This collection of papers grew out of editor John Mark Tucker's discussions with Donald G. Davis Jr., professor of library and information science at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. In the early 1990s, the Special Collections Department of the University Libraries at UT obtained the papers of James Farmer, founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Davis had learned that these papers contained documents about libraries established by civil rights workers engaged in the Mississippi Freedom Summer project of 1964, and he recognized the research potential of these materials. At approximately the same time Tucker became vice/chair and chair/elect of the Library History Round Table (LHRT) of the American Library Association (ALA) with responsibilities for the Round Table's program session and research forum for the ALA conference at Miami Beach in June 1994.
This conference offered the opportunity to mark the 30th anniversary of Freedom Summer, and presentations from the "Libraries, Books and the Civil Rights Movement" session are included in Untold Stories, as are papers received by the Round Table's research forum and other avenues of collection. The 15 articles are arranged by theme: Legacies of Black Librarianship, Chronicles from the Civil Rights Movement, Resources for Library Personnel, Services and Collections. While these authors are not the first to write about civil rights, libraries and black librarianship, they seek to add their own special testimony to the power of books, libraries, printed words, and the human spirit.
This fine collection of 15 essays provides original insights into the use of books and libraries by African Americans since the 19th century. Written by librarians, scholars, and activists, seven chapters first appeared as part of the Library History Round Table's (LHRT) program at the 1994 American Library Association annual conference. Particularly good are the two sections by Edward G. Holly and Charles Churchwell describing the integration of the University of Houston's library staff in 1967. Also, Donald G. Davis and Cheryl Knott Malone's study of libraries' role in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer project and Marilyn H. Pettit's section on New York City Sunday school libraries in the 19th century are excellent. Complementing the Handbook of Black Librarianship (1977) and In Our Own Voices: The Changing Face of Librarianship (Scarecrow, 1996), this is highly recommended to all librarians interested in both library and African American history.?Stephen L. Hupp, Swedenborg Memorial Lib., Urbana Univ., OH
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