Book reviews. Local History Reference Collections for Public Libraries
| Date | 06 February 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-12-2015-0246 |
| Pages | 209-210 |
| Published date | 06 February 2017 |
| Author | John MacRitchie |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
Book reviews
Local History Reference Collections for Public Libraries
By Kathy Marquis, Leslie Waggener
American Library Association
Chicago
2015
146 pp.
US$55.00 soft cover
ISBN 978-0-8389-1331-4
Review DOI 10.1108/EL-12-2015-0246
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 gure 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
exibility 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 rst 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
Book reviews
209
TheElectronic Library
Vol.35 No. 1, 2017
pp.209-212
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