College and Research Libraries 354 I College & Research Libraries • September, 1967 Louis Round Wilson: Librarian and Ad- ministrator. By Maurice F. Tauber. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1967. $8.50. xv, 291p. (67-14603). Wilson and Tauber are names that will always be associated in university library circles, as the co-authors of The University Library, now in its second edition and one of the fundamental books on library science. The association of the two names will be reinforced through the publication of Mau- rice F. Tauber's full biography of Louis Round Wilson. For more than twenty years Professor Tauber's pick-up work, or perhaps his hobby, has been gathering information and writing drafts of this work. The result of his efforts is a superb portrait of a great and influential man-a book meticulously accurate in fact and detail on Wilson's car- eer, carefully balanced, and so readable that it is difficult to put aside once begun. The biography also suggests the affection and re- spect of the author for the subject, senti- ments which hundreds of librarians share with Maury Tauber. Judging by the publi- cation date, it is quite probable that proofs or perhaps an advance copy might have been available for Dr. Wilson to see by the time of his ninetieth birthday, celebrated on December 27, 1966. If so, he must have been pleased. Wilson's achievements in university li- brarianship, as a teacher, and as a produc- tive scholar at Chapel Hill and Chicago- making three careers, any one of which would suffice for most mortals-have al- ready assumed the proportions of a legend generously laced with stories which are "'im- proved" in the retelling in order to prove a point. It is good they have the record set straight and the details made clear, to un- derstand the whole man pursuing for over sixty years the steady course of a library- centered professional career, to have the anecdotes verified and set down permanent- ly, and to bring into perspective a profes- sional era which seems more coherent with the realization that it actually occurred within one person's lifetime. Wilson was not a passive observer of that era. He helped to shape it and he foresaw clearly that out of it would come many of the developments now underway and many of the problems we still face. The three main themes in Wilson's ca- reer, administration, teaching and research, are familiar to all readers of the journal in which this note is published. What some of us in academic and research libraries may not fully have appreciated are some of the underlying reasons for the ultimate success- ful outcome of everything the "'L.R." (and you don't address him in the familiar terms you use when you talk about him) has un- dertaken. For this you must understand the man as a person-his formative years, his integrity, courage, kindness, warmth, tough- ness, and determination. More than that, you must know how skillfully he has operat- ed in the university campus environment; in state, regional, national, and international library organizations; in alliances with foun- dations and educational associations; and in the world of editing, publishing, and the book trade. Even further, one must appreci- ate how surely he realized that the univer- sity library will flourish only in a society which supports all levels of education, in- cluding extension of education to the non- school population. Because of his broad in- terests Wilson is as respected for his leader- ship by school librarians, public librarians, and educators in the south as he is by the worldwide academic library community. These dimensions of breadth, depth, and understanding are what distinguish a real biography from a personal chronology or a blown-up "'who's who" entry. Tauber has proved he is a skillful biographer. It is a happy thing for our professional literature that this skill has added Louis Round Wil- son's name to those of Edward Edwards, Charles Evans, and William Frederick Poole, making a worthy group which has received full-length, high quality biograph- ical treatment within the past five years. Louis Round Wilson: Librarian and Ad- ministrator is number fourteen of the "'Co- lumbia University Studies in Library Serv- ice." Typically of Columbia University Press books, this one is tastefully designed, well printed, indexed, and sturdily cased. As evidence that the human is still with the machine in book production, there are a few little errors which slipped by the proof- reader. They will annoy the author more than the reader and are too trivial to enum- erate here.-Andrew H. Horn, University of California, Los Angeles.