Writers in the Public Library by Sheila B. NickersonReview by: Mary BiggsThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jan., 1985), pp. 95-96Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4307809 .

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REVIEWS 95

Without a commitment to supply needed information to help citizen groups, the author believes the library is failing to fulfill a major responsibility to society.

The second issue was anonymity, a resistance or reluctance to establish a professional-client relationship. She identified practices such as the rotation of public service assignments, avoidance of the use of personal names and name tags, which she feels affects public service. She feels that the public has lower expectations and the library experiences a lower success rate with clients because of this lack of personal commitment. She also stresses the commitment that the profession should make to ensure the free flow of information to individuals and citizen groups. Finally, the author reviews the trends in information and referral service and concludes the service is still evolving but that it offers considerable promise in providing more effective service to citizen groups in the future.

In all, Durrance has provided a well-written and researched resource that should influence the direction of library information service. While there are omissions in terms of the experience of other libraries in service to groups, the author did not indicate an intention to be comprehensive in her research. The focus on a limited number of communities and libraries allowed good insight to this important aspect of librarianship and raised several issues that merit more discussion in the profession.

Don Sager, Milwaukee Public Library

Writers in the Public Library. By SHEILA B. NICKERSON. Hamden, Conn.: Library Professional Publications, 1984. Pp. xii + 276. $24.50. ISBN 0-208-01872-7.

One wants to like this book because its author is so earnest and so obviously likable herself. Yet, while it is frequently appealing for its enthusiasm and generosity of spirit, Writers in the Public Library is neither analytical, insightful, nor thorough enough to be professionally useful, nor is it sufficiently entertain- ing to be recommended as leisure reading.

Nickerson, an Alaskan poet, spent one year (1979) as a writer in residence traveling throughout her native state to offer workshops, readings, consulta- tions, classes, lectures, and mass media appearances for people interested, at some level, in poetry. The residency was funded by the State Library and accommodated by local public libraries. She had a wonderful time, met nice people, and felt personally appreciated and rewarded. Boiled down to its es- sence, that is about all we learn from the first half of this book, which is a very personal recounting of residency "highlights." Nickerson dashed from town to town working at a range of institutions with a wide variety of listeners and aspiring authors. She found little time to write anything herself except ajournal that apparently formed the basis of this memoir.

The structure, rationale, intentions, and results of programs offered are not explained fully (or, in many cases, at all), and Nickerson's efforts were not subjected to evaluation. There is more to question than to celebrate in the activities she sets forth: for example, the value of emphasizing poetry writing when teaching the barely literate, and the ethics of encouraging publication attempts by beginning writers with no demonstrated talent or critical facility. (By introducing Writers Market and similar tools and including discussions of "how to publish" in her agendas, Nickerson did do this, though she seems uncomfortable now with that emphasis and downplays it.)

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96 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

While the author is aware that such questions have been raised by observers of similar programs, she does not grapple with them intellectually but trusts her great gust of sentimentalized impressions to dissipate them into clear air and sunshine. Thus we find sentences like the following: "Oh, Valerie! ... I knew you for only a brief time... yet you left behind something I will never forget..." (p. 23); "Dear unknown child! How I wish I might have given you more time. . . to taste the wild joy of writing for fun. Writing for fun! Writing to let out what's inside!" (p. 24); and "There was Grace, so full of untold stories, who wanted to tell me so many things.... I looked back on her with terrible sadness, wondering who would ever listen" (p. 53).

Grace recedes quickly, as does the book-loving prisoner named Jackie (a "unique and living treasure" [p. 711), a deaf old man in North Pole who had written a love song and sang it in one of the sessions, a young man "so riddled with drugs that he could not make sense" (p. 78), and many others. Nickerson popped into each town, then out, a whirlwind poet-teacher, and it is reasonable to ask what effect she can have had, to demand an accounting for this use of public money. She recognizes the uncertainty of lasting influence but tries to turn back potential criticism with a counterquery stated breezily, rhetorically, at the close of part 1: "How can such a program, indeed, be evaluated?" But in the absence of evaluation, how can it be justified?

We hear also about specific exercises designed to trigger writing; these may be interesting to other teachers, though to find the results as charming as the author does, I suspect you had to be there.

Finally, there are constant references to Nickerson's private emotional re- sponses, and many anecdotes of only personal interest: for example, of "a lovely tea given for me at the [Petersburg] library" (p. 49), of several other meals consumed, and the high price of Alaskan food, of encounters with beloved friends, and of a dog-sledding excursion.

The book's second half describes briefly other public library residency pro- grams, drily outlines the history of the Library of Congress's "Consultant in Poetry" post, sketches the contributions of organizations that promote creative writing, and proffers "guidelines for success" of writing programs. Again, inter- esting and serious questions are raised but not dealt with. For instance, writing workshops in a Spring Valley, New York, library drew a substantial proportion of aspiring authors who were given "basic remedial help with grammar" because "the literacy level of this group, for the most part, required it." They were then supplied with reproductions of the copyright law and "standards for magazine publication" prepared by a professional writers' group (p. 114). This represents either incredible nalvet6 on the teacher's part or cruel willingness to raise hopes that must soon be dashed. Another writer, who conducted a program at the Tucson Public, made the startling assertion that "poetry is easy and enjoyable, and everyone can succeed at it" (p. 109).

Sample grant forms, contracts, and other materials provided in the book's appendices may be informative for librarians wishing to set writing residencies in motion. But the evidence of the text can do little to stimulate such a wish in thoughtful, tough-minded library professionals who husband their scant re- sources with care.

Mary Biggs, University of Chicago

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