Libraries & culture最新文献

{"title":"Our Own Selves: More Meditations for Librarians (review)","authors":"D. Davis","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0067","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0067","url":null,"abstract":"On the eve of his becoming president of the American Library Association the author has written another devotional book for the profession, a sequel to his popular Our Singular Strengths: Meditations for Librarians (ALA, 1998), which was reviewed in this journal in volume 34, number 3. The present volume adds more than 100 meditations to the 144 in the earlier volume. These are grouped under headings that are different from the first collection and refreshing to consider: “Reading and Books,” “Places,” “People,” “Values,” “Library Services,” “Then and Now,” “Technology,” “Practicalities,” “The Eightfold Path,” and “This and That.” Each of the meditations continues the format of the previous volume and consists of a brief quotation, drawn from a wide variety of prose and poetic sources, with citation; a paragraph or two of reflection on its relevance to librarianship; and a resolve that begins with “I will . . .” Although the present volume has more pages, it uses lighterweight paper and is actually smaller in size. To be sure, the quotations have an eclectic and idiosyncratic character, the reflections are largely personal and often didactic, the resolutions simplistic. Yet they make short pieces for vocational inspiration for librarians and their friends. Our profession can use some motivational writing that rises above the pep talks and hype of the technology vendors. This work will be useful as a token gift to library trustees and friends as well as a good handy gift for staff members. But anyone can profit from a daily or periodic dipping into the short pieces. After all, any book that begins with a quotation from Lawrence Clark Powell, followed by one by Samuel Johnson, shows immediate promise. The author’s embrace of Buddhist ideals comes through most clearly in section 9, entitled “The Eightfold Path,” which underscores several principles and concludes with the Golden Rule. Recurring line drawings by his daughter Emma Gorman reinforce the continuity of the work’s format. Michael Gorman is known for his staunch, energetic, and thoughtful defense of librarianship as a critical profession in human society, and his writing demonstrates his breadth of knowledge and depth of commitment. In a period when library directors and candidates for professional offices seem to write little more than grant proposals, technical manuals, or campaign rhetoric, Gorman’s steady stream of writing and publications still stirs the blood of many readers, some with enthusiastic resonance and others with studied antipathy if not anger. The author strives to eschew what he calls the “religiosity[,] . . . smarminess[,] and pomposity” (xi) common in this genre, but his degree of success will doubtless be assessed by the eye of the beholder—or, in this case, the mind of the reader. Following the positive reception of the earlier volume, this short book should fulfill the hope of the author that “these thoughts on the many facets of librarianship [will] establish the kin","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"581 - 582"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0067","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66796299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Foundations of Library and Information Science, 2nd ed. (review)","authors":"D. Davis","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0068","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"582 - 583"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0068","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66796401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848 (review)","authors":"Rosamond Hooper-Hamersley","doi":"10.1353/lac.2005.0072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/lac.2005.0072","url":null,"abstract":"French Salons: High Society and Political Sociability from the Old Regime to the Revolution of 1848 challenges the historiography of salon culture in eighteenthand nineteenth-century France. Steven Kale frames his exposé against the backdrop of the Republic of Letters and the grande monde and culminates with the decline of French salons in the nineteenth century. From a methodological perspective Kale incorporates the testimony of salon habitués through his prodigious use of memoirs and journals. The value of such fecund material will be familiar to readers of Libraries & Culture. The disparate voices of French salons, including Mme du Deffand and Mme de Staël in the eighteenth century to the duchesse de Dino and the princesse de Lieven in the nineteenth century, offer competing views on the influence of salonnières. Kale reconstructs salon history through an institutional approach, considering its evolution, function, and persistence, rather than a conventional examination of “women in salons per se” (16). He dismisses “literary studies and historical scholarship” that claim a salonoriented matriarchy politically reigning over le monde as inflated and fantastical discourse (39). He concurs with Adeline Daumard’s repudiation of salonnières as political. Daumard states that “women of the highest society and the best circles at court did not have . . . the power either to make the careers of a man they honored or to determine public affairs by friends interposed” (8). Kale skeptically questions the validity of French salons as idealized spheres of feminine power, seeking instead an accurate representation of salonnières. He departs from Joan Landes in Women in the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Cornell University Press, 1988) and Dena Goodman in The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (Cornell University Press, 1994). Landes focuses her argument on aristocratic “women [who] functioned as adjuncts, then, of a system of advancement for merit. Circles at court and salons in the city became centers of female power brokers” (24). Goodman proposes that the goal of Enlightenment salons “was to satisfy the self-determined educational needs of women who started them” (76). Kale is unconvinced by Goodman’s premise that salonnières helped to engineer autonomy for the Republic of Letters from le monde (242). Jolanta Pekacz supports this objection, holding that salonnières would not violate their sex through “illegitimate claims” promulgated by social and intellectual desires (Conservative Tradition in Pre-Revolutionary France: Parisian Salon Women [Peter Land, 1999], 12). Kale debunks women’s power as “an optical illusion” (40). By the nineteenth century, he argues, “the power of women to harmonize the world was largely a fiction, [and] so was their ability to influence policy and events from behind the scenes” (146). These were women consumed","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"566 - 567"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/lac.2005.0072","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66796434","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Libraries, the Internet, and Scholarship: Tools and Trends Converging (review)","authors":"K. L. Anders","doi":"10.1353/lac.2005.0063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/lac.2005.0063","url":null,"abstract":"The idea of creating a single work to describe, analyze, and provide solutions for the multitude of challenges related to just what it means to become a “digital library” would be such an arduous undertaking that it would cause Hercules himself to shake his head in frustration. As editor Charles F. Thomas acknowledges, “Research libraries are in the midst of an identity crisis,” stemming in great part from internal and external expectations to become more digital (iii). The million-dollar question is, To what degree are these expectations feasible, and how will this opinion change over time? Libraries, the Internet, and Scholarship: Tools and Trends Converging is a compilation that may not offer all the answers, but along the way it sheds light on many questions and issues that various libraries will continue to face for years to come. It would be a useful resource for library school students, information professionals, and librarians in any discipline as an aid to understanding the challenges that may arise in balancing the access to information in various formats with the inevitable technological and logistical hurdles that can and do present themselves in the process. The book is comprised of a collection of essays that are written in a way that would be informative for novices but also useful as fodder for additional discussion to those who are more seasoned in the field. In chapter 1, “Libraries and Digital Preservation: Who Is Providing Electronic Access for Tomorrow?” Kelly Russell discusses how technology and digital preservation of materials can simultaneously offer benefits and unforeseen challenges. Chapter 2 focuses on “the Internet, scholarly communication, and collaborative research,” in which author Rosemary L. Meszaros discusses how economics and efficiency are changing the face of scholarly publishing. In chapter 3, “From Virtual Libraries to Digital Libraries: The Role of Digital Libraries in Information Communities,” author David Robins discusses the potential positives and pitfalls inherent in the creation and maintenance of digital libraries. In yet another highly technical section author William Fietzer addresses the concept of integrating metadata frameworks into library description in chapter 4. Authors David P. Atkins and Flora G. Shrode approach the subject of technology’s impact on research and publication in the natural sciences in chapter 5. Chapter 6 concerns electronic text encoding in the humanities, and author Perry Willett addresses issues such as moving from print to digital format and issues that may arise in encoding characters, documents, and literary works. Paula Hardin discusses visual resources collections and technology in chapter 7, offering an interesting example of a digital visual resources project, among other topics. In chapter 8 author Farrell W. Jones provides an introduction to geographic information systems that includes definitions of what a GIS system is and is not as well as an historical ove","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"580 - 581"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/lac.2005.0063","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66796520","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome (review)","authors":"J. Pierce","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0077","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0077","url":null,"abstract":"the world. Likewise, “Electrification and the Cosmopolitan Web” deals with telecommunications, computers, and the Internet in the twentieth century. However, in his reflective conclusion William McNeill writes: “The central argument of this book is that throughout their history humans used symbols to create webs that communicated agreed-upon meanings and so, as time went by, sustained cooperation and conflict among larger and larger groups of people. . . . The human career on earth is unique, since no other species, not even termites, or ants, has ever deployed such a flexible and capacious web of communications to concert common effort on anything approaching human scale” (323–24). Surely, the library has historically been an institution to facilitate this process. In his final words he writes further that despite the catastrophes that are likely to befall the race, human beings “need face-to-face primary communities for long-range survival: communities, like those our predecessors belonged to, within which shared meanings, shared values, and shared goals made life worth living for everyone, even the humblest and least fortunate.” This coincides well with the community values thinking in the current library profession. But there is a final twist. He surprisingly concludes that, in the end, “religious sects and congregations are the principal candidates for this role. But communities of belief must somehow insulate themselves from unbelievers, and that introduces frictions or active hostilities into the cosmopolitan web” (326–27). I would not be the first to suggest that libraries and religious congregations, despite the tensions they introduce, share some common traits that engender civility in the commitment to and the search for reality and truth. The McNeills have achieved a magnificent synthesis of the many strands that make world history a human story linking every community into a whole with reciprocal links to the earth on which they exist. This brief but provocative survey will illuminate the world in which cultural records play a critical role. One cannot recommend it too highly.","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"569 - 570"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0077","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66796849","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Early American Imprint Bibliography and Its Stories: An Introductory Course in Bibliographical Civics","authors":"D. W. Krummel","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0050","url":null,"abstract":"The stories of the bibliographies that describe our country's early books are not only engaging but also helpful to remember as we use the bibliographies and plan for their successors. The stories behind Evans, Shaw-Shoemaker, Roorbach and Kelly, and the Bibliography of American Imprints explain their differences. Besides helping us measure our nation's bibliographical record, they also point to the need for study of the history of local printers, highlighted in the work of McMurtrie, detailed in the Tanselle Guide to the Study of United States Imprints, and filled with curious and useful stories of their own.","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"239 - 250"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0050","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66795571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"American Bookwomen in Paris during the 1920s","authors":"M. N. Maack","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0051","url":null,"abstract":"Using the lens of gender, this essay examines the lives and collective contributions of American women who participated in the book world of Paris during the 1920s. The focus is on the American Library in Paris, which inherited the American Library Association (ALA) Library War Service reference collection and the Paris Library School operated by ALA from 1923 to 1929. Working in each of these settings, women found innovative ways to make American books and print culture more widely known in France.","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"399 - 415"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0051","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66795673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Libraries & Culture to the Bibliotheque nationale","authors":"B. W. Oliver","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0054","url":null,"abstract":"In her work as the assistant editor of Libraries & Culture, the author has had the opportunity to learn about the value of library history as an area of scholarly research. This accumulated knowledge has contributed greatly to her continuing interest in and research on French cultural institutions during the revolutionary period, from 1789 to 1815, notably, the Bibliothèque nationale and the Louvre. In the process she has gained a deeper appreciation of the sometimes heroic efforts of French librarians and curators to preserve and enrich the collections that comprise their national heritage.","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"455 - 459"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0054","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66796050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Quantifying the \"Goodness\" of Library History Research: A Bibliometric Study of the Journal of Library History/Libraries & Culture","authors":"Andrew B. Wertheimer","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0060","url":null,"abstract":"Library historians use primarily qualitative research methods, unlike most in LIS, who adopt social science research methods. This contrast becomes problematic when evaluating the goodness of historical research. This article briefly explores this conflict and crosses the methodological divide by adapting both bibliometrics and qualitative approaches to examine four volumes from the Journal of Library History (1967, 1977) and its successor, Libraries & Culture (1987, 1997), in order to observe transitions. The sample, 497 citations from 53 articles, was tabulated by age, self-citation, and other factors to examine the goodness of historical research.","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"267 - 284"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0060","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66796135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"European Integration: Are Romanian Libraries Ready?","authors":"H. Anghelescu","doi":"10.1353/LAC.2005.0042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/LAC.2005.0042","url":null,"abstract":"Romania is scheduled to join the European Union in January 2007. This paper examines Romanian libraries' readiness for integration into the Western European library network from various perspectives: collections, services, library science education, infrastructure, staffing, and professional engagement. Since the demise of the Communist regime in December 1989 Romanian libraries have been striving to overcome the Communist legacy, which consists of poor infrastructure, dated collections, restricted access to information, lack of modern equipment, and inadequate information and communication technologies. During the fifteen-year post-Communist period some progress has been made. However, Romanian libraries and their services, along with Romanian library and information science education, are lagging behind their counterparts in Western Europe. More commitment on behalf of the bodies that oversee libraries and adequate budgets from the funding agencies would lead to improvements on the library scene in Romania and would contribute to the attenuation of the East-West divide, preparing libraries in this country to operate according to Western European standards.","PeriodicalId":81853,"journal":{"name":"Libraries & culture","volume":"40 1","pages":"435 - 454"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2005-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1353/LAC.2005.0042","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66795401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}