College and Research Libraries The author has long been known to li- brarians as a library-minded administrator. Among his many published articles are sev- eral on various aspects of college library op- eration, and in his books he often touches on the subject of libraries. His active interest in libraries goes back to his first teaching posi- tion at Wesleyan University, where he taught three courses and worked in the library to complete his instructional quota of five courses. Regarding this library experience he writes: "The library assignment proved a valuable experience, for it provided first- hand knowledge of how students prepared papers; it emphasized the time and effort wasted by crude procedures. As a result my teaching techniques were altered. I came to stress written work and the best methods of preparing it. In the long run it also proved valuable for administrative purposes; when a college president has had practical experi- ence in the daily operation of the library he has much more sympathy with the librarian's problem—fiscal, administrative, disciplinary, and instructional." At another place he states that "The knowledge acquired through my library experience profoundly influenced my administrative philosophy and course of action." He made the library a major concern of his at both Lawrence College and Brown University, working closely with the librarian at each institution to vitalize the library and to make it an active agent in the educa- tive process. For thirty years he waged war on the reserve system in an effort to reduce its ill effects upon the broader use of the library resources. He presents a telling in- dictment of the reserve-book type of instruc- tion in the section of the chapter on ad- ministration which deals with his library experiences (pp. 132-49). These pages are highly recommended reading for all faculty members and librarians. He says much about the library in a few pages. It is unusual to find a meaty book which is so palatable and easy to digest. This re- viewer recommends it highly as a valuable contribution to the literature of college ad- ministration. It is a book with wide appeal and its use should not be confined to the professional educator.—Porter Kellam, Uni- versity of Georgia. History of Printing Five Hundred Years of Printing. By S. H. Steinberg, with a foreword by Beatrice Warde. London: Faber and Faber [1959], 286p. 30s. This is a reprinting, with additions, dele- tions, and some (but not enough) corrections, of the Pelican edition issued at eighty-five cents by Penguin Books in 1955. The pres- ent edition has, for a greatly enhanced price ($6.00 in American stores), hard covers, a larger format, additional plates and figures, over seven hundred lines of new text—net gain, that is; some eight hundred new lines are partially offset by the deletion of nearly one hundred lines of the original text—and, unhappily, far too many of the errors that marred the earlier edition. There is a long-felt need, frequently voiced by instructors in the history of books and printing, and not satisfactorily met by McMurtrie, Wroth, Dahl, or Binns, for a moderately priced volume that can be rec- ommended as a general, up-to-date guide to the subject. Mr. Steinberg's work, when it first appeared in the Pelican format, seemed to meet the need to at least a tolerable de- gree; its modest cost outweighed the instruc- tor's obligation to warn his students not only of the author's insularity, which gives his book an imbalance in its later sections, but also of his downright carelessness with facts. Most of us chose to let the matter pass, as- suming that our more serious objections would be overcome in any later version of the text. It is regrettable that our assumption has not been fulfilled. The new edition has cor- rected some points and has added extensive discussions of certain matters that were passed over quickly or omitted altogether in the Pelican version, but in general it is no more reliable than its predecessor. And inas- much as the author has not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity to correct his errors, we are left to conclude that he feels no responsibility to do so. It is difficult to understand on any other premise how a re- vised edition could be released which car- ries over such statements as the following: Page 34: "Tory crowned his work as a J U L Y 1 9 6 0 331 practising printer by writing the first theo- retical treatise on the designing of types . . . " At least eight treatises on the design of letters were published before Geoffroy Tory's Champfleury of 1529 appeared, in- cluding quite substantial ones by Pacioli, Verini, and Durer. Page 34: "Claude Garamond (1480-1561) . . ." The birth date is highly improbable, and if there is authority for it, it should be cited. Garamond was apprenticed to Augereau about 1510 (Morison); he is not likely to have been much more than fif- teen at that time. Page 39: "Anton Koberger . . . turned down Luther's offer to become his pub- lisher." Page 63: "Verard . . . originated the Book of Hours . . ." Page 67: "Henri [Estienne] has to his credit a long series of pagan and early Christian classics including the editiones principes of Anacreon, Plutarch and Di- odorus Siculus . . ." Plutarch and Diodo- rus Siculus are represented by fifteenth- century editions. Steinberg does not spec- ify which works he has in mind, leaving it to the reader to ferret this out for him- self. Page 121: "The academicians drew up the design of each letter on a strictly ana- lytical and mathematical basis, using as their norm a rectangle [M'C] subdivided into 2304 (i.e. 64 times 36) squares." This is a misreading of Fournier's explicit analysis, which reaches the figure 2304 by dividing a square 48 by 48. Page 147: "The first print produced in an English colony was fittingly the form of an 'Oath of Allegiance to the King' (1639) . . ." The "Freeman's Oath" affirms the individual's responsibility to his con- science and to his fellow colonists; the ab- sence of any reference whatever to the King or to any other homeland authority might be construed as being rather pointed. Page 178: "... The Spectator (1711-14)..." The life span of that periodical was from March 1, 1711, to December 6, 1712. Page 203: "The revival and improvement of the technique of wood-engraving . . . benefited fine printing rather than popu- lar printing . . ." Quite to the contrary, it saved the day for newspapers, maga- zines, and trade books in the decades pre- ceding the perfection of the line cut and" halftone. If it could be assumed that the above list represents a complete summary of the au- thor's misstatements, one would be reluctant to use such evidences of hasty writing to condemn so well conceived a book, for it is indeed excellently organized. But the list is by no means complete; it is only a sampling of what the present reviewer has observed, and beyond doubt other readers with greater knowledge will have noted faults which this reader has missed. The net result is that, if the volume is to serve any serious purpose, all of its unsupported pronouncements must be checked, and these, unfortunately, far outnumber those for which authorities are cited. Steinberg unwittingly sums up the case against himself in his translation from the Latin of Froben (page 92): "the buyer of a book full of misprints [i.e., mendis, more appropriately rendered as "blunders"] does not really acquire a book but a nuisance."— Roland Baughman, Head of Special Collec- tions, Columbia University Libraries. LAWRENCE RADIATION LABORATORY has staff positions open for LITERATURE SCIENTISTS . . . i n v o l v i n g m e c h a n i c a l r e t r i e v a l , a c q u i s i t i o n , a n d c i r c u l a t i o n of re- s e a r c h d a t a . B a c h e l o r ' s D e g r e e i n s c i e n t i f i c field p l u s t r a i n i n g o r e x - p e r i e n c e in l i b r a r y s c i e n c e d e s i r - a b l e . L i b e r a l f r i n g e b e n e f i t s , i n c l u d i n g r e t i r e m e n t p l a n a n d o n e m o n t h v a c a t i o n . U . S. C I T I Z E N S H I P R E Q U I R E D C o n t a c t M r . C h a r l e s C. B o a r d m a n , P e r s o n n e l Office LAWRENCE RADIATION LABORATORY (Livermore Site) P. O. Box 808 C LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA (One hour from downtown San Francisco)