International Dictionary of Library Histories (review)

As the field of library history continues to mature it has created a need for the production of new reference resources that can summarize the state of the art. David H. Stam's International Dictionary of Library Histories represents this trend. In two volumes totaling over a thousand pages, Stam, who is now university librarian emeritus at Syracuse University, has enlisted the help of over two hundred authors, both librarians and nonlibrarians, to construct thoughtful essays explaining the historical background of over two hundred individual libraries. These contributions follow an introductory section that contains thematically based writings arranged alphabetically by topic.

Stam sought to build upon earlier works, such as Davis and Wiegand's Encyclopedia of Library History (1994), which contains shorter essays based on a topical approach. (Nevertheless, their volume does include histories of about sixty major libraries.) He also consulted the massive German twenty-eight-volume compendium Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände in Deutschland (1992-2000) edited by Bernhard Fabian, but (thankfully!) Stam limited his efforts to two volumes. With the appearance of this new work we can be grateful for the willingness of Stam's publisher, Fitzroy Dearborn, to promote a specialized reference work in library history. These new volumes fit nicely alongside earlier Fitzroy Dearborn titles such as the International Dictionary of University Histories (1998) or the five-volume International Dictionary of Historic Places (1995).

Turning to the volumes themselves, they consist of two parts: an introductory section of 34 essays followed by the 224 individual library histories. In his introduction, Stam goes into extensive detail explaining the conceptual background to how the specific library histories were constructed, and, for their part, the library histories are interesting (more about them later). What is actually more intriguing—and perhaps more useful to the general reader—are the thematically oriented essays that occupy the first two hundred pages. In broad strokes these writings explain the historical context within which the more detailed institutional histories reside. In his explanatory remarks Stam does not explain how he and his board of advisors came up with the thirty-four topics, so we are left to wonder, for example, why essays appear devoted to medieval, Renaissance, and royal libraries but not to those of the ancient world. Public, private, school, and subscription libraries each receive their due but not academic libraries. Geographic areas are covered, including Africa, the Balkans, the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and both South and Southeast Asia, as well as the Pacific Islands. There is even a section on Icelandic libraries but, alas, not Nordic libraries. The major religions are represented with essays on Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Jewish libraries. The essays are well crafted, reflecting each author's solid knowledge of the topic. Indeed, Stam and his advisory board have selected the contributors with impressive care, revealing a clear awareness of who the experts are for each entry. Thus, for example, Cheryl Knott Malone discusses African American libraries, while Hermina Anghelescu handles Balkan libraries. The inestimable Mark Tucker explains land-grant university libraries, and who better than Maurice B. Line to author the chapter on national libraries? Public libraries are outlined by Kathleen Molz, and it makes sense that Jonathan Rose would describe workers' libraries. One of the nice little features of most—but not all—of these topically oriented essays is that, in addition to the inclusion of a small bibliography, they also conclude with a list of the individual libraries treated within the Dictionary that would fit their category.

Turning to the specific library histories that make up the bulk of the two volumes, one notes, first of all, that although they are of varying lengths they are of consistently good quality. Stam admits that paring down the original list of over five hundred candidates to a more manageable...