College and Research Libraries


320 I College & Research Libraries • july 1978 

the field of knowledge. 
What was contemplated as a contemporary 

survey of the black academic library of the 
late 1960s is now a historical study. The 
delay in the publication may have been 
providential, for now we have a corpus of 
material to use in evaluating the present 
status of these libraries. The author states 
that the findings lend themselves to updat-
ing. This is a boon for researchers who may 
wish to use these results for further study. 

Smith's work seems to carry forth previ-
ous studies that agreed that in the history of 
black higher education libraries have consis-
tently remained below minimum standards. 
Each study reported progress and im-
provement, yet the libraries have not 
reached the status that they need to achieve 
in order to support the missions of their in-
stitutions. Generally, the studies suggest 
the infusion of substantial funds to enable 
these libraries to overcome their short-
comings. 

The book is divided into six chapters deal-
ing with historical perspectives, research 
studies, libraries in the black college, spe-
cial collections of black literature, and black 
academic libraries and research collections. 
There are four appendixes and an extensive 
bibliography. There are forty-four tables and 
one figure. 

Since the completion of the study, sig-
nificant developments have taken place and 
these developments are addressed in foot-
notes. Recommendations are made through-
out the study. The need for a follow-up 
study is assessed in the concluding chapter 
with examples of issues that need to be con-
sidered in future studies. 

Jessie Carney Smith's work can proudly 
take its place among the enduring pieces of 
library history. She has wrought wonder-
fully.-Casper LeRoy jordan, Atlanta Uni-
versity, Atlanta, Georgia. 

Barker, Nicolas. The Oxford University 
Press and the Spread of Learning, 1478-
1978. An Illustrated History by Nicolas 
Barker. With a Preface by Charles Rys-
kamp. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. 
69p. plus 332 plates. $25.00. LC 77-
30541. ISBN 0-19-951086-5. 
What a handsome book this is! Careful at-

tention to design, judicious selection of 

typeface, luxurious use of white space, and 
the inclusion of more than 300 excellent 
full- or half-page plates, some of which are 
in color, combine to make this volume a 
well-nigh sumptuous memento observing 
the quincentennial of its remarkable pub-
lisher. There is moreover wide variety of 
interest represented in the plates. Many are 
of title pages or openings of Oxford Univer-
sity Press books, but there are also repro-
ductions of landmark documents from the 
press archives; portraits of important figures 
in its history; pictures of buildings, compos-
ing rooms and pressrooms, type punches, 
and matrices; and other memorabilia depict-
ing its five centuries of service to scholar-
ship. It is an exciti.ng book to look at. 

It is more, however, than just a pretty 
book. Although he does not presume to 
supersede the several thorough textual his-
tories of the Oxford University Press, the 
author nonetheless provides an extensive 
and provocative commentary on the illus-
trations that comprises an excellent sum-
mary of its work. There is a full body of rel-
evant anecdotes, there are sketches of im-
portant events and circumstances, and there 
is an adequate chronological framework to 
give the whole a kind of sequential as well 
as spiritual unity. 

Here, for example, one finds accounts of 
the fascinating bibliographical "pre-history" 
of the town of Oxford, of its long association 
with Bible publishing, of the importation of 
the Fell types, and of the relationship of the 
press to the rest of the English trade. One 
finds also the stories of the great 
monuments of scholarship with which the 
press has been associated: Clarendon's His-
tory of the Rebellion, Pococke' s works on 
the Levant, Sir James Murray and the 
OED, Liddell and Scott's Greek and Eng-
lish Lexicon, and many others. Here are the 
personalities that made the press run-
Archbishop Laud, Dr. John Fell, Sir 
William Blackstone, and others-inspired 
by the author and illustrator with new life. 
Benjamin Jowett, for example, master of 
Balliol College, takes on a new dimension 
when we read the undergraduate doggerel: 

First come I. My name is Jowett. 
If it's knowledge, then I know it. 
If I don't, it isn't knowledge. 
I'm the Master of this College. 



We somehow know Charles Cannan better 
when we read that only he "knew the dif-
ference between the Oxford University 
Press and the Clarendon Press, and nobody 
dared ask him what it was" (p.54). 

Not quite everything, however, is well 
with this book. There are a couple of 
anomalies about it that must be animad-
verted upon. First is that, although the 
book is presumably an exhibition catalog, 
that presumption is no place addressed; its 
unusual structure and reference system 
would have been more immediately com-
prehensible had it been made clear, proba-
bly on the title page. Second is the unac-
countable omission of a number of illus-
trations; there are references in the text to 
some thirty-nine plates that were not in-
cluded in the volume reviewed, although 
that exemplar gave no appearance of being 
imperfect. 

These, however, are minor matters in a 
volume otherwise so excellent.-David 
Kaser, Indiana University, Bloomington. 

Librarians of Congress, 1802-1974. Wash-
ington: Library of Congress, 1977. 273p. 
$7. 75. LC 77-608073. ISBN 0-8444-
0238-9. (Available from Superintendent of 
Documents, U.S. Government Printing 
Office, Washington, DC 20402.) 
The first eleven administrators of our na-

tion's foremost library are successively in-
troduced to us in this handsome book. The 
esteemed historian who supplies the preface 
is the twelfth of that line. The series was 
commissioned originally for publication in 
the Quarterly journal of the Library of 
Congress, starting with the April1975 issue, 
to celebrate its 175th anniversary, which 
coincided with our country's bicentennial 
year. Nine of the eleven contributors are 
professionally linked to LC. All evidently 
used its resources while preparing their as-
signments. Portraits, holograph letters, and 
other archival photographs liberally illus-
trate the texts, each of which is meticu-
lously footnoted. 

Six of the subjects, including the first 
five, devoted relatively limited portions of 
their careers to library work. Each man is 
fleshed out personally, with his full range of 
activities reviewed in detail. We learn much 
about political events that have little to do 

Recent Publications I 321 

with the library. Five studied law and one 
was a physician, though most turned soon to 
politics. Three were journalists or author-
publishers, and one was a poet, while at 
least two others also built reputations by 
writing. Only one was a library school grad-
uate, but three others brought e~tensive li-
brary service to their appointments. Thomas 
Jefferson twice gave the post (with some 
hesitation) to the Clerk of the House of 
Representatives. Not until a Congressional 
investigation by the Joint Committee on the 
Library led to the dismissal of his second 
appointee were the two positions divorced. 

Until the Civil War the Joint Committee 
participated directly in such matters as de-
velopment of the book collection. In those 
early days the library was, in spite of fires, 
overcrowding, and other episodes of physi-
cal neglect, a social gathering place. Freder-
ick Marrayat called it "the best lounge at 
Washington" but observed that "the books 
are certainly not very well treated" (p. 72). 
Three early incumbents in a row were fired, 
for reasons varying from fiscal negligence 
or, worse, to alleged secessionist sym-
pathies. Another three nineteenth-century 
appointees served over thirty years each, 
but only two are remembered as significant 
figures in the library's history. Every ser-
vice of over fifteen years, however produc-
tive, closed with overtones of outlived use-
fulness. Time marches swiftly on, even in 
libraries. 

The final four biographies span the first 
three-quarters of the present century. Their 
tempo accelerates rapidly from such fin de 
siecle triumphs as moving into "the" new 
building, developing the LC classification 
system, and producing printed catalog 
cards. · Subsequent achievements, in spite of 
uneven financial support, have made the 
Library of Congress virtually, if not in 
name, our national library. We follow the 
various leadership styles of the latter-day li-
brarians with growing appreciation for their 
varied capabilities and years of fruitful work. 

The res~arch supporting these studies is 
for the most part competent and dependa-
ble. There are a few errors of fact, none of 
them substantive. John Russell Young is 
mistakenly identified as the only one who 
died in office (p.169). The article on Her-
bert Putnam leans heavily on previous