This article was downloaded by: [Miami University Libraries]On: 27 October 2014, At: 16:09Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

The Serials Librarian: From thePrinted Page to the Digital AgePublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wser20

Building Area StudiesCollections, edited by DanHazen and James HenrySpohrerLinwood DeLong aa University of Winnipeg Library , 515 PortageAvenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada , R3B 2E9Published online: 11 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Linwood DeLong (2008) Building Area Studies Collections, editedby Dan Hazen and James Henry Spohrer, The Serials Librarian: From the Printed Pageto the Digital Age, 55:3, 490-492, DOI: 10.1080/03615260802060112

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03615260802060112

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any

losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mia

mi U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

6:09

27

Oct

ober

201

4

490 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

BUILDING AREA STUDIES COLLECTIONS. Edited by Dan Hazenand James Henry Spohrer (Beiträge zum Buch- und Bibliothekswesen, 52)Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz-Verlag, 2007. 163 pp. 63,64 Eur. ISBN 978-3-44705-512-3.

Book ReviewsTHE SERIALS LIBRARIANThis carefully researched book will be of considerable benefit to anylibrary seeking to expand or evaluate its area studies collections. Areasare historically defined regions or groupings that have one or more definingcharacteristics. Some are defined by language families: the Germanic lan-guages; the Romance languages; the Spanish and Portuguese speakingcountries of Latin America. Others are defined regionally: East Asia,Southeast Asia; Africa south of the Sahara; the Middle East. (The Indiansubcontinent and Sri Lanka are not covered).

Each chapter begins with a brief summary of the manner in which thearea has traditionally been defined (which, in the case of African studies,includes several quite different definitions), followed by a discussion ofthe area’s languages and language histories, a detailed discussion of thepublication output of the area, and the difficulties that North Americanresearch libraries have faced in seeking to build up strong collectionsfrom the area. These difficulties include the frequent lack of nationalbibliographies and the overall lack of bibliographical control, small printruns, censorship, economic crises, restrictions on the distribution of sometypes of material to foreign countries, the lack of good distribution sys-tems that could service the needs of collections librarians, and, with theadvent of electronic publications, the problems associated with licensesand the technical problems ensuring that electronic publications can beviewed using the software and hardware that are normally found inresearch libraries. Each chapter concludes with a bibliography of at leasttwo pages, dealing with collections issues and collections resources per-taining to the area under discussion. (Curiously, the chapter on Romancelanguages, which includes brief discussions of the literature from LatinAmerica, the Caribbean, and Canada, contains no section on these regionsin its concluding bibliography).

There are frequently subsections within each chapter on topics such asjournals and newspapers, government publications, archival resources,audiovisual materials, and acquisitions channels. For some regions thereis also a discussion of the issue of émigré and diaspora publications andthe challenges that libraries face in acquiring this material. Each chapterincludes a discussion of the important booksellers or vendors who canassist librarians in obtaining these kinds of resources, although it is noted

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mia

mi U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

6:09

27

Oct

ober

201

4

Book Reviews 491

that it is essential that librarians learn at least some of the languages of theseareas, actually visit these countries, and establish contacts of their own.

Research libraries have often benefited from cooperative collectingmethods, and each chapter typically describes the prominent cooperativeactivities (such as shared microfilming and digitization projects;exchange agreements; agreements to focus on specific countries or lan-guages within an area) in which libraries have participated, in order toensure collectively the broadest coverage of an area and to prevent areastudies collections from becoming too uniform.

Libraries in the United States have also benefited from special forms ofU.S. government assistance, such as the Farmington Plan, the Public Law480 Program, and the various Title VI initiatives. The history of theevolution of some of the most important area studies collections in Americanuniversities and of the role played by the Library of Congress, the Associ-ation of Research Libraries, and the Center for Research Libraries alsomakes for informative reading.

There are, nevertheless, some ways in which a subsequent edition ofthis book might be improved. The focus in each chapter is almost exclu-sively on the activities of and the perspectives of libraries in the UnitedStates. Chapters begin with sentences such as the following: “Building alibrary collection to support research and curricular programs in Africanstudies at an American college or university . . .,” “The structure and contentof American education have been largely shaped by. . .,” “Southeast Asia isa comparatively young area of study on U.S. campuses . . .,” “LatinAmerica has long been an area of special interest for the United States . . .”There are, at best, only a few passing references to the research collectionsin Canadian, British, or European libraries, and yet these countries alsoboast prestigious research libraries and, especially in the case of formercolonial powers such as Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, andPortugal, tremendous archival resources pertaining to the countries andregions they were or continue to be associated with. It would be veryinstructive to learn, for example, whether British or European universitylibraries or national libraries also think in terms of “area studies collec-tions” and if so, how they define them and how they go about buildingthese collections, individually or collectively, or whether the concept of an“area studies collection” is something uniquely North American.

Another topic that could receive greater treatment is the issue of theselection of the resources that rightfully belong in a research collection.Whereas North American research libraries are constantly faced withdecisions about the wisdom of acquiring non-scholarly material such as

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mia

mi U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

6:09

27

Oct

ober

201

4

492 THE SERIALS LIBRARIAN

bestsellers, inspirational books, tabloid newspapers, self-help material,gardening books, and so on and, in spite of the increasing interest in pop-ular culture and non-canonical literature, most certainly do not acquireevery publication that originates from within their own country or inmajor western European countries, the impression is created that buildingarea studies collections pertaining to Asia, Africa, or the Middle Eastinvolves obtaining as much as possible: “Comic books, fashion magazines,cookbooks, textbooks, popular music recording, political ephemera, andrealia must all find a place in research collections” (p. 59). A discussionof the foregoing statement or of another one from page 64 (“Truly inter-nationalized disciplines, however, require collections that are broadenough to encompass all the materials and viewpoints that will supportscholars’ global discourse”) would help selectors to understand why sucha broad collections mandate is thought to be necessary for an area studiescollection and would provide a useful background for assessing thetremendous varieties in quality of the publications that originate from theareas described in this book. The brief discussion (pp. 36–37) of non-canonical literature in Romance languages touches on the interest ofsocial scientists in “literary texts” but does not expand further on possiblecriteria for selecting these texts.

These comments notwithstanding, this book offers a useful historicalbackground to the evolution of North American area studies collectionsand an excellent discussion of the contemporary issues and resources thatarea studies librarians need to be aware of, as they seek to expand onthese collections or create new ones.

Linwood DeLongUniversity of Winnipeg Library

515 Portage AvenueWinnipeg, Manitoba

Canada R3B 2E9

CONSIDER THE SOURCE: A CRITICAL GUIDE TO 100 PROMI-NENT NEWS AND INFORMATION SITES ON THE WEB. James F.Broderick and Darren W. Miller. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 2007.xiii, 455 pp. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-910965-77-4

ReviewsTHE SERIALS LIBRARIANBeyond a doubt, the Internet is the primary reference source for a fast-growing percentage of the population. My family used to depend on a

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mia

mi U

nive

rsity

Lib

rari

es]

at 1

6:09

27

Oct

ober

201

4