Books That Changed America by Robert B. DownsReview by: Lawrence Clark PowellThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Oct., 1970), pp. 448-449Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4309978 .

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REVIEWS

Book Selection and Intellectual Freedom. By LEROY CHARLES MERRITT. New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1970. Pp. 100. $4.50. Though LeRoy Merritt had a distinguished

career in college and university libraries and as teacher and library school dean, he is un- doubtedly best known for his work in the area of free speech and censorship. With Merritt, the right to read was the hallmark of a free man, and any interference with it bordered on calamity. It is particularly fitting that his last publication should celebrate his devotion to the principle of intellectual freedom.

This book is centered on the book-selection process, and before Merritt has written a full page he moves into the murky area of inter- ference because of alleged obscenity, pornogra- phy, religious prejudice, or political attitude. Merritt leans heavily on "selection versus cen- sorship," observing that the librarian cannot select everything but that his choices must not be affected by actual or presumed pressures. He writes in a straightforward and readable style, and his strong convictions for freedom shine through every sentence.

After a chapter on the desirability, not to say necessity, of a written policy on selection practice, there follows one with numerous illus- trations of such policies and another on evaluat- ing the policy. This chapter on evaluation con- sists essentially of describing measures of book collections and their use. Returning to his cen- tral concern, intellectual freedom, in two chap- ters Merritt deals with the role of professional associations and reviews professional activities in behalf of intellectual freedom. The book concludes with eight basic documents relevant to the right to read and a bibliography.

This book can do little more than suggest the vital role Merritt has played in sounding the alarm whenever intellectual freedom in librar- ies has been imperiled. This was signally recog- nized in 1969 when he received the Robert B. Downs Award of $500 for his outstanding con- tribution to intellectual freedom in libraries, a prize that Merritt characteristically turned over to the Freedom to Read Foundation. He has been a valiant soldier in the war against

intellectual repression, and in the continuing struggle his loss will be deeply felt.

LEON CARNOVSKY University of Chicago

Books That Changed America. By ROBERT B. DOWNS. New York: Macmillan Co., 1970. Pp. xv+280. $6.95.

In this age of rapid and bewildenrng changes, Robert B. Downs is a pillar of bibliothecal sta- bility. For more than a quarter century, he has held the same position as the head of Libraries and Library Instruction at the University of Illinois, during which time he has remained constant in his belief that books are basic. By collecting them on a large scale be has made a great library greater, and he has sent his gradu- ates to influential positions around the world.

Downs's writing has been about books, from The Story of Books (1935) to his latest, Books That Changed America. In the earlier Books That Changed the World and Molders of the Modern Mind, he demonstrated a flair for this ancient practice of choosing a few among many and cogently justifying his choices. His writing is as lowkeyed and deadpanned as his per- sonal manner and is equally effective in estab- lishing and conveying authority. This new book is no exception to the calm and reasoned way he has always presented his case for books, and yet in his introduction the following para- graph hints at heat below the surface: "Den- igrators of books, such as Marshall McLuhan, would have us believe that books are obsoles- cent, being rapidly superseded by the newer media. Thus they would hold that books have had their day-possibly significant and influ- ential in earlier eras, but now on the way to becoming museum pieces. The spuriousness of the argument can be easily demonstrated by citing three books published in the nineteen sixties, all of which have had a direct impact on current events." He then cites Silent Spring, Unsafe at Any Speed, and The American Way of Death.

Books That Changed America consist of con-

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REVIEWS 449

cise essays on the origins and effect of twenty- five titles chosen from eighty that were origi- nally considered. Of course, the final choice was arbitrary and personal. There is no point in complaining that this or that also-influential book was omitted. Downs does cite a few of the sixty-five that didn't make it, including Prog- ress and Poverty, The Grapes of Wrath, and Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care. A good appendix would have been of the pre- liminary rejects, but I have an idea that his publisher limited Downs to 300 pages. Hle did include bibliographical notes on the twenty-five and an index.

Middle-aged and female readers will take heart from Downs's "irrelevant, but of human interest" observation that "if any conclusions can be drawn from these limited data, they are that sex is not a significant factor in the writing of books of great influence, but the most pro- ductive period for authors is the thirty to fifty age bracket." It is heartening to remember that youth doesn't last forever.

What books were chosen by Downs as his twenty-five most influential? Get the book and learn for yourself. None of us will agree on all of his choices, but few will do the amount of reading required to make a choice.

My only carping note is aimed at the pub- lisher for not identifying Robert B. Downs, either on the jacket or in the book, as the distinguished librarian he is. Could they have regarded that as irrelevant?

LAWRENCE CLARK POWVELL

Unziversity of California Los Angeles

A Handbook of Comparative Librarianship. Edited by S. SIMSOVA and M. MACKEE. Hamden, Conn.: Shoestring Press, 1970. Pp. 413. $15.00. Those librarians academically and intellectu-

ally involved in the subdiscipline of compara- tive librarianship have been looking forward to the appearance of this, the first monographic work on the subject, ever since the announce- ment of its preparation a year or two ago. It must be said, and one says it with real regret, that the volume is disappointing.

What appears to be a substantial study of 413 pages proves, instead, to consist of 7 brief, often sketchy, chapters, totaling only 43 pages about comparative librarianship. The bulk of

the volume, 314 pages, is a "Guide to Sources" and consists of a geographically arranged bibli- ography chiefly of the libraries, professional or- ganizations, and the like of individual countries or, occasionally, regions. The majority of the works in this section is, therefore, not "com- parative librarianship" but, rather, what the Germans call Auslandskunde, that is, data and description about a particular country. Few bibliographies cannot be charged with some important omissions, but this list is a generally good one and will certainly be useful to the student seeking background and factual infor- mation about librarianship throughout the world. The bibliography will, indeed, serve "comparative librarianship students as a work- ing tool," the stated purpose of the volume as a whole (p. 7). But errors in the citations of foreign-language publications in this section are far, far too numerous. In the Austrian, French, and German listings alone, there are over thirty.

Students will, unfortunately, not be well served by the 7 short chapters on comparative librarianship itself, parts of which read like unrevised lecture notes. Much that is said is far too elliptical and undeveloped to be of real help to the neophyte. The material is not well organized: For example, there is a partial dis- cussion of the concept of the hypothesis begin- ning at the bottom of page 20 and another, not entirely consistent one, beginning on page 43. Much of the presentation is very confusing, for instance, that of definitions of comparative li- brarianship (pp. 14-17). There is an appalling lack of clarity here. In the course of citing several wholly acceptable definitions, the author shifts her frame of reference to "value" (p. 14) and to "method" (bottom p. 15). Sometimes the phrases "international librarianship" and "comparative librarianship" are distinguished; sometimes they are used synonymously (p. 16). One result of the author's imprecision and lack of clarity is that, contrary to most of what she has said earlier about comparative librarianship, it is stated that "the study of the whole field in one geographical area is called an area study" and, as an example, E. J. A. Evans's Tropical Library Service: The Story of Ghana's Li- braries (London: Deutsch, 1964) is cited (pp. 25-26). Although this is certainly a study of a geographical area, it is not a comparative study. Again, Arthur Elmore Bostwick's American Public Library (New York: Appleton, 1929) and Robert D. Leigh's Public Library in the United States: The General Report of The

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