College and Research Libraries 322 I College & Research Libraries • july 1978 treatments, particularly those of David Mearns. Any team approach to writing his- tory usually results in failures of interpretive continuity. Whatever coherence emerges is the result of generalized consensus, or is imposed from above. Subsidiary themes lack consistent development. Thus it is not easy to trace the long interplay between Joint CQmmittee and librarian from one essay to the next. The index, consisting almost en- tirely of proper names, gives some help under the surprising entry "Congress (U.S.), Joint Committee .... " Still the book supplies human insight on the evolution of a truly great library from a tiny legislative reference collection into an institution of na- tional and expanding international importance.-]eanne Osborn, University of Iowa, Iowa City. Thompson, Susan Otis. American Book De- sign and William Morris. New York: Bowker, 1977. 258p. $29.95. LC 77-8783. ISBN 0-8352-0984-9. What was the impact of William Morris as a printer and his Kelmscott Press books on American printers? This is one of the ques- tions Susan Otis Thompson seeks to answer in this book. She also deals with two other points-delineation of the arts-and-crafts style and distinctions between this style, art nouveau, and a third style she refers to as "aesthetic." American Book Design and William Morris is a carefully researched study and serves as a useful one-volume summary of Morris' influence on American printers. It primarily covers American printers and printing in the 1890s and early years of the twentieth century and seeks to categorize books of this period into the three styles mentioned above. Firms and printers touched upon include Copeland and Day, Bruce Rogers and J. M. Bowles, Daniel Berkeley Updike, Stone & Kimball, Way & Williams, Will Bradley, Frederic W. Goudy, Theodore L. DeVinne, Elbert Hubbard, Thomas Bird Mosher, and more. A final chapter provides a chronological dis- cussion and summary. The book under review is presumably printed by offset, but to read it comfortably under artificial light, one has to hold it at just the right angle. The volume measures 11 V.-by-8* inches and contains 111 illus- trations. No indication of original page size is given to show how much a given illustra- tion is enlarged or reduced. Something seems amiss with the illustration on page 13. Was the title page in a verso position, opposite the opening of the text, as shown? lbere are extensive notes at the end of each chapter, indicating quite a bit of delv- ing into contemporary trade journals and other sources. At the end of the book is a list of "Design Examples," arranged alpha- betically by author (292 books), and a very extensive fourteen-page list of "Textual Sources." Most of the manuscript material consulted is from the Columbia University Libraries. In chapter V, "The Arts and Crafts Book Model," the author summarizes Morris' statements on the physical book (Appendix, p.223-29) "in categories arranged in de- scending order of importance, according to the amount of space given them by Morris." Under "Format" she writes: "a. Often large: folio or quarto. b. Also full range of sizes and shapes.·· If one applies this statement to the Kelmscott Press books, as listed by Sparling in his bibliography, one finds that of 53 titles, there are 2 folios, 1 small folio, 14 large quartos, 3 medium quartos, 7 small quartos, 20 octavos, and 6 sixteenmos. If one takes only "folio" and "large quarto" as representing books of a larger format, then only one-third of the Kelmscott books fall under the "larger format" category. With regard to different styles, Dr. Thompson says in the Preface: . . . the Arts and Crafts style itself has to be de- lineated very precisely to show its particular in- fluence in what has seemed to be a mingled stream of fonns. The literature of book design is surprisingly lacking in such exact descriptions of book styles in any period. While generalizations are commonly made about incunabular, Renais~ sance, Baroque, Rococo, Neo-Classical, and Romantic bookmaking, few attempts have been made to set up limits separating one style from another. The exact constituents of the Arts and Crafts style show clearly which American books belong to it and which do not. Is there really a need for this kind of at- tempt to categorize books according to styles in such a precise fashion? A few errors and omissions noted: Sir Sydney Cockerell's name is misspelled on page 90; Will Ransom's Kelmscott, Doves and Ashendene (p.242) was published by the Book Club of California in San Francisco, not Los Angeles where the book was printed; and the Morris statements in the Appendix are not indexed under "Morris, William-views on bookmaking." Some printing historians might question the statement on page 208 that John Henry Nash "became the most famous printer in America." Perhaps a bit of hyperbole. The author teaches the history of books and printing in the School of Library Ser- vice, Columbia University.-Tyrus G. Harmsen , Occidental College, Los Angeles, California. Chen, Ching-chih. Scientific and Technical Information Sources. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1977. 519p. $24.95. LC 77- 9557. ISBN 0-262-03062-4. Guides to the literature of science and technology do not increase in numbers, for- tunately, as much as the literature itself does; but with each new guide on the mar- ket the inevitable comparisons with older Recent Publications I 323 and established titles occur. It was in 1954 that Frances Jenkins at the University of Il- linois produced her first edition of Science Reference Sources, that useful outlines that many of us science librarians cut our teeth on. Then in 1959 came Albert J. Walford's excellent Guide to Reference Material, pub- lished by The Library Association, with vol- ume one designated "Science and Technol- ogy." Both these stalwarts appeared in several subsequent editions over the years . Walford is still with us today, but Jenkins has earned a good rest and the present work is said to be taking over her banner. In 1967 another heavyweight-we use the term in reference to the quality and not the pagination-appeared; H. Robert Malinow- sky edited the work that now, in its second edition, is titled Science and Engineering Literature , A Guide to Reference Sources, with the good assist of Richard and Dorothy Gray. In 1972 Earl J. Lasworth and Scare- crow Press produced Reference Sources in Science and Technology. The first mentioned reference guides 18 000 ,: '}<,'' - -~{~(.~R11l ·~t;0 ~ (~ ~i0 , ·'Yf·- ~r;-~r- ~"~\~u~, ~~r:b LIBRARIANS .:u il }v ~ \ - 1;:~~\.~~~ \ r\ "'J ~- (~:...~'7- \ KNOW... ~ ~~ ,~/ ~~~~i . . . there's more to running a library than checking out books and checking '\___,/ in periodicals ... There ' s the exhilaration of introducing a five-year-old to Dr. Seuss. Or locating the periodical that gives precisely the information the student is searching for to document his term paper. Running a library also has its problems . Like keeping track of hundreds of subscriptions to periodicals . There are better ways for you to spend your day. Faxon 's automated subscription service will keep track of your subscrip- tions for you. You place one order and receive one invoice. Clear and ac- curate. There are so many exciting facets of library work . Now you ' ll have more time to discover them . Write for a copy of our Service Brochure and our annual LIBRARIANS' GUIDE. Or call today toll-free. Then you will know too! L1brary bu s1 n ess IS our o n ly IJu S1 ne ss- s m c e 1881 . [M]F.W. FAXOn COmPAnY, IHC. Library Magazine Subscription Agency 15 So uthwest Pa rk . W estw ood . Ma ss achusetts 02090 • Tel 800 - 225 - 7894 (toll-free) 6 17- 329 - 3350 (collec t 1n Mass a nd Ce~nada onlyj