ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


2 2 6  /  C&RL News ■ A p r il 2004

N e w  P u b l i c a t i o n s George M. Eberhart

T h e  Beinecke Library o f Yale University,
edited by Stephen Parks (239 pages, February 
2004), pays tribute to the collections, the staff, 
and the architecture o f Y ale’s 4 1-year-old rare 
book library. Included are essays, by each o f the 
Beinecke curators, on the collections’ move from 
the Stirling library in 1963, early manuscripts and 
books, modem books and manuscripts, the Ameri­
can literature collection, the Osborn collection of 
English manuscripts, the German literature col­
le c tio n , W estern A m erican a, and  the m usic 
manuscripts. Beautifully illustrated w ith p ho­
tos o f the building and its treasures. B ein eck e 
Rare B o o k  and M anu script Library. $ 5 0 .0 0 . 
ISBN  0 -8 4 5 7 -3 1 5 0 -5 .

Care and H a n d lin g  o f C D s and DVDs: A  
Guide fo r Librarians and Archivists, by Fred 
R. Byers (42 pages, October 2003), offers advice 
on disc preservation, cleaning, storage, and lon­
gevity, and presents a guide to the basic structure 
o f different types o f CDs and DVDs. A glossary 
defines current abbreviations and jargon. Council 
on  Library and Information Resources. $15.00. 
ISBN 1-932326-04-9.

T h e  C h ro n o lo g y  o f A m erican Literature,
edited b y D aniel S. Burt (805 pages, February 
2004), presents a year-by-year history o f fiction, 
nonfiction, essays, poetry, drama, criticism, jour­
nalism, essays, diaries, religious writings, and awards 
published in the United States, from Hakluyt’s 
Voyages in 1582 to Edwin G. Burrows and Mike 
W allace’s 1999 social history o f New York City, 
G otham . Not just a list, this chronicle provides a 
summary and context for each work, and is di­
vided into five major sections: the colonial period 
(1582-1789), nationalism and romanticism (1790- 
1860), realism and naturalism (1 861-1914), the 
birth o f modernism (1915-1949), and modern­
ism and postmodernism (1950-1999). Houghton 
Mifflin. $40.00. ISBN 0-618-16821-4.

Far more detailed is The Oxford Encyclopedia o f  
A m erican Literature, edited by Jay Parini (4 vols., 
February 2004), which contains some 350 essays

G eo rge M. Eb erh art is sen ior ed ito r o f A m erica n  
Libraries, e-mail: geberhart@ ala.org

o n  U.S. literature from  colonial times to the 
present. In addition to the 241 author biographies 
are close examinations of such works as C atcher in 
the Rye and A R aisin in  the Sun and treatments of 
such major themes as Black Mountain poetry, the 
new  formalism, and writing as a wom an in the 
20th century. Parini writes in the preface that he 
discouraged his essayists from using jargon and 
theorizing excessively, yet he asked them to place 
their subjects within the context o f recent theory 
and literary practice. Oxford University. $495.00. 
ISBN 0-19-516724-4.

Dr. Seuss: Am erican Icon, by Philip Nel (301 
pages Ja n u a ry  2004), thoroughly examines the 
poetry, art, and prose o f Theodor Seuss Geisel 

fro m  sev e ra l s ta n d ­
points. Nel puts Seuss’s 
nonsense verse in the 
same category as the best 
linguistic experiments of 
Lewis Carroll and Ed­
ward Lear, and argues 
that World War π trans­
fo rm e d  G e is e l in to 
America’s first anti-Fas- 
cist children’s writer, in­
spiring him to write such 
activist books as Horton 

H ears a  W ho! ( 1954), Yertle the Turtle(1958), and 
T he L orax  (1971). Other themes studied are the 
influences on  his artistic style, the posthumous 
repackaging o f Seussiana by the corporation run 
by his widow Audrey, and how Seuss characters 
have entered popular culture. Supplemented with 
a dense, 72-page, annotated bibliography. Con­
tinuum. $27.95. ISBN 0-8264-1434-6.

E x p lo rin g  Polar Frontiers: A  Historical En ­
cyclopedia, by William Jam es Mills (797 pages,
2 vols., D ecem ber 2003), is a treasure trove o f 
information on expeditions to the Arctic and the 
Antarctic, from Pytheas the G reek ’s voyage to 
Ultima Thule in 325 B.C. to Børge Ousland’s first 
solo crossing o f the Arctic O cean  in 2001. Ex­
plorers and topics (such as cartography, means of 
transport, and expedition goals) are covered in 
detail, as well as the history of specific geographi­

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


C&RL News ■ A p ril 2004 / 227

cal locations (Amund Ringnes Island and King 
Christian X  Land, for example)— a useful feature 
that offers a different perspective from conven­
tional exploration narratives. A glossary, timeline, 
bibliography, 20 maps, and numerous photographs 
enhan ce this impressive effort b y Mills, w ho is 
librarian at the Scott Polar R esearch Institute at 
the University of Cambridge. ABC-CLIO. $185.00. 
ISBN 1-57607-422-6.

G e t t y s b u r g : M e m o ry, M a rk e t, a n d  an 
A m erican  Sh rine , by Jim  W eeks (267 pages, 
April 2003), offers an unusual and controversial 
look at the town. Although known as a shrine to 
history and the reunion o f North and South, the 
Gettysburg battlefield has always had a commer­
cial side unlike any other Civil War memorial. A 
local studio was selling sets of photographic battle­
field views as soon as five months after the battle, 
and the town has long been a magnet for museum- 
goers, souvenir-hunters, and, more recently, re­
enactors. Weeks charts the changing methods en­
trepreneurs have used to market Gettysburg as an 
educational attraction and the varied tourist e x ­
periences that have made it memorable over the 
years. (Full disclosure: I grew up in the town and 
my great-grandfather was a hotelier who encour­
aged the tourist trade at the turn o f the last cen­
tury, so I have seen both its sacred and profane 
aspects.) Princeton University. $29.95. ISBN 0- 
691-10271-6.

H o w  Ea rly A m e rica  So u n d e d , by Richard 
Cullen Rath (227 pages, January 2004), reveals a 
long-forgotten son ic world o f mystery and nu­
ance that existed in 18th-century America. Our 
pre-industrial ancestors were acutely attuned to a 
tangible soundscape filled with harmony and dis­
sonance, accent, and rhythm that is unavailable to 
us. Rath n otes the significance o f  the sound o f 
thunder, water, and wind in early America; the 
use o f music in defining a community; the singu­
larly sonorous qualities of colonial meetinghouses; 
the specific meanings o f murmuring and ranting 
am ong Q u ak er com m unities; and the Native 
American concept o f sound and utterance as em­
bodied acts o f identity. Cornell University. $32.50. 
ISBN 0-8014-4126-9.

T h e  K o v a c s  G u id e  to Electro n ic Lib ra ry  
Collection Developm ent, by Diane K. Kovacs 
and Kara L. Robinson (251 pages, January 2004), 
gives advice on developing and maintaining a col­
lection o f Web-accessible information resources.

The authors suggest collection development prin­
ciples, evaluation guidelines, selection criteria, and 
core collections for major subject areas. Scattered 
throughout the text are case studies o f e-library 
collections at such institutions as the National 
Library o f  M edicine, the University o f  Califor­
nia-Riverside, and Iow a State University. Neal- 
Schuman. $125.00. ISBN 1-55570-483-2.

Lie Detectors: A  So cial History, by Kerry 
Segrave (218 pages, February 2004), examines the 
shaky history o f the polygraph— an instrument 
that records physiological changes in a subject and 
relates them to the truth or falsehood o f responses 
to questions— and its use in law enforcement, se­
curity, and business. Although now  largely dis­
credited as an instrument o f truth in the United 
States, it wasn’t until 1988 that Congress passed a 
law prohibiting their use in employee screening by 
private firms, and ten years later the Supreme Court 
ruled polygraph results inadmissible in criminal 
cases. Segrave covers all this in entertaining detail, 
along with the early history o f lie detectors, the 
explosion of their use during the Cold War, and a 
variety o f recent inventions. McFarland. $36.50. 
ISBN 0-7864-1618-1.

Segrave has written other titles in McFarland’s 
series on social history, including books on juke­
boxes (2002), vending machines (2002), shoplift­
ing (2001), hom e movies (1999), tipping (1998), 
baldness (1996), and drive-in theaters (1992). In 
2003, author William E. Jarvis contributed a fas­
cinating cultural history o f time capsules, an ac­
tivity that libraries often engage in; and Lewis 
C o e c o m p ile d  a h isto ry  o f  th e te le g ra p h  in 
1993, w h ic h  M cFarland  is n o w  o fferin g  in a 
reprint edition. See w ww.m acfarlandpub.com  
for these and others.

S h a m e le ss E x p lo ita tio n  in P u rsu it o f the 
C o m m o n  G o o d , by Paul N ew m an and A. E. 
H otch n er (2 6 0  pag es, N ovem ber 2 0 0 3 ), tells 
the story o f  th e au th o rs’ extrao rd in ary  lu ck 
and success in creating the Newman’s Own line 
o f salad dressings, p o p corn , salsa, and  other 
p ro d u cts, th e  a fte r-ta x  p ro fits o n  w h ic h  go 
entirely to charity. Written in a zany style that 
m a tc h e s th eir irrev eren t ta k e  on  trad itional 
marketing, the b o o k  dishes up as much humor 
as it d oes insight into the pair’s antistrategies, 
accom p anied b y  an accoun t o f h o w  Newman 
started up his Hole in the Wall Gang cam ps for 
sic k  ch ild ren . Nan A. T a lese/ D o u b led ay . 
$ 2 3 .9 5 . ISBN  0 -3 8 5 -5 0 8 0 2 -6 . ■

http://www.macfarlandpub.com