***Disclaimer*** I received a copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Greg!***

This book was a delightful little read. Based on the synopsis it sounded like it would be right within my area of enjoyment and it turned out that it was. I had a few irritations with it, and there were a few struggles but I found that I did not mind those things too much because the story kept my interest well.

The book starts with a bullet pointed list of all the major accomplishments and failures of humanity in the 300-ish years leading from our present to the beginning of the story. While I found this information interesting, I would have preferred that the information was packaged in a different manner. Bullet points are not that enthralling to read. There was a short excerpt from a “history” of the same time period that we get at the end of the book and a lot of the same information was covered. It confused me why this was at the end and not the beginning. It would have been a better introduction to the story than an ending.

I also got the impression that the author struggled with his narrator a bit, which is understandable and I think anyone would have struggled with it but overall it was handled well. I could tell at times that the author really wanted Samuel to be able to describe things better but he couldn’t because he lacked the language or awareness for it at that moment. At times this led to a bit of an inconsistent narrative but not often enough that it got on my nerves.

Warning: There may be some spoilers beyond this point.

As I read other reviews for this book, I saw a lot of people wondering how humanity could get to a point of being so lazy that we experience a regression in all cognitive functioning and lose the vast majority of our language and ability to communicate. I wondered that too for a while. But then I got on social media for a few minutes and it all made sense to me. We already are practically communicating only in pictures these days with memes, GIFs, selfies and emojis. And plenty of people are so lazy that they can’t be bothered to seek out answers for themselves and instead of spending 30 seconds on Google figuring something out will instead spend an hour asking other people to do it for them. So, to me at least, I can completely see this as a future for humanity.

I really liked the series of tests that Samuel encountered trying to help his community but I also got frustrated with him at a certain point. Clearly, his efforts were going to waste. The rest of the colonists didn’t appreciate, nor even notice, his efforts to keep them content and happy so after a point I was wondering why he was still trying. This also leads me to the ending, at first I didn’t understand it. Staying with the other colony seemed like a natural step. These were people like Samuel. He could improve his own life and be with people who valued their minds, like he did. So why didn’t he?

I thought about that a lot since I finished the book last night and I think I came to a conclusion. Just like Samuel decided that he no longer wanted to waste his labor on colonists who would never progress, he equally didn’t want to waste his labor toward an effort that was directed for someone else’s benefit. He wanted to use his ingenuity, his mind, and his labor to forge his own way not just trade one master for another. In the end, I really like that message. It was an enjoyable book that I liked more than I first expected that I would.

Not long ago, a couple people in one of the cataloging Facebook groups I'm part of were reading this, and I thought it sounded like fun. The series it's part of deals with many areas of librarianship, but this particular volume looks at the problems faced by those making decisions about the cataloging, processing, and organization of libraries. It includes 30 case studies featuring real-life problems and fictional libraries and people. It ends with written analyses of two of those case studies.

Unfortunately, this book was originally published in 1972 and is more than a little dated. Although my library science courses covered some historical information, they were understandably focused on current and future practice. I've seen the National Union Catalog books, but I don't have a clue what went into putting it together, and I was never required to use them. I've seen and used a card catalog in the past decade or so, and my cataloging classes briefly covered some of the ways that the current cataloging rules were meant more for printed catalog cards than for a computerized environment. However, I've never had to catalog on actual cards. And that's not even getting into the terminology I flat out couldn't understand.

Some chapters had so little to do with current librarianship that I skimmed them. However, I was surprised at how many chapters I was still able to relate to. And also a little depressed, because it drove home that some of the things I currently deal with have roots that are more than 40 years old.

For example, a few years ago I argued that it wasn't necessary for our Acquisitions department to write the date received, person who requested or approved the ordering of the book, department code, vendor, and price in all newly received books. When I had first been hired, I had been required to enter this information into each and every bibliographic record as well, but I had convinced the other librarians to allow me to abandon this practice – after all, most of this information was available in the Acquisitions module and the item records. If all I needed for the item records was the price, and no one but me ever looked at what was written in the books, was it really necessary for the Acquisitions department to be writing so much? A few people argued that, yes, it was, for various reasons that didn't really satisfy me, but I was relatively new and had at least managed to streamline my cataloging procedures so I didn't push. And so Acquisitions procedures continued unchanged.

Imagine my dismay when I read a chapter in this book dealing with an almost identical issue. Was it really necessary for the price, vendor, etc. to be written on the shelflist cards? Couldn't that practice be abandoned to save time and money? I could see the pros and cons more clearly in the case study...because there wasn't a computerized (and probably more accurate) record of all that hand-written information. I realized with horror that, back when my library had a card catalog, all the information Acquisitions was writing in our books had probably been written on shelflist cards. When the library was automated, someone had likely decided the practice of keeping a hand-written record should be continued “just in case.” And so the practice of writing it in the books themselves began.

The rest of Problems in Organizing Library Collections wasn't quite so revelatory, but I did see many more things that reminded me of modern day librarianship. It turns out that freshmen in 1972 were just as exhausted and inattentive during their library orientation activities as they are today. And librarians both then and now have similar things to consider when choosing whether to outsource their cataloging and processing, although today, at least, it's possible for librarians to ask each other for advice via listservs rather than snail mail. The chapter in which a school librarian researched outsourcing her library's cataloging and processing reminded me of my own library's efforts to choose a vendor for outsourcing our authority control.

While it was nice when I was able to relate to what was going on in a particular chapter, my favorite chapters were those with lots of dialogue. “The Lost Catalog Tray” was particularly good. Beverly, one of the people in the scenario, had a good sense of humor and a gift for impersonating people. Jack, her coworker, was so bothered by the missing catalog tray that he planned to spend his Christmas break recreating it, even though the heating was going to be off and he'd have to keep warm with a thick sweater and electric heaters. When asked what his wife thought about this, he answered that she planned to help him so she “won't have to listen to me bitch about it anymore” (48). I could easily picture the people in this book. I could see myself in some of them, and I've worked with people like them.

While this was a surprisingly enjoyable read, and some chapters are still applicable today (“The Best Books Take Longer to Get Cataloged” was a perfect example of why I hate it when library staff take uncataloged books home to read – just ask me to “rush” catalog them for you, please), library technical services have changed a lot in the past 40 years. I would love it if an updated version of this book existed. It'd make wonderful discussion fodder in library science classes – my own library science classes did a good job of covering theory and the way certain processes should go, but the “human element” wasn't given quite as much attention. I also think a book like this could lead to some interesting discussions in technical services departments.

Rating Note:

How do you rate something like this? I'd probably give a current, up-to-date version of this book 5 stars. As it is, it's old, but still makes for enjoyable reading if you work in or have an interest in library technical services in general or cataloging in particular. I gave it 3 stars for that.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

"Why Catalog the Entire Serial Just for One Issue?" - a faculty member wants a stack of sample issues of journals cataloged, even though he has no plans to ask the library to subscribe to any of them

When Betty reported the gist of the conversation to Mariann, she almost caused an explosion.

 

"He didn't really say that. He couldn't have said that. You must be kidding."

 

"I know it sounds crazy to you. But that's exactly what he said. They want a collection of sample issues to show the graduate students what's available in the field. And they don't want to put in a subscription or get back volumes."

 

"All I can say is it's a good thing the afternoon's almost over. I just can't cope with such foolishness anymore today. I'll see you in the morning. Maybe I'll take a tranquilizer or something to calm me down. This day has been simply ridiculous!"

I shouldn't laugh, but I am. I don't consider myself a serials cataloger, although, as my library's only cataloger, I do handle serials on occasion. I had a similar conversation a while back, although mine went more like, "Really? Are you sure Dr. __ won't want more issues? But this one is from 2005! What good will that do anyone?" (By the way, he did want more issues later on, but not on a consistent basis.)

I love the chapters with lots of dialogue. They're so much fun. My favorite so far has probably been the chapter with the missing catalog tray - it had a staff member with a sense of humor and a gift for impersonating people, as well as another staff member who planned to spend his Christmas break recreating the tray, with his wife helping him "so she won't have to listen to [him] bitch about it anymore." (48)

I'm hoping to finish this today, so I can turn it in tonight. This is the book that's really really due tomorrow.

An updated version of this book would be perfect for library science students and new librarians. Even when I don't understand the exact problems (which is often, because I have almost no experience with cataloging for and using a physical library catalog), the situations ring true and add the messiness and human elements that my library science courses, at least, tended not to mention as much.