Recent Publications 183 the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Uni­ mentis dependent upon the ability to deal versity of Illinois at Chicago. selectively with the growing volume of compartmentalized information and to Hagerstrand, T. The Identification of Prog­ enhance cross-fertilization among disci­ ress in Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge plines. The logic is as follows: knowledge Univ. Pr., 1985. 204p. $39.50. LC 84- is advanced by discovery, variously inter­ 14277. ISBN 0-521-30087-8. preted among disciplines; discovery is de­ This is a collection of papers presented fined as such within a context of knowl­ at the European Science Foundation Col­ edge accepted within each discipline; the loquium, held in Colmar, France, in better the organization of that knowledge March 1983. Because its purpose is to in­ is, the more readily identifiable will be the crease an understanding of knowledge, of discovery that will advance the field; the research process and of learning, it is where discovery is both most likely and central to the concerns of academic librari­ most fruitful is the region of overlap or po­ anship. The collection consists of twelve tential overlap between fields. essays by respected scientists and scholars None of this is terribly new, of course, in the fields of physics, mathematics, biol­ but it is focused particularly well in this ogy, medicine, sociology, linguistics, art collection of essays. And it underscores history, history, and economics,· each ac­ the important pivotal function that librari­ companied by the commentary of another ans could perform in the evolving schol­ scholar. Two general essays help to make arly communication system. Based on the of this diverse assembly of ideas a coher­ logic of the advancement of knowledge ent contribution to the sociology of sci­ outlined above, it appears that it falls to ence. our profession to become more active in Each paper is a synthesis of consider­ the intellectual organization of informa­ ations such as the criteria for the evalua­ tion (in the broadest sense) and to direct tion of knowledge in each field; identifica­ tion of the significant discovery, breakthrough, or advancement; priorities within fields; and obstacles to advance­ ment. Such syntheses are more important Heritage on now than ever before because of the rapid movement toward specialization and in­ Microfilnt terdisciplinary research, rendering com­ munication among scientists and scholars Rare and out-of-print titles more complex, and an understanding of and documents on 35mm the growth of knowledge more difficult silver halide microfilm. for anyone involved. The undersigned is not competent to judge the merits of indi­ • French Books before 1601 • Scandinavian Culture vidual contributions to this collection, but • 18th Century English it is fairly clear that, overall, they provide Literature stimulating insight into the fluid nature of • Victorian Fiction the classification of knowledge, para­ • Literature of Folklore digms of theory, and changing method­ • Hispanic Culture ologies for advancement. Send for catalog and title Reference to the library appears only information today. once in this book, yet a common thread that links concerns about the present and· future among the disciplines represented ~~t:~[M has to do very essentially with library and ~COv\PfNY information science. That is the techno­ 70 Coolidge Hill Road logical control and, increasingly, the intel­ Watertown, MA 02172 lectual control of information in the broad­ (617) 926-5557 est sense. Briefly, significant advance- 184 College & Research Libraries March 1986 special attention to making compatible ready familiar to those acquainted with that organization from one discipline to the biographies and autobiographies of another.-Charles B. Osburn, University of A. S. W. Rosenbach, Henry Stevens, Fred Cincinnati Libraries, Ohio. Rosenstock, and others, Stern has rescued any number of interesting ''ghosts'' from Stern, Madeleine B. Antiquarian Booksell­ oblivion. Herself an antiquarian booksel­ ing in the United States: A History from the ler of no small distinction, she presents Origins to the 1940s. Westport, Conn.: sympathetic and informative portraits of Greenwood, 1985. 246p. $29.95. LC 84- the men and women whose careers she 19273. ISBN 0-313-24729-3. chronicles. If she ocassionally lapses into The epigraph of this book is a quotation biblio-cliches and all too readily quotes from Sir Stanley Unwin to the effect that some of the more gongoristic language of while writing, printing, and reading earlier writers, her understanding of the books are difficult tasks, "the most diffi­ nature of the business saves her from cult task that a mortal man can embark on some of the pitfalls awaiting a less sympa­ is to sell a book." At the risk of dignifying thetic historian. Sir Stanley's hyperbole, one might re­ Unfortunately, this book is less a history mark that it would seem even more diffi­ than a. collection of essays, many of which cult to write a history of those who sell originally appeared in AB Bookman's books. Underscoring the problems inher­ Weekly. While she does attempt to place ent in such a history, Stem remarks in her the history of bookselling in each city cov­ introduction: ''That this book represents ered within a larger framework of regional the first formal attempt to record the his­ history, her book lacks any overall per­ tory of antiquarian bookselling in the spective on the development of the trade United States should cause no undue sur­ itself, or even a unifying sense of inquiry prise . . . the bookseller has always been a that might have melded her chapters into ghost, whose transactions as intermediary a connected narrative. Disavowing any at­ between source and market are seldom tempt to define antiquarian books or preserved." Working from what she ad­ booksellers, and ·evading many of the mits are meager sources, she has at­ questions and problems surrounding tempted to "reanimate those ghosts and what must appear to the uninitiated as es­ trace the history of their fascinating trade sentially a luxury trade, she has limited . . . to restore their tastes and tempera­ the audience for her book to the true be­ ments, their trials, their struggles, and lievers of bibliophily. In the one instance their achievements, to clothe once again in where she raises an interesting question­ flesh and blood the purveyors of antiquar­ why has the South fostered so few anti­ ian books." quarian booksellers and collectors?-she The book is di~ided into a series of chap­ avoids answering it by saying that it is a ters that outline the history of antiquarian ''strange anomaly'' caused by the superfi­ bookselling in Boston, Philadelphia, New cial intellectual and aesthetic culture of the York, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis and region. It as she asserts, the antiquarian Kansas City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, trade "created a demand, and then sup­ and "Cities to the South"­ plied that demand . . . helped to shape Annapolis/Baltimore, Washington, Rich­ taste, and so has been an educative mond, Charleston, and New Orleans. A force," why didn't it prove educative in final chapter covers what Stern calls ''lone this place? stars,'' booksellers such as Henry Stevens Stern believes that the antiquarian of Vermont, who don't fit into the geo­ bookseller has been an "arbiter of learn­ graphical framework of her book but who ing" and a "dispenser of knowledge," cannot be ignored. Each chapter is ade­ but frankly one gets little sense of this quately footnoted, and there is a short bib­ from her history. The role of the book in liographical essay at the end of the vol­ our culture has only recently come under ume, as well as an index. serious study, and certainly the role of the Although she covers some ground al- specialized antiquarian bookseller must