Cole, John Y., Ed. TITLE the Community of the Book. a Directory of Selected Organizations and Programs

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 269 032 IR 051 509 AUTHOR Heston, Carren 0., Comp.; Cole, John Y., Ed. TITLE The Community of the Book. A Directory of Selected Organizations and Programs. INSTITUTION Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Center for the Book. REPORT NO ISBN-0-8444-0525-6 PUB DATE 86 NOTE 123p.; For 1984 report, "Books in Our Future," see ED 253 243. PUB TYPE Reference Materials - Directories/Catalogs (132) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC05 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Books; Censorship; Directories; *Literacy; *Literacy Education; *National Organizations; National Programs; *Publishing Industry; *Reading Skills; Technological Advancement ABSTRACT This is a selective listing of organizations that promote books and reading, administer literacy projects, and encourage the study of books. Expanding on a brief list of organizations in the 1984 Library of Congress report, Books in Our Future, it focuses on national programs of special interest to the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. The emphasis is on organizations in the United States, where recently there has been renewed interest in educational reform, in literacy, and in the future of the book. A7.phabetically arranged, the entries provide addresses, telephone numbers, and contact pt.sons for the organizations; general descriptions of their purposes; examples of their activities; the names of their publications; and a description of how they are funded. This information is based largely on materials that were provided by the organizations and programs themselves. Shared areas of interest include reading skills (the problem of illiteracy) and reading motivation (the problem of aliteracy); the state of the book industry; books and technology; the potential complementarity of 1.7Joks and the media; censorship; the history of books; and the international role of the book. Publishers, booksellers, librarians, book researchers, scholars, teachers, and writers are among those represented in this directory by a selective listing of their professional associations. An introduction by John Y. Cole entitled "Is There a Community of the Book?" opens the directory. (THC) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** C*4 ? 0 69 03 The Community of the Book A Directory of Selected Organizations and Programs Compiled by Carren 0. Kaston Edited and with an Introduction by John Y. Cole Executive Director, The Center for the Book Library of Congress Washington 1986 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kaston, Carren, 1946- The community of the book. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Bibliographical societiesDirectories.2. Books and readingUnited StatesSocieties, etc.Directories. 3. Book industries and tradeUnited StatesSocieties, etc.Dhictories.4. LiteracyUnited StatesSocieties, etc.Directories.5. Books and readingSocieties, etc. Directories.6. Book industries and tradeSocieties, etc.Directories.7. LiteracySocieties, etc.Directo- ries.I. Cole, John Young, 1940- . IL Center for the Book.III. Title. ZIC08. K38 1986 092'.06073 86-600010 ISBN 08444-0525-6 contents Preface 4 John Y. Cole Is There a Community of the Book? An Introduction 5 John Y. Cole How to Use This Directory 14 Carren 0. Kaston Organizations and Programs 17 A Few Other Resources 114 Index 116 3 This is a selective listing of organizations that promote books and reading, administer literacy projects. and encourage the study of books. Expanding on the brief list of organizations in the 1984 Library of Congress report, Books in Our Future, it focuses on national programs of special interest to the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. We hope, however, that it will also be useful to the entire book community. The emphasis is on organizations in the United States, where recently there has been renewed interest in educational reform, in literacy, and in the "future of the book" International book programs, while included, have been described in greater detail in two other publications available from the Center for the Book: US. International Book Programs 1981 (1982) and US. Books Abroad: Neglected Ambassadors, by Curtis G. Benjamin (1984). The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress is a national catalyst for stimulating public interest in books and reading and for encouraging lie study of books and the printed word. Its symposia and project, inducting this publication, are made possible by private contributions from individuals and corporations. Special thanks for this project go to compiler Curen Kaston, to Linda Cox, who prepared the manuscript for publication, and to Joseph Brinley, who provided valuable editorial help and prepared the index. John Y. Cole Executive Director The Center for the Book Noveinber 1985 Is Therea Community of the Book? An Introduction John Y. Cole Is there a "community of the book?" The Ck. iter for the Book in the Library of Congress was established in 1977 on the assumption that such a community exists and that it can be mobilized to keep books and reading central in our lives and in the life of our democracy. A partnership between the Library of Congress and private citizens and organiz-tions, the Center for the Book is a national catalyst for stimulating public interest in books and reading and for encouraging the study of books and the printed word. The most important person 4_i this partnership or community is the individ- ual reader. Librarian of Congress Daniell Boorstin, the center's founder, made this clear when the center was created, saying, "As the national library of a great free republic, the Library of Congress has a special duty and a special interest to see that books do not go unread...here we shape plans for a grand national effort to make all our people eager, avid, understandi-ig, crit- ical readers."' In A Nation of Headers, a talk he presented in 1982, Boorstin asserted that our country was built on books and reading and that, at least in the past, America has been a nation of readers.2 We can be so again, he maintains, if our citizens and institutions make a new commitment to keep- ing "the Culture of the Book" thriving? In this effort, which is the basic mis- sion of the Center for the Book, technology is an ally: 'We have a special duty a) see that the book is the useful, illuminating servant of all other technologies, and that all other technologies become the effective, illuminating acolytes of the book."' Publisher Samuel S. Vaughan, in his essay "The Community of the Book" in the Writer 1983 issue of Daedalus, defines the book community as one that "consists of those for whom the written word, especially as expressed in printed and bound volumes, is of the first importance." Its major inhabitants are authors, editors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, wholesalers, literary agents and literary critics book reviewers and book journalists, translators, educators, and "not least, though often omitted from full partnership readers." In iconoclastic fashion, Vaughan challenges many common asser- tions about books and publishing. By the time he is finished, he also challenges his own basic assumption: It is convenient to think of ourselves as the Community of the Book. But perhaps we are destined to remain a series of separate states, warring fac- tions, shouting imprecations at each other across borders....I hope not. For we are bound up in common concerns and causes; we do need each other, and for the usual reasonsbecause we are mutually dependent? 5 tr The search for a "book community" in the United States is not new. The story before the founding of the Center for the Book is a mixture of solid accomplishments and periods of frustration, which reflect both the tenuous nature of alliances among book-minded people and traditional American uncertainty about the proper role of government in culture, education, and the world of books. In 1950 a small group of leading American publishers, including Cass Can- field of Harper & Row, Curtis McGraw from McGraw-Hill, Harold Guinzburg of Viking Press, and Douglas Black of Doubleday and Company, established the American Book Publishers Council (ABPC), a trade association that would extend itsc:f beyond usual business concerns in order to promote books, reading, and libraries. The first discussions between ABPC repres !m- auves and librarians took place at the 1950 annual conference of the Amzri- can Library Association (ALA). Postal rates, book distribution, copyright, and reading promotion were early agenda items? The anthology The Wonderful World of Books (1952) was a result of the 1951 Conference on Rural Reading, sponsored by the ABPC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the ALA, and other organizations. Theodore Waller, the first managing director (1950-53) of the ABPC, and Dan Lacy, who succeeded Waller and guided the ABPCs affairs until he joined McGraw-Hill in 1966, were the key figures in forging these early book world alliances. Censorship became a topic of mutual concern to publishers and librarians in the early 1950s, when private groups and public officials in various parts of the country made attempts to remove books from sale, to censor textbooks. to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, for example, demanded that the overseas information libraries of the State Department be purged

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