International Libraries: An Open Textbook

Reviewed by Juliana Espinosa, Experiential Learning Librarian, University of Texas at Arlington on 1/23/25

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

The comprehensiveness of the book, International Libraries: An Open Textbook, is satisfactory with 21 countries discussed in the textbook. There are some global regions that are underrepresented (e.g., Africa), while others are overrepresented (e.g., Europe). The preface does not include how specific countries were selected by the contributing authors, who are all graduate students in the University at Buffalo LIS 503 International Librarianship course in summer 2019. Chapter lengths vary based on the authors' research on various sources and information available in English on topics such as the types of libraries and library legislation.

Content Accuracy rating: 3

In general, the country specific chapters were accurate and unbiased. A couple chapters included biased language, first-person point of view, and had minor citation errors. One challenge that the authors consistently shared was the lack of accurate information available in English in their respective country chapters. For example, multiple authors shared they were unable to find information about library accreditation process on credential and academic programs. Other authors shared they had limited language skills to translate the information they successfully found. I commend the authors' attempt at locating and translating relevant information.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

Each chapter's content is arranged in a way that would be easy and straightforward to update and maintain since its publication date in 2019. Every chapter included a country profile as well as some chapters incorporated subsections on history, geography, economy, and similar. As current events occur, there may be a need to regularly review subsections to stay updated on facts such as library organization names, accredited universities, governing bodies, and similar.

Clarity rating: 4

International Libraries: An Open Textbook is mostly written in third-person objective narration in easily accessible language that was mostly free of library jargon and technical verbiage.

Consistency rating: 5

One of the strengths of International Libraries: An Open Textbook was in its consistent framework. Each chapter had almost the same sections which made it easy to compare countries various approaches to the field of librarianship. Every chapter had a section on country profile, types of libraries, library and information science education, library organizations, library legislation, and references.

Modularity rating: 4

Another great strength of the book was the ability to read in a nonlinear format by selecting chapters to read based on countries of interest by clicking on a title or page number in the Table of Contents in both the PDF and Word document versions. The index has one alphabetical error. Furthermore, the Word document can be read in accessibility mode and the PDF version has a read aloud option and a translate option.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

A third strength of the book is in the organization. International Libraries: An Open Textbook opens with a preface by the instructor of the University at Buffalo LIS 503 International Librarianship course along with a list of contributing authors. As mentioned in the consistency section, each chapter had a section on country profile, types of libraries, library and information science education, library organizations, library legislation, and references which allowed for direct comparisons between countries.

Interface rating: 5

There were minor formatting issues in some chapters but overall free of interface and navigation issues. The book included a color image on the cover and one figure in the Portugal chapter. The Preface shares that images and figures were largely removed in order to adhere to standards such as copyright compliance and accessibility requirements.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

The textbook contained minor grammatical errors across various chapters. The instructor states in the Preface that minor edits were made to correct misspellings and grammatical errors. I appreciated the instructor's intention to honor the integrity of the students' work and acknowledged that readers will detect imperfections.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

Given that the book focuses on international librarianship, there was no explanation on how countries were selected beyond the Preface stating non-North American countries around the world were selected. I appreciated the few chapters that included information on indigenous librarianship, shared the influence of IFLA and Libraries without Borders organizations, and acknowledged the impact colonialism had on libraries across the world. Some chapters included additional sections that provided fascinating cultural insights into their specific countries such as the Libraries and Māori Culture (New Zealand), censorship in China, the United Nations 2030 Agenda (Costa Rica), Bats in the Stacks (Portugal), and the Sharjah International Book Fair and Conference section (United Arab Emirates). Future opportunities to enhance the cultural aspect of the textbook include incorporating facts on racial and ethnic populations in the country profiles and collection development efforts on indigenous library materials.

I applaud the instructor's educational experimentation approach in a six-week summer course. This textbook serves as a wonderful example of incorporating open pedagogy in a graduate level course. As a reader, I was introduced to an incredible array of special libraries, rare collections, and unique challenges that librarians around the world faced.