Maureen Sawa, illustrated by Bill Slavin,
The Library Book: The Story of Libraries from Camels to Computers
Tundra Books, 2006.

Rating: E

Did you know - that the first library was a collection of clay tablets organized by the Sumarians around 2700 B.C.A.? That although Muhammad pressed his followers to read and write he himself could not? That Benjamin Franklin started the first "Subscription library", the forerunner of the public library system? That the first woman to work in a North American library was in 1856 at the Boston Athenaeum?

These facts and many many more are revealed in The Library Book: The Story of Libraries from Camels to Computers, written by renowned author and librarian Maureen Sawa, director of public service and community development for the Hamilton Public Library. Sawa divides her book into 5 chapters - In the Begining; The Darkest Days; A Golden Age; Into the New World; and Back to the Future. Here she traces the history of libraries from the clay tablets of earliest times up to the present technological applications which are changing the nature of libraries as they have been known throughout time. While the nature of libraries is changing, however, Sawa claims the purpose holds true - "to provide us with information about where we’ve been as we move forward into the future. Libraries link people who live today wih those wh came before and those who are yet to be. They are places where idesas take flight." (P. 7)

Sawa’s interesting narrative is interspersed with anecdotes on various topics related to libraries and books, sidebars with snippets of information and the lively illustrations of award-winning illustrator Bill Slavin. Her bibliography is entwined in a 2-page section entitled ‘notes’ and there as also a section entitled "where to look" which includes websites, virtual libraries and library associations. A comprehensive index completes the book.

This book is very well done and will be of interest to anyone who has a love of books and libraries. It will also be of appeal to those who have an interest in the part libraries have played in history. It should be in all school and public libraries.

Thematic Links: Libraries - History

Victoria Pennell
Vol. 12, number 1
October 2006

*Rating System:
E - Excellent, enduring, everyone should see it!
G - Good, even great at times, generally useful!
A - Average, all right, has its applications.
P - Problematic, puzzling, poorly presented.