Library Archives Research Articles

American Catholics and Slavery: 1789-1866. An Anthology of Primary Documents ed. by Kenneth J. Zanca.

510BOOK REVIEWS Life" Father Guest examines health and sanitation, discipline, and cultural change at the missions. A second article, "Junípero Serra and the Indians," defends the religious ideaUsm of the great missionary and his companions.A third article on "Discipline in California Mission life" concludes that discipline at the California missions was mUd, about what might be expected in simUar institutions anywhere in the world at the time. "The missions," writes Father Guest, "need to be viewed as expressions of Spanish reUgious culture" (p. 295).The final article, "The California Missions Were Far from Faultless," deals with such topics as the ethnocentrism of the missionaries and the persistence of superstition among the converts. As in the other essays, Father Guest concludes that many ofthe criticisms ofthe missions are based on isolated incidents, taken out of context.Answering the accusation that the Indian converts did not reaUy accept Christianity, Father Guest describes the obvious fervor ofthe Indian Christians . In one particularly long quotation from the death register for Mission Santa Cruz, the missionary priest recaUed the saintly Ufe of a young woman name Antonina in terms that bear repeating: "She busied herself with common and ordinary chores to which her lot in life had assigned her, doing them with aU the perfection possible for her, doing them for God,which is what perfection consists in" (p. 371). AU of the articles are based on thorough research Ln the original sources, most of which are avaUable at the Santa Barbara Mission Archive library. The prose style is clear and concise.The page layout is pleasing.The index is thorough . If there is a fault in Father Guest's work it is that he assumes the critics of the missions are people ofgood wUl who really want to be engaged Ln scholarly discourse. Harry Kelsey Huntington Library San Marino, California American Catholics and Slavery: 1 789-1866. An Anthology ofPrimary Documents . CompUed and edited by Kenneth J. Zanca. (Lanham, Maryland: University Press ofAmerica. 1994. Pp.xxxi, 290. $4950.) Kenneth Zanca, professor in the department of reUgious studies at Marymount CoUege, has compüed a series of documents dealing with CathoUcism and slavery Ln the United States.This work, 'which began as a coUection to aid his own teaching, includes more than one hundred documents ranging from Scripture texts and excerpts from Early Church Uterature to quotations from the antebeUum Catholic press and the bishops' pastoral letters of the midnineteenth century. An introduction begins each section with an explanation before each document. The coUection has been divided into three categories : the CathoUc tradition regarding slavery; sources that trace the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America (the author Includes such docu- BOOK REVIEWS511 ments as Jefferson's Notes on Virginia and the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision ); and the observations of Catholics on slavery between 1789 and 1866. Professor Zanca has produced an anthology that should be of use to aU students of American church history. Interest in Black CathoUc history in the United States is growing rapidly. HopefuUy in a subsequent volume Professor Zanca wUl consider placing the documents in chronological order.The present arrangement causes too much repetition. A case in point is the treatment of Pope Gregory XVTs condemnation of the slave trade (1839) on page 27, reaction to the condemnation of the slave trade on page 128, reference to Gregory XVTs apostoUc brief on the slave trade on page 221, and finaUy the treatment of it by Bishop England on page 191 . Professor Zanca makes a very good effort to explain the proslavery mentality of the Catholic clergy and people, placing this mentaUty within the context of the time. It is interesting to note that Félix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orléans, had no difficulty in denouncing slavery with passion and feeling as moraUy reprehensible (p. 121) whUe American bishops could only bring themselves to avoid it as a political issue. Surprisingly Zanca includes none of the anti-slavery speeches of Daniel 0'ConneU,who fiercely condemned the pro-slavery stance of the Irish in this country. Zanca seems less famUiar with the documents that reveal the thoughts and feelings of Black Americans. He overlooked "The Journal of...

Chaos and All That (review)

Reviews 491 between a "Eulogy," which is characteristically full ofpraise, and an "Elegy," which is more mournful. IfLin thinks that "Eulogy" is more appropriate for shang (grief), then she should argue her case. William A. Callahan University of Durham, United Kingdom William A. Callahan is a lecturer in EastAsian International Relations in the Politics Department, and is workingon a book titled Confucian Ideology and Greater China. Liu Sola. Chaos and AU That. Translated by Richard King. Honolulu: University ofHawai'i Press, 1994. 134 pp. Hardcover $19.95, iSBN 0-8248-1617-x. Paperback $11.95, isbn 0-8248-1651-x. Freshness is a good thing, but freshness must soon fade. It often happens that a new work is welcomed because it speaks in a fresh voice, talks ofthings formerly suppressed, and represents characters that the reader has never met in print before and outlooks that have changed because the times have changed. But when the novel has become familiar, it may suffer the fate ofan old newspaper, to be consigned to the library archives, having had its day. Liu Sola's novelette Chaos and All Thathad all the qualities of freshness just mentioned when it was published in Hong Kong in 1991. It spoke for a generation ofChinese women who grew up in a world ofright and wrong that snuffed itselfout, leaving them to make their own rules, ifany. In the new world ofinsouciance that it pictured, if people were not kinky they were cranky. In the London to which the narrator had moved and where she wrote, one would not have expected anything different; but applied to old Peking, to which her thoughts transported her and whence she received messages, this perspective was something new, hence the interest in it at the time from China scholars. The question is, does it have enough going for it to make it still a good read, and to justify translation? My answer is yes, but less for what it says than for the way it says it. Chaos andAll That—or, to give it its Chinese title, Hundunjia ligeleng—was not Liu Sola's first work. She hit the headlines with Ni hie wu xuanze (You've no© 1996 fry University other cnoice) in 19g5) and f0nowed that with shorter stories, some ofwhich were of awan resstranslated byMartha Cheung in Blue Sky Green Sea (Renditions Paperbacks, Chinese University ofHong Kong, 1993). While these were in no way inadequately expressed, they used an educated language that did not draw attention to itself. 492 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 Chaos, in contrast, closes the gap between written and spoken language, using halftones, catchwords, dialectisms, vulgarisms, and obscenities, besides quoting snatches of songs and variations on a long traditional ballad. All these lend character and flavor to her writing. At the same time they make severe demands on the translator. Readers of translations put their trust in the translator. They expect the translator to understand correctly all that the original text says. They also trust the translator to render the text stylistically in more or less the same way as it was written in the original language. One does not want to undermine that trust unduly , but the truth is that translations from the Chinese rarely fully satisfy expectations in either respect. The clues as to how an utterance is to be understood are generally more subtle in Chinese than in English, given the sparseness of grammatical signs. Individual translators are almost sure to miss some. The individual's background knowledge is also almost certainly bound to be lacking in some respects , and that will lead to more misinterpretation. Richard King's translation of Chaos does not exactiy disprove the rule, in that it does have some mistakes, but they are few and trivial enough for it still to count as superior in terms of accuracy . And stylistically it reads very much as one imagines Liu Sola would have written had she been writing in English. Ergo, success. In his "Translator's Postscript," King says that he first translated from the author's manuscript draft, and then revised his translation to match her prepublication revisions. Some discrepancies between the translation and...

The Opening of the Chinese Mind: Democratic Changes in China Since 1978 (review)

490 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 Jing Lin. The Opening ofthe Chinese Mind: Democratic Changes in China Since 1978. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1994. xv, 186 pp. Hardcover $49·95> isbn 0-275-94594-4. Those looking for a liberal-democratic interpretation of recent Chinese history would be interested in Jing Lin's The Opening ofthe Chinese Mind. Professor Lin outlines the oppression of "Communist China" and then discusses the monumental economic, political, and cultural changes that occurred between 1978 and 1989. Her conclusion is that "Setting up a democratic system in China is going to be a slow process but will likely proceed, for the people are no longer passive and obedient citizens but are becoming increasingly more critical thinkers and effective participants in processes that affect their own lives." This emergence of a new "critical thinking," which is echoed throughout the volume, leads to the major criticism of the project. Though Lin is stressing openmindedness and criticism, she does not exercise much of it herself. The book is peppered with stereotypes ofboth China and "the West" that romanticize the oppression /freedom opposition that liberal analysis sets up. In this way, Lin is actually reproducing much of the power relationships that she and others criticize so vehemently: it is "out with the old and in with new" all over again. This time it is out with "communism" and in with "capitalism," out with "politics" and in with "economics." Rather than look at the new dynamic of political-economics now that relations have been commodified, Lin leaves us with the impression that now everyone is free, when actually now everythingis very expensive . Lin actually points these things out—but as a celebratory note rather than an analysis. Still, politics is not gone; it has merely shifted to a new terrain. Perhaps the problem here is that Lin is trying to cover too large an area in too small a space and with too few resources: the author bases her research into "the Chinese Mind" on twenty questionnaires. Many of the details in the book are nonetheless fascinating, but before the reader can get a critical view, Lin has moved on to the next topic. In other words, the analysis is quite thin, and sometimes very sloppy. For example, the opening lines state that Mao Zedong ruled China for twenty-seven years—completely rolling over the internal struggles of the Communist Party. This actually reinscribes an official view ofhistory: jiefangqian /hou, before/after liberation, where liberation is now in 1976 rather than 1949. Though it may be convenient, postulating such a clean break tends to lead one© 1996 fry University away from a critical view ofboth the past and the present. ofHawai'i PressJjn ^50 misspells the romanization ofone ofher main sources: it should be Liu Binyan, not Liu Binyian. Likewise, she translates Heshangas "River Eulogy" rather than "River Elegy" or "Deathsong of a River." There is quite a difference Reviews 491 between a "Eulogy," which is characteristically full ofpraise, and an "Elegy," which is more mournful. IfLin thinks that "Eulogy" is more appropriate for shang (grief), then she should argue her case. William A. Callahan University of Durham, United Kingdom William A. Callahan is a lecturer in EastAsian International Relations in the Politics Department, and is workingon a book titled Confucian Ideology and Greater China. Liu Sola. Chaos and AU That. Translated by Richard King. Honolulu: University ofHawai'i Press, 1994. 134 pp. Hardcover $19.95, ISBN 0-8248-1617-x. Paperback $11.95, isbn 0-8248-1651-x. Freshness is a good thing, but freshness must soon fade. It often happens that a new work is welcomed because it speaks in a fresh voice, talks ofthings formerly suppressed, and represents characters that the reader has never met in print before and outlooks that have changed because the times have changed. But when the novel has become familiar, it may suffer the fate ofan old newspaper, to be consigned to the library archives, having had its day. Liu Sola's novelette Chaos and All Thathad all the qualities of freshness just mentioned when it was published in Hong Kong in 1991. It spoke for a generation ofChinese...

The Library Bill of Rights in the 1960s: One Profession, One Ethic.

AN EXPLORATION OF AMERICAN LIBRARIANSHIP'S treatment of the Library Bill of Rights in the 1960s. The author introduces two vying interpretations of the utility of the Library Bill of Rights, then examines the conflict surrounding these interpretations in order to probe their impact on the viability of the profession. Findings are based on both primary and secondary sources, including ALA's Social Responsibilities Round Table Papers located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University Library Archives.

Dr. Adkinson and Psychological Research

Dr. Adkinson and Psychological Research

The diary kept by T. E. Lawrence while travelling in Arabia during 1911. (Folios Archive Library.) Introduction by Robin Bidwell. 79 pp. Reading: Garnett Publishing, 1993. £20.

The diary kept by T. E. Lawrence while travelling in Arabia during 1911. (Folios Archive Library.) Introduction by Robin Bidwell. 79 pp. Reading: Garnett Publishing, 1993. £20.

User Views of Compact Shelving in an Open Access Library

The quest for space in the library universe has increasingly necessitated the installation of compact shelving in university libraries. This article includes an overview of the installation of electrically and mechanically assisted compact shelving and procedures for relocating over 22,000 linear feet of books, scores, recordings, and manuscripts, prior to, during and after installation of such a system at Bowling Green State University. Librarians have expressed concern that restrictions-reduced browsing capability, slowed retrieval, and the need for patrons to obtain instruction in operating the shelving-would produce patron dissatisfaction. The focus in this paper is on the results of a survey of graduate students and undergraduates, of electric compact shelving for books and scores in the Music Library and Sound Recordings Archives of Bowling Green State University Libraries. The survey identified apprehension concerning the use of the installation, the adequacy of instructions for use, the level of i...

A Survey of the Rubbings Taken From the Haotai-wang Monument and Now Preserved in Beijing : The Old Wang Shaozhen Collection and Beijing Library Archives

A Survey of the Rubbings Taken From the Haotai-wang Monument and Now Preserved in Beijing : The Old Wang Shaozhen Collection and Beijing Library Archives

Slope stabilisation experience in South Wales, UK : Jones, D B Proc Conference on Slope Stability Engineering: Developments and Applications, Isle of Wight, 15–18 April 1991P313–320. Publ London: Thomas Telford, 1991

This paper describes the functions of a geotechnical team engaged on the stabilisation of natural and man made slopes. The use of an engineering database and an archive library of landslide incidents are illustrated and various design philosophies for corrective measures are explained. The relevance of the computed factor of safety and the public's perception of different corrective measures are reviewed. It is concluded that the success of schemes should be quantified in terms of the margin of stability achieved, design life and maintenance, cost and the confidence of the local community in the solution. (Keynote paper in section on remedial measures). For the covering abstract see IRRD 877809.

Cataloging Remote Electronic Journals and Databases

With the advent of electronic publications, the cataloger is no longer providing access to just the library's archives. The following paper addresses the changing role of the catalog librarian and provides examples on how the cataloger can provide access to electronic journals using today's technology and formats.

“A Respectable English Education”: Innovation and Tradition in Literary Studies at Wesleyan Ladies’ College (1861–1897)

“A RESPECTABLE ENGLISH EDUCATION” : INNOVATION AND TRADITION IN LITERARY STUDIES AT WESLEYAN LADIES’ COLLEGE (1861-1897) ANNA SONSER University of Toronto I T h e story of the Wesleyan Ladies’ College (Hamilton, Ontario) is a narra­ tive of contrast and contradiction, a chronicle that raises specific questions not only about a key segment of the history of women’s education but also about the development of English study at the university level. Languishing unnoticed in local library archives until very recently, the papers of WLC — calendars, literary journals, examinations, essays, and reminiscences — sug­ gest a critical plurality at work, a complexity of innovation and tradition that may alter and modify the accepted timetable of literary study. The curricular development of English at WLC appears not only to pre­ date the formulation of literary studies at all-male universities but also to anticipate the theoretical and feminist questions determining the discipline’s boundaries in succeeding decades. To better situate this curricular develop­ ment, it is helpful to contextualize its ideological underpinnings, the result of an intricacy of traditions, pressures, and innovations arising from numer­ ous sources, one of the more influential being gender differentiation (Bayley and Ronish 39). The nature of English study at WLC, unlike English study at all-male institutions such as the University of Toronto, reveals a con­ structive albeit contradictory set of assumptions, a cultural ideology that confidently promised its patrons a “respectable English education” (HPLA Calendar 1880/81 18). What lay behind the claim of a “respectable English education” ? What did the over two thousand graduates of WLC read — in the lecture halls, in the college’s library, in the privacy of their own rooms? More importantly, perhaps, how did they read? How were they taught and which questions were they schooled to ask? How did instruction in English studies at Wes­ leyan differ from what was happening just forty-five miles down the road and a gender world away at the University of Toronto? The suggestions generated by these questions create a portrait of WLC that is at odds with what Prentice and Theobald refer to as the “unflattering stereotype” of the English St u d ie s in Ca n a d a , 19 , 1 , March 1993 “netherworld of education by default” (72-73). The story of WLC instead presents a palimpsest of ideological brushstrokes that simultaneously affirm and negate assumptions not only about women’s higher education in the mid-to-late nineteenth century but also about the development of English as a curricular subject. These assumptions will be examined from four interrelated perspectives. The first stage proposes a review of English subjects at Wesleyan in the course of its more than thirty-year history, an assessment that uncovers a markedly progressive curriculum with roots nonetheless fixed in a traditional, that is, “masculine” heritage. English study at the Hamilton college com­ prised an interesting mix of classical training in rhetoric and composition imitative of men’s schooling, combined with, particularly at senior levels, an Arnoldian slant. In other words, Taine and Parker’s Aids made an appear­ ance along with an emphasis on textual criticism that promoted experiential, aesthetic, and moral appreciation of literature. This amalgam of approaches to English study at WLC invites comparison with curriculum development at the University of Toronto. Examination papers from WLC indicate that students were encouraged to study primary texts closely and in their entirety, not simply for parsing purposes or for rhetorical principles. Personal evaluations were elicited through essay topics and examination questions suggesting an intimate, experiential contact with poetry, fiction, and criticism. Conversely, primary documentation from the University of Toronto sug­ gests that the aim of English education was to discipline the mind, to require the student “simply to undergo an exercise in memorizing a special kind of history; there is no direct literary ‘experience’ required, nor is there a need for personal evaluations” (Tilson 472). A direct comparison of WLC with the University of Toronto only serves to underscore that the study of English at the women’s academy was fully formulated and closer to the discipline as it is known today than what passed as literary study at parallel, all-male insti­ tutions...

News

An interesting article by Nick Smith, Head of Information Services at Aston University, appears in Information World Review, No. 65, December 1991, pp. 21–3. The underlying strategy at Aston is not to have an archival library, but to supplement a core collection to meet the immediate needs of staff and students by a wide range of self‐service electronic information sources, interlibrary loans and, eventually, electronic document delivery. There are clearly many problems to be solved, such as the extent to which training in use of the electronic services should (or could) be given, how it is all to be paid for, and even whether the alternative to books and periodicals is entirely acceptable to users. Nick Smith believes that data producers should be willing to offer massive discounts to academic users with unlimited access deals, but it seems evident that as the economic situation worsens attitudes have hardened, driving the university to rely on CD‐ROM‐based network services rather than on‐line sources. Downloading problems evidently cause far more trouble and requests for help than does search strategy. Lack of requests for help on search strategy may, however, be giving false impression that all is well. Users whose search capability is limited could still be receiving information which appears satisfactory to them although an experienced searcher could find much more on the same topics.

The first radiation accident in America: a centennial account of the x-ray photograph made in 1890.

On February 22, 1890, Dr Arthur Goodspeed and William Jennings made the first x-ray photograph, in the physical lecture room of the University of Pennsylvania. On that evening, Goodspeed and Jennings had been making brush electrographs of coins and brass weights. After they finished their experiments, Jennings stacked all of the photographic plates; two coins--either left from the experiments or Jennings' trolley fare--were placed on top of the plates. Goodspeed then demonstrated to Jennings the university's collection of Crookes tubes, with the idea of photographing the glow from the tube. While the two men were talking, however, the Crookes tube was emitting x radiation that affected the nearby plates. After the plates were developed, Jennings noted that one had the shawdow(s) of a disk(s) on it; neither man could explain the image. On hearing of Roentgen's work in 1896, Goodspeed and Jennigns retrieved the original plate and reproduced their "accident." The glass plate was subsequently lost among library archives.

The utility of bibliographic databases as indicators of international research: Factors influencing the development of an international database

The field of population studies, which was most active not only as an academic discipline but as a popular cause in the 1960s and 1970s, was an international and mission-oriented attempt to find resolutions to the problems arising from and inherent to a growing world population. The Library of the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was one of the focal points of activity domestically and internationally, until its focus was sharply redirected in 1974 to domestic activities. An analysis of the records in the Population Bibliography, the database developed by the Library, was conducted to determine the organizational and discipline-related variables that affected its international development, and to assess the degree to which the database represented international research in the field. While one picture of the database was drawn using statistics from the file and policies and staffing patterns as reported in the Library's archives, quite a different picture emerged when organizational variables—specifically, database editing and staff practices — were taken into account. The importance of going beyond examination of the database itself to understand the development of an international database and its relationship to the field it covers are stressed.

LIBRARY NEWS

The British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects has been awarded a grant of £3,500 from the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust, to help in the preservation of the Library's manuscripts and archives collection. The grant will be used to treat important 18th and 19th century papers, including the correspondence of eminent architects. The first item to receive treatment will be the fragile “Goodchild Album”, a valuable record of the work of the Cockerell practice compiled by his assistant, John Eastly Goodchild. The album was purchased by the British Architectural Library at a Christie's sale in 1983 with the aid of a grant from the National Art Collections Fund.

Oral History as Moral Discourse: Conscientious Objectors and the Second World War

In its traditional home inside discipline of history, oral history is generally taken to be among tools we have at our disposal for recovering past. Historians are brought out of archival libraries and into the field (a territory familiar to sociologists and anthropologists who have always relied more heavily on verbal reporting) where they acquire information about past from people who have actually lived it. In this manner oral history has produced a great deal of excellent work adding to our storehouse of knowledge. But for some of us outside discipline of history, primary advantage of an oral method is not properly historical at all: oral history in this sense has little to do with reconstructing what actually happened in past (though this may be a beneficial side effect), and everything to do with examining how past is remembered. After all, oral history does not take place in past, but in present, as a present reflection on past. For researchers seeking to recover past, reliance on human memory is a drawback of oral method, one which must be factored out as much as possible.' But for other sorts of studies, characteristically retrospective and reflective nature of oral history can be capitalized on as an asset.

Computer-Based Arabic Manuscript Management

During the 1987/88 academic year an Arabic manuscript microfilm project at Boutilimit, Mauritania, under sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the University of Illinois, completed the first phase of a library preservation program with the filming of some 25.5 lineal feet/8.1 lineal meters of Arabic manuscripts (or slightly over 100,000 folios of material) on eighty-five reels. This filmed collection is available to researchers at the University of Illinois Library Archives. In contrast with what, alas, is a norm in Arabic manuscript acquisition and cataloging, and thanks to a computer program developed for this project, within four months of the termination of the filming an interim 352-page bilingual finding aid was generated for the 937 records involved. Following corrections to that finding aid in the field and additions to the collection during the 1988/89 year, indices in Arabic and English will be generated from the program. The rapidity with which this collection has thus become accessible for researchers is fairly dramatic, and the program developed for the project may well point to ways in which other comparable data sets may be efficiently managed. This description will focus on the objectives of the finding aid, the technical outline of its development, the experience to date with its application, and possible future uses for the system.

Establishing Archives in Synagogue or Center Libraries

Establishing Archives in Synagogue or Center Libraries

Publications Perish—Sociology Endures

The primary vehicle for publishing sociological knowledge is the journal article. But as each journal issue is replaced by another, the earlier articles are often forgotten. They lie in library archives like corpses in a cemetery. From time to time, a godlike creature-whom we call sociologist-resurrects an article from its resting place and revives it in the collective sociological memory by referring to it in another article. And so elements of the article survive from citation to citation. At times, the journal issue in which the article appears is reread, and the content of the article again comes to life. It is through this episodic recirculation of archived articles that sociology endures. But one often asks why one article should endure while another lies forgotten in the library archive. Surely, unless we are journal editors, we cannot abort an article over which some creator has toiled. But, in fact, by erasing from memory many of the articles that have been published, we do consign them to perpetual interment on library shelves. What we choose to cite in our own writings constitutes a decision: What in Sociology should survive. Studies of citations were popular during the decade of the 1970s (Roche and Smith, 1978). For the most part, these studies were used to indicate a relationship between number of citations and the ranking of journals, departments, or individual sociologists (Roche and Smith, 1978; Michaels and Pippert, 1986; Cole and Cole, 1973). To some extent, citations were used to discover

Sauer and "Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth"

Sauer and "Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth"