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NEW PUBLICATIONSC&RL News, October 2007Vol. 68, No. 9 by George M. Eberhart  College Libraries and the Teaching/Learning Process: Selections from the Writings of Evan Ira Farber, edited by David Gansz (247 pages, August 2007), brings together some of the seminal writings and talks of Evan Farber, the elder statesman of information-literacy instruction, which he pioneered in the 1960s at Earlham College. As Earlham’s chief librarian from 1962 until his retirement in 1994, Farber was also one of the foremost proponents of the college library as an “instrument of education” potentially more capable of innovation in teaching and learning than its unwieldy university counterpart. Farber has penned brief introductions to each of the 29 contributions, written between 1974 and 2004. Richard Werking provides a short introductory tribute, and Farber offers up some personal reminiscences in a 2003 interview transcribed for an appendix. $29.00 (plus $6.95 s/h). Earlham College Bookstore, Drawer 7, Earlham College, Richmond, IN 47374. 978-1-879117-18-1. Film Preservation: Competing Definitions of Value, Use, and Practice, by Karen F. Gracy (287 pages, March 2007), considers the social, institutional, and cultural aspects of film archiving in both commercial and nonprofit settings, as well as the varying definitions among practitioners of what constitutes film preservation. Gracy maps the eight stages in the path of preserving a film and identifies the persons who are responsible for making decisions and maintaining quality control. $56.00. Society of American Archivists. 978-1-931666-24-4. Intoxication in Mythology, by Ernest L. Abel (212 pages, November 2006), is a comprehensive dictionary of myths, rituals, heroes, gods and goddesses, intoxicants, containers, places, and concepts associated with substance abuse, from tobacco to mead and peyote. Mind-altering substances enjoyed a revered status in ancient times, and this work explains how the drugs were tied to possession by the gods, liberation of the soul, and communion with the spirit world. In Hellenic culture, the mysteries of Eleusis, Dionysus, and Orpheus are given star treatment; the tobacco myths of the Americas are also showcased. $35.00. McFarland, 978-0-7964-2477-1. Other good recent dictionaries are Carnal Knowledge: A Navel Gazer’s Dictionary of Anatomy, Etymology, and Trivia, by Charles Hodgson (260 pages, August 2007), which will satisfy any undergraduate curiosity about the definition and etymology of dimples, crotches, bosoms, and hangnails. $14.95. St. Martin’s Griffin. 978-0-312-37121-0. And Historical Dictionary of Epistemology, by Ralph Baergen (255 pages, June 2006), which offers definitions for the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief, from Plato’s knowledge of forms to Wilfred Sellars’s critical realism and Bishop and Trout’s strategic reliabilism. $75.00. Scarecrow. 978-0-8108-5518-2. Jim Lane: Scoundrel, Statesman, and Kansan, by Robert Collins (320 pages, May 2007), is a thorough reexamination of the life of James H. Lane, an ardent Free State leader in 1856 and U.S. Senator from Kansas during the Civil War. Dismissed by critics on both sides as vulgar and unscrupulous, Lane was blamed for inciting the Confederate guerilla Quantrill to burn Lawrence in retaliation for a similar exploit in Missouri two years earlier; but in retrospect he seems more to have been a flawed but effective orator, organizer, and politician who had Lincoln’s ear and was an early and persuasive advocate for emancipation and the enlistment of freedmen in the Union Army. $29.95. Pelican. 978-1-58980-445-6. George M. Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, e-mail: geberhart@ala.org |
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