29 minute read
Reader’s Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews
Column Editor: Corey Seeman (Director, Kresge Library Services, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; Phone: 734-764-9969) <cseeman@umich.edu> Twitter @cseeman
Column Editor’s Note: There are so many parts of being a book review editor for Against the Grain that I really enjoy. There are days when having a bit less work might be nice. Also, when you have a completely digital library, managing incoming and outgoing print volumes that are stacked in my office is a strange twist of irony. However, the reason I love doing this is when I get to work with an excellent group of librarians who span the country and beyond. I also love working with publishers as they are sending me information about new titles.
So even during a year when nothing is normal, especially having participated recently in the virtual Charleston Conference, a series of book reviews that cover newer titles in library studies and library reference seems like a great way to find just a little bit of…say…2019. But this column is one that I am most happy with. We have a nice balance of books on the profession as well as library reference works. The reference topics seem to be everywhere you look: women’s health, United States Government, civil rights, global resources, and the intersection of comics and librarianship. The professional works explore how to conduct research and reference interviews, the history of our profession and programming for teens. All in all, a very nice a diverse set of works that we are happy to showcase for the Against the Grain readers.
I am so appreciative of my great crew of reviewers. Participating in this issue’s column are return reviewers: Janet Crum, Presley Dyer, Julie Huskey, Joshua Hutchinson, Mary Catherine Moeller, Michelle Shea, and Steven W. Sowards. Joining the ranks of reviewers is Rachelle McLain. If you would like to be a reviewer for Against the Grain, please write me at <cseeman@umich.edu>. If you are a publisher and have a book you would like to see reviewed in a future column, please also write me directly. You can also find out more about the Reader’s Roundup here — https://sites.google.com/view/squirrelman/ atg-readers-roundup.
Happy reading and be nutty! — CS
Buratovich, Michael A. (ed.) Salem Health: Women’s Health. Ipswitch, MA: Salem Press, 2019. 978-1-64265-046-4 (hardback); 978-1-64265-047-1 (eBook). 2 v. (978 p.), $275.
Reviewed by Janet Crum (Director, Health Sciences Library, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ) <janetcrum@arizona.edu>
Practically every library should provide resources on women’s health, especially for patrons trying to understand concepts at a basic level. As the editor’s introduction notes, “Women make 90% of household healthcare decisions” and “account for 93% of all over-the-counter pharmaceutical purchases” (ix). Women also have unique health care needs, and diseases and conditions may manifest differently in women than they do in men (ix). The internet is rife with misinformation and outright falsehoods about women’s health, so a reliable source of accurate, easy-to-understand information is most welcome. This two-volume encyclopedia from Salem Health partially fills that bill, covering a wide variety of health topics affecting women from childhood to old age. The information is generally current, accurate, and accessible — but with a few significant omissions and problems.
The set contains nearly 300 articles (400-2000 words each) on female anatomy and physiology, reproductive health care, diseases specific to women, conditions with distinct manifestations in women, conditions more common in women, and psychological and sociological conditions and issues affecting women. Each article begins with the topic name and category and a glossary of key terms. Entries are signed with the author’s name(s) and credentials and conclude with a short list of further reading. The introduction and publicity material indicate that the target audiences are high school, undergraduate, and public library patrons as well as premed students. In keeping with the stated audience, entries use accurate, appropriate medical terminology that is accessible to educated lay readers but would be challenging for readers with lower education or literacy levels.
A review of selected topics reveals some variation in the depth of coverage as well as some significant omissions. Topics covered especially well include: • Gender identity: Coverage is extensive, accurate, and affirming. The article on gender confirmation surgery is especially good, offering clear, detailed information on surgical options with a reassuring, patient-friendly tone. • Sexual assault: The topic is covered thoroughly and in a variety of contexts, including date rape and issues faced by women in the military. • Reproductive health: Topics covered include (but are not limited to) abortion, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, newborn care, and menopause. Information provided is generally accurate and nonjudgmental, though one article on breastfeeding somewhat overstates its benefits.
Significant omissions include: • Sexual harassment is mentioned only briefly, with very little detail, and impacts to physical and mental health are not addressed. • Gender discrimination and health disparities based on gender are not listed in the contents or index. These seem like significant omissions, given the well-documented incidence of sexism and differential treatment women experience when seeking health care. • Race is also not listed in the table of contents or index, which seems like another significant and disconcerting omission, given the prevalence of race-based health disparities and the physical and mental health impacts of racism, including impacts specific to women (e.g., maternal mortality). Race is mentioned in some articles,
usually when it is a risk factor for a condition. However, in at least one case, the approach taken is concerning. The article on adolescent pregnancy prevention refers to Native Americans as American Indians, an outdated term, and recommends changes to Native culture to decrease adolescent pregnancy rather than addressing the significant health, education, and income disparities expereienced by Native Americans.
In addition to the omissions and concerns listed above, the subject index seems incomplete and inconsistent. For example, the index contains entries for both birth control and contraception, but they do not list the same pages. The index contains no entries for post-traumatic stress disorder, though the work contains two articles on the topic and several references in other topics (e.g., the article on rape and sexual assault).
Illustrations are simple black and white diagrams. Most are easy to understand, but some are fuzzy and lack sufficient contrast between the diagram itself and the arrows and labels, making it difficult to associate structures with names or see detail in structures. Appendices include a list of relevant government agencies with phone numbers and web links; a list of crisis organizations and hotlines; and a glossary.
Access to the online version appears to be included with the purchase price and appears to be available to a purchasing library’s entire patron base rather than being restricted to a single user. The online version was not reviewed, but access via keyword search would go a long way to make up for the indexing deficits noted above. This set is recommended with reservations for high school, public, and undergraduate libraries.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Guide to the ATG Reviewer Ratings
The ATG Reviewer Rating is being included for each book reviewed. Corey came up with this rating to reflect our collaborative collections and resource sharing means and thinks it will help to classify the importance of these books. • I need this book on my nightstand. (This book is so good, that I want a copy close at hand when I am in bed.) • I need this on my desk. (This book is so valuable, that I want my own copy at my desk that I will share with no one.) • I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
• I need this available somewhere in my shared
network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.) • I’ll use my money elsewhere. (Just not sure this is a useful book for my library or my network.) Dean, D. Alan. Encyclopedia of the United States Cabinet. Third edition. Armenia, NY: Grey House Publishing, Inc, 2019. 9781642650990. xxii, 1835 pages, $275.00.
Reviewed by Julie Huskey (Head of Cataloging, Tennessee State University, Brown-Daniel Library, Nashville) <jhuskey@tnstate.edu>
Dr. Alan Dean takes over from another professional writer, Mark Grossman, for the third edition of this popular reference work from Grey House. (The first and second editions were published in 2000 and 2010.)
The first volume opens with several essays on the nature and evolution of the cabinet (George Washington’s first cabinet, for instance, had only three members), including a piece on the British cabinet, as well as a section on those who served under the Articles of Confederation. The preliminary material is effective in placing the American cabinet in its historical context.
The main portion of this two-volume set includes a chapter for the cabinet of each presidential term (so a two-term president would have a chapter for each term separately). The section for each presidential term follows the same pattern: an “Essay on the cabinet” followed by profiles of each cabinet secretary, arranged chronologically. Entries, that range from approximately five hundred to approximately twelve hundred words, follow the same pattern: early life and education, environment around appointment, an assessment of their time in office, and their career after leaving the cabinet. A bibliography follows each entry. The first entry is for John Jay, who served as Secretary of State from April 1789 to March 1790 under the Articles of Confederation; the most recent profiles are for those who took office in July 2019.
Many entries — perhaps too many — open with some variation of “the secretary is almost forgotten today”, yet most profiles are quite comprehensive. Those profiled range from the extremely well-known (e.g, the eight future U.S. presidents who served in the cabinet) to the rather obscure (such as John Palmer Usher, Secretary of the Interior from 1863 to 1865).
One appendix reprints some primary documents pertaining to the cabinet (such as correspondence and newspaper articles), but with only fourteen entries, the researcher might wish for it to be more extensive. Other appendices include lists of those who held more than one office, Congressional Representatives chosen for the cabinet, and minorities who served in the cabinet. It is followed by a bibliography that is heavy on memoirs, government documents, and dissertations, as well as an alphabetical index of cabinet secretaries. The inclusion of the cabinet of the Confederate States of America is an interesting touch.
Although vice-presidents are sometimes classified as members of the cabinet, this work does not include them. Considering how unknown some vice-presidents remain, it would be beneficial to include them. The bullet-listed “Historical snapshot” pages, common in Grey House works, seem haphazardly inserted and serve little purpose.
The Encyclopedia of the United States Cabinet is likely to be most useful to undergraduate libraries where interest on the influence of the cabinet on American policy is likely to be high. The bibliographies alone provide avenues for further research. Since early cabinet members are covered fairly well elsewhere,
and presidential libraries (the online versions of which often offer extensive access to primary documents) exist for Herbert Hoover and later presidents, the work may be especially helpful for researching the period from the early nineteenth to the early twentieth century.
Although tangible reference works have been called obsolescent, this title makes an argument that a physical reference shelf still has a place in the academic library.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Grandmougin, Anne-Cécile. Lucien Herr: Socialist Librarian of the French Third Republic. Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books, 2020. 9781634000949, 136 pages. $18.00 (Tegan Raleigh, trans.)
Reviewed by Joshua Hutchinson (Cataloging and Metadata Librarian, University of California, Irvine) <jchutchi@uci.edu>
This biography of a late 19th and early 20th century French librarian shows the reader what 21st century librarians have in common with our previous colleagues as well as what we can learn from them. Rather than focusing on that which makes us different, instead author Anne-Cécile Grandmougin shows what hasn’t changed about the profession of librarianship and through those similarities describes just what the libraries were like where Lucien Herr worked.
An intellectual first and foremost, Lucien Herr was librarian at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure from 1888 to 1926. He played an important role in shaping not just that library but also the intellectual development of many of the students who passed through that institution while he was there. He saw the role of librarian to be an active one — to direct not just the library collection, but also the research of the students studying in it. Herr was also friends with many of the important thinkers and academics of his time, and a prolific reader and reviewer.
Grandmougin’s level of archival research is impressive, apparent for instance when comparing the prodigious quantity of reviews that Herr wrote on an annual basis with the books that he purchased for his library. Herr appears to have truly believed that he needed to read the books that he was purchasing for his library so that he could best help his patrons. He was a bibliographer conversant in many fields — not only was he able to read and review many or most of the books that came into the library, he also knew many of the intellectual luminaries of his time, such as Jean Jaurès (along with whom he was a co-founder of the newspaper L’Humanité), Léon Blum and Charles Peguy. In addition, Grandmougin describes how Herr was intimately involved in the Dreyfuss Affair.
The ways in which Herr’s practice of librarianship are mirrored in today’s libraries — even those in a different country, different century and different context — are both amusing and illuminating. He had difficult budgetary constraints and struggled because the fiscal year imposed upon him “did not correspond with the natural rhythm of acquisitions in the library” (pp 58-59). Serials accounted for a large share of the acquisitions budget, which meant that he was unable to be as flexible or complete in his monographic purchases as he would have liked. He had to regularly justify the library’s budget to administrators, and he dealt with the advent of new formats (such as slides and film reels) in libraries, and struggled (both in terms of budget and policy) with how they fit within the collections. These are just a few of the ways in which Herr’s librarianship was similar to the practice of librarianship in the 21st century, and also in which 21st century librarians can study and learn from him.
As a book, this is extremely readable. It’s fairly short — with the main text only a little bit more than 100 pages — but much is packed into those pages. For readers who are already aware of the social and historical context, it will prove to be an illuminating biographical sketch. For those who don’t have a deep knowledge of France from the 1880s to after the First World War, it provides an introduction to the period while telling an interesting story about the history of libraries. The translator has a note at the beginning explaining some of the decisions made throughout the work, and the translation itself is very impressive — the text reads smoothly and clearly.
This work, a translation of Grandmougin’s Mémoire d’étude (or dissertation), is a work of scholarship in both library science and French history. There is also a significant aspect about the history of teacher training, because Herr was director of the main teacher training library. Grandmougin is currently Conservateur des bibliothèques at Université Paris XIII. The French original is available online at the enssib’s institutional repository. Because of this book’s cross-disciplinary interest, the translation is certainly worth having available, particularly for those with strong programs in library science and/or 20th century French history.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this available somewhere in
my shared network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.)
Madsen, Marianne M. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Global Resources. Ipswich, Massachusetts: Salem Press. 2019. 978-1-64265-056-3, 1576 pages. $395
Reviewed by Michelle Shea (Education Librarian, Texas A&M - Central Texas) <m.shea@tamuct.edu>
This four-volume set is republished every decade with partially updated content and tables. As would be expected in an encyclopedic text, subject terms follow the standard alphabetical format. While general reference works may provide short descriptions of natural resources, this product prioritizes in-depth exploration of sustainable materials, environmental legislation, and cross-national initiatives. Photos, diagrams, and charts are also included sporadically to clarify or illustrate concepts throughout the text.
In this third edition of the work, readers will find some additional terms linked to energy sources and companies, but most entries have been updated to carry over from prior printings. Chemical and physical substances are organized under headings that describe primary uses, technical definitions, historical background, and sourcing information. Individuals who profited from or defended natural resources are given short biographies,
which focus on social, economic, and scientific impacts. Some nations, such as France and Mexico, are also assigned sections to highlight products, industries, and geographic access to materials. While only about 40 countries are individually emphasized, the locations are diverse enough to shed light on resource distribution across the continents. Lastly, a few specific programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (p. 203) and various United Nations Conventions (pp. 1268-1283), are defined with enough detail for interested readers to understand the issues.
Publisher Salem Press relies on three-prong distribution through print, eBook, and database resources. Their content is primarily a mix of humanities and science texts, as an imprint of Grey House Publishing. Marianne Madsen, a writing and rhetoric studies professor at the University of Utah, is the editor of this edition. As an instructor for scientific writing, she appears well-versed in organizing non-fiction texts. Most entries were written or revised by separate authors, who are acknowledged before each term’s bibliography. The collaborative effort results in a well-researched text with a multitude of perspectives.
Table of contents catalog each volume and the set as a whole. Additionally, volume four has a serviceable appendix, which includes elemental data, mineral lists sorted by state and country, a timeline for resource creation or discovery, a glossary for commonly used scientific terms, and recommended websites. For researchers, the final book’s end pages also provide category-based bibliographies, which cover topics from “Conservation” to “Hydrology” (pp. 1445-1467). At the end of many entries, related subjects are referred to with the term “see also”, which could help a reader navigate the volumes in a more intentional manner. A useful index spans over 100 pages to assist those who are looking for terms embedded within larger topics. Since page numbers run continuously between volumes, this book is best maintained in a viewing-only reference area for patrons to consult.
Academic libraries on campuses with environmental management or sustainable ethics classes may be interested in purchasing this collection. To serve digital users, an activation code for an electronic copy is included at the end of the first volume. Libraries that already have earlier editions might prefer to use their borrowing network for this third iteration, unless students are consistently requesting updated information in this subject area.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this available somewhere in
my shared network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.)
O’Neal, Michael J. (Ed.) Civil Rights Movements: Past and Present, 2nd edition. Amenia, NY: Salem Press, 2020. 9781642654059, 2 Volumes, 788 pages. $195.00.
Civil liberties have played a significant part of American history since our country’s foundation. We, as Americans, cherish our Bill of Rights to ensure that individuals have the freedom to exercise their rights regarding speech, press, and religion, among others. While these Rights carry significant meaning and appear nicely on paper, our reality looks quite differently. History has illustrated that these rights do not always protect every individual, especially when the individual is defined by groups of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. The voices and activism of these groups seeking to create a more fair and equitable union can be found in the two volume set of Civil Rights Movements: Past and Present, edited by Michael J. O’Neal.
Published by Salem Press, Civil Right Movements is the second edition of Magill’s Choice: The Civil Rights Movement. While the first edition specifically focused on Black America’s civil rights struggle, “the current edition widens the focus to include entries on the quest for equal rights among women, the LGBT community, ethnic minorities, the disabled, and other groups” (IX). In addition to updating older articles with new bibliographical information, 64 new articles have been added. Covering four centuries worth of civil rights material, the set is arranged alphabetically by related topics and terms. Volume 1 starts with “Abolition” and ends with “Ku Klux Klan Acts.” Volume 2 picks up with the letter L terms, beginning with “Labor Movement” and concluding with “Zoning.”
Each entry includes an introduction with an overview of the topic, a detailed essay body with historical and cultural implications, a further reading list, and a “see also” section that provides the reader with direction to other related material. For instance, the first entry, “Abolition,” provides an historical overview of the abolition movement with further emphasis on “Garrison Ethics” and “African American Abolitionism.” The “see also” section suggests for readers to look at the “American Anti-Slavery Society, Emancipation Proclamation, Liberator, and The Slave Rebellions” entries for further relevant information.
After the entry discussions, the volume includes an in-depth bibliography, which is organized by its covered topic such as “African American History” and “Women’s Rights.” Next, it features a “Notable Civil Figures” section that contains brief biographical information related to prominent civil rights figures including “Ralph David Abernathy” and “Muhammad Ali.” The volume ends with a timeline that consists of historical dates starting with the first African indentured servants in 1619 and ending with the U.S. Supreme Court case, Flowers v. Mississippi, in 2019. As indicated, this reference set is well-organized and easy-to-follow. It covers a lot of material that an individual might not otherwise think about in relation to civil rights such as the AIDS Crisis and disability rights.
Since it is a two volume reference set, it contains of a lot of information in a concise manner. The contributors have done an excellent job providing a starting point for the initial reader and scholar. The publication release date was January 2020, so this present year’s impactful events regarding the movements, specifically with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, are not discussed. As a result, I am sure there will be more of an in-depth analysis of the BLM movement with added entries for the deaths of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Breonna Taylor. In addition, an entry about “cancel culture” will likely be discussed. Such recent events illustrate the importance of civil rights and its supporting voices. The fight for civil rights and injustices never end. Civil Rights Movements: Past and Present is a great reminder that we must never forget these fights. For this reason, I recommend it for a library’s reference collection.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Piepmeier, Olivia and Stephanie Grimm (Eds.) Comics and Critical Librarianship: Reframing the Narrative in Academic Libraries. Sacramento, Calif.: Library Juice Press, 2019. 978-1-63400-080-2, 378 pages. $45.00.
Reviewed by Steven W. Sowards (Associate University Librarian for Collections, Michigan State University Libraries, East Lansing MI) <sowards@msu.edu>
Canon (noun): writings or other works that are generally agreed to be good, important, and worth studying. — Cambridge English Dictionary
The library’s work of selection and curation has a strong connection to the idea of a “canon” — identifying, preserving and promoting the right set of representative or exemplary works from an author or community, or about a topic. Given that works of popular culture often fall outside “the canon” as traditionally defined, what does it mean to work with a collection of canonical “best” works in a genre like comics? Is there a canon for the non-canonical, a “best” list for the disrespected? Arguably, such a canon has emerged for contemporary comic art: one can point to works by Will Eisner (for pioneering publications like A Contract with God), R. Crumb (famous or infamous for Zap Comix and Fritz the Cat), and Art Spiegelman (best known for Maus), which consistently turn up in discussions and collections. This volume extracts elements that relate the writing and publishing of comics to the work of judging importance and understanding essential features.
Editors Olivia Piepmeier and Stephanie Grimm employ critical librarianship as “an intentional engagement with the political and social dimensions of libraries and librarianship, including ideas of neutrality, authorship and authority, and the histories of censorship and affirming cultural divides within our own profession … an approach to the practice of library work that centers social justice principles” (p. 4). Given the marginalization of comics, comic authors and comic readers, and the wide diversity of communities that interact with comics, critical librarianship offers a well-suited method. Considered here, comics are the basis for case studies about insiders and outsiders in publishing and libraries. Because comics are “transgressive” they are always at risk of censorship and marginalization. Critical librarianship shows how to work with marginalized materials, authors, readers and communities.
This book will yield insights for readers who are interested in critical librarianship, because the study of comics and their place in the academy gets to the heart of discussions about privilege and marginalization in library practice. This book also will yield insights for readers who are interested in comics, because the toolbox of critical librarianship offers useful ways of thinking. Take-aways range from the practical to the conceptual: how to buy comics at conventions (bring cash), and how to account for a multitude of Batgirls under library cataloging rules.
Nineteen chapters are grouped into five sections about The Basics of the Comic Medium; Collecting; Organizing; Teaching; and Reaching. There is a strong focus on pedagogy, looking at critical librarianship in the classroom, tools for teaching, information literacy, and the teaching philosophy of Lynda Barry. A second thread follows the history of comics, going beyond familiar stories about the Comics Code censorship of the 1950s, the radical underground “comix” of the 1960s, and the emergence of the Marvel and DC franchises. A third thread uncovers the diversity of comics by citing examples of rich work coming out of feminism, indigenous communities, the AfroFuturist movement, and international markets such as South Asia.
This is a book aimed at academic librarians. The 37 contributors are librarians and curators in American and Canadian institutions. The two co-editors are working subject librarians with experience in building up comic collections. The essays are supported by contributor biographies, an index, and a glossary (distinguishing among comics, graphic novels, comic books, manga, comix, and comic strips). Suggested readings follow each essay. Tables, lists or appendices identify AfroFuturist authors, illustrators, and titles; institutions with large comic collections; and notable African-American comic publications. Comic book covers, comic book panels, and library displays appear as illustrations.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this available somewhere in
my shared network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.)
Ross, Catherine Sheldrick, Kirsti Nilsen and Marie L. Radford. Conducting the Reference Interview: Third Edition ALA Neal-Schuman, 2019. 9780838917275, 320 pages. $84.99
Reviewed by Mary Catherine Moeller (Assistant Librarian, Kresge Library Services, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) <mcmoelle@umich.edu>
The reference interview is a skill that is central to librarianship. Sussing out the true needs of a patron is essential to finding them the information they need, but this is often easier said than done. For the successful librarian, this requires finesse, patience and excellent communication skills. Conducting the Reference Interview is a How-To-Do-It Manual for Librarians written by a group of authors who have researched these skills and shared their findings and expertise with the readers.
Authors Catherine Ross and Kirtsi Nilsen from the University of Western Ontario in partnership with Marie L. Radford from Rutgers University consolidated their research on communication theory and reference interactions to come out with this third edition of Conducting the Reference Interview. The authors have varied reference experience and research interests but combined their knowledge to create a well rounded guide for conducting an excellent reference interview.
The world we live in is becoming increasingly more digital and so virtual reference service skills are becoming vital for librarians (especially now during COVID-19). The chapter on virtual reference covers everything from chat to texting to email and compares similarities and differences between services as well as their benefits and drawbacks. With virtual reference in particular it can be very difficult to build rapport with the enduser. The authors acknowledge that and give insight into what interpersonal communication should look like in a digital context. I can see this chapter in particular being very helpful for helping students navigate this more complicated side of library services.
This book does a good job of catering to students, professors and library staff all at the same time. There are sections that tackle the more basic aspects of reference interactions, exercises that professors can use with their students and sections that are geared toward continuing education for library staff. As someone who has worked in training our student reference assistants at my library, I particularly appreciated the section about training staff for the reference interview. It included useful exercises and insight into how to do an effective group training session. I can definitely see myself using some of the exercises when I am training student assistants in the future.
This would be the perfect textbook for an introductory reference class. The exercises and quick tips would be valuable to students working to hone the art of figuring out what patrons are really looking for. While there is also value in this book for library staff and library professors, library students and newly minted librarians stand to benefit the most from Conducting the Reference Interview.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this available somewhere in
my shared network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.)
Staines, Gail M. Social Sciences Research: Research, Writing, and Presentation Strategies for Students, 3rd edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. 9781538122419, 97 pages. $27.00.
As librarians, we know the research process never ends. In fact, the research process gets more complex with the addition of new information technologies and electronic references at our disposal. The access to this extensive amount of information indeed feels overwhelming, especially when librarians are considered the first responders to the world of information. Not only must we know the research process for ourselves, but we must teach students the process as well. Many questions run through our minds as instruction librarians: Where do I begin? How can I teach these new research skills to social science students? How do I build upon these skills? Thankfully, the answers to these questions and more can be found in the new revision of Gail M. Staines’ Social Sciences Research: Research, Writing, and Presentation Strategies for Students.
Gail Staines is a librarian at the University of Central Missouri and has a Master of Library Science degree and a Doctor of Philosophy in High Education Administration degree from the University of Buffalo. In addition to earning leadership positions across private and public universities, Staines has specialized in research areas relating to information literacy, leadership, and the academic library environment. As a result, Staines knows the research process and knows what it requires to become a skilled master in finding and abstracting quality information to create a well-written research document. Therefore, Staines acknowledges that “this manual continues to be designed as a resource for students, as well as their instructors, to help students succeed in carrying out library research [and its presentation] in the social sciences” (vi).
The third edition of Social Science Research delivers noticeably clear and concise instructions with an updated emphasis regarding electronic sources guidelines. It consists of 10 chapters covering a wide variety of content such as creating a well-constructed research question, conducting an adequate search, and evaluating the information. It also includes well-organized appendixes with examples of social science research questions, a sample paper, 11 practice worksheets (e.g., “Selecting a Topic” and “Scholarly versus Popular Literature”) and citation forms with blank spaces for jotting down information needed to create citations.
Since Social Science Research is only 97 pages, it obviously does not go into a tremendous amount of detail regarding the research process. She has narrowed down the material to what we absolutely need to know because she understands how cumbersome research can be. The only section that I would likely consult another source for further information would be Chapter 7: “The APA Format: Writing and the Use of an Appropriate Format.” Although Staines does a good overview of the APA format style, I would suggest individuals refer to the APA Style Manual for more in-depth instructions. Social Science Research then should be used as a starting point, which one can expand upon with more knowledge and understanding. As Staines concludes, “The process of scholarly research, writing, and presenting provide students with a number of skills for life… we encourage you to persevere” (63).
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Wyckoff, Amy and Harris, Marie. Career Programming For Today’s Teens: Exploring Nontraditional and Vocational Alternatives. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2019. 9780838917596, 200 pages. $56.99
Reviewed by Rachelle McLain (Collection Development Librarian, Montana State University Library, Montana State University, Bozeman) <rachelle.mclain@montana.edu>
Amy Wyckoff, currently a youth services senior librarian at the Beaverton (Oregon) City Library, and Marie Harris, library branch manager for the Charlotte (North Carolina) Mecklenburg Library, have written a step-by-step guide for librarians helping teenagers in their communities navigate nontraditional and vocational paths to careers.
The book not only offers several chapters that detail handson activities, but also provides an update on vocational school trends, current career programming happening at the library, ideas for evaluating outcomes of library events, extensive collection development tools, and five appendices. The appendices include sample documents they’ve used in their library programming, including: workshop flyer; workshop evaluation; examples of emails they have written to various stakeholders; and a sample workshop-planning document. The last appendix is a list of State-Based Worker’s Resources.
The entire first chapter is devoted to trends in vocational careers. The authors include current data to support their assertion that there is an upward trend showing a need for employees in middle-skill-level jobs in the United States. Data presented in-
