(3):396–397
Careering Along with Books: Studies in the History of British Public Libraries and Librarianship, in
Honour of the 85th Birthday of Dr. William A. Munford (Manley), 32(4):480–481
Carmichael, James V., Jr.
Still a Man’s World: Men Who Do ‘‘Women’s Work’’ (Williams), 32(3):397–399
Carter, John
ABC for Book Collectors. 7th ed., 32(4):496–497
Cassan, Michel
Les Imprimés Limousins, 1788–1799, 32(1):140–141
Censer, Jack R.
French Press in the Age of Enlightenment, 32(1):139–140

514 L&C/Index to Volume 32
Censer, Jack R. (reviewer)
Les Imprimés Limousins, 1788–1799 (Cassan & Boutier), 32(1):140–141
Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History (Hunt), 32(3):393–395
Children’s Literature Research: International Resources and Exchange, 32(4):492–493
Churchill, S. Craig (reviewer)
Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (Gamble), 32(2):
250–251
Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961. 2d ed. (Winks), 32(4):487–488
Cloonan, Michèle V. (reviewer)
Book Collecting as One of the Fine Arts, and Other Essays (Franklin), 32(4):493–496
Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad (Rostenberg & Stern),
32(4):493–496
Cole, John Y.
Jefferson’s Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress, 32(2):265–266
Connor, J. T. H.
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. Vol. 12, No. 2., 32(3):396–397
Connor, Jennifer J.
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. Vol. 12, No. 2., 32(3):396–397
Cook, Frank J. (reviewer)
Diary of a Dream: A History of the National Archives Independence Movement, 1980–1985
(Warner), 32(3):392–393
Cottrell, Alan (reviewer)
Cycles of Time and Scientific Learning in Medieval Europe (Stevens), 32(4):498–499
Craddick, Robert Ray (reviewer)
Museum Librarianship: A Guide to the Provision and Management of Information Services
(Bierbaum), 32(2):275–277
Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West, 1900–1917 (Passet), 32(1):145–146
Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America (Brodhead),
32(1):142–145
Curtis, Terry
Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age: The Production and Distribution of Information
in the United States, 32(2):282–284
Cycles of Time and Scientific Learning in Medieval Europe (Stevens), 32(4):498–499
D
D’Aniello, Charles A.
Teaching Bibliographic Skills in History: A Sourcebook for Historians and Librarians, 32(1):
154–155
Danton, J. Periam (reviewer)
Odyssey of a German National Library (Olson), 32(4):485–486
Davis, Donald G., Jr.
Libraries & Philanthropy, 32(4):470–473
Davis, Donald G., Jr. (reviewer)
ABC for Book Collectors. 7th ed. (Carter), 32(4):496–497
Art & History of Books (Levarie), 32(4):496–497
Encyclopedia of the Book. 2d ed. (Glaister), 32(4):496–497
Five Hundred Years of Printing (Steinberg), 32(4):496–497
Davis, Robert H., Jr.
Slavic and Baltic Library Resources at the New York Public Library: A First History and
Practical Guide, 32(1):152–154
Dawson, Robert L. (reviewer)
Forbidden Texts: Erotic Literature and Its Readers in Eighteenth-Century France (Goulemot),
32(3):379–381

French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585–1715 (Martin), 32(4):483–484
Genius for Letters: Booksellers and Bookselling from the 16th to the 20th Century (Myers &
Harris), 32(3):381–382
Index of Civilisation: Studies of Printing and Publishing History in Honour of Keith Maslen
(Harvey et al.), 32(1):151–152
De Wereld aan Boek: Een Keuze uit de Collectie van de Groningse Universiteitsbibliotheek
tentoongesteld ter Gelegenheid van de Opening van het Nieuwe Bibliotheekgebouw 21 Mei–31
Augustus 1987, 32(1):137
Design of Bibliographies: Observations, References, and Examples (Berger), 32(1):155–157
DeWitt, Donald L.
Guides to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography,
32(2):272–274
Diary of a Dream: A History of the National Archives Independence Movement, 1980–1985
(Warner), 32(3):392–393
Directory of European Research and Development, 1995. 2 vols., 32(4):490–492
Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers, 1996. 19th ed., 3 vols., 32(4):490–492
Dosse, François
New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales, 32(2):257–258
Druids (Ellis), 32(3):378–379
515
E
Easy Internet Handbook (Mostafa et al.), 32(2):281–282
Eberhart, George M.
Whole Library Handbook 2: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and
Library Services, 32(2):277–278
Echols, Anne
Annotated Index of Medieval Women, 32(2):251–252
Edelman, Hendrik (reviewer)
Het Nieuwe Gebouw va de Universiteitsbibliotheek th Groningen (Koops & Klaver), 32(1):137
Eldelman, Hendrik (reviewer)
De Wereld aan Boek: Een Keuze uit de Collectie van de Groningse Universiteitsbibliotheek
tentoongesteld ter Gelegenheid van de Opening van het Nieuwe Bibliotheekgebouw 21 Mei–31
Augustus 1987, 32(1):137
Opening Unuversiteitsbibliotheek Groningen: Toespraken bij de Openingsplechtigheid, 20 Mei 1987:
Voordrachten op het Symposium ‘‘De Wetenschappelijke Bibliotheken in de komende Decennia,’’
21 Mei, 1987 , 32(1):137
Eliason, Eric A. (reviewer)
Mormon Americana: A Guide to Sources and Collections in the United States (Whittaker),
32(2):274–275
Ellis, Peter Berresford
Druids, 32(3):378–379
Encyclopedia of the Book. 2d ed. (Glaister), 32(4):496–497
Engel, William E.
Mapping Mortality: The Persistence of Memory and Melancholy in Early Modern England, 32(3):
382–383
Epitome of Bibliography of American Literature (Winship et al.), 32(2):270–272
F
Fehrenbach, R. J.
Private Libraries in Renaissance England. A Collection and Catalogue of Tudor and Early Stuart
Books, 32(1):135–136
Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Bowersock), 32(4):488–490
Five Hundred Years of Printing (Steinberg), 32(4):496–497

516 L&C/Index to Volume 32
Flukinger, Roy
Windows of Light: A Bibliography of the Serials Literature within the Gernsheim & Photography
Collections of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, 32(2):262–265
Forbidden Texts: Erotic Literature and Its Readers in Eighteenth-Century France (Goulemot),
32(3):379–381
Franklin, Colin
Book Collecting as One of the Fine Arts, and Other Essays, 32(4):493–496
Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture: 1890–1920 (Slyck), 32(3):377–378
Freedman, Joseph S. (reviewer)
Books and Schools in the Italian Renaissance (Grendler), 32(1):131–132
French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585–1715 (Martin), 32(4):483–484
French Press in the Age of Enlightenment (Censer), 32(1):139–140
Frick Art & Historical Center: The Art and Life of a Pittsburgh Family (Brignano), 32(2):258–262
Frost, Kate Gartner (reviewer)
Mapping Mortality: The Persistence of Memory and Melancholy in Early Modern England
(Engel), 32(3):382–383
G
Gamble, Harry Y.
Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts, 32(2):250–251
Gaskell, Philip
New Introduction to Bibliography, 32(1):155–157
Geiger, Robert L.
Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities Since World War II, 32(2):
266–268
Genius for Letters: Booksellers and Bookselling from the 16th to the 20th Century (Myers &
Harris), 32(3):381–382
Gerard, David (translator)
Print, Power and People in 17th-Century France (Martin), 32(1):137–139
Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall
Encyclopedia of the Book. 2d ed., 32(4):496–497
Gould, Karen (reviewer)
Readers and Books in Majorca, 1229–1550. 2 vols. (Hillgarth), 32(1):133–134
Goulemot, Jean Marie
Forbidden Texts: Erotic Literature and Its Readers in Eighteenth-Century France, 32(3):379–381
Graham, P. Toby (reviewer)
Libraries & Philanthropy, 32(4):470–473
Grendler, Paul F.
Books and Schools in the Italian Renaissance, 32(1):131–132
Gribben, Alan (reviewer)
Library: The Drama Within (Griliches & Boorstin), 32(3):400–401
Griliches, Diane Asséo
Library: The Drama Within, 32(3):400–401
Guides to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography
(DeWitt), 32(2):272–274
Guthrie, Kevin M.
New-York Historical Society: Lessons from One Nonprofit’s Long Struggle for Survival, 32(3):
388–389
H
Hall, Michael G. (reviewer)
Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650–1870 (Brown), 32(3):
387–388

Harris, Michael
Genius for Letters: Booksellers and Bookselling from the 16th to the 20th Century, 32(3):381–382
Harvey, Ross
Index of Civilisation: Studies of Printing and Publishing History in Honour of Keith Maslen,
32(1):151–152
Haubitz, Heiko (reviewer)
Information Science in Europe: A Study Guide (Schröder), 32(2):279–281
Hérubel, Jean-Pierre V. M. (reviewer)
New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales (Dosse), 32(2):257–258
Het Nieuwe Gebouw va de Universiteitsbibliotheek te Groningen (Koops & Klaver), 32(1):137
Highsmith, Carol
Library of Congress: America’s Memory, 32(2):258–262
Hillgarth, J. N.
Readers and Books in Majorca, 1229–1550. 2 vols., 32(1):133–134
History and Development of Libraries in India (Bhatt), 32(3):399–400
Hobbs, Catherine
Nineteenth-Century Women Learn to Write, 32(1):142–145
Houghton, John William (reviewer)
Bede and His World, Vol. I: The Jarrow Lectures (1958–1978), 32(1):132–133
Bede and His World, Vol. II: The Jarrow Lectures (1979–1993), 32(1):132–133
Hudson, Benjamin (reviewer)
Druids (Ellis), 32(3):378–379
Hunger for the Printed Word: Books and Libraries in the Jewish Ghettos of Nazi-Occupied Europe
(Shavit), 32(4):486–487
Hunt, Peter
Children’s Literature: An Illustrated History, 32(3):393–395
I
Idea of a University (Newman), 32(3):383–385
Ilsoe, Harald
On Parchment, Paper and Palm Leaves . . . Treasures of the Royal Library, Denmark, 32(2):258–262
Index of Civilisation: Studies of Printing and Publishing History in Honour of Keith Maslen
(Harvey et al.), 32(1):151–152
Information Science in Europe: A Study Guide (Schröder), 32(2):279–281
Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (McKerrow), 32(1):155–157
J
Jackson, Eugene B. (reviewer)
Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961. 2d ed. (Winks), 32(4):487–488
Directory of European Research and Development, 1995. 2 vols., 32(4):490–492
Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers, 1996. 19th ed., 3 vols., 32(4):490–492
Who’s Who in European Research and Development, 1995, 32(4):490–492
World Guide to Libraries. 11th ed. (Bartz et al.), 32(4):490–492
World Guide to Scientific Associations and Learned Societies. 6th ed. (Zils), 32(4):490–492
World Guide to Special Libraries. 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Opitz & Richter), 32(4):490–492
Jefferson’s Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress (Cole), 32(2):265–266
Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention (Kapr), 32(2):253–254
Jones, Dolores Blythe
Special Collections in Children’s Literature: An International Directory. 3rd ed., 32(3):395–396
K
Kaiser, Thomas E. (reviewer)
French Press in the Age of Enlightenment (Censer), 32(1):139–140
517

518 L&C/Index to Volume 32
Kapr, Albert
Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention, 32(2):253–254
Keene, Lee P. (reviewer)
Jefferson’s Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress (Cole), 32(2):265–266
Kim, Kyung-Sun (reviewer)
Easy Internet Handbook (Mostafa et al.), 32(2):281–282
Klaver, Ch. J. J.
Het Nieuwe Gebouw va de Universiteitsbibliotheek te Groningen (Koops & Klaver), 32(1):137
Koops, W. R. H.
Het Nieuwe Gebouw va de Universiteitsbibliotheek te Groningen (Koops & Klaver), 32(1):137
Kronik, David A. (reviewer)
Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. Vol. 12, No. 2. (Connor & Connor), 32(3):396–397
Krummel, D. W. (reviewer)
Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention (Kapr), 32(2):253–254
Kuklick, Bruce
Puritans in Babylon: The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life, 1880–1930, 32(4):
481–482
L
Landau, David
Renaissance Print, 1470–1550, 32(2):254–256
Landphair, Ted
Library of Congress: America’s Memory, 32(2):258–262
Leedham-Green, E. S.
Private Libraries in Renaissance England. A Collection and Catalogue of Tudor and Early Stuart
Books, 32(1):135–136
Les Bibliothèques publiques en Europe (Poulain), 32(2):278–279
Les Imprimés Limousins, 1788–1799 (Cassan & Boutier), 32(1):140–141
Levarie, Norma
Art & History of Books, 32(4):496–497
Lewis, Roger C.
Thomas James Wise and the Trial Book Fallacy, 32(3):385–386
Libraries & Philanthropy (Davis), 32(4):470–473
Libraries and Librarianship during Muslim Rule in India (Allauddin & Rout), 32(4):482–483
Library: The Drama Within (Griliches & Boorstin), 32(3):400–401
Library of Congress: America’s Memory (Highsmith & Landphair), 32(2):258–262
M
Mason, Ellsworth
University of Colorado Library and Its Makers, 1876–1972, 32(3):390–391
MacKay, Carol Hanbery (reviewer)
Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America (Brodhead),
32(1):142–145
Nineteenth-Century Women Learn to Write (Hobbs), 32(1):142–145
Malone, Cheryl Knott (reviewer)
Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture: 1890–1920 (Slyck), 32(3):377–378
Teaching Bibliographic Skills in History: A Sourcebook for Historians and Librarians
(D’Aniello), 32(1):154–155
Manley, K. A.
Careering Along with Books: Studies in the History of British Public Libraries and Librarianship,
in Honour of the 85th Birthday of Dr. William A. Munford, 32(4):480–481

Mapping Mortality: The Persistence of Memory and Melancholy in Early Modern England (Engel),
32(3):382–383
Marchiafava, Louis J. (reviewer)
Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston (Beeth & Wintz), 32(1):146–148
Martin, Douglas (translator)
Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention (Kapr), 32(2):253–254
Martin, Henri-Jean
French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585–1715, 32(4):483–484
Print, Power and People in 17th-Century France, 32(1):137–139
McKerrow, Ronald B.
Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students, 32(1):155–157
McNally, Peter F. (reviewer)
Careering Along with Books: Studies in the History of British Public Libraries and Librarianship,
in Honour of the 85th Birthday of Dr. William A. Munford (Manley), 32(4):480–481
Meyer, Richard W. (reviewer)
Idea of a University (Newman), 32(3):383–385
Mormon Americana: A Guide to Sources and Collections in the United States (Whittaker), 32(2):
274–275
Mostafa, Javed
Easy Internet Handbook, 32(2):281–282
Museum Librarianship: A Guide to the Provision and Management of Information Services
(Bierbaum), 32(2):275–277
Myers, Robin
Genius for Letters: Booksellers and Bookselling from the 16th to the 20th Century, 32(3):381–
382
N
New History in France: The Triumph of the Annales (Dosse), 32(2):257–258
New Introduction to Bibliography (Gaskell), 32(1):155–157
New-York Historical Society: Lessons from One Nonprofit’s Long Struggle for Survival (Guthrie),
32(3):388–389
Newman, John Henry
Idea of a University, 32(3):383–385
Nineteenth-Century Women Learn to Write (Hobbs), 32(1):142–145
O
Odyssey of a German National Library (Olson), 32(4):485–486
Olson, Michael P.
Odyssey of a German National Library, 32(4):485–486
On Parchment, Paper and Palm Leaves . . . Treasures of the Royal Library, Denmark (Ilsoe),
32(2):258–262
Opening Unuversiteitsbibliotheek Groningen: Toespraken bij de Openingsplechtigheid, 20 Mei 1987:
Voordrachten op het Symposium ‘‘De Wetenschappelijke Bibliotheken in de komende Decennia,’’
21 Mei, 1987, 32(1):137
Opitz, Helmut
World Guide to Special Libraries. 3rd ed., 2 vols., 32(4):490–492
Oram, Richard W. (reviewer)
Windows of Light: A Bibliography of the Serials Literature within the Gernsheim &
Photography Collections of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (Flukinger), 32(2):
262–265
Overmier, Judith A. (reviewer)
Print, Power and People in 17th-Century France (Martin), 32(1):137–139
519

520 L&C/Index to Volume 32
P
Palmquist, Ruth A. (reviewer)
Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age: The Production and Distribution of Information
in the United States (Schement & Curtis), 32(2):282–284
Parshall, Peter
Renaissance Print, 1470–1550, 32(2):254–256
Passet, Joanne E.
Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West, 1900–1917, 32(1):145–146
Pettas, William
Sixteenth-Century Spanish Bookstore: The Inventory of Juan de Junta, 32(2):256–257
Poulain, Martine
Les Bibliothèques publiques en Europe, 32(2):278–279
Price, David (reviewer)
Renaissance Print, 1470–1550 (Landau & Parshall), 32(2):254–256
Principles of Bibliographic Description (Bowers), 32(1):155–157
Print, Power and People in 17th-Century France (Martin), 32(1):137–139
Private Libraries in Renaissance England. A Collection and Catalogue of Tudor and Early Stuart
Books (Fehrenbach & Leedham-Green), 32(1):135–136
Puritans in Babylon: The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life, 1880–1930 (Kuklick),
32(4):481–482
R
Readers and Books in Majorca, 1229–1550. 2 vols. (Hillgarth), 32(1):133–134
Regards européens: La lecture d’est en ouest, 32(2):278–279
Renaissance Print, 1470–1550 (Landau & Parshall), 32(2):254–256
Reno, Christine M.
Annotated Index of Medieval Women (Echols & Williams), 32(2):251–252
Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities Since World War II (Geiger),
32(2):266–268
Research Libraries—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Welsh), 32(1):149–151
Richards, Pamela Spence (reviewer)
Slavic and Baltic Library Resources at the New York Public Library: A First History and
Practical Guide (Davis), 32(1):152–154
Richter, Elisabeth
World Guide to Special Libraries. 3rd ed., 2 vols., 32(4):490–492
Rosenblum, Joseph
Bibliographic History of the Book: An Annotated Guide to the Literature, 32(2):268–270
Rostenberg, Leona
Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad, 32(4):493–496
Rout, R. K.
Libraries and Librarianship during Muslim Rule in India, 32(4):482–483
Russell, Beth M. (reviewer)
New-York Historical Society: Lessons from One Nonprofit’s Long Struggle for Survival (Guthrie),
32(3):388–389
Russell, Beth (reviewer)
Whole Library Handbook 2: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and
Library Services (Eberhart), 32(2):277–278
S
Saenger, Nadine (translator)
French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585–1715 (Martin), 32(4):483–484
Saenger, Paul (translator)
French Book: Religion, Absolutism, and Readership, 1585–1715 (Martin), 32(4):483–484

521
Salvatore, Cecilia Lizama (reviewer)
Guides to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography
(DeWitt), 32(2):272–274
Schement, Jorge Reina
Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age: The Production and Distribution of Information
in the United States, 32(2):282–284
Schoeck, R. J. (reviewer)
Private Libraries in Renaissance England. A Collection and Catalogue of Tudor and Early Stuart
Books (Fehrenbach & Leedham-Green), 32(1):135–136
Schröder, Thomas A.
Information Science in Europe: A Study Guide, 32(2):279–281
Selth, Jefferson P.
Ambition, Discrimination, and Censorship in Libraries, 32(1):148–149
Shanley, Catherine (reviewer)
Cultural Crusaders: Women Librarians in the American West, 1900–1917 (Passet), 32(1):145–
146
Shavit, David
Hunger for the Printed Word: Books and Libraries in the Jewish Ghettos of Nazi-Occupied Europe,
32(4):486–487
Sigwald, John (reviewer)
Ambition, Discrimination, and Censorship in Libraries (Selth), 32(1):148–149
Simpson, James (translator)
Forbidden Texts: Erotic Literature and Its Readers in Eighteenth-Century France (Goulemot),
32(3):379–381
Sixteenth-Century Spanish Bookstore: The Inventory of Juan de Junta (Pettas), 32(2):256–257
Slavic and Baltic Library Resources at the New York Public Library: A First History and Practical
Guide (Davis), 32(1):152–154
Special Collections in Children’s Literature: An International Directory. 3rd ed. (Jones), 32(3):
395–396
Steinberg, S. H.
Five Hundred Years of Printing, 32(4):496–497
Stern, Madeleine B.
Old Books in the Old World: Reminiscences of Book Buying Abroad, 32(4):493–496
Stevens, Wesley M.
Cycles of Time and Scientific Learning in Medieval Europe, 32(4):498–499
Still a Man’s World: Men Who Do ‘‘Women’s Work’’ (Williams), 32(3):397–399
Strength of a People: The Idea of an Informed Citizenry in America, 1650–1870 (Brown), 32(3):
387–388
Sweeney, Shelley (reviewer)
Arks for Learning: A Short History of Oxford Library Building (Barber), 32(2):258–262
Frick Art & Historical Center: The Art and Life of a Pittsburgh Family (Brignano), 32(2):
258–262
Library of Congress: America’s Memory (Highsmith & Landphair), 32(2):258–262
On Parchment, Paper and Palm Leaves . . . Treasures of the Royal Library, Denmark (Ilsoe),
32(2):258–262
T
Taher, Mohamed (reviewer)
History and Development of Libraries in India (Bhatt), 32(3):399–400
Libraries and Librarianship during Muslim Rule in India (Allauddin & Rout), 32(4):482–
483
Teaching Bibliographic Skills in History: A Sourcebook for Historians and Librarians (D’Aniello),
32(1):154–155

522 L&C/Index to Volume 32
Tendencies and Tensions of the Information Age: The Production and Distribution of Information in
the United States (Schement & Curtis), 32(2):282–284
Thomas James Wise and the Trial Book Fallacy (Lewis), 32(3):385–386
Todd, William B. (reviewer)
Thomas James Wise and the Trial Book Fallacy (Lewis), 32(3):385–386
Trevitt, John
Five Hundred Years of Printing (Steinberg), 32(4):496–497
U
University of Colorado Library and Its Makers, 1876–1972 (Mason), 32(3):390–391
V
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Free to All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture: 1890–1920, 32(3):377–378
W
Warner, Robert M.
Diary of a Dream: A History of the National Archives Independence Movement, 1980–1985,
32(3):392–393
Welsh, William J.
Research Libraries—Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, 32(1):149–151
Wertheimer, Andrew B. (reviewer)
Hunger for the Printed Word: Books and Libraries in the Jewish Ghettos of Nazi-Occupied Europe
(Shavit), 32(4):486–487
Whittaker, David J.
Mormon Americana: A Guide to Sources and Collections in the United States, 32(2):274–275
Whole Library Handbook 2: Current Data, Professional Advice, and Curiosa about Libraries and
Library Services (Eberhart), 32(2):277–278
Who’s Who in European Research and Development, 1995, 32(4):490–492
Williams, Amanda (reviewer)
Special Collections in Children’s Literature: An International Directory. 3rd ed. (Jones), 32(3):
395–396
Williams, Christine L.
Still a Man’s World: Men Who Do ‘‘Women’s Work’’, 32(3):397–399
Williams, Marty
Annotated Index of Medieval Women, 32(2):251–252
Windows of Light: A Bibliography of the Serials Literature within the Gernsheim & Photography
Collections of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (Flukinger), 32(2):262–265
Winks, Robin W.
Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961. 2d ed., 32(4):487–488
Winship, Michael
Epitome of Bibliography of American Literature, 32(2):270–272
Winship, Michael (reviewer)
Design of Bibliographies: Observations, References, and Examples (Berger), 32(1):155–157
Introduction to Bibliography for Literary Students (McKerrow), 32(1):155–157
New Introduction to Bibliography (Gaskell), 32(1):155–157
Principles of Bibliographic Description (Bowers), 32(1):155–157
Wintz, Cary D.
Black Dixie: Afro-Texan History and Culture in Houston, 32(1):146–148
Woodward, Jeannette (reviewer)
Bibliographic History of the Book: An Annotated Guide to the Literature (Rosenblum), 32(2):
268–270

World Guide to Libraries. 11th ed. (Bartz et al.), 32(4):490–492
World Guide to Scientific Associations and Learned Societies. 6th ed. (Zils), 32(4):490–492
World Guide to Special Libraries. 3rd ed., 2 vols. (Opitz & Richter), 32(4):490–492
Y
Yamauchi, Edwin M. (reviewer)
Puritans in Babylon: The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life, 1880–1930
(Kuklick), 32(4):481–482
Young, Arthur P. (reviewer)
Research and Relevant Knowledge: American Research Universities Since World War II (Geiger),
32(2):266–268
University of Colorado Library and Its Makers, 1876–1972 (Mason), 32(3):390–391
Z
Zils, Michael
World Guide to Scientific Associations and Learned Societies. 6th ed., 32(4):490–492
523