406 College & Research Libraries July 2012

ers take notes and keep track of their 
sources. Only chapter 5, “The Use of Ar-
chives and Special Collections,” attempts 
to analyze all eighty interview transcripts. 
It is curious that, with such a large base 
from which to draw data, the editors 
chose to compile only these thin “slices” 
rather than more comprehensive stud-
ies. The worth of the volume is severely 
limited by the small samples and the 
focus on transcripts from individual in-
stitutions. The differences noted in “How 
Faculty Members Use Journal Literature” 
(chapter 4), for example, would be more 
instructive if the author could also pro-
vide comparisons between institutions, 
between disciplines, or between faculty 
and students. In addition, the interviews 
took place in 2008, so the responses reflect 
a research landscape that has changed 
significantly in four short years.

There is value in asking questions 
about how our faculty and students find 
and interact with library resources, but 
it is unclear how much value there is in 
the way the answers are presented here. 
The chapters do a fair job of pulling out 
common threads from their small sample 
sets, but in general do not do a good job 
of answering the more important ques-
tion: “So what?” Chapter 6, “Personal 
Management of Scholarly Information,” 
goes into great detail on the filing systems 
and organizational principles used by 
faculty and graduate students (Do they 
store articles in print or electronic form? 
What labeling or naming conventions 
do they use? How do they take notes 
on articles and books?), yet the chapter 
does not provide any ideas on how or 
why this information could be useful 
to librarians in serving their users or to 
the XC Project team in designing next-
generation research tools. The authors are 
to be applauded for the ambitious nature 
of their user research project and for the 
wealth of data they have collected. It is 
regrettable that they were not similarly 
ambitious in analyzing and reporting the 
results.—Timothy Hackman, University of 
Maryland. 

John R. Turner. A Bibliography of Un-
authorised American Editions of The 
Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter 
1904–1980. Stroud, U.K.: Ian Hodgkins 
& Co., 2012. 228p. alk. paper. $60.00 
(ISBN 9780906460139).

The origin of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, as 
well as that of some other classic Beatrix 
Potter stories, was in illustrated letters 
Potter wrote to the children of her former 
governess. At the suggestion of a friend, 
Potter became intrigued by the idea of 
converting these letters into published 
books and, as a first attempt, expanded 
one of them into what she titled The 
Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor’s 
Garden. After being rebuffed by several 
publishers, Potter decided to have her 
story published privately, under its now 
familiar shortened title. This was done 
in two editions, in December 1901 and 
February 1902, in a combined total of 
450 copies. Shortly thereafter, staff at 
Frederic Warne & Co., one of the firms 
that had previously declined to publish 
Potter’s story, saw a copy of the privately 
printed Peter Rabbit and changed their 
minds about its prospects. They offered 
to publish the story with one major 
demand: that the illustrations, which in 
the first printings of the book are black 
and white line drawings, be published 
instead in color. Potter very reluctantly 
agreed to produce color versions of her 
pictures, and these were translated into 
print by Edmund Evans, the masterful 
color printer who had been responsible 
for the color reproductions in earlier 
English children’s books by artists such 
as Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway. The 
Warne edition of The Tale of Peter Rabbit 
appeared in October 1902, and, by the end 
of that year, about 28,000 copies had been 
sold. By the present day, it is thought that 
45 million copies have been sold, making 
it one of the best-selling books of all time.

One would naturally expect, with such 
overwhelming success in Great Britain, 
that Warne would wish to capture the 
American market as well, and that indeed 
was their intention. Unfortunately for 



Book Reviews 407

them and for Beatrix Potter, the proper 
steps to obtain United States copyright 
were not taken. In the United States the 
art, the story, and the characters within 
it entered the public domain, free for the 
use of anyone interested, and there was 
nothing that Warne or the author could do 
about it. From that curious error sprang 
the books and other items that are the 
subject of John Turner’s bibliography.

While some previous accounts of 
these American versions and derivations 
of Potter’s Tale have referred to them as 
piracies, this is not literally true as they 
were perfectly legal productions. The 
book describes 308 titles; the parameters 
of its scope are described in the introduc-
tion as this:

This bibliography attempts to describe 
all titles published in the United States 
between 1904 and 1980 which are ver-
sions of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, or 
which use the name Peter Rabbit; and 
which were not authorized by Frederick 
Warne. Publications which contain a 
printed text, even a brief outline, such 
as some games , ’talking’ books, or toy 
books, are included; publications with-
out a text, such as some colouring books, 
are not included. 

In 1904, the Philadelphia-based firm 
Henry Altemus was the first to realize and 
take advantage of Peter Rabbit’s accidental 
entry into the public domain and issued 
a close copy of Potter’s text and illustra-
tions. Over the next few decades, Altemus 
would publish titles such as Peter Rabbit’s 
Wedding Day and Peter Rabbit’s Easter with 
the stories and illustrations done by a 
variety of writers and illustrators. Other 
publishers took similar advantage of this 
free access to a famous character, and 
Potter’s Peter Rabbit found his way into 
stories never imagined by Potter, in de-
pictions veering wildly from her original 
drawings. The great majority of the items 
described are books, but, as the scope note 
indicates, nonbook items such as sound 
recordings and games are also included.

The bibliography is arranged alpha-
betically by the name of each publisher. 
Within each publisher’s section, the titles 
are arranged alphabetically. For some 
of the publishers, the author provides a 
brief descriptive history, with information 
gleaned from the Dictionary of Literary 
Biography, Wikipedia, and a few other 
sources. 

A typical item description consists of 
title and date of publication, name(s) of 
author and illustrator, a quasi-facsimile 
transcription of the title page (or front 
cover when title pages are lacking), a 
pagination description, height and width, 
a description of the binding, and the loca-
tion of the copy described. The vast major-
ity of the titles seen and described belong 
to one of six private collections: three of 
them English, three of them American. 
The author visited all three of the English 
collectors’ homes. One of these, Tony 
Yablon, works for the antiquarian book-
seller Ian Hodgkins & Co, the publisher 
of this book. Hodgkins was also one of 
the publishers of the 1983 reprint of Jane 
Quinby’s Beatrix Potter: A Bibliographical 
Check List, which is the principal bibliog-
raphy of Potter’s authorized publications 
and a natural complement to the present 
work. 

No doubt it was economics that de-
termined that only 11 of the 308 items 
are depicted on the 8 pages of color il-
lustrations located in the middle of the 
book. This is regrettable, as it would be 
delightful and useful to be able to see 
the myriad illustrated versions of Peter 
Rabbit that the book surveys. 

Some other minor quibbles: in the “Lo-
cation” field, the author uses a one-letter 
code to describe which collection the item 
belongs to: for example, Y for the Tony 
Yablon collection. This is an unnecessary 
and obfuscating false economy. There are 
indices for authors, illustrators, and titles; 
it would have been nice to also have a way 
to search for type of item (for example, 
for sound recordings or pop-up books). 
While in many cases it would be difficult 
or impossible to track down relevant in-



408 College & Research Libraries July 2012

formation, it would also have been good 
if some of the authors and illustrators 
received the kind of brief descriptions 
that the author provided for some of the 
publishing firms.

While obviously it is the private or 
institutional collector of these Tale of Peter 
Rabbit spinoffs who will find this book 
most useful, larger libraries or those with 
a strong interest in publishing history or 
children’s literature may also wish to add 
a copy of Turner’s book to their shelves. 
As far as one can tell, it is accurate and 
comprehensive, and it is unlikely to be 
superseded.—Scott Krafft, Northwestern 
University.

Middle Management in Academic and 
Public Libraries. Ed. Tom Diamond. 
Santa Barbara, Calif.: Libraries Un-
limited, 2011. 233p. acid-free paper, 
$45 (ISBN 9781598846898). LC 2011-
008554.

With the myriad challenges of managing 
staff within a library setting, Middle Man-
agement in Academic and Public Libraries 
explicates some of the best management 
practices for middle managers. Middle 
managers are defined as “librarians 
engaged in a supervisory role as a de-
partment or unit head, branch manager, 
project manager, or team leader.” This 
work highlights proven techniques and 
the management acumen of 20 librarians 
from both academic and public libraries. 
Management issues addressed range 
from the role of perceived balance of 
authority and responsibility of middle 
managers to improved customer service 
through collaborative efforts across de-
partments and the integration of modern 
technologies.

This anthology is divided into five sec-
tions, with each focused on an aspect of 
middle management. Each section offers a 
chapter or chapters containing a reference 
list and, in some instances, appendices, 
literature reviews, tables, and charts. The 
work also contains an index and a section 
about contributors to the book. The first 
section of the book discusses managing a 

unit or department within a library and 
managing staff within this department or 
unit. Topics discussed include results of 
surveyed middle managers that show a 
positive management experience is asso-
ciated with perceived balance of position-
al authority and positional responsibility. 
Other items examined in this section 
include the role of mentoring and coach-
ing for development of effective middle 
managers and the necessity of soft skills 
in managing the performance of staff that 
report to someone else. Examples are also 
provided where managers of special ser-
vice points, such as youth services, must 
overcome many challenges including 
inadequate levels of staff and budgetary 
resources, lack of understanding and sup-
port from coworkers and administration, 
and organizational structures that do not 
reflect contemporary workflows such as 
team-based management styles.

The second section contains a chapter 
that describes the design specifications 
of a proposed leadership developmental 
program at Pennsylvania State University 
(PSU) Libraries. It was designed in con-
junction with the PSU Human Resources 
Development Center to “attract, develop, 
and prepare Penn State librarians for mid- 
and high-level administrative positions 
in academic libraries.” Participants are 
selected from an applicant pool of inter-
ested, tenured librarians demonstrating 
an aptitude for an administrative career. 
The core pieces of this multifaceted pro-
gram include “mentoring, fellowship, 
and leadership development training.” 
The authors suggest that other institu-
tions design and implement a similar 
model so that the profession will produce 
administrators prepared for leading “in 
times of change.” 

The third section discusses managing 
cross-collaborations in various library 
settings. Collaborations across public 
services and technical services depart-
ments streamline processes and benefit 
users by eliminating barriers to content. 
Additional topics include the challenge 
for middle managers balancing compet-