College and Research Libraries


vices pay a profit, and a number of rather 
dubious organizations are exploiting this. 
Government departments too, are setting up 
costly documentation services in parallel 
with libraries, in order to minister to special 
needs where existing libraries cannot under-
take the job. Perhaps this is an acceptable 
solution where the economic situation per-
mits, but one sympathizes with the problem 
in England where it is ruinously wasteful 
to set up information services divorced from 
the depositories of that information. Fos-
kett's tart remarks on costly American re-
trieval schemes and their relative inefficien-
cy doubtless reflect his frustration at the 
lack of funds for documentation purposes 
in England. 

If the "two cultures" split cleaves librari-
anship it will not be Mr. _ Foskett's fault.-
Francis A. Johns, Rutgers University. 

American State Archives. By Ernst Pos-
ner. Chicago: University of Chicago 
Press, 1964. xiv, 397p. Appendices, bib-
liography, index: $7.50. (64-23425). 

In this volume Ernst Posner, dean of 
American archivists, has done for the archi-
val profession what many librarians have 
been hoping for from the Survey of Li-
brary Functions in the States. Here is 
a solid, meaty, succinct, and searching 
analysis of the development of state ar-
chival agencies, their present status, and 
their future prospects. The volume is based, 
in the large sense, on Dr. Posner's long and 
distinguished experience in the archival pro-
fession both here and abroad, and more 
specifically on a twenty-month study which 
took him to archival institutions in forty-
nine of the fifty states, and also to Puerto 
Rico. The survey was conducted under 
sponsorship of the Society of American 
Archivists and financed by a grant from the 
Council on Library Resources. 

The first thirty pages of American State 
Archives are devoted to a general survey of 
the origins and growth of state record-keep-
ing practices in this country, beginning with 
the colonial period. The legislative estab-
lishment of official archival agencies is 
shown to have begun in 1901 with the es-
tablishment of the Alabama Department of 
Archives and History. In short succession 
other southern states followed suit. Missis-
sippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ten-

Book Reviews 1 529 

nessee, Arkansas, Delaware, and Maryland 
all followed the pattern of establishing an 
agency with responsibilities for historical 
and archival matters. Within a short time 
state libraries undertook archival programs 
in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, Iowa, and 
Indiana; and historical societies established 
archival departments in Kansas, Nebraska, 
Wisconsin, and Oklahoma. More than thirty 
years would elapse, Dr. Posner points out, 
before the federal government followed 
these precedents with establishment of the 
National Archives. 

Dr. Posner devotes the major portion of 
his book to a state-by-state analysis of the 
development of archival agencies. He pro-
vides the reader with a great deal of spe-
cific and useful information on each and 
successfully meets the great challenge of 
doing so without the reader feeling over-
whelmed with details and statistics. He 
demonstrates a keen understanding of the 
reasons for the great variety of administra-
tive structures in the archival field and 
properly attributes this disparity to those 
individuals whose leadership in their states 
and in the nation has helped make archives 
a true profession rather than a file-keeping 
function. Especially valuable in these state 
summaries are Dr. Posner's candid com-
ments on the existing shortcomings of each 
agency. These are judicious and temperate 
and rest on the fundamental premise that 
while certain archival functions are essen-
tial to good record-keeping, there are a 
variety of legitimate ways ·in which these 
functions may be administered. 

The concluding portion of the book con-
sists of a summary of findings, a discus-
sion of current trends in archival programs, 
and most important of all a · set of standards 
for state archival agencies. These are a 
model of their kind. The standards were 
developed by Dr. Posner and the survey 
committee and have been approved by the 
Society of American Archivists. There are 
also appendices giving a glossary of archival 
terms, comparative statistical data on budg-
ets and professional salaries in the states, 
a basic bibliography of writings on public 
archives administration in the United States, 
and a useful index. 

This is a first-rate book in every respect. 
It is a welcome reminder that real contribu-
tions to know ledge rest on thorough re-
search, objective appraisal, and mature 



530 1 College & Research Libraries • November, 1965 

judgement. These qualities Dr. Posner has 
demonstrated in abundance.-William T. 
Alderson, American Association for State 
and Local History. 

The School Library. By Ralph E. Ells-
worth. New York: The Center for Applied 
Research in Education, Inc., 1965. xi, 116p. 
$3.95. (65-15520). 

· In 1963, Ralph E. Ellsworth, with the 
collaboration of Hobart D. Wagener, pro-
duced an excellent little book which the 
Educational Facilities Laboratories issued 
under the title, The School Library; Fa-
cilities for Independent Study in the Sec-
ondary School. This 1963 publication was 
a landmark in school library literature. Now 
Mr. Ellsworth has produced a second vol-
ume by a new publisher but, unfortunately 
for the student, with a title identical to the 
main title of his first book. 

The new School Library is, in other ways, 
a less happy book than the previous en-
deavor. Admittedly, its purpose is differ-
ent, for it attempts to present to school ad-
ministrators a picture of school library needs 
in the rapidly-changing schools of our day, 
while the first School Library was primarily 
concerned with "architectural aspects of 
the -school library." Yet the first book pro-
vided a more comprehensive outline of 
what a good school library ought to be 
than does the new one. 

There is much of value in the new vol-
ume, however. Ellsworth says some things 
that have not been said before and some 
that cannot be said too frequently. One 
statement which shows especially profound 
insight into the shortcomings of school li-
braries appears on page 4. 

A strong and able librarian can sometimes im-
prove a mediocre library situation, but unless 
she can change the philosophy of education 
and the teaching procedures and schedules 
which prevail in the school, her impact will not 
be noticeable. A proper understanding of who 
is responsible for the quality of school library 
service will not be reached until it is under-
stood that the status, use, and operation of a 
school library are the result of the nature and 
character of the total instructional program of 
the school. 

Though it has been said before, it is good 
that it is now being said again to the read-
ers this book will reach. 

In general, the book is comprehensive 
in its treatment of the secondary school li-
brary, but it provides no indication that 
the author is aware of the many exciting 
elementary school libraries that can be 
identified in various parts of the country. 
Except for a paragraph devoted to the 
Knapp School Libraries Project, he seems 
unaware of the extent of school libraries 
in elementary schools. In his chapter on the 
program of the library he suggests that "the 
librarian should be wise in the ways of teen-
agers," valuable wisdom for a high school 
librarian, but not so helpful for an ele-
mentary school librarian whose six hundred 
pupils only aspire to adolescence. Librari-
ans will regret that a book purporting to 
present The School Library, in fact relates 
only to libraries in schools of one level, the 
senior high school. 

Even in the few places where he men-
tions elementary school libraries, the author 
shows little knowledge of their status in 
1965. In the p·aragraph referred to above, 
he states that the old controversy concern-
ing classroom versus centralized libraries is 
still vigorously alive, a statement he would 
have great difficulty in documenting. On 
page 90 he reports, on the basis of hearsay, 
that the librarians who attended a confer-
ence in June 1964 called by the Educa-
tional Facilities Laboratories, relating to 
elementary school libraries, "had less to 
offer that was fresh and interesting than 
did some of the administrators ." Other ob-
servers, perhaps less impartial than Ells-
worth's, have provided a different report. 
Unfortunately, Educational Facilities Lab-
oratories has issued no conference report. 

Like the earlier book, this one is excellent 
in its treatment of facilities for high school 
libraries. His discussion of the nature and 
elements of a school library should have 
special value in justifying areas of adequate 
size for essential service functions. This sec-
tion provides one statement that is sure to 
go into the rare literature of the highly 
quotable (pp. 61-62). 

The body of a high school student at work 
is a wondrous thing, full of aches and pains 
and jerks and spasms and twists and contor-
tions and almost never in complete repose. . . . 
(One might wonder if the Creator had study-
ing in mind at all as an expected activity for 
youth.) 

While applauding the spirit with which