Libraries and Librarianship: Sixty Years of Challenge and Change, 1945–2005 (review)

For thirty-five years George Bobinski was a library science educator, first at the University of Kentucky and then at the State University of New York, Buffalo, where he rose to the position of dean. Before that he was a library administrator at both public and academic libraries. His seminal work, Carnegie Libraries: Their History and Impact on American Public Library Development (1969), has made him a familiar figure to students of library history. This book truly planted seeds and suggested patterns for future scholarship in the history of American public libraries. Bobinski’s current book offers a different kind of library history, one based primarily on memoir and personal involvement rather than on the kind of documentary evidence historians find in archives. It traces the changes and challenges he personally witnessed during sixty active years in the profession of librarianship.

Rather than present a straight chronological narrative, Bobinski structures the book according to various topics. Each topic is described as it was when Bobinski began working as a page at the local public library during his high school years at the end of World War II. He traces the development of changes and challenges in each topic and then ends with a description of its current state. His own memories are augmented not only with the occasional anecdote but also with a great deal of statistical data. Bobinski’s professional life thus forms the outline by which topics are addressed, but in no way does his life become the major focus. In fact, he reserves his opinions about future developments for the very end of the book.

Three areas of particular interest to library historians are examined in this book in a manner unlike that in any other resource. In the first chapter Bobinski covers the objects dealt with by librarians as well as the activities engaged in by librarians—such as the organization of those objects, how librarians help patrons gain access to those objects, how libraries are managed, and the impact of ever-changing technologies on libraries and librarians. In addition to discussing the development of microforms, punch cards, and other outdated technologies, as the reader would expect, the author covers those conferences and publications that provided specific insights into the future direction of library technology.

The second major area of interest to library historians is covered in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters—the rise and exponential growth of various methods of interlibrary cooperation, such as consortia, networks, and associations. While some of these activities were engaged in before World War II, it was during Bobinski’s early career after the war that interlibrary cooperation really flowered. He points out the direct impact these activities had on library funding. The Council on Library and Information Resources is singled out for detailed treatment. The author’s insights on this topic are among the most illuminating in the whole book.

The third area of particular interest to library historians is found in the eighth chapter, where Bobinski covers library science education, but he does so somewhat disappointingly. Considering his background as dean of a major ALA-accredited library science program during a time of great change, one might expect this chapter to be particularly enlightening. Unfortunately, it is not. Bobinski addresses some controversial topics, such as the closure of programs and the tensions with practitioners, but he does so very superficially and with few memoirs and anecdotes. The chapter contains not a shred of academic defense but only an outline that succeeds in hiding more than it shows. Perhaps the author was unable, for various reasons, to address the topic in the fashion I expected, but that does not prevent this chapter from being something of a disappointment.

In spite of this one relatively minor defect, this book will undoubtedly prove an important point of origin for further scholarly study as well as for further discussion for students and...