june07c.indd George M. Eberhart N e w P u b l i c a t i o n s Alien Worlds: Social and Religious Dimen­ sions of Extraterrestrial Contact, edited by Diana G. Tumminia (360 pages, April 2007), explores the seemingly related experiences of abduction experiencers and contactee religious cultists. Included are essays by Mikael Rothstein on religious hagiography in the Aetherius Society; Jerome Clark on Sister Thedra, who started out as Dorothy Martin of Oak Park, Illinois, and received space messages that became the subject of a famous 1956 sociological study titled When Prophecy Fails; Diana Tumminia on the long-lived Unarius cult in southern Cali- fornia; Georg M. Rønnevig on abductions and sleep paralysis; and Pierre Lagrange on contactee beliefs in France. $34.95. Syracuse University. ISBN 978-0-8156-0858-5. Build It Once: A Basic Primer for the Creation of Online Exhibitions, by Sarah Goodwin Thiel (100 pages, March 2007), explains the basics of setting up an online exhibition and suggests a simple four-level structure suitable for most digital collections. Thiel even guides the reader through the intricacies of table creation in a Dreamweaver tutorial. An excellent resource for those who need to find out quickly and practically how to create an exhibition. $35.00. Scarecrow. ISBN 978-0-8108-5225-9. Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden His­ tory of Racial Cleansing in America, by Elliot Jaspin (341 pages, March 2007), documents 12 instances between 1864 and 1923 where whites forcefully drove African Americans out of entire counties in Indiana, Texas, Ten- nessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Geor- gia, and North Carolina. The most disturbing thing about this book is not only that this is just the tip of the iceberg—the 1923 Rose- wood, Florida, incident is another case that was made into a film—but also that such George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, e-mail: geberhart@ala.org racial purges were effectively covered up and quickly for- gotten. Indeed, Jas- pin discovered them only after he noticed abrupt drops in black population in par- ticular counties from one census to anoth- er and then poked around in old newspapers and archives in search of a cause. This grim history of race relations in rural America is a sad reminder of how widespread intolerance once was and how its effects persist—especially when read in conjunction with James Loewen’s Sundown Towns (New Press, 2005). $26.95. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-03636-3. Care and Conservation of Manuscripts 9, edited by Gillian Fellows-Jensen and Peter Springborg (263 pages, February 2007), con- tains the proceedings of the 8th international seminar on conservation held at the Univer- sity of Copenhagen, April 14–15, 2005. Pa- pers include conservation techniques used by Ankara University for an 11th-century Islamic manuscript; a case study on ethical issues involving the digitization of an Eng- lish 15th-century physician’s handbook by the Wellcome Trust; the story of a fragment of St. Mark’s gospel preserved in the Prague Castle Archives for 1,400 years; the 2003 re- covery of books stolen from the Royal Li- brary in Copenhagen; the conservation of leather bindings damaged by mold; and a reinvestigation of climate control in the ar- chives of the National Museum of Denmark. $45.00. Museum Tusculanum Press, distrib- uted by International Specialized Book Ser- vices. ISBN 978-87-635-0554-3. Collecting the Imagination: The First Fifty Years of the Ransom Center, edited by Me- gan Barnard (132 pages, April 2007), marks 392C&RL News June 2007 mailto:geberhart@ala.org the semicentennial of the Harry Ransom Hu- manities Research Center at the University of Texas, established in 1957 as a world-class collection of European and American litera- ture, historical documents, photography, and art. This well-illustrated volume describes the center’s founding, its mission and col- lections, growth, curators, and Harry Huntt Ransom himself, who as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences established his vision for a “research center to be the Bibliothèque Nationale of the only state that started out as an independent nation.” $40.00. University of Texas. ISBN 978-0-292-71489-2. Crocodile: Evolution’s Greatest Survivor, by Lynne Kelly (272 pages, July 2007), provides a brief look at the natural history of croco- diles and their interaction with humans. Much of the book is devoted to crocodiles in Australia, where it now seems likely that modern crocs originated, according to fos- sils discovered recently near Isisford in Queensland. Kelly reviews crocodile hunt- ing and crocodile attacks, folk legends, croc farms, and zoo specimens. Although she mentions them in passing, alligators are bet- ter covered in Vaughn L. Glasgow’s A So- cial History of the American Alligator (St. Martin’s, 1991). $24.95. Allen & Unwin, dis- tributed by Independent Publishers Group. ISBN 978-1-74114-498-7. Goods for Sale: Products and Advertis­ ing in the Massachusetts Industrial Age, by Chaim M. Rosenberg (242 pages, April 2007), examines the many products made in Massachusetts during its golden age of industry from 1860 to 1920. Rosenberg illus- trates his narrative with some 130 colorful company trade cards that advertised cloth- ing, sewing machines, footwear, pianos, watches, silverware, sarsaparilla, liver pills, stoves, bicycles, and automobiles—all man- ufactured in the Bay State from Boston to the Connecticut Valley. A vivid look at what constituted the amenities of life in an earlier time. $24.95. University of Massachusetts. ISBN 978-1-55849-580-7. Led Zeppelin Crashed Here: The Rock and Roll Landmarks of North America, by Chris Epting (327 pages, May 2007), suggests hun- dreds of destinations for the musical tourist, from Robert Johnson’s famous crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi, to the venue in New York City where Courtney Love hit an audience member in the head with her mi- crophone stand. Epting lists (with photos) famous performance locations, recording studios, death sites, gravestones, hotels, museums, and music stores. $16.95. Santa Monica Press. ISBN 978-1-59580-018-3. Libraries and Librarianship: Sixty Years of Challenge and Change, 1945–2005, by George Bobinski (203 pages, May 2007), is an insightful retrospective on the past 60 years of the library profession. Bobinski, whose career from public library page to library school sage spans the same time- frame, enumerates succinctly the high and low points of reference service, library technology, cooperation, funding, library associations, intellectual freedom, women in librarianship, diversity, facilities and preservation, education, and library litera- ture. He also summarizes 15 major devel- opments, highlights 50 prominent library leaders, and provides a chronology of sig- nificant events. $40.00. Scarecrow. ISBN 978-0-8108-5899-2. The Origin, Persistence, and Failings of HIV/AIDS Theory, by Henry H. Bauer (282 pages, May 2007), presents a credible cri- tique of the paradigm that AIDS is caused solely by the HIV retrovirus. Bauer, professor emeritus of chemistry and science studies and dean emeritus of Arts and Sciences at Virginia Poly- technic, presents a solid array of data that suggest (as Peter Duesberg, June 2007 393 C&RL News the Perth Group, and other so-called AIDS dissidents have also done) that testing HIV positive is a nonspecific (and sometimes tem- porary) response to various levels of physi- ological stress ranging from minor ailments to heavy drug abuse and such serious dis- eases as tuberculosis. Bauer contends that the frequency of positive HIV tests is largely inconsistent with the pattern of an infectious agent and points to racial disparities in HIV test results that are difficult to explain by be- havior—African Americans, for example, are five or six times as likely to test positive as whites, even in low-risk groups. As for AIDS itself, Bauer says it is a collection of immune diseases, outside Africa most often stem- ming from drug abuse; in sub-Saharan Africa, where HIV testing is rare and reporting is fal- lible, other diseases are attributed to AIDS, especially when their effects are exacerbat- ed by malnutrition and poverty. Bauer goes on to show how science and medicine can sometimes go wrong (read John M. Barry’s The Great Infl uenza to find out how much time was wasted looking for a bacterial cause for the Spanish flu epidemic), and why the HIV/AIDS viral theory has persisted despite significant evidence to the contrary. $35.00. McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-3048-2. Roadside History of Louisiana, by Charles M. Robinson III (351 pages, May 2007), fol- lows the highways of the Bayou State, point- ing out plantations, historic sites, museums, and points of interest for the curious tourist. $20.00. Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-87842- 531-0. U­X­L Graphic Novelists, by Tom and Sara Pendergast (3 vols., 634 pages, October 2006), profiles the lives of 75 authors and illustrators of graphic novels, from the su- perhero genre and manga to more individu- alistic nonfiction, comedy, and drama. One- third of the bios contain original material gleaned from interviews by the contributing writers, and all offer insights into each novel- ist’s style and achievements as well as color samples of their works. $165.00. Thomson Gale. ISBN 978-1-4144-0440-0. ACRL-SPARC-ACRL Forum will explore progress of open access publishing models ACRL and SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) will once again be holding the ACRL­SPARC Fo­ rum at the ALA Annual Conference. The ses­ sion is titled,“Course check:A conversation with three open access publishers about the challenges of sustainability.” Speakers include: Mark Patterson, direc­ tor of publishing, Public Library of Science; Paul Peters, head of business development, Hindawi Publishing Corporation; Bryan Vickery, deputy publisher, BioMed Central, and editorial director, Chemistry Central.The session will be introduced and moderated byAlma Swan, director, Key Perspectives Ltd. The forum will form part of an ongoing con­ versation about successes and challenges in business models for publishers that provide open access, and the partnerships and resources that have or will lead to success. Speakers will pay particular attention to: • what they have learned about the challenges in creating a business model that delivers open access and the major adjust­ ments they have had to make; • the role of print publishing in their open access efforts; • the point at which their projects may or have become economically self­sustain­ ing and the pertinent milestones along the way; • the role and support of libraries in their future, including memberships, subscrip­ tions to value­added services, alternative forms of library “acquisition” of their content, and other forms of support; • the responses from the research com­ munity to their new publishing models; and • their perceptions of the infl uence of open access journals on dynamics, interac­ tions and roles and responsibilities between publishers, librarians and researchers. Please join us for this important conver­ sation.The SPARC­ACRL Forum will be held Saturday, June 23, 2007, 4:00–5:30 p.m. 394C&RL News June 2007