Book Reviews 583 ing prolabor freelance newspaper col- annotated directory of journals, groups, umns and scheduling a labor film series and Web sites concerning freedom of in- at a county library; questioning why a formation, censorship, and media democ- system closed on Easter, but not on Jew- racy. Such a list should helpfully include ish holidays; criticizing library manage- sources for identifying and selecting truly ment at a city council meeting; support- diverse materials (e.g., Counterpoise, ing a black coworker who charged the MultiCultural Review, Small Press Review, administration with job discrimination; Women’s Review of Books). Second, isn’t it publicly opposing a new main building about time for ALA’s Intellectual Freedom with inadequate space for books; asking Committee and Office for Intellectual for improved security following a sexual Freedom to advise the Library of Con- assault; and expressing an opinion on the gress that there really is a concept called merits of AACR2 to state OCLC vendors. “intellectual freedom” that deserves its In the last instance, the librarian was sub- own subject heading? (At present, the sequently reprimanded, forced into retire- term appears in LCSH as an omnibus ment, and five books written or edited by “see” reference to more specific topics him, plus a sixth about him, expunged such as “Academic freedom” and “Cen- from the library’s catalog and shelves. sorship.” A subject search under “Intel- Indeed, the “library profession,” includ- lectual freedom” will yield neither the ing local and national IF units, apparently OIF Manual nor Samek’s book.)—Sanford did not take “its responsibilities” very Berman, Alternative Library Literature. seriously in these cases. And an amend- ment to the Library Bill of Rights that Kister, Kenneth F. Eric Moon: The Life and would have extended free speech rights Library Times. Foreword by John N. to library staff, affording them the same Berry III. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, protection as materials and meeting 2002. 442p., alk. paper, $30 (ISBN rooms, was introduced to the ALA Coun- 0786412534). LC 2001-7509. cil in 1999 but ultimately scuttled, buried. Kenneth Kister, of Kister’s Best Encyclope- This event, perhaps unsurprisingly, also dias renown, has tackled the fertile, but is unreported in the Manual. (Likewise seldom tilled, field of library biography. unnoted are the documented examples of What makes Kister’s biography particu- censorship or omission within the library larly interesting is the fact that its subject, press [e.g., “Top Censored Library Stories the legendary Eric Moon, is still very much of 1998/2000,” Unabashed Librarian, nos. alive and kicking. That having been said, 118, 119]). Kister does not shrink from telling all he Two final observations: First, the next has gathered from more than a hundred edition would greatly benefit from an hours of interviews with Moon himself and his second wife, Ilse, but also with his family (including his mother Grace and his Index to advertisers younger brother, Bryan), and friends and AIAA 498, 544 colleagues (notably, Patricia Glass American Chemical Society cover 3 Schuman, John N. Berry III, E. J. Josey, and Archival Products 514 Arthur Curley, all of whom eventually Biosis 480 served as president of the ALA). Although CHOICE 561 Kister lets Moon and others tell their sides Elsevier Science 479 of the story in their own words, he remains Library Technologies 483 very much in control of the content and Primary Source Microfilm cover 4 direction of the narrative. TechBooks 527 Eric Edward Moon, the first of two Science Direct cover 2 sons of working-class parents Ted and University of California Press 497 Grace (Scott) Moon, was born March 6, 1923, in Yeovil, an old town in the south 584 College & Research Libraries November 2002 of England about sixty miles west of gland, Moon joined the Canadian Library Southampton, the large port city where Association shortly after arriving in New- he attended elementary and secondary foundland, where he served from June school, found his first library job, and 1958 until October 1959. He was wooed married his first wife, Diana. After gradu- away, with absolutely no reluctance on his ating from secondary school, Moon real- part, from his position in Newfoundland ized that he had no chance of getting a by Dan Melcher of Bowker in New York. university education, a dream not easily Melcher was eager for him to take over attained by the British working class, par- the helm of the then stodgy, establish- ticularly in the late 1930s. ment-oriented Library Journal, founded in His first job, in 1939, was as junior li- 1876 by none other than Melvil Dewey. brary assistant at the Southampton Pub- Moon joined the ALA and remained an lic Library. While there, he passed the el- active member throughout his career. ementary exam of the Library Associa- While editor of Library Journal, from late tion, the first rung of the library profes- autumn of 1959 to the end of December sional ladder in England. In 1941, at age 1968, Moon was able to use LJ as the me- eighteen, he enlisted in the Royal Air dium for addressing social and political Force and served for the duration of responsibilities of librarianship—which World War Two in England; Comilla, East the complacent ALA would have been Bengal (then in India, now Bangladesh); more than happy to ignore—including and Singapore. After being discharged in civil rights, intellectual freedom, poverty, the summer of 1946, he returned to gender discrimination, government se- Southampton. crecy, and the Vietnam War. In 1965, Moon In May 1947, Eric married Diana Mary became a member of the Bowker board of Simpson, also a junior library assistant in directors and a citizen of the United States. Southampton. Moon decided to attend Moon’s zeal for reforming the ALA con- one of the new library schools, tinued unabated, and in 1965, he was Loughborough College, that had been elected to the ALA Council. He served on created after the war to prepare return- the council from 1965 to 1972, from 1976 ing veterans for taking the Library to 1979, and from 1982 to 1986. During his Association’s registration examination, last few months at LJ, about a year after another of the qualifying hurdles for li- Bowker was bought out by Xerox, Moon brarians in the United Kingdom. There, met Ilse (Bloch) Webb, then a librarian at he thoroughly enjoyed his studies with the College of William and Mary, at a party mentor Roy Stokes. Moon passed the reg- in the notorious LJ suite at the 1968 ALA istration exam in the summer of 1948 and Annual Conference in Kansas City, Mo. took a second year at Loughborough to Thus began a deep friendship between Eric study for the fellowship examination and and Ilse, who were both unhappily mar- earn the prestigious title of Fellow of the ried at the time. After a nearly three-year Library Association (FLA). Between the affair, concluding with his divorce from summer of 1949 and June 1958, he served Diana and Ilse’s divorce from Ken Webb, as librarian in Hertfordshire (Bushey and they were married in 1971. Oxhey); Finchley, north of London; Moon had left LJ in late December of Brentford and Chiswick, west of London; 1968 and in the spring of 1969 began ne- and Kensington in London’s West End, gotiations with Ted Waller of Grolier Edu- before leaving England for his first job in cational Corporation to take over Scare- North America, as chief librarian in New- crow Press (then a Grolier subsidiary) as foundland, Canada. its chief editor. He officially took over the Having been an active member of both reins of the small and struggling press on the “staid” Library Association and the July 1, 1969, after the ALA Annual Con- “feisty” Association of Assistant Librar- ference in Atlantic City, during which the ians (Kister’s adjectives) while in En- Social Responsibilities Round Table Book Reviews 585

(SRRT) was founded. Moon, who was the United Kingdom, particularly those instrumental in the founding of the SRRT, serving institutions with graduate pro- remained a loyal member and supporter grams in library and information sci- throughout his library career. ence.—Plummer Alston Jones, Jr., East Caro- While still at Scarecrow, Moon trans- lina University. formed this small library press into the major publishing venture in librarianship Neely, Teresa Y. Sociological and Psycho- that it is today. In no small way due to his logical Aspects of Information Literacy in business acumen at LJ and Scarecrow, Higher Education. Lanham, Md.: Scare- Moon was inaugurated in 1977 as ALA crow Pr., 2002. 188p., alk. paper, $47.50 president at the annual conference in De- (ISBN 0810841053). LC 2002-21214. troit. The theme for his ALA presidential “What makes an individual information year, to advocate an egalitarian national literate?” This is the question that Neely information policy, was never fully real- poses in this slim monograph based on ized because of the protracted scandal her 2000 doctoral dissertation. Reporting centering on the release of the film Speaker, the results of a survey conducted of stu- intended to champion First Amendment dents at an anonymous research univer- rights, but which offended the black lead- sity, Neely attempts to shed light on this ers and membership of ALA along with question through an analysis of several defenders, black and white, of the civil factors, including: student attitudes to- rights movement. ward information skills (and information Moon retired from Scarecrow at the skills instruction), student performance end of 1978 at age fifty-five, and the on information skills assessments, stu- couple moved to Florida. During the dent relationships with faculty, student 1980s and early 1990s, Eric remained in- exposure to the information environment, volved in writing and speaking, while Ilse and student experience in the information returned to work, serving as executive environment. Although Neely uncovers secretary of the Association for Library important aspects of each of these factors and Information Science Education through her review of the literature and (ALISE) from 1988 to 1992. In 1993, Scare- analysis of the survey data collected, this crow published a collection of his writ- monograph ultimately fails to deliver on ings and speeches entitled A Desire to the expansive promise of its title and Learn: Selected Writings. Eric, who turned leaves the reader feeling that it may have 79 in 2002, and Ilse, his wife of more than been rushed too quickly from its original thirty years, are now enjoying a well-de- dissertation form. served retirement in Florida, filled with Like many dissertations, this work be- golf, travel, reading, and family. gins with the identification of a perceived An example of Moon the mentor is lacuna in the literature. Neely argues that Robert McFarland Franklin, founder of there is a “marked lack of empirical re- McFarland & Company, Inc., in Jefferson, search” on information literacy and that North Carolina, publisher of this biogra- this has left us with little agreement on phy and Moon’s number two man at what information literacy actually means Scarecrow Press during most of the 1970s. or on how best to design information lit- Leaving Scarecrow in March 1979, about eracy instruction in higher education. a year or so after Moon, Franklin had su- Although there is little doubt that the re- pervised publication of McFarland’s first search agenda for those of us interested six books by September 1980. in information literacy remains wide Kister’s in-depth biography of Eric open, one cannot help but think that Moon is well written, impeccably docu- Neely is exaggerating both the scope and mented, and extensively indexed. It the uniqueness of this problem. should be in the collections of academic Library literature, in general, suffers libraries throughout the United States and from the publication of a great deal of prac-