Matthew Battles
In keeping with my recent theme of studying up for my, er, study of library science, I checked out this slim volume on the history of the archiving instinct. It is, for its size, fairly comprehensive chronologically as it stretches from the first collections of stone tablets in the Fertile Crescent through the magnificent Alexandria to the humdrum (and infamous) Melvil Dewey and, inexplicably and out of left field, immigrant narratives from turn-of-the-century America. The problem with any slim volume that attempts to be a complete history is that it must, by necessity, contain holes and, though Battles takes an admirable approach, there are too many holes in Library: An Unquiet History. The book does a good job at tracing the history of the library through examples that exemplify the values of libraries for the given time period, but some examples are far better than others and the book gains much momentum as it moves through history. The first chapter is by far the weakest, an inexplicable collection of trivial tidbits that bear no relation to the text at large and which do nothing to set the gears of time in motion or introduce the text at all. Thankfully, the writing improves but Battles maintains a close focus on trivia and a hearty distaste for context that plagues the book until its final third.
Library: An Unquiet History hits several turning points on the library's journey from elite collection to public free-for-all, but it hits them so perfunctorily and completely that any sense of transition is lost; there is no set-up between punches as they just keep coming. Some examples, like Swift's epic Battle of the Books as allegory, are useful but too drawn out in such a slim volume, existing solely for their own sake and over-explaining far too much in such a small study. Other examples, while interesting (such as the mechanization of the book-making process), are well-written but belong in a different volume. The truly shining examples used in this book are the Dewey Decimal System and the ideology of the nineteenth-century libraries it exemplifies as well as the Nazis' rampant book-burnings, both of which are presented with rich context and an examination of the history and development of the library and its relation to reading and general historical movements. Unfortunately, however, the excellent examples are somewhat hidden in the muddy excess of ephemera and poorly explained and connected trivia bits. Battles shows promise in so many places, but just as a lighthearted search for his own book in a modern library turns into a self-glorifying meditation on his own importance (he assumes someone has checked it out and preposterously suggests it could be classified as either memoir or fiction, proving the antithesis of his point). Ultimately, this book is useful for those heavily invested in the topic who can suspend the critical eye and glean as much information as possible from the scattered stories herein, but fails as an all-encompassing or even particularly thesis-driven work of general-interest history.
Grade: B-
Library: An Unquiet History hits several turning points on the library's journey from elite collection to public free-for-all, but it hits them so perfunctorily and completely that any sense of transition is lost; there is no set-up between punches as they just keep coming. Some examples, like Swift's epic Battle of the Books as allegory, are useful but too drawn out in such a slim volume, existing solely for their own sake and over-explaining far too much in such a small study. Other examples, while interesting (such as the mechanization of the book-making process), are well-written but belong in a different volume. The truly shining examples used in this book are the Dewey Decimal System and the ideology of the nineteenth-century libraries it exemplifies as well as the Nazis' rampant book-burnings, both of which are presented with rich context and an examination of the history and development of the library and its relation to reading and general historical movements. Unfortunately, however, the excellent examples are somewhat hidden in the muddy excess of ephemera and poorly explained and connected trivia bits. Battles shows promise in so many places, but just as a lighthearted search for his own book in a modern library turns into a self-glorifying meditation on his own importance (he assumes someone has checked it out and preposterously suggests it could be classified as either memoir or fiction, proving the antithesis of his point). Ultimately, this book is useful for those heavily invested in the topic who can suspend the critical eye and glean as much information as possible from the scattered stories herein, but fails as an all-encompassing or even particularly thesis-driven work of general-interest history.
Grade: B-
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