ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 1361 C&RL News ■ February 2000 N e w P u b l i c a t i o n s George M. Eberhart "Alas, Poor Ghost": Traditions of Belief in Story and Discourse, by folklorist Gillian Bennett (223 pages, November 1999), exam­ ines the relationship betw een narration and personal belief in the supernatural or paran­ ormal. By interviewing groups of women in Manchester and Leicester, Bennett found a h ig h d e g re e o f a c c e p ta n c e o f g h o sts, hauntings and life after death, supported by first- or second-hand stories. Recognizing that “rationalism and supernaturalism are . . . com­ peting discourses” and that “neither is ‘bet­ ter’ or less ‘superstitious’ than the other,” she opted to investigate the cultural processes that shape these narratives. In a final chapter she puts her findings into a cultural context by exploring the Cock Lane poltergeist of the 1740s, vanishing-hitchhiker stories, and oth­ ers. $39.95. Utah State University. ISBN 0­ 87421-278-2. Basic Book Repair Methods, by Abraham A. Schechter (102 pages, June 1999), offers well-illustrated, step-by-step m ethods for mending damaged books—techniques that many people expect you to be an authority on because you have an MLS. Schechter de­ scribes cleaning and mending paper, tight­ ening and repairing book hinges, hinging-in pages and reattaching separated bindings and spines, and lists all the supplies you will need (including a recipe for making wheat-starch paste). A very practical manual for fixing nonvaluable items from the general collec­ tions. $19.50. Libraries Unlimited. ISBN 1­ 56308-700-6. Dinosaurs: The Encyclopedia, Supplement 1, by Donald F. Glut (442 pages, February 2000), brings the author’s mammoth 1997 ref­ erence work up-to-date with new discover­ ies, theories, and species. The essays on the dinosaur-bird relationship and dinosaur ex­ tinctions are particularly valuable. As with Glut’s earlier volume, the illustrations are George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries; e-mail: geberhart@ala.org plentiful and the text is aimed at the informed amateur as well as the professional scientist. Apparently this is the first in an open-ended series of irregularly published supplements. $60.00. McFarland &. Company. ISBN 0-7864­ 0591-0. The comprehensive index to Glut’s Car­ bon Dates: A Day by Day A lm anac o f Palco Anniversaries a n d Dino Events (296 pages, December 1999) rescues the usefulness of this work from becoming merely a disjointed mosaic of dinosaur fact and fiction. I can’t imagine why anyone would need a recital of paleontological, cinematic, and literary events arranged by the days of the year. However, the author’s nutshell summaries and illustra­ tions consisting of movie stills and fossil skel­ etons make this an amusing browse. $28.50. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-0592-9. Dixie Before Disney: 100 Years of Road­ side Fun, by Tim Hollis (193 pages, April 1999), celebrates Southern roadside and tour­ ist attractions from the 1890s to the 1960s, the “pre-Disney days w hen traveling in the South meant ‘See Rock City,’ ‘Stuckey’s, 10 Miles,’ and ‘Silver Springs’ Famous Glass Bot­ tom Boats.’” Over the years, Hollis collected many flyers, photos, ads, and postcards of this largely vanished world, many of them highlighting his observations on motels and restaurants, beaches, the m ountains, pre- Disney theme parks, historical sites, scenic wonders, springs, jungle attractions, and Old West recreations. Conducting a wild safari ride through the history of Southern tourism, Hollis mailto:geberhart@ala.org points out the need for a more formal his­ tory; though, as he admits, “The very thought of an intellectual analysis of a spot such as Weeki Watchee Springs is enough to make one’s head swim.” $45.00. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-118-0. Doughboy War: The Am erican Expedi­ tionary Force in World War I, edited by James H. Hallas (346 pages, November 1999), is a collection of extracts from the journals, diaries, personal narratives, and unit histo­ ries of American soldiers who went to the Western Front from 1917 to 1918. The chap­ ters are loosely ordered by topic, but the words of the soldiers themselves are consis­ tently well-chosen and vivid, bringing to life the experiences of a generation of Ameri­ cans often forgotten in the wake of World War II. $55.00. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1800 30th St., Suite 314, Boulder, CO 80301. ISBN 1-55587-855-5. Financial Aid for Research and Creative Activities Abroad, 1999-2001, by Gail Ann Schlachter and R. David Weber (484 pages, November 1999), describes 1,400 funding programs (scholarships, fellowships, loans, grants, awards, and internships) available to support research, professional, or creative ac­ tivities abroad. The programs are arranged by type of applicant: high-school or under­ graduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral candidates, and professionals or other individuals. Five indexes offer access by program title, sponsoring organization, country, subject, and calendar. $45.00. Ref­ erence Service Press. ISBN 0-918276-63-2. Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolu­ tion in Virginia, by Woody Holton (231 pages, September 1999), addresses the para­ doxical involvement of the rich, landed gen­ try— Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry— in the American R evolution. T hough traditionally interpreted as a tax revolt, Holton shows that the Revolution had more com­ plex origins in colonial society’s grassroots, especially the Indian tribes, small farmers, and slaves. The landowners were actually pushed to independence by the fear of dev­ astating Indian wars, social upheaval, and slave revolts that might be better controlled by a strong local government. A well-docu- mented history that explores the complicated social structure in pre-Revolution Virginia. $39-95. University of North Carolina. ISBN 0- 8078-2501-8. Forging a Collection: The Frank W. Tober Collection on Literary Forgery (85 pages, September 1999) is the catalog of an exhibi­ tion held last year in the Morris Library at the University of Delaware based on holdings bequeathed by Tober, a chemist with the DuPont Company. The collection includes materials on virtually every major forgery from antiquity to Clifford Irving’s faked autobiog­ raphy of Howard Hughes. The catalog fo­ cuses on such memorable forgeries as the poems of Ossian, Thomas Chatterton’s Rowley forgeries, and William Henry Ireland’s faked Shakespeare play. $15.00. University of Delaware Library Associates, Morris Library, Newark, DE 19717-5267. Innovative Use of Information Technol- ogy by C o lleg es (87 pages, August 1999) contains nine case studies on how college and mid-sized university libraries have used technology creatively to remain rel­ evant and competitive. Written by Council on Library and Information Resources staff and members of its College Libraries Com­ mittee, the studies are based on site visits made in 1998. $20.00. CLIR Publication Orders, 1755 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20036-2124. ISBN 1-887334-70-X. Libraries and Inform ation in the Arab World: An Annotated Bibliography, com­ piled by Lokman I. Meho and Mona A. Nsouli (349 pages, September 1999), is a compre­ hensive guide to more than 1,000 books, ar­ ticles, and papers published between 1977 and 1998 on libraries and information cen­ ters throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The languages are mostly Arabic, En­ glish, and French, and the primary arrange­ ment is by country subdivided by subject. Material on national and academic libraries is well-represented. $79.50. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31098-X. The Oryx Guide to Natural History, by Patricia L. Barnes-Svarney and Thomas E. C&RL N e w s ■ F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 0 / 137 138 / C&RL News ■ February 2000 S v a rn e y (2 5 2 pages, Novem­ ber 1999), is a good place to turn for quick a n s w e r s to q u e s tio n s o n the history o f biology, g e o l­ o g y , and a s ­ tronom y. This guide provides a b r ie f in tro ­ d u c t io n , a tim elin e, a rundow n o f d isco v e rie s and breakth rou g h s and d efin itions o f term s for 30 different to p ics, including am phibian s, bacteria and viruses, clim ate and w eather, earth q u akes, fossils, hum ans, plants, and the universe. T h e tim elines are the b a c k ­ b o n e s o f each sectio n and are divided into p reh isto ric and m odern even ts, allow ing you to follow the e a rth ’s history from 4.55 b illion years ago, w hen the e a rth ’s crust form ed to 1998. In terestin g sid ebars are scattered throughout: the sp eed o f fish, the Fujita and P earson torn ad o sca le, n o tab le fungi, e a rth ’s atm o sp h eric layers, two dif­ feren t classificatio n s o f m od ern anim als, and P a le o z o ic o ro g en ie s. A list o f natural- history W eb sites co m p rises an ap p en d ix. $ 6 9 .9 5 . O ryx. ISBN 1 -5 7 3 5 6 -1 5 9 -2 . Th e S ie g e a t Hue, by G eo rg e W. Sm ith (1 9 4 p ages, Ju ly 1999), is a d etailed, first- p erson a cco u n t o f the lon gest co n tin u ou s battle o f the V ietnam War. C harged with m onitoring the civilian press corps that d e­ scen d ed on Hue during the 1968 T et o f­ fe n siv e , Sm ith re co u n ts the b a ttle s that w ere fought in the retaking o f the city, its s o c ia l and p o litic a l u p h e a v a l, and th e ev acu atio n o f nearly 3 ,0 0 0 citizen s by the NVA and the V ietco n g . Smith claim s that th e te n a c ity o f NVA fo r c e s d u rin g T e t earned the resp ect o f allied troops and trig­ gered a s e q u e n c e o f attitudinal ch an g es in the United States. $49-95. Lynne R ienn er P u b lish e rs , 18 0 0 3 0 th St., B o u ld e r, CO 8 0 3 0 1 . ISBN 1 -5 5 5 8 7 -8 4 7 -4 . ■