reviews Book Reviews 335 contribute to the building of a vision for the future.—John W. Collins III, Harvard University. Indexers and Indexes in Fact & Fiction. Ed. Hazel K. Bell. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Pr., 2001. 160p. $22.95 (ISBN 080208494X). “Any simpleton may write a book, but it requires high skill to make an index,” as- serts Rossiter Johnson, prolific historian of the Civil War and editor of the Twenti- eth Century Biographical Dictionary of No- table Americans (10 vols., 1904). His aperçu might well serve as the crux of Hazel K. Bell’s anthology of exemplary indexes. Bell is a connoisseur of indexes, having been editor of The Indexer, the journal of the Society of Indexers, for eighteen years as well having compiled more than 600 published indexes herself. Her choices are clever, edifying, and frequently amusing. The reader is struck by the variety of pur- poses indexes serve. After a stimulating foreword by A. S. Byatt and a concise introduction on the history and qualities of indexes, the book is arranged into three sections: I. Indexes in Fact; II. Fiction and Verse with Indexes; III. Indexers in Fiction. Eighty-eight ex- amples are presented chronologically, beginning with the first printed index to a tract by St. Augustine, De arte praedicandi (On the art of preaching) from the fif- teenth century straight through to 2001. Having read the front matter, and per- haps coming under the spell of the book, I found it more accessible when I perused each section from back to front (i.e., from the most recent to the earliest examples), mimicking the back-to-front movement of reading from an index. It is a well-trod path. The author pertinently quotes Jonathan Swift as follows: “The most ac- complished way of using books at present is twofold: either, first, to serve them as men do lords—learn their titles exactly and then brag of their acquaintance; or, secondly, which is, indeed, the choicer, the profounder and politer method, to get a thorough insight into the index, by which the whole book is governed and turned, like fishes by the tail. For to enter the pal- ace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of time and forms, therefore men of much haste and little ceremony are content to get in by the back door.” Some indexes go far beyond an ana- lytical précis of the content of the work. In an example captioned “Enhancing the text,” Bell shows that John Ruskin “makes use of his indexes in a most engaging way to supply comments on, or corrections to, his original text.” Here is one of his en- tries: “Artists are included under the term workmen, 11, 10, but I see the passage is inaccurate,—for I of course meant to in- clude musicians among artists, and there- fore among working men; but musicians are not ‘developments of tailor or carpen- ter.’ Also it may be questioned why I do not count the work given to construct poetry, when I count that given to per- form music, this will be explained in an- other place.” Indexes have been used to settle scores, to argue politics, to savor the fine points of erotica, to crown egotism, and to make merry. They often are used to reinforce the lessons of the text. Some are belligerent, some brilliant, and quite a few comical. Some indexes are better than the text. Occasionally, they deliberately mis- lead or refer to nonexistent subjects, as in Malcolm Bradbury’s ingenious novel, My Strange Quest for Mensonge. All of these and more are to be found in Bell’s book. In the section on indexers, we learn that all too often the author’s wife carries out this drudgery “amongst other tradi- tional wifely tasks.” Not surprisingly, in- dexers share many of the unflattering ste- reotypes of librarians, although occasion- ally in the hands of a great writer the in- dexer attains the status of complete insan- ity (see Nabokov’s Pale Fire). Obviously, this is not a book about how to index. For methodology, Bell re- fers readers to Hans Wellisch, Indexing from A to Z (2nd ed., H. W. Wilson, 1995) and Nancy C. Mulvany, Indexing Books (University of Chicago Press, 1994). She notes that “an essential quality for index- ing is objectivity and freedom from bias.” 336 College & Research Libraries July 2003 Index to advertisers AIAA 251 Annual Reviews cover 2 CHOICE 255 EBSCO cover 4 Haworth Press 252 Library Technologies cover 3 Although most of her examples fail to meet this standard, they are presented “for entertainment rather than use.” I was so taken by some that I yearned to look up and read the texts being indexed. The book teases the reader with a great deal of oddball, but fascinating, erudition. Ide- ally, one would read it in a well-stocked research library in order to follow up on its choice leads. This witty book presents the index as art form. Although the topic is special- ized, it will delight bibliophiles and be- longs in all general libraries.—Peter Briscoe, University of California, Riverside Tate, Thelma H. Camel Library Services in Kenya, July 22–28, 2001: Report on the Assessment of Non-Motorized Mobile Li- braries. The Hague: International Fed- eration of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA Professional Report, no. 73), 2002. 51p. Euro 10 (ISBN 9070916835; ISSN 01681931). Tate, Thelma H. The Donkey-Drawn Mo- bile Library Services in Zimbabwe, Au- gust 6–13, 2001: Report on the Assessment of Non-Motorized Mobile Libraries. The Hague: International Federation of Li- brary Associations and Institutions (IFLA Professional Report, no. 72), 2002. 38p. Euro 10 (ISBN 9070916843; ISSN 01681931). The Kenya National Library Service op- erates the only camel library service in the world. It was launched at the town of Garissa in North Eastern Province in 1996. Three years later, a second camel service was launched at another town, Wajir. The province is very large (126,186 square ki- lometers, approximately 22% of Kenya’s land area) and very underdeveloped: il- literacy is 85 percent, compared to the na- tional figure of 31 percent. In this arid and sparsely populated region, many of the people are nomads. Roads are poor, and the camel is a standard way of transport- ing goods. From the base at Garissa Branch Library, camel caravans set out to visit a number of schools and refugee camps within a twenty-kilometer radius. Boxes of books, a tent, a ground mat, and circulation stationery are loaded onto the camels in the early morning, after which their herder-librarians lead them to their destination. Under future plans, the herdsmen will ride the camels rather than trek alongside them. The camels are well looked after, being given days of rest and checks by veterinarians for camel pox, hepatitis, anthrax, capparis poisoning, ticks, and worms. Donkey-drawn mobile libraries operate in two locations in Zimbabwe: Nkayi Dis- trict in Matabeleland North Province and Matobo District in Matabeleland South Province. The area is semiarid, roads are poor, and donkeys are used for ploughing and transportation. In contrast to Kenya’s North Eastern Province, however, illit- eracy in Nkayi District is estimated as no more than 14 percent. The donkey library service started by the Rural Libraries and Resources Development Programme in 1995 is credited with contributing to the high literacy level. Cart librarians are vol- unteers, and there is a need to provide a training program for them. Another inno- vation is the Donkey-Drawn Mobile Electro-Communication Library Cart. The solar unit on the roof provides the power to run its radio, television, videocassette recorder, telephone, fax, and Internet ser- vice. In the rainy months of November to March, the carts are less practical because donkeys find wet conditions difficult. These two reports are based on brief vis- its to Garissa in Kenya and Nkayi District in Zimbabwe, together with discussions in Nairobi, Harare, and Bulawayo. Obviously, they complement each other, but within each, there are repetition and data that should have been edited out. 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