sept07c.indd


George M. Eberhart N e w  P u b l i c a t i o n s  

Art Museum Libraries and Librarianship, 
edited by Joan M. Benedetti (312 pages, 
April 2007), contains 61 essays written by li­
brarians from a wide range of art museums. 
Published as Occasional Paper no. 16 of the Art 
Libraries Society of North America, this volume 
is a treasure house of information that covers 
management, reader services, automation, se­
curity, technical services, space planning, col­
lection development, promotion, and profes­
sional development. Academic librarians might 
especially appreciate the sections on exhibition 
catalog exchanges, curating images, collecting 
ephemera, special collections, working with 
volunteers and interns, and the thumbnail pro­
files of 15 art museum libraries. $45.00. Scare­
crow. 978­0­8018­5921­0. 

Chicago’s Urban Nature: A Guide to the City’s 
Architecture + Landscape, by Sally A. Kitt 
Chappell (253 pages, July 2007), explores 
Chicago’s distinctive synthesis of green space 
and streetscape that makes the city a colorful, 
vibrant, and eco­friendly place to live and visit. 
Although the concept originated with Daniel 

Burnham’s 
C h i c a g o  
Plan in 
1909, a re­
m a r k a b l e  
t r a n s f o r ­
mation has 
taken place 
in the past 

15 years at the instigation of Mayor Richard M. 
Daley. Even a short visit to the city reveals a 
natural urban fusion, beginning with the gar­
dens in and around the freeway leading from 
O’Hare airport to the inspirational topography 
of Millennium Park that blends public art, per­
formance, fountains, floriculture, and sport to 
“express the spirit of Chicago as it enters a new 
millennium: bold, innovative, democratic, and 

George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, 
e-mail: geberhart@ala.org 

beautiful.” Chappell has written a vividly illus­
trated field guide to this new urban landscape 
that both tourists and architecture students can 
appreciate. $20.00. University of Chicago. 978­
0­226­10140­8. 

The Counter­Creationism Handbook, by Mark 
Isaak (330 pages, January 2007), takes several 
hundred claims of creationists and proponents 
of intelligent design and answers them suc­
cinctly and scientifi cally, providing citations 
for both the claims and the arguments against 
them. Creationist 
arguments are ar­
ranged by topic: 
philosophy (“Evo­
lution is only a the­
ory”), biology (“No 
new species have 
been observed”), 
p a l e o n t o l o g y  
(“Transitional fossils 
are lacking”), geol­
ogy (“There is not 
enough sediment 
in the ocean for an old earth”), astronomy 
(“The speed of light has changed”), physics 
(“The second law of thermodynamics prohib­
its evolution”), the Bible (“Noah’s Ark has been 
found”), and intelligent design (“Design is de­
tectable”). A well­organized standard reference 
that should prove useful in the classroom as 
well as in public debate. $19.95. University of 
California. 978­0­520­24926­4. 

A Dictionary of Nonprofit Terms and Con­
cepts, by David Horton Smith, Robert A. Steb­
bins, and Michael A. Dover (337 pages, April 
2007), provides some 1,200 definitions of words 
and phrases used in nonprofit sector research. 
Included are general concepts (such as altru­
ism), political activity (intergovernmental or­
ganization), associations (community group), 
volunteers (episodic volunteers), philanthropy 
(donor fatigue), management (morale), volun­
teer administration (screening), leisure (serious 

C&RL News September 2007  536 

mailto:geberhart@ala.org


leisure), religion (religiosity), and law (dona­
tive intent). A 67­page bibliography supports 
the text. $35.00. Indiana University. 978­0­
253­34783­1. 

Friends in Peace and War, by C. Douglas 
Kroll (188 pages, January 2007), documents 
the little­known visit of the Russian navy’s Pa­
cific squadron to San Francisco from 1863 to 
1864. Russia and the United States were solid 
allies for most of the 19th century, so when 
it appeared that Russia might have to go war 
with England and France (their old adversar­
ies in the Crimean War) over an uprising in 
Poland, Tsar Alexander II sought warm­wa­
ter ports for his ships in San Francisco and 
New York. The Californians were glad to 
host them because they served as protection 
against feared Confederate raids. $22.95. Po­
tomac. 978­1­59797­054­9. 

Historical Dictionary of Hong Kong Cinema, 
by Lisa Odham Stokes (590 pages, March 
2007), provides a useful roundup of Hong 
Kong actors, films, and studios from 1909 
(Stealing the Roasted Duck) to 2005 (Zhang 
Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower). Stokes’s 
vast knowledge of the genre goes beyond 
martial arts to cover melodrama, gay fi lms, 
musicals, women in film, diaspora fi lms, and 
documentaries. The only complaint: Please 
provide more photos of the actors and the 
films—16 token halftones are an insult to a 
Western audience who will struggle to dis­
tinguish Alfred Cheung, Cheung Ching, Jacky 
Cheung, Jacob Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Peter 
Cheung, Roy Cheung, Cheung Wood­yau, 
Cheung Ying, and Cheung Yuen­ting. $99.00. 
Scarecrow. 978­0­8108­5520­5. 

Living History Museums: Undoing History 
through Performance, by Scott Magelssen 
(206 pages, April 2007), examines the assort­
ed ways that living history museums (such as 
those at Old Sturbridge Village or the Plimoth 
Plantation) practice costumed reenactment in 
order to represent historical periods for visi­
tors. Along the way, he points out the dilem­
mas of living interpretation, from misleading 

visitors about time and history to perpetuating 
outmoded linear views of historical progress. 
$49.95. Scarecrow. 978­0­8108­5865­7. 

Oz in Perspective, by Richard Tuerk (229 pag­
es, January 2007), analyzes L. Frank Baum’s 14 
full­length Oz books, published between 1900 
and 1920, and identifies elements of classic 
myth, fantasy, racism, utopia, and politics in 
each work. A long­time Baum scholar, Tuerk 
says the Oz oeuvre, although occasionally 
flawed in terms of consistency and structure, 
does have interesting characters and exciting 
plots, often dark ones, that hold the interest 
of adults and children alike. Part of Baum’s 
success is his repeated use of the hero quest, 
which contains elements of Odysseus, Pese­
phone, Dante, and Lewis Carroll. $35.00. Mc­
Farland. 978­0­7864­2899­1. 

Another McFarland literary examination is 
LeRoy Lad Panek’s The Origins of the American 
Detective Story (227 pages, October 2006), which 
looks at the influence of Edgar Allan Poe’s Au­
guste Dupin stories and Arthur Conan Doyle’s 
Sherlock Holmes novels on American crime 
fiction in the 1920s. In addition, Panek shows 
why it was male private detectives—not cops, 
scientists, psychologists, journalists, lawyers, or 
women—who emerged as the primary heroic 
protagonists. $35.00. McFarland. 978­0­7864­
2776­5. 

The Streamline Era Greyhound Terminal, 
by Frank E. Wrenick (194 pages, March 2007), 
explores Streamline Moderne architecture—a 
style that incorporates horizontal and curvilin­
ear lines, long window rows, rounded corners, 
smooth surfaces, and a freedom from embel­
lishment—and one of its lesser­known pro­
ponents, William S. Arrasmith, who designed 
some 50 Greyhound bus terminals between 
1937 and 1960. Arrasmith’s deco designs pro­
vided Greyhound with the modernist look the 
company wanted to brand for its service as a 
desirable alternative to travel by rail. The book 
offers a detailed profile of Arrasmith’s Grey­
hound work, accompanied by photos and 
blueprints. $49.95. McFarland. 978­0­7864­
2550­1. 

September 2007  537 C&RL News