The New York Public Library Desk Reference. - book reviews

National Review, March 19, 1990 by Lawrence Person

The New York Public Library Desk Reference (Webster's New World, 836 pp., $29.95)

AT FIRST GLANCE, the New York Public Library Desk Reference seems to be a valuable addition to the average reference library. Weighing in at over eight hundred pages, it claims to be a "collection of the most frequently sought information," and seems to live up to the billing. There are 26 different sections to the book, covering such diverse topics as Literature, Health, and The World, and their listings appear to be fairly comprehensive.

On second glance, the NYPLDR still looks good, albeit with a significant amount of overlap with the World Almanac, a more comprehensive (and less expensive) resource, especially in such categories as the Constitution, the Academy Awards, Countries of the World, etc. Still, there are a number of things the NYPLDR has that the Almanac doesn't, such as a listing of Greek and Roman deities, charts of the semaphore, manual, and Braille alphabets, the various symbols used in mathematics, physics, pharmacology, and so on.

However, upon third glance, some of those listings start to appear highly suspect, the most disturbing being the "Important Dates in American History" section. After a few minutes of reading, it becomes quite apparent that there is a distinct slant to the entries. Take the list for 1981, for example, which reads: "Iran releases 52 American hostages held 444 days; 100,000 protest U.S. intervention in El Salvador; Sandra Day O'Connor is appointed the first woman Supreme Court Justice; 11,500 air-traffic controllers strike and are fired by President Reagan; the first reusable space-craft, the shuttle Columbia, completes its two-day mission."

Whoa, wait a minute. Didn't we miss a few important events in here? Such as the assassination attempt against President Reagan, and the largest tax cut in the nation's history? Both events quite rightly manage to make the list in the 1990 World Almanac, which, in addition to giving specific dates, notes that the air controller's strike was illegal and omits any mention of the El Salvador protest.

The NYPLDR's mention of this particular protest seems somewhat arbitrary until you notice that it seems to mention every left-leaning protest or march that occurs. Just one year earlier, it notes that "Thirty thousand people march on Washington against draft registration; fifty thousand march in Chicago for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment," while ignoring such minor events as, say, Ronald Reagan's landslide victory, Mount St. Helen's eruption, the hostage rescue attempt, or even John Lennon's assassination.

The more you read of the NYPLDR's version of things, the more it appears that the particular section should be titled "Important Dates in the Civil-Rights, Feminist, and Labor Movements in America, with Some Side Notes on American History." In 1915, for example, the sinking of the Lusitania was not deemed to merit mention, though a suffrage march of 25,000 and the founding of "The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom" were. Likewise, we find listings for the founding of The International Ladies Garment Workers Union in 1900, the "Bread and Roses" strike of ten thousand textile workers in 1912, and the founding of the American Communist Party in 1919, but not the breakup of Standard Oil (1911), nor an influenza epidemic that killed five hundred thousand (1918), nor the first transatlantic airplane flight (1919). And some of the events that are listed seem to be peculiarly tilted. The Haymarket riot, for example, becomes the "Haymarket Square Massacre."

But the most conspicuous example of bias is the various birth dates sprinkled throughout the text. "1893--NAACP leader Walter White is born"; "1818--Lucy Stone, feminist theorist, is born"; "Mary McLeod Bethune, black educator and activist, is born." All well and good, but what about Ernest Hemingway? John C. Calhoun? Frank Lloyd Wright? Thomas Edison? Their birth dates do not seem to merit mention, nor does any American President's. We get Eleanor Roosevelt's birthday, but not her husband's (after all, he only served four terms . . .). Indeed, the NYPLDR is so heavily slanted that beyond John Brown (1800) I find only a single birth reference that applies to that infamous creature, the white male: "1912--folk singer Woody Guthrie is born." (And Irving Berlin? George Gershwin? Aaron Copland? . . . )

And occasionally the data are just plain wrong. For example, in 1987, we learn that "Robert Bork is nominated by President Reagan to the Supreme Court but withdraws in the face of strong opposition." Huh? Funny, I was under the impression that Bork's nomination went to the Senate floor and was rejected. And, sure enough, the 1990 World Almanac confirms my delusions.

Save for the Bork listing, there is nothing in the "Important Dates" that I would object to within the context of a much longer and more comprehensive list. Outside that context, however, this list represents only the skewed perspective of the compiler's narrow political interests. There are hints of editorial bias in other parts of the book as well, such as a listing of unsafe chemical additives from the highly partisan Center for Science in the Public Interest.