Search results

THOSE of us who are in the habit of studying antiquarian booksellers' catalogues cannot fail to notice the amazing rise in prices of standard works over the past year or so. Once‐despised sets of historians, philosophers, or novelists now apparently command many times their pre‐war figures, and there seems to be no reason to doubt that there are willing purchasers even at the new high rates. It is possible, too, that old authors like Macaulay and Lord Lytton have received a new lease of life as a result of the war‐time dearth of new books and popular reprints, and that the second‐hand trade is experiencing something like a boom from that circumstance. The case of the Bibliographer's Manual of W. T. Lowndes is a good example of the “new look” in old books. For many years the common edition—Bonn's issue in eleven parts (1857–64, or the later reprint)—sold for a pound or thirty shillings, and even at that takers were few. Now my catalogues offer me a choice of sets, bound or in the original ugly yellow cloth, at prices ranging from five to ten guineas. Some booksellers, indeed, seem to think it worth while to list odd volumes and broken sets, and even for these the ransom is heavy. Yet the Manual is by no means a “rare” or “choice” item, and the notable advance in its value would seem difficult to explain.

The hoary old problem of fiction standards is still with us, it seems, and the question of whether or not to provide what is alternatively called “the ephemeral” and “the meretricious” continues to be mooted extensively at professional meetings. Meanwhile, most of us willingly supply at least a quota of romances, thrillers and westerns for those hordes of voracious readers who are so fiercely addicted to them. We adopt a policy of appeasement, and, within certain limitations, all is well. Romances, we may tell ourselves, are not all elongated versions of stories in pulp magazines. Thrillers have a high‐brow pedigree: even people with the intellectual attainments of Bertrand Russell revel in them. And westerns—

The Public Library was a grim, unattractive‐looking building. Smoke‐blackened and austere, it stood at the junction of two busy thoroughfares, with no outward manifestation of its identity apart from the almost obscured and somehow distasteful words “Free Library”, carved in stone over its portals. It was a repulsive structure, and for a moment or two I was conscious of the forbidding atmosphere which it seemed to radiate. But the town, which I was visiting for business reasons, offered few other attractions. I had dealt half‐heartedly with an un‐imaginative meal, and had a little time to spare. A post‐prandial browse among books seemed to be the only consolation available. Shaking off a feeling of repugnance, I stepped through the swing doors into the dim fastnesses of the interior.

Prevailing explanations of the US secession crisis trace the latter’s origins to slavery and slaveowners’ interests. The central problem with all such explanations, however, is that the Whig Party, the party of the largest slaveowners, opposed secession until the mid-1850s. Why did southern Whigs and their planter base resist secession through the political crisis over slavery only to fold by 1861? Drawing on archival electoral returns by precinct, party newspapers, speeches, and personal correspondence from antebellum Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, I argue for an institutional and sequential approach to the secession crisis that does not take social actors’ individual interests as given, but rather as naturalized and denaturalized in the back and forth struggle of political parties to advance competing solutions to the problem of preserving slavery.

We give more space than usual to the Conference of the Library Association, but, even so, our correspondent has attempted impressions rather than factual accounts of the papers read. Good as those papers were, the main effect of our conferences is to provide for every type of librarian a sense of community and of unity with librarianship in general. This was achieved in a large measure at Edinburgh. Moreover, as our correspondent suggests, there was interest in problems that do not affect, at least at present, many who participated. Nearly every session, general or special, was so well attended, that we can infer that the vitality of interest in library matters is as great as it ever has been; indeed, it is possibly greater.

IN the April number of Public Libraries, Mr. Andrew Keogh, sometime of Newcastle‐on‐Tyne, now Professor of Bibliography at Yale University, comes forward in defence of American libraries from the aspersions alleged to be cast on them in this periodical. Other journalistic comments have also appeared, which we may have occasion to mention at another time; and altogether some pother has been caused in America over our very straightforward and simple remarks. Mr. Keogh assumes, quite erroneously, that the first Library World editorial was based on the one or two instances of American reference to European libraries which he quotes. He knows, however, just as well as ourselves, that the American pose in library work is to adopt an attitude akin to contempt for anything outside the boundaries of the United States, and this is shown in nearly every publication dealing with library work. The Nation example was only one which happened to come along at the moment, and it is direct confirmation of what was stated in these columns in April, namely, that even in secular journals the writers were, as Mr. Keogh now certifies, prominent members of the A.L.A. Our attitude is, therefore, not that of defence simply, against certain outsiders writing in non‐professional journals, but against American professional librarians lending themselves to the poor work of trying to belittle the efforts of European librarians on every possible occasion. The mere fact that, as Mr. Keogh affirms, the great research libraries of Germany were attacked in the Nation, does not justify the publication of such ungenerous articles, especially coming from librarians who profess so much friendliness and high feeling.

A SPLENDID conference, I thought. True, there were those who complained, those who thought some of the papers were elementary and those who thought that we had come a long way to learn very little. I don't agree at all. Some of the papers did, I admit, deal with basic considerations but it does nothing but good to re‐examine the framework of our services from time to time. In any case other papers were erudite, and for the first time I have seen an audience of librarians and authority members stunned, almost, into silence.

Celebrates the 90th birthday of Bengt Hjelmqvist in October 1993 with an account of his life and work. Illustrates his role in fostering Anglo‐Scandinavian public library conferences. Outlines his major publications and examines his work on Scandinavian public library buildings, as Head of the Library Section of the National Board of Education in Stockholm from 1945‐1969. Explains also his influence on British librarianship.

It is now forty years since there appeared H. R. Plomer's first volume Dictionary of the booksellers and printers who were at work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1641 to 1667. This has been followed by additional Bibliographical Society publications covering similarly the years up to 1775. From the short sketches given in this series, indicating changes of imprint and type of work undertaken, scholars working with English books issued before the closing years of the eighteenth century have had great assistance in dating the undated and in determining the colour and calibre of any work before it is consulted.

The report of the Chief Veterinary Officer of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries which records the proceedings taken under the Diseases of Animals Act for the year 1929 has just been issued. It indicates clearly the enormous amount and complexity of the work which devolves on the officers of the Ministry. They may very well say with John Wesley, “ All the world is my parish.” For instance in seven outbreaks of anthrax “ which …. occurred a few years ago,” the cause was found to be infected bone meal used as a manure and imported from an Eastern country (p. 43); another outbreak was traced to beans that had been imported from China (p. 44); again, special measures have been taken, at the instance of His Majesty's Government, by the Governments of Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentine to prevent the introduction of foot‐and‐mouth disease into this country by chilled or frozen meat (p. 46); an outbreak of foot‐and‐mouth disease at Los Angeles, California, led to an embargo being placed on the importation of hay and straw from that State (p. 52); while an outbreak in Southern Sweden led to similar steps being taken (p. 52). It is unnecessary to give further instances, but it is evident that the complexities of modern commerce and the development of rapid means of transport imposes world‐wide duties on the Ministry of a nature that were by no means contemplated when in 1865 the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council—of which the present Ministry is a lineal descendant—was instituted as a result of the outbreak of cattle plague which had ravaged the country. Table I. (p. 94) gives the total number of cattle in Great Britain for the five years 1925–1929 inclusive, each year ending in June. The percentage variation in the number of cattle during that time appears to be four per cent., so that the Ministry is responsible under the Act for about 7¼ millions of cattle, the 1929 return gives 7,190,539. The census and the subsequent co‐ordination of the returns made is in itself a task of no inconsiderable magnitude. In addition to this, however, veterinary skill of a high order is demanded, not only in the interests of a trade whose dimensions are indicated by the figures just given, but in the interests of public health in relation to notifiable cases, under the Act, of bovine tuberculosis. The number of cows and heifers in milk or in calf is given as 3,166,292 or 44 per cent. of the total number of bovine animals. It is of course from these that we derive our supplies of fresh milk, so that on their health our own health to a certain extent depends, and to a greater extent the health of invalids and children to whom milk is a prime necessity. It is therefore scarcely possible to over‐rate the weight of responsibility resting on the Ministry when the relation of its duties to the incidence of bovine tuberculosis is considered. Two important facts, however, demand attention. The first is that the Tuberculosis Order of 1925 was, as the Report points out, neither designed nor expected to eradicate bovine tuberculosis. The disease is widespread, and it is to be feared somewhat firmly established in our herds—an evil legacy from the past. The most that can be done at present is by means of the Order to remove as far as possible the danger to human health from the ingestion of the milk of infected animals and to reduce the number of these animals. Any attempt which might be made to completely eradicate the disease would in our present state of knowledge lead to a serious depletion of our herds throughout the country, and large expenditure in compensation (p. 23). In the second place while the Order of 1925 requires certain forms of the disease to be reported, no steps are at present taken or can be taken to search out the disease. An organisation designed so to do would be costly, as it would in the first place involve “ a considerable extension of periodical veterinary inspection of all dairy cows, coupled with the application of the biological test ” (p. 23). Hence leaving out of consideration our deficient knowledge of the disease, though its effects are horribly evident in our national life, the old conflict of public health versus public pocket is presented to us in an acute form.