{"title":"Record-Making and Record-Keeping in Early Societies","authors":"Bradley J. Wiles","doi":"10.5325/libraries.7.2.0220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/libraries.7.2.0220","url":null,"abstract":"Much of contemporary scholarship in the archival studies field grapples with the problems of today and tomorrow—how archivists might structure their work methods, institutional operations, and conceptual framings for immediate and long-term solutions in preserving and making available archival collections. As such, theoretical and practical approaches within the archives profession tend not to delve too far into the past for inspiration or direction, both because of the increasingly technology-focused nature of archival work and because of growing consensus around which usable histories and modern conceptual lenses ought to inform the profession going forward. Record-Making and Record-Keeping in Early Societies, by Geoffrey Yeo, feels exceptional in this regard, as it wisely avoids such presentist filters in offering a detailed and comprehensive analysis of records production across several premodern societies.As an internationally recognized scholar, the University College London–affiliated Yeo has long been an authority on archives and records management in contemporary and historical contexts. Record-Making and Record-Keeping in Early Societies shows that humans have always had limited biological capacity for memory but could usually muster the wherewithal to innovate and gain new abilities commensurate with the growing complexity and changing needs of our societies. As Yeo illustrates, this occurred all over the world among different cultures at various points in history, sometimes as part of a chain of regional cultural diffusion and at other times in relative isolation. But Yeo is careful not to conflate current understandings of record making and keeping that suggest a perennial “urge to record” or compulsion to organize and find meaning; instead, early records activity “probably arose from relatively short-term needs” in providing evidence and supporting individual and collective memory (182).Record-Making and Record-Keeping in Early Societies is organized into eight thematic chapters that offer examples from around the ancient world, including Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, China, and the Americas. Yeo begins in the distant preliterate Neolithic era, when marks and seals were employed as symbols of ownership, property, and accounting in predominantly herding and farming communities. As such, these precursors to records should be understood as “persistent representations” of activities and events of that time, rather than in how they may have been collected or utilized beyond their immediate sociomaterial context (x). Yeo demonstrates that the creation of any recording device or system from this time was tied to its effectiveness at facilitating contemporaneous business functions, and any longevity it held was contingent on its adaptability to shifting social and cultural realities. For example, in what is now Syria, from about 6000 to 4600 BCE, the ubiquitous presence of family seals on pottery, containers, and other durable items found in ","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135388747","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lucien Herr: Socialist Librarian of the French Third Republic","authors":"Edith Mulhern","doi":"10.5325/libraries.7.2.0229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/libraries.7.2.0229","url":null,"abstract":"Lucien Herr may not be a household name, but his influence in Third Republic France was considerable. This book examines his professional career at two important Parisian cultural institutions, the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) and Musée pédagogique (MP), as well as his commitment to socialism.The author, Anne-Cécile Grandmougin, is the deputy director of the library at the University of Paris 8 (Vincennes-Saint-Denis). This work is her thesis for her library curator diploma (DCB) at the French National Library and Information Science School (Enssib). Tegan Raleigh is a freelance translator, who holds an MFA in Literary Translation and a PhD in comparative literature.Grandmougin explains that Herr’s socialist activism has overshadowed his pioneering roles as a librarian at the prestigious ENS from 1888 to 1926 and the Pedagogical Museum from 1916 until 1926. Following a humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, the nascent Third Republic was anxious to close the perceived gap with Germany, orienting the grandes écoles system, of which the ENS was a part, toward a greater focus on the burgeoning social sciences. Although surviving primary sources are sparse, she argues that it is important to assess his contribution to the ENS Library and to French education more broadly. Further, she uses the available sources to reconstruct how he selected materials for the library, and what functions he believed it should serve.Herr’s devotion to the library was exceptional, and while he never explicitly stated his idea of what the role of a library ought to be, the author uses his extant papers, including correspondence, official reports, and book reviews and other scholarly articles, to sketch out his activities and principles. Beyond selecting books, Herr read prodigiously, actively guided students’ research by tracking down and suggesting materials, and set up and maintained international scholarly exchange networks to facilitate the acquisition of foreign materials.Against the backdrop of significant social and political reforms, Herr sought to broaden access to information. This meant not only the kinds of materials collected, but their intended audience. Grandmougin shows that whether Herr was opening up the stacks at the ENS, or sending films and slides to schools in the provinces, his work was closely aligned with his ideological principles.However, this devotion did not mean that Herr only acquired materials with whose contents he agreed. Grandmougin presents evidence that his concern for the library was more focused on quality, usefulness, and innovation. Further, given financial constraints and the sheer volume of works being produced, Herr needed to be selective. So his stated aim was that the collection should contain “the primary, essential instruments . . . for all works . . . I knew it would always be impossible to complete a special scholarly work with our resources alone, but I thought that it should be possible to undertake and","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135388750","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Publishing for the Popes: The Roman Curia and the Use of Printing (1527–1555)","authors":"Chris W. Cullnane","doi":"10.5325/libraries.7.2.0227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/libraries.7.2.0227","url":null,"abstract":"This work, a revision of the author’s PhD thesis completed at the University of London, compels us to rethink the idea that the Papacy could only muster weak, sporadic publishing efforts in the 1500s while Luther, Calvin, and other reformers operated a robust publishing campaign powered by the new printing technologies. Sachet brings considerable expertise to this project, including fluency in various modern European languages, previous research on Renaissance book history, and related teaching at the Università degli Studi di Milano. His previous books include The Afterlife of Aldus: Posthumous Fame, Collectors and the Book Trade, co-edited in 2018.Publishing for the Popes is an important contribution to book history and Counter-Reformation history in that it captures the complex relationship between an increasingly powerful governmental institution, the mid-sixteenth-century papacy, and a relatively new medium of communication, printing by means of moveable type. This nexus transpired in Rome, the geographic heart of the Catholic Church, where several attempts were made by the Curia to publish books, often in connection with other Italian printing centers at Venice, Florence, and Bologna.Readers will benefit from having background information about the Papacy’s publishing activities before they dive into this specialized work. The opening chapter posits “whether the attempts made by the Catholic Church in Rome and elsewhere in Italy to harness printing can be treated as evidence of a policy, that is, a line of action pursued with sufficient coherence, despite the frequent changes in leadership” (5). Among his goals, Sachet attempts to “reconstruct the curial experiments with printing . . . all in the service of the papacy and the Catholic struggle against Protestantism” (207). He gives an overview of the key people (including some librarians) and published works resulting from this experiment, and he discusses how the publishing campaign sought to support and equip the Catholic clergy. Early in the book, in chapter 2, Sachet provides an overview of the Catholic Church’s employment of printers in the early decades of the sixteenth century and the purposes of its various printing projects (10).Many of the subsequent chapters outline Cardinal Marcello Cervini’s contribution to the beginnings of the papacy press (Cervini was later elected Pope Marcellus II). Cervini’s career and cultural interests included book collecting and the study of classics, religious literature, and ecclesiastical history (62). Of special interest to LCHS readers, Sachet highlights some of Cervini’s accomplishments as the head of the Vatican Library for several years. He came to be known as a cardinale editore (cardinal editor), and no one exceeded his mammoth book publishing efforts (65), which included ninety printed editions. He established Greek and Latin presses dedicated to publishing the Vatican Library’s holdings in those languages, and he also printed a wealth of i","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135388754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Welcome from the Editors","authors":"","doi":"10.5325/libraries.7.1.v","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/libraries.7.1.v","url":null,"abstract":"Editorial| March 17 2023 Welcome from the Editors Libraries: Culture, History, and Society (2023) 7 (1): v–viii. https://doi.org/10.5325/libraries.7.1.v Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Permissions Search Site Citation Welcome from the Editors. Libraries: Culture, History, and Society 17 March 2023; 7 (1): v–viii. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/libraries.7.1.v Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressLibraries: Culture, History, and Society Search Advanced Search In summer 1992, I, Bernadette, was an exchange student in Bratislava, in what was then Czechoslovakia. I had no ancestral connection to the region, hadn’t studied it at school, and didn’t know the language—but I was eager to see any part of Europe, and the American Field Service was offering a deep discount for anyone willing to enter a country that was in the process of splitting apart. Though I saw some of the Baroque architecture and artwork that drew me overseas, my most memorable experiences were of daily life in a place that had been heavily influenced by communism. My host family lived in a cement-block apartment, ate simple suppers at a neighborhood cafeteria, and wore the same clothes for several days in a row. Also, their home contained three shelves of yellowed paperbacks that had recently been moved to the parlor after having been kept for years in... You do not currently have access to this content.","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136181302","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Academic Librarian Faculty Status. Compiled and written by Edgar Bailey and Melissa Becher. Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2022. 163 pp. Paperback, $52.00 (978-0-8389-3664-1)","authors":"MaryAlice Wade","doi":"10.5860/crl.84.6.1002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.6.1002","url":null,"abstract":"The very concept of tenure is currently under fire across the nation as several states have proposed or passed legislation that severely weakens or eliminates tenure. Beyond tenure, faculty rights, including shared governance and academic freedom, are also under attack. Whether librarians should have faculty status, rank, or tenure has been controversial for decades, further complicated by these conditions in higher education. The topic is the focus of Academic Librarian Faculty Status , #47 in the CLIPP series, a publishing program under the auspices of the ACRL College Libraries Section that provides college and small university libraries with analysis and examples of library practices and procedures (vii).","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135318655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Well Does ChatGPT Handle Reference Inquiries? An Analysis Based on Question Types and Question Complexities","authors":"Katie Lai","doi":"10.5860/crl.84.6.974","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.6.974","url":null,"abstract":"To explore whether artificial intelligence can be used to enhance library services, this study used ChatGPT to answer reference questions. An assessment rubric was used to evaluate how well ChatGPT handled different question types and difficulty levels. Overall ChatGPT’s performance was fair, but it did poorly in information accuracy. It scored the highest when handling facilities and equipment-related questions but the lowest when dealing with e-resources access problems. ChatGPT was weak in answering advanced research questions, complex inquiries, and known item searches relating to a specific local environment, but it could be adopted to enhance library communication with users.","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135319159","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Belinha S. De Abreu. Media Literacy for Justice: Lessons for Changing the World. Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2022, 184 p. $54.99 ($49.49 ALA members) ISBN: 978-0-8389-4892-7","authors":"Hannah Cole","doi":"10.5860/crl.84.6.996","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.6.996","url":null,"abstract":"There can be no doubt that the contributors to this work understand the gravity of media literacy and its connection to social justice. As Asha Rangappa, former FBI agent and senior lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, notes in the preface, “Media literacy–the ability to discern the accuracy, credibility, or evidence of bias in media content–is now literally a matter of life and death in America.” Written in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this book offers “school library media specialists, classroom teachers of various subject areas, higher educators, and non-profits that do work in K–12 and higher education” a space to discuss and share resources surrounding media literacy and its intersection with social justice, given the quickly changing landscape of media and the role it played during the pandemic (xix). As is the case with many broad reaching and quickly produced collections, the content is, at times, uneven and surface level. However, there are valuable resources here, especially for those who are interested in lesson and activity planning.","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135319191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Discovery and Recovery: Uncovering Nazi Looted Books in the UCLA Library and Repatriation Efforts","authors":"Diane Mizrachi, Michal Bušek","doi":"10.5860/crl.84.6.920","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.6.920","url":null,"abstract":"This is the story of six books looted by Nazis from the Jewish Religious Community Library in Prague (JRCLP) that were discovered recently in the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Library. No scholarly literature describing similar experiences of North American academic libraries was found, nor were any professional guidelines for repatriating library materials. We describe our repatriation process, explore the historical contexts of the Nazi confiscation of millions of books and describe the Allies’ post-war restitution efforts. As the digitization of academic library holdings worldwide progresses, the probability of uncovering more material of questionable provenance increases. This case study can open a dialog on the issue.","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135319152","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Improving Contract Negotiations for Library Collections through Open Records Requests","authors":"John Eye","doi":"10.5860/crl.84.6.954","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.6.954","url":null,"abstract":"Open records requests can be an important tool in obtaining valuable information to use in negotiations with content providers. This paper examines the opportunities libraries have in requesting public information through open records requests to better support their purchasing decisions. The case is made for investing time up front to better understand contract terms and pricing already secured by public entities, using that knowledge to improve their position in the negotiating process.","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135319389","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reframing the Library Residency Narrative","authors":"LaTesha Velez, Michelle Rosquillo","doi":"10.5860/crl.84.6.907","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.6.907","url":null,"abstract":"We must reframe deficit-based residency narratives and provide welcoming, inclusive, and productive working environments to make library residencies an enriching experience for our new colleagues. This research reports survey responses asking how residency supervisors and coordinators communicate with stakeholders to ensure residents work in a welcoming and inclusive environment. We also asked how staff concerns are mitigated and how conversations are framed to avoid miscommunications and microaggressions. Responses echoed issues raised in existing literature, such as suggesting residents’ titles be changed to ones that more accurately describe their job duties and make it clear that residents are not students.","PeriodicalId":10686,"journal":{"name":"College & Research Libraries","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135319904","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}