College and Research Libraries


pragmatic interest since the training basic to 
the profession is called into question and 
sweeping revisions suggested. W e must now 
deal with the original implication that the 
traditional librarian is an inevitable product 
of his education and not in most situations 
merely a reflection of a more leisurely ap-
proach to information resources than science 
centers can afford. 

A technical librarian would be inclined to 
agree that adequate training in scientific 
literature is lacking in most library schools. 
A cataloger would just as quickly point out 
that library schools do not turn out a pol-
ished cataloger; and the same with the refer-
ence librarian, the curator of rare books, etc. 
In other words, two or three semesters of 
training do not turn out specialists. In most 
of the sciences more and more students are 
being encouraged to continue their educa-
tion through the doctorate in order to make 
a more significant contribution to their pro-
fession. It is doubtful that the library schools 
can accomplish on the master's level more 
than is expected of other disciplines. This 
is true of all professional schools whose 
courses of study have no essential continuity 
with the first four years of training. Although 
the framework of a doctoral program is out-
lined in the report, it is not developed in 
detail. 

Actually the courses described in the re-
port are quite interesting and pertinent to 
science information service. There is cer-
tainly room for an increasing elasticity in the 
library school curriculum, and many of these 
courses would be valuable electives. T h e 
most disappointing aspect of the study is 
that, after making a good case for the exact-
ing nature of science information work, too 
much of the final solution to the problems 
of recruiting, training, and advancing this 
specialization is based on the revision of the 
curriculum. 

An alternate inquiry might have been 
directed at the science and engineering cur-
ricula as well. Does the average physics stu-
dent, for example, receive any significant 
training in the use of the literature during 
his undergraduate training? Is there not a 
fertile area here for investigation? If science 
majors were convinced by example and dem-
onstration of the importance of sound li-
brary methods, they would in the future not 
only approach the information center with 

greater self-sufficiency, but would also be 
more likely prospects for the specialized 
training the authors prescribe for the science 
information specialist. 

T h e research was performed as a part of a 
contract with the U. S. Office of Education; 
the National Science Foundation supported 
the publication. Copies may be obtained 
from: Science Information, P. O. Box 624, 
Radio City Station, New York 19, N. Y . — 
James D. Ramer, Columbia University. 

An Artist's Life 
Arthur Rackham, His Life and Work. By 

Derek Hudson. New York: Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons (London: William Heinemann, 
Ltd.) [I960]. 181p. $20.00. 

Although Arthur Rackham seldom strayed 
far outside his native London from his birth 
until his death on September 6, 1939, his art 
and fame were universal. His productive 
life—some fifty years—spanned a varied era, 
and his genius and fertile versatility over-
rode all barriers of time and circumstance 
and nationality. Rackham's works have been 
published not only in England and America 
but in France and Germany as well, and 
recently some have been issued in Dutch and 
Spanish editions. He is especially revered in 
the United States. His definitive bibliography 
was compiled in 1936 by two Americans, 
Sarah Briggs Latimore and Grace Clark 
Haskell; and the United States is the 
home of at least two virtually com-
plete collections of Rackham's published 
work, those formed by the bibliographers. 
T h e Haskell collection is now in the Free 
Library of Philadelphia, and the Latimore 
collection is at Columbia University, where 
it has been notably enhanced by its donor 
with the addition of hundreds of originaal 
drawings—the largest corpus of Rackham 
originals on this side of the Atlantic and 
perhaps in die world. 

Rackham's biography, however, could only 
have been written in England, where there 
are so many who still hold treasured recol-
lections of this kindly, prim, sadonic man. 

S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 1 405 



Derek Hudson has taken full advantage of 
his opportunities. His biography is warm 
and sympathetic, written with insight and 
understanding, and executed handsomely in 
the finest Rackham tradition. As the only 
definitive biography of Rackham that has 
been published, it is of great significance 
because, by showing the enormous produc-
tivity of the man, it releases its readers from 
the tendency to judge him solely on die 
basis of the few favorite works that happen 
to linger in memory. Moreover, although it 
reveals the decision of a fine genius to reach 
for a limitless audience through publication, 
it also shows how he defeated the restrictions 
of the colorplate process as it existed in his 
time by unswerving insistence on the high-
est possible standards of workmanship. 

Mr. Hudson reproduces many of Rack-
ham's originals, some of which have never 
before seen publication. Regrettably this is 
done too often without nonnal credit lines— 
certain plates, for example, are from orig-
inals that have been in the Columbia collec-
tion for some time, without notice to that 
effect or to previous ownership. While we 
are on the subject of faults, one that will 
cause quite general annoyance is the lack of 
an index. 

Mr. Bertram Rota has added a check-list 
of " T h e Printed Work of Arthur Rackham" 
which brings his bibliography up to date. 
This will be gladly received by librarians 
and collectors, because the definitive treat-
ment by Latimore and Haskell has been out 
of print for many years. Mr. Rota, further-
more, has made substantial additions to the 
Rackham canon—at least sixteen unrecorded 
volumes as well as a great many magazine 
issues. His form of listing is highly abbrevi-
ated; while this facilitates checking, more 
detailed information about the hitherto un-
recorded works would have been welcome. 
T h e list is available in separate form through 
Bodley House, Vigo Street, London W. 1.— 
Roland Baughman, Columbia University. 

Studies in Microforms 
Full-Size Photocopying. By William R. Haw-

ken. (The State of the Library Art, Vol-
ume V, Part 3) New Brunswick, N. J . : 

Graduate School of Library Service, Rut-
gers, T h e State University, 1960. 397p. 
$8.00. 

This title completes the section on "Re-
production of Materials" from a series of 
studies covering most of the technical as-
pects of librarianship. T h e two earlier re-
ports on the micro-forms, which make up 
the rest of the section, have been reviewed 
before.1 This volume supplements them ad-
mirably and should be used in conjunction 
with them. T h e line separating microcopying 
from full-size photocopying is rapidly be-
coming fainter, and one must understand 
the techniques of one in order to apply the 
other. 

Chapters are entitled: "Photostat (used here 
as a generic term), Stabilization Processes, 
Photronic Reproduction, Verifax, Diffu-
sion Transfer Process, Diazo, Thermog-
raphy, Photothermography (Kalfax), Xerog-
raphy, Electrofax, and the Electrolytic 
Process (3M Filmac)." "Each chapter may be 
studied as an independent unit, since it 
concludes with its own bibliography. This 
study by units would have been made a lit-
tle easier if the running heads at the tops 
of the pages had been by main title and 
chapter title, rather than series title and main 
title. T h e chapters on "Xerography" (83 pp.), 
"Diazo" (77 pp.) and "Photostat" (59 pp.) 
are the longest; and each one could be used 
as an introductory handbook for its process 
with the addition of a few more illustra-
tions. A criticism aimed at the two volumes 
on microforms was that they should have 
been illustrated. This volume is, but the 
few included tend to whet one's appetite for 
more. One feels that the author would have 
included more if the economic restrictions of 
publication had permitted. 

This series of studies is intended to pro-
vide " a survey of the published and un-
published literature of each facet of the 
field." This has been done in this volume, 
as in the other two. Being published later 
than they, it contains bibliographic refer-
ences through 1958, and a few into 1959. T h e 
form adapted from the series has resulted 
in three volumes that are excellent reference 
tools and basic guides to the literature of 
photoduplication. It has not resulted in 

1 Hubbard W . Ballou, "Studies in Microforms," 
C R L , X X I ( 1 9 6 0 ) . 494-495. 

406 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S