The Literature of the Book (review)

Also published as LOGOS, volume 15, issue 3 (2004), The Literature of the Book is an invaluable resource for scholars and practitioners of the book professions. The brief introduction outlines the history of the project and its scope and explains the method the journal's U.K. and U.S. editors, Gordon Graham and Richard Abel, respectively, utilized to identify the contents of and contributors to this volume. They intended to create a bibliographic tool of international scope that would allow institutions and individuals interested in the book professions to collect the "best books written by, about and for them" (v). The resultant volume consists of nineteen essays from contributors who represent various book-related disciplines and topics, including indexing, marketing, e-books, and retail bookselling.

Graham and Abel invited contributors to explore different facets of "seven domains of the book world," which form the functional elements of Graham's "matrix of the book" (iv): authorship, editing, production, publishing, bookselling, librarianship, and readership (v). Each chapter conforms to a conventional structure that features critical comments followed by bibliographic citations. Beyond this organizational similarity, however, the contents of each chapter vary in length and detail and are presented in diverse and unique ways that reflect each author's interpretation of the editorial charge.

This diverse presentation of ideas is one of the book's strengths. On one level, it suggests that the book professions are dynamic and continue to thrive even as we witness the advent of a global, decentralized, digital information age. While the contributors are credible experts in their fields, the editors admirably delineate revealing connections between seemingly divergent chapters and topics. Beth Luey and Richard Abel's bibliography in their chapter on book history (6–10), for example, anticipates insights and resources further developed in Jack Walsdorf's chapter on contemporary publishing (39–45). These compelling and sometimes surprising connections between chapters provide convincing evidence of the relationships described in Graham's "matrix of the book" described above as well as a conceptual unity to the volume that underscores its relevance for book professionals.

Although the editors originally wanted The Literature of the Book to have an international scope, this volume's contents focus on book professions in the West, especially in Europe and North America. Notable exceptions to this trend are Eric Newman's chapter, "Reference" (60–65), and Jane Dorner's chapter, "Electronic Books" (71–79). In addition, while the breadth and depth of coverage in this book is impressive, some areas relevant to the book professions—preservation, for instance—are lacking. Still, these deficiencies, if they can be so called, do not undermine the usefulness of this elegant and modestly priced resource. Those who work in libraries will find Michael Gorman's chapter on libraries and librarianship particularly insightful. In truth, though, the topics addressed in The Literature of the Book intersect with and elaborate on each other in such interesting ways that the volume as a whole deserves a discerning read by anyone invested in book culture. I highly recommend it.