College and Research Libraries norms, should have had his life tran- scribed in blizzards of detail is choice irony. Before tweaking Boswell, Whittemore admits explicitly what the reader has in- ferred long since from his text: ''There is nothing simple about the history of biog- raphy, so I must be conscientious and end by introducing confusion.'' He locates the confusion in all the literary forms that by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave authors the opportunity to break the rules and to ignore custom, as early biog- raphy surely did not. Three pre- Boswellian works in particular are said to be evidence of the favorable cultural cli- mate for expanding the base of biography: Pepys' Diary, Defoe's Moll Flanders, and above all, Sterne's Tristram Shandy, which is, for Whittemore in a spirit of Shandean exuberance, "of course the finest book ever written." Whittemore's attention to Sterne is a surprise-a Shandean move, even. He sees in him "a man who found the life of the self to be suddenly spacious to a degree he had not previously imag- ined." As such, he was a powerful influ- ence on formal biographical practice and on psychobiography, though he was not himself a biographer-just ''a mock-up of what a biographer would be if he did not take on great public figures, and if he looked not at his subjects' performances but at their sentiments." Whittemore was not going to let pass the opportunity to write about Sterne, and the chapter is as provocative as it is unex- pected. But then so is much of the book, which accounts for its great charm. It is rather like walking a museum not with a guide constricted on cassette but in the company of a civilized man of forthright opinions and idiosyncratic views who will say the most surprising things to instruct and to provoke, and say them without re- course to the critical fatuities of our age- the anemic prose, its lifeblood deficient, that tortures thought and language and reader in equal measure in the process of twisting about to bite its own tail. Whitte- more is of a different school-of the school that once persuaded students to care pas- sionately about literature not because it is pretext for t~eory but because it is text Recent Publications 367 from life, and sometimes even for life. Bi- ography indeed. This is a short book but not in the least a slight one. Whittemore promises a sequel carrying the argument from Boswell to the present. Godspeed to his good work-James M. Morris, The An- drew W. Mellon Foundation, New York, N.Y. Literary Reviewing. Ed. by James 0. Hoge. Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1987. 139p. $24.95 (ISBN 0-8139-1146-X). LC 87-8309. This slim volume collects essays by such authorities as Richard D. AI tick, Stanley Weintraub, Angus Easson, and Derek Pearsall on the techniques of reviewing lit- erary scholarship. Six essays cover genres of scholarly production-theory, history, biography, editions, and bibliography (two on the last)-and three provide more general considerations of the practice of reviewing from the viewpoints of an edi- tor, a publisher, and a producer of literary scholarship. The essays are largely taxo- nomic and prescriptive and are saved from dullness less by particularly new, or newly stated, insights than by numerous anecdotes of offences against the review- ing principles being recommended. De- spite the contributors' occasionally con- flicting views of these principles, librarians who are asked advice on review- ing a particular type of academic produc- tion can cite with assurance the appropri- ate essay here. Librarians themselves will find some of the essays of interest as well. For example, Altick's essay accuses ''the library press'' of encouraging shoddy bibliographies, questions the reliability of reviews in pro- fessional library periodicals, and asserts that librarians seldom keep themselves in- formed of scholarship outside their own profession and even less frequently per- mit their professional judgments to be in- fluenced by such scholarship as they do read-all in an essay which calls for in- creased cooperation between librarians and literary scholars. The two essays by Bruce Macphail and Robert Patten are use- ful surveys of the place of the review in the scholarly communication matrix. Despite these attractions, Literary Reviewing is a confused production. The dust-jacket's 368 College & Research Libraries claim that the nine essays form ''an in- valuable guide to the art of literary review- ing" could be tenable only for those who take ''literary'' to mean ''academic liter- ary criticism.'' Those seeking guidance in reviewing "literature" in the sense of po- etry, fiction, drama, and, yes, even some essays in criticism will not find it here. The lack of an index reduces the book's useful- ness as a reference guide. No essay is de- voted to special problems in reviewing lit- erary criticism by, or concerning, feminists or members of ethnic and sexual minorities, nor are women among the contributors. Besides attempting to be a guide tore- view writing, this book is a manifesto for the book review as an important scholarly activity. This is not surprising, since the editor, James 0. Hoge (with a contributor to this volume, James L. W. West III) co- edits Review, a literary annual founded in 1977 and also published by the University Press of Virginia. Hope and West hoped that Review would "promote scrupulous and responsible reviewing that would measure up to the most rigorous and ex- acting standards of scholarly excellence.'' The present volume continues this proj- May 1989 ect, in the belief that reviewing is '' diffi- cult, grueling work that . . . performs the essential service of promoting what is good in scholarship while discouraging what is bad'' and that it should be taken as seriously as other scholarship. But Hoge' s message has not affected the . academic rewards system, as the provoca- tive final essay, "Reflections on Star Wars and Scholarly Reviewing," by Michael West, makes clear. Citing the results of his survey of academic deans and drawing from his own experiences in reviewing and on the tenure track, West concludes that few literary scholars or deans give the book review a high rank as a scholarly ac- tivity. This is surely news to no one, and West's suggestions for improving the situ- ation (increase the length of reviews, give superior ones prizes) are limp. This honest and lively (if finally compla- cent) essay was an ill-advised conclusion to both the literary guide and the mani- festo. The reality it depicts inevitably throws an ironic glare upon the aspira- tions and recommendations in the earlier pieces. In the larger argument about the value of the book review in the abstract and as measured by the rewards a scholar How to Get Biological Abstracts® Coverage in 5 Easy Steps: 1. Travel to over 100 countries around the world. 2. Collect and monitor over 9,000 life science serial and non-serial publications. 3. Select more than 270,000 items throughout 1989. 4. Index them by author, biosystematics, generics and subjects. 5. Forget all this and subscribe to Biological Abstracts! BIOSIS has done all the hard work for you; all you have to do is call and subscribe today! Biological Abstracts provides abstracts and full bibliographic data, in English, to current published research from biological and biomedical journal literature. In addition, a cumulative index is available as a separate subscription item. BIOSIS' You could follow the do-it-yourself system or save money and time by contacting BIOS IS Customer Services, 2100 Arch Street, Dept. CRL589ES, Philadelphia, PA 19103-1399 USA. Telephone (215) 587-4800 worldwide; toll free 1-800-523-4806 (USA except PA); Telex 831739; Fax (215) 587-2016. 8/o/oglc•l Ab•tr•ct• is a registered trademark of BIOSIS. BIOSIS is a registered trademark of Biological Abstracts Inc. AFTER MARY. GOT ONE OF THESE, THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS WOULDN'T LEAVE HERAlDNE. As head of the Serials Department at Northwestern University Library in Evanston, Illinois, Mary is responsible for the acquistion and in- ventory control of every journal, magazine and newspaper the library subscribes to. It's a huge, rewardingjob. And just one of the many challenging opportunities you could consider with a Master's Degree in Library and Information Science. \ THE FUTURE IS INFORMATION. TAKE CHARGE OF TI-lE FuTURE. For more information, write to "Library Careers", American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St. , Chicago, IL 60611. MARCIVE GPO CAT/PAC IS SIMPLY BETTER the U.S. Government Printing Office database of government publications since ~976 on CD-ROM BEITER BECAUSE: the RECORDS are better, as the result of an ongoing clean-up project with Texas A & M University, Rice University, and Louisiana State University .libraries. BETTER BECAUSE: the ACCESS is better. Keyword access to all Titles/Series, Subjects, Agencies/ Authors. See and see also references. Browse by SuDoc Number, Technical Report Number, Stock Number, Item Number, OCLC Number, Monthly Catalog Entry Number. BETTER BECAUSE: the VALUE is better. Introductory annual subscription price: $995. P .0. Box 47508 San Antonio, TX 78265 1-800-531-7678 can expect, the excellent advice contained in the intervening essays is lost and made to seem beside the point. The final lesson of the volume is the marginality of the book review to American literary scholar- ship. Taken as a whole, Literary Reviewing is a victim of the identity crisis that con- tinues to grip higher education.-Frank Immler, Humanities/Social Sciences Libraries, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Sitzman, Glenn L. African Libraries. Metu- chen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1988. 486p. $49.50 (ISBN 0-8108-2093-5). LC 87- 35658. African Libraries is a collection of unan- notated bibliographies and descriptive es- says on all types of libraries in Sub- Saharan Africa, excluding those in South Africa and the Comoros as well as the five North African countries of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. There are five parts, followed by a name index. Part 1, Buildings and People: a Photo- graphic Sampling (p.1-81), presents ninety black-and-white photographs that must have printed darker than the originals must Recent Publications 371 be. The photographs are both inside and outside shots taken by the author during his visits to the continent in the 1960s, 1971, and 1980. Description, history, and type of library is usually limited to one paragraph. While the national and academic libraries also are discussed later in part 4, part 1 is the only location for information on chil- dren'-s and special libraries. Part 2, Chronology of Library and Re- lated Events, 1773-1984 (p.82-101), is use- ful for all types of research, as there is no other chronology for libraries in Africa during the colonial period (1885-1958) and after independence (1959 for most of the fifty African countries). Although the ev~nts for the first half of the twentieth century are somewhat sparse, Sitzman has provided a framework on which oth- ers may build. Use of this section is limited because names and places are not in- dexed. Part 3, Development of Library Litera- ture, 1950-1980: A Bibliographical Essay · (p.102-57), is a chronological description that traces the development of libraries and librarianship in Africa using the cita- Plug into KIDSNET with ALANET! KIDSNET is the only database devoted to TV and radio programming for children and young adults, with listings for more than 25,000 pro- grams in more than 150 curriculum areas. Each search saves you hours of searching through distributors' catalogs and provides complete information about content, production, broadcast and non-broadcast rights, and availability of print materials. Subscribe to ALANET and KIDSNET together and receive a 10% discount! For more information, please contact Rob Carlson, ALANET System Manager, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611. 312-944-6780 or 800-545-2433 (in Illinois, -2444; in Canada, -2455). DIALCOM 41 :ALA0006. ALANET • 50 East Huron Street • Chicago, IL 60611