Book reviews: Local History Reference Collections for Public Libraries

John MacRitchie (Manly Library, Sydney, Australia)

The Electronic Library

ISSN: 0264-0473

Article publication date: 6 February 2017

230

Citation

MacRitchie, J. (2017), "Book reviews: Local History Reference Collections for Public Libraries", The Electronic Library, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 209-210. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-12-2015-0246

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited


In this book, Marquis and Waggener strongly suggest that public libraries should create a local history reference collection. They differentiate between this and an archival collection. The specialist demands of archiving can overwhelm those wishing to create a local collection, when all that may be necessary is to create a collection of materials that the local community will appreciate and use. The users of a local collection are widely varied, ranging from school children through to historians and genealogists. What matters is to provide the materials to satisfy their needs, properly catalogued to allow for ready retrieval.

It is striking how patchy the provision of services can be in the USA, which elsewhere are taken for granted. Surely, after more than a century, are public libraries everywhere persuaded of the merits of a local history reference collection? But many localities have yet to begin. The authors distributed a survey to “thousands” of public libraries (how many, exactly?) asking about provision of local history reference collections, and received 650 responses. The survey drew some muted responses. For example, only a quarter of replying libraries used someone half-time or more with responsibility for the local collection, though there is no way to extrapolate from that figure how many local studies librarians there are in the USA. The survey missed the chance to ask about use of social media; some respondents indicated they maintained a blog or Facebook presence, but more details would have been welcome.

Rather too much space is given to differentiating between an archive and a local studies collection. In practice, many librarians manage a mix of both, and must have the flexibility to administer material which should strictly speaking come under the domain of archivists. There is scope even within a local collection to withdraw material, or not to accept it in the first place, and useful appendices are provided setting out various real-world collection development policies.

The authors’ enthusiasm for local history promotion and collaboration is clear, and they note that much more could be done to promote local collections to target audiences such as high school students. They identify a need among local history librarians to have a forum where ideas can be exchanged – the obvious approach must surely be Web-based, and there are numerous examples of Wikis that can be adapted. Their survey revealed a wide range of proprietary databases used to catalogue local collections, regrettably often not integrated into the general catalogue. Any newer alternatives to MARC 21 cataloguing are beyond the scope of the book.

It may be that Marquis and Waggener are addressing problems unique to the USA; certainly, best practice local studies work is as likely to occur in Canada, Australia or England, where the distinction between archives and local studies collections is crisper. They have been allowed to use an encouraging, breezy style, which may appeal to nervous newbies, but tougher editing could have halved the word-count without removing any of its essential advice.

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