Interlibrary Loan Sharks and Seedy Roms: : Cartoons from Libraryland

Citation

Day, A. (1999), "Interlibrary Loan Sharks and Seedy Roms: : Cartoons from Libraryland", Library Review, Vol. 48 No. 6, pp. 46-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.1999.48.6.46.1

Two factors have to be kept in mind when considering this collection of cartoons which first saw the light of day in Wilson Library Bulletin. One, the cartoonist who, after “studying bugs and drawing bugs in the Entomology Department at the University of California”, and a career in laboratory research, attended a one‐day cartooning class at the age of 41, and sold her first cartoon two weeks later, is not a librarian. Secondly, most cartoon scanning readers are not librarians either. So, there is a double problem of injecting into and extracting wit and humour from cartoons with a library background. What is more, although Grace Anne A. De Candido, former editor‐in‐chief of the Bulletin claims in her introduction to have been astonished “how, with a pithy one‐line caption and a multitude of squiggly lines”, Epstein “seemed to go to the heart ‐‐ and funny bone ‐‐ of daily life in the library”, it is not too evident that in fact there is sufficient humour in the daily routine of libraries to sustain a cartoon collection even within soft covers. And, of course, we have to remember that individual tastes in wit and sense of humour vary enormously.

But, having entered these caveats, it has to be said that these 114 cartoons, which are grouped in four sections, “Inside the Library”, “Outside the Library”, “Technology” and “Writers, Scholars and Artists”, contain not a few that your reviewer, for one, finds genuinely funny. Several relate to the reference interview. One, especially appealing, is the reference librarian and client who is remarking, “I′m done with the non‐fiction. Do you have anything else?” Similarly, another caption, “Where will I find the fine line between art and science?” “Outside the Library” includes two which stand out: a father reading to his young, teddy‐clutching daughter, sitting up in bed, who asks, “So, the prince had to deal with all the poor and disenfranchised? Was he a librarian?” The other depicts a sparsely attended revivalist meeting where one member of the audience enquires of the other, “It may be the word of God, but has he published anything?” Librarian or not, Epstein obviously possesses the cartoonist′s required perception of ludicrous and incongruous exaggeration. One cartoon in the Technology section is strongly reminiscent of James Thurber′s rabbit‐headed doctor prompting the patient staring at him transfixed, “you said a moment ago that everybody you look at seems to be a rabbit. Now just what do you mean by that Mrs Sprague?” (Men, Women And Dogs, 1944). Here we see a patient, reclining on a couch, telling her psychiatrist, pictured on a desktop screen, “I′m worried I′ll be replaced by a computer”. For cartoonists, as in other spheres, it always pays to be influenced or inspired by the best. A pleasant collection then, one worth browsing through for a good chuckle. But one worth 20.25 for a modest sewn softcover edition?