The Librarian’s Companion: A Handbook of Thousands of Facts and Figures on Libraries, Librarians, Books, Newspapers, Publishers, Booksellers.
Vladimir F. Wertsman
Second edition. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1996. 215 p. ISBN 0–31329975–7.
This book contains some 1,000 entries — a 16 percent increase over the first edition, grouped into two parts. Part I, The Librarian’s World Digest, provides country–by–country information on libraries and publishing. Each of the 194 entries — if complete — gives a background and then covers library networks, publishing output and distribution, noted libraries, and librarians’ organizations.
Part II, The Librarian’s Special Interests, contains six chapters: (1) Noted Librarians, Past and Present; (2) Who Said What on Books, Libraries and Librarians; (3) Librarian’s Belles lettres; (4) Librarian’s Philately: Books, Newspapers, and Libraries on Stamps, by Country; (5) Librarian’s Latin Expressions; and, (6) Librarian’s Job–Finding Sources of Information. The seven appendices are entitled Librarian’s Ten Golden Rules; the Library Supervisor’s Ten Golden Rules; Library Bill of Rights; American Library Association (ALA) Awards; Library Main Book Classifications; UNESCO Public Library Manifesto; and On–line and Electronic Network “Smilie” parlance.
The author must have spent a tremendous amount of time and effort putting together all of this interesting information on libraries and librarians. Some sources of information, such as philately dealing with librarianship, are quite unusual. He has, on the whole, done a fine job, but However, there is room for improvement. In Part I he gives data about various countries’ political and economic condition, illiteracy rates, the ratio of library holdings to inhabitants, the number of libraries, and the libraries’ holdings. The information is not, however, up to date. Most of the figures are from the 1980s, some are from 1970s, and a very few are from the 1990s. Other types of information have not been brought up to date, either. The National Library of China built a new national library said to be second in size only to the Library of Congress. It has its new address since 1989, but Mr. Wertsman gives its old address.
There are 192 biographical sketches in Part II, and most of them are for dead persons. The listing appears to be very selective. Alvin Johnson is not included, despite his advocacy of the public library as a people’s university; nor is Charles Williamson, who wrote a famous report on library science education. The citing of a biography of Charles Evans in the entry for Luther Harris Evans (p. 110) is obviously an editorial inadvertence.
In the section on job–finding sources for librarians, the Placement News published by Rosary College Graduate School of Library Science is not mentioned. A national periodical which provides placement news is properly entitled College and Research Libraries News, not (as Mr. Wertsman has it) College and Research Libraries.
In spite of some flaws, the book is useful for quick reference on various aspects of librarianship.
Tze–chung Li is Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Rosary College.
© 1996 Tze–chung Li