Review of "Print Culture in a Diverse America" William C

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3-1-2000 Review of "Print Culture in a Diverse America" William C. Welburn Marquette University, [email protected]

Published version. Review of Print Culture in a Diverse America Ed. James Danky and Wayne Wiegand, College and Research Libraries, Vol. 61, No. 2 (March 2000): 174-175. Permalink. © 2000 American Library Association 174 College & Research Libraries March 2000

Although librarians sometimes speak ing, and critical thinking—reaching con as though they are social constructivists, clusions that most often back up librar librarian practice in fact looks a lot like ian practice in these areas. The one weak Goldman’s veritism. Take, for example, ness of this book is that in attempting to the accuracy literature in the evaluation cover such broad territory, Goldman’s of reference services. For more than thirty practical proposals are sometimes lack years, library and information science ing in details and specifics. Veriphobes researchers have evaluated reference ser and veritists alike, however, will benefit vice in terms of the accuracy of librarian from the clarity of Goldman’s analysis responses to user questions, where ac of the thorny issues surrounding truth, curacy is defined as the correct or true knowledge, and social practice.—Marc answer in Goldman’s sense. When ref Meola, Temple University. erence services do not result in a suffi cient increase in true belief (the 55 per Print Culture in a Diverse America. Ed. cent rule), strategies are devised (follow James P. Danky and Wayne A. up questions) to improve and correct the Wiegand. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Pr. practice. If Goldman is correct, librarians (History of Communication Series), should continue this type of research and 1998. 291p. $49.95, acid-free paper, correcting practice instead of focusing ex cloth (ISBN 0-2520-2398-6); $27.95 pa clusively on non-truth-based concepts of per (ISBN 0-2520-6699-5). LC 97 evaluation such as user satisfaction. One 33935. application of Goldman’s theory could The emerging field of print cultural stud be a comparison of the truth-producing ies has been greatly enhanced by the pub practice of reference librarians with the lication of this new work. The editors ability of Internet search engines to pro have assembled a collection of important vide accurate answers to a user’s query essays that were presented during the first per unit of user time. conference—in 1995, in Madison, Wiscon Goldman’s work also has implica sin—of the Center for the History of Print tions for collection development and li Culture in Modern America. The result of brary instruction. He applies his veritistic their labors is an anthology of ideas about epistemology to issues such as the peer the value of print, in its variant forms, that review of electronic publications, recent is groundbreaking in establishing link copyright legislation, collaborative learn- ages between libraries, cultural commu nities, and the printed word. Index to advertisers In his introduction, Wayne Wiegand Academic Press 155 succinctly describes a “rapidly emerging ACRL 135, 178 scholarship on reading within a much AIAA 114, 145 broader shift in the focus of humanities Archival Products 154 research ‘from culture as text to culture Assoc. Research Libraries 91 as agency and practice.’” Print cultural CHOICE 168, 177 studies can be viewed as “one manifes EBSCO 92 tation” of this movement. Yet, Wiegand Elsevier Science 103, 105, 107 is quick to remind the reader that schol Getty Trust 126 arship in this emerging field has, to a Grove’s Dictionaries 98 large degree, excluded close investiga ISI cover 2 tion and analysis of the twentieth cen Library Technologies 95 tury, a time period marked by a rapid Library Technology Alliance 120 increase in the utility of print among Marcive cover 3 America’s culturally diverse popula OCLC 117 tions. Investigation of print culture in R.R. Bowker cover 4 this century is also complicated by an array of media that include newspapers Book Reviews 175 and periodicals, broadsides, pamphlets, As this volume indicates, the benefits and posters which reflect the activities in applying print cultural studies to the of various communities, organizations analysis of America’s cultural diversity and movements, and individuals. have yet to be exhausted. Yet, there are limi The essays in Print Culture in a Diverse tations. Vecoli writes: “While print culture America are organized under three themes. can be read for various ideologies that Four essays are included on the role of for sought to influence readers, other sources gotten serials. Rudolph Vecoli tracked a need to be consulted to determine its effi number of immigrant Italian newspapers cacy.” This is an important warning that a of the late nineteenth and early twentieth single-minded (and ethnocentric) focus on centuries, demonstrating their significance print culture ignores much that is valued in Italian-American social life and their by cultural communities: that which re importance in maintaining a distinctive sides outside the realm of print culture or ethnic identity in the immigrants’ new of the reading interests of their members world. Yumei Sun traces the history of (e.g., in music, stories, and visual and Chun Sai Yat Po, a San Francisco-based performance-related arts). Also, print cul newspaper that “engaged the Chinese ture scholars will need to exercise caution community in a reflexive process of as they apply the theory of book and print self-examination that led, inevitably, to cultural studies to inquiry about the modes greater assimilation.” Violet Johnson’s es of communicating ideas among diverse say on the Boston Chronicle extends our cultural groups. Although these theoreti understanding of cultural institutions and cal perspectives can provide great insight, social change in Boston’s black communi they also may cloud scholarly understand ties, and Norma Fay Green contributes an ing of cultural nuances. original essay on empowerment and the Wiegand concludes his introductory homeless in the publication of the Chicago essay by writing that “each of the eleven newspaper, StreetWise. essays in this book represents a foray into Part two of the anthology shifts focus to the multicultural world of readers and the relationship between readers and their reading in America over the last century texts. Again, four essays are presented, this and a half.” Through their work at the time on topics ranging from hobo Center for the History of Print Culture in self-publication to the discovery of the read Modern America, Danky and Wiegand ing interests of public library users in a ru have broadened the narrowly constructed ral Iowa community. This section is particu scope of studies in print culture to include larly noteworthy in the authors’ use of of different perspectives, themes, methods, ten-overlooked resources, such as the pre resources, and objects of investigation. It viously undiscovered circulation records of is no wonder that the book won the 1999 a small public library, vestiges of the Carey McWilliams Award for its contri records/archives of social clubs and orga bution to multicultural scholarship. This nizations, and obscure, forgotten newspa volume is strongly recommended not pers that were used to piece together evi only for students of print cultural stud dence of the early American labor move ies, but also for those who are interested ment. In the third and final section, authors in how changing technologies affect the wrestle with what Wiegand describes as way communities record their lives.— “print materials’ reconstruction of events,” William C. Welburn, The University of Iowa. including an analysis of how the Titanic di saster was constructed by marginalized Technology and Scholarly Communication. communities and Langston Hughes’s ef Ed. Richard Ekman and Richard E. forts at self-publication in the 1930s. The Quandt. Berkeley: Univ. of California latter is especially instructive in the study Pr., 1999. 442p. $45.00, alk. paper, cloth of similar efforts among black writers in sub (ISBN 0-520-21762-4); $19.95 paper sequent decades. (ISBN 0-520-21763-2). LC 98-30679.