Reviewing a periodical is never an easy matter unless the reviewer looks back over a large number of separate issues. The Christian Librarian is a periodical which has grown considerably over the years in both size and the level of content. It aims to reflect the broad views of the Christian Librarian’s Fellowship which is an organisation for Christian librarians of the evangelical tradition. The Fellowship itself is in alliance with the Evangelical Alliance and the University and Colleges Christian Fellowship as well as with the Library Association from the professional point of view. The articles in the journal therefore tend to reflect this particular theological tradition.
The issue under review is fairly typical of the usual content of this journal although it focuses quite heavily on modernism and post‐modernism which is a recurring theme in a number of the papers published in it. The other theme is Christians and the media and these two topics, woven together, give an interesting collection of papers well worth reading whether or not the reader actually holds any Christian beliefs.
The issue opens with an interesting paper entitled “False gods and blasphemy” by Ken Bakewell. Professor Bakewell was formerly on the staff of John Moores University in Liverpool and editor of the journal Library Management. He looks at the question of the media and how they build up secular images for people to worship instead of a true deity. The problems of the media are further pursued in an article entitled “On the record: evangelicals seen and heard” by Martyn Eden and Keith Ewing from the Evangelical Alliance. They look at the problems of making sure that particular points of view are adequately represented in the press, radio and television. Although not specifically related to libraries, it is an important article as it examines the history of evangelicals and how, at the beginning of the twentieth century, they became very introvert and therefore did not look at social and cultural issues in the wider society. This led to a lack of understanding of the true nature of librarianship. This introversion led to them being ignored by the media and it was difficult to break into this area after such a long time of withdrawal. There are certainly lessons here for a profession which, in the past, has been frightened of its own shadow in certain areas.
Two very philosophical and thought‐provoking papers deal with the problems created by modernism and postmodernism. Although it is a rather trite definition it is not unreasonable to say that postmodernism means that you do not discover meaning ‐ you make it. Whatever you read or take in is there as raw material, out of which you can make your own meaning. Some 15 pages of this issue of the journal are given over to an article which traces the development of post‐modernism and gives extracts and summaries of the most important works relating to it from a Christian point of view. This is followed by an equally thought‐provoking and scholarly article on modernism itself. Essentially, modernism seeks to find a single explanation for the world in which we live from a scientific point of view. The author, Geoff Warren, argues that librarianship has developed around this theorem and the idea of a comprehensive library stock which reflects all views so that these can be drawn together by the reader is based essentially on this philosophy. This may mean that we do not now have a right understanding of the current fragmentation of library services and may need to re‐think this in a different philosophical context. The remaining two items consist of an autobiographical note by Len Bickerton, former chief librarian of Worthing, who looks back over 44 years as a Christian librarian in public libraries, and a short note on linguistics looking at the problems of the British Library Document Supply Centre’s policy of book selection. A continuing confusion between the words “evangelical” and “evangelistic” leads the author, Graham Hedges, to the view that the centre is not exercising censorship but using language in an inaccurate way.
This is a useful and thought‐provoking journal for anybody who takes the ethical and moral issues of their profession seriously. It is not expensive but the articles are of a high quality. As the discipline of information ethics grows it is to be hoped that this journal will make a continuing contribution to the debate on electronic information provision and the ethical moral issues surrounding it.
