Ellen Mazur Thomson. Aesthetic Tracts: Innovation in Late-Nineteenth Century Book Design. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2015. 208p. Cloth, $55.00 (ISBN 9781584563365) Book Reviews 671 doi:10.5860/crl.77.5.671 and faculty dynamics weigh heavily in the directions and leadership roles in which the research library can actively partake and partner. The real leadership skills come from an active and dynamic team of librarians and library staff who work together and are led by a dean/director who provides vision and direction, doesn’t micromanage, supports professional development and career mentoring, and prioritizes the library budget toward those services and people who are making the most impact with the users in the local environment. Some of those innovations are mentioned in appendix A, so this is a good place to compare one’s current services with those that are radical innovations. In the end, real change only occurs when the money follows the radical innovations, and that is the real challenge for many library leaders and administra- tors.—Bradford Lee Eden, Valparaiso University Ellen Mazur Thomson. Aesthetic Tracts: Innovation in Late-Nineteenth Century Book Design. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2015. 208p. Cloth, $55.00 (ISBN 9781584563365) American publishers’ bindings are a product of innovation in printing: books were being printed faster and cheaper, and offering them in uniform cloth bindings allowed them to be sold at an affordable price, as well as serving as a marketing tool. The Arts and Crafts Movement, which venerated traditional craftsmanship, came about across the pond in direct opposition to the exact sort of industrialization that gave rise to publishers’ bindings. It might seem strange, then, that Ellen Mazur Thomson’s Aes- thetic Tracts: Innovation in Late-Nineteenth Century Book Design toggles back and forth between the two movements. In fact, her overriding focus on the development of design principles at the end of the nineteenth century winds through a variety of different movements (Japonisme, Impressionism, Art Nouveau), critical lenses (art history, material culture, design theory), and geographic locations (America, Britain, France). And while not all of the research is new and exciting (chapter 3, which covers Sarah Wyman Whitman’s book designs, will be familiar reading to those engaged in the study of publishers’ bindings) the cross-section that Thomson gives of the state of book design in this transitional period is a success. Thomson’s previous publications include The Origins of Graphic Design in America, 1870–1920, and American Graphic Design: A Guide to the Literature, and Aesthetic Tracts is most concerned with how the artists and bookbinders of the era sought to use book design as a means of self-expression. After giving a brief overview of printing technol- ogy and shifting cultural values to set the stage, Thomas devotes an entire chapter to Sarah Wyman Whiteman’s designs, and then another chapter to the production history and design of Historie des quatre fils Aymon. The remaining chapters are each devoted to a theme (“The Text and the Image: Conflict and Compatibility,” “The Writer as Book Designer,” and so on). These chapters are then chopped up into sections that focus on a particular artist or book. While the book is the medium in question throughout, the focus shifts from bindings to illustrations to typography and back again. An entire chapter devoted to Historie des quatre fils Aymon at first seems out of balance with the overall structure (it is the only chapter devoted to a single book, as opposed to a movement or group of artists). In reality, this is a wonderfully written account of an important book and, in this reviewer’s opinion, the source of Thomson’s strongest writing. Her analysis of Gillot’s compositional strategies is fascinating and insightful, and the narrative of the book’s production serves to introduce a number of important players from the period (Charles Gillot, Marius Michel, Charles Meunier, among oth- ers). Readers will have to decide for themselves if Thomson proves that, as she posits, “The Gillot/Grasset edition […] created a new form of graphic expression.” Unfortu- nately, Historie des quatre fils Aymon is the only subject that gets such a full and in-depth 672 College & Research Libraries September 2016 analysis. As previously noted, and to its credit, Aesthetic Tracts covers a lot of ground: the downside is that most of the books and artists are given only a brief description. Images in black and white are provided throughout; although they are not espe- cially large, the quality of the image is high. Happily, there is a section of color plates, although they depict only bindings and illustrations discussed in the first half of the book. A full page is dedicated to each color print, but the image itself takes up only about a third to a half of the page. There is a selected bibliography, which is in fact quite comprehensive, and the index is perfectly adequate. This book will provide an excellent overview of design at the end of the nineteenth century, and I recommend it (for reading) to librarians working with special collections from this period and (for purchase) to art and academic libraries that support art his- torical and history of design research. The structure might seem to lend itself to being read selectively or, if assigning this as classroom reading, to assign certain chapters in isolation. However, Aesthetic Tracts can and should be read through in its entirety to capture the full and at times messy picture of book design during this period (and at 135 pages there’s no good reason not to give the book its full due).—Dana Hart, Thomas J. Watson Library, New York, N.Y. Metaliteracy in Practice. Trudi E. Jacobson and Thomas P. Mackey, eds. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2016. 256p. Paper, $70.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1379-6) Mackey and Jacobson have followed up on the 2014 publication of Metaliteracy: Reinvent- ing Information Literacy to Empower Learners with Metaliteracy in Practice, a collection of case studies examining the practical application of metaliteracy to teaching. Thomas P. Mackey is Vice Provost for Academic Programs at SUNY Empire State College; Trudi E. Jacobson is Head of the Information Literacy Department at SUNY University at Albany. Mackey and Jacobson have developed their framework of metaliteracy to provide a broader view on how we use and produce information, moving from the skills-based approach of a wide variety of specific literacies to an all-encompassing inquiry-based model that encourages reflection about our interaction with information in the world around us. This metaliteracy model is the foundation of many aspects of the new ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education; Jacobson was a member of the task force that created this Framework. As such, this book is incredibly useful for all librarians who are navigating the transition from the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education to the new Framework. While their 2014 publication of Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners laid theoretical groundwork for metaliteracy, this volume provides practical application in the form of eight chapter-long case studies. The case studies come from diverse disciplines, presenting course-long (not one-shot) instruction that incorporates metaliteracy goals. Disciplines represented include nursing, writing and rhetoric, infor- mation literacy, education, and English. Most of the chapters include at least one author whose role is as instruction librarian. Amanda Scull makes a noteworthy contribution as both instructional and collection development librarian, bringing valuable perspec- tive on content creation for collection development within a metaliteracy framework. Each case study follows a similar outline, providing related literature and context before explaining the goals, assignments, and evaluation framework for a course that teaches metaliteracy as a core objective. Each case study focuses on developing met- aliterate students through practical work accompanied by reflective exercises, in which students are encouraged to think about how they have interacted with the information they have accessed, or about their experiences as producers of information. Activities include production or analysis of content for libguides, wikipedia, buzzfeed, the Map of Early Modern London (MoEML), and various social media platforms. doi:10.5860/crl.77.5.672