College and Research Libraries


162 I College & Research Libraries • March 1973 

ter Asheim on "Current Problems and 
Prospects in American Library Education," 
and Herman Fussier on "Some Aspects of 
Technology and Change in Relation to Uni-
versity Libraries." These papers deserve a 
wider reading audience than this volume is 
likely to attract. 

H the platitudes and rhetoric of amity, 
usually generated by a conference of this 
sort, can be ignored in some of the papers, 
publication of the Proceedings was justified. 
There would not seem to exist a more use-
ful single volume containing a summary of 
current thinking on research libraries in both 
nations. The papers are recommended read-
ing for all whose interests gravitate toward 
research libraries, information access, and 
(most especially) the international aspects 
of librarianship.-Cecil K. Byrd, Indiana 
University Libraries, Bloomington. 

Franklin, Colin. The Private Presses. Ches-
ter Springs, Penn.: Dufour, 1969. 240p. 
$17.50. 
This brief but appealing work treats the 

activity of fine printing in England from the 
late nineteenth century to the Second World 
War, as created by private presses which 
were owned or controlled by individuals 
who put their own stamp on the products. 
Although Mr. Franklin refers frequently to 
the works of these presses as representing 
a movement and does show interesting in-
fluences and interrelations among them, his 
book is essentially composed of separate 
sketches, each devoted to a selected printer 
and press. His approach in presenting these 
rather discrete essays is not unlike that 
which he attributes to bibliophiles, of whom 
he says: "Collectors look at their things with 
love, preserve them worthily and show them 
to those who can appreciate." 

Recognizing that "accounts of books can 
be tedious to read," Mr. Franklin concen-
trates upon lively sketches of the printers 
and the general tenor of their production. 
He does make good and generally succinct 
analytical comments on specific books and 
he provides some interesting allusions to the 
tastes of the times, as in his amusing ac-
count of the arts and crafts movement of 
guild socialism, although he does not at-
tempt a fully unified narrative nor a devel-
oped critique of printing style. But Mr. 
Franklin has a nice eye for typography and 

a well-cultivated taste in approaching it so 
that he is able to draw from the books them-
selves a sense of their printers and the pur-
poses of their presses. This allows him to 
make some sharp comparisons: 

Morris had merry pleasure from most of 
the Kelmscott books-the medieval world 
he loved, the old poems and stories. There 
is aesthetic gaiety in some of the Vale Press 
books, French charm in Eragny, and Hom-
by's press could be domestic, entertaining, 
homely as well as serious. Nothing less 
than a fixed moral vision governed the 
taste of the Doves Press; with Cobden-
Sanderson at the heart of it . . . 

Upon occasion Mr. Franklin finds a need 
to take issue with the idea of judging these 
works by what he once calls "the awe of the 
sale room," yet he himself seems quite af-
fected both by book prices and by the 
names of collectors, and the work concludes 
with a so-called Bibliography by David Lin-
coln whose only real contribution is the fur-
nishing of auction prices. Indeed, Mr. 
Franklin himself addresses his last chapter 
to the collector's concerns rather than end-
ing on a summation of typographic history 
or an analysis of the art of bookmaking. Yet, 
despite some disparity in purpose and tone, 
here is a useful, lively, and perceptive 
study.-]ames D. Hart, University of Cali-
fornia, Berkeley. 

Schlebecker, John T. Bibliography of Books 
and Pamphlets on the History of Agri-
culture in the United States ••. 1607-
1967. Santa Barbara, Calif.: American 
Bibliographical Center-Clio Press, 1969. 
Paper $5.50. Cloth $15.00. 
This is an updated version of the classic 

A Bibliography of the History of Agricul-
ture in the United States, by Everett E. Ed-
wards, published in 1930 as U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture Miscellaneous publica-
tion no. 84. The biennial Eunice Rockwell 
Oberley Award was presented to Mr. Schle-
becker in June 1971 for his work. 

It is a listing of 2,042 histories, govern-
ment reports, biograp'hies, and literary 
works which portray farming and rural life 
in all parts of the United States from the 
earliest settlement through 1967. Except for 
its subject, the new work differs consider-
ably from the Edwards bibliography. For 

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