Choice Review

At the end of the 19th century, public libraries began opening their book stacks and creating spaces for children. The literature on American public libraries tends to describe this as the "free access" period. In stark contrast, Knott (Univ. of Arizona) argues otherwise, stating that this understanding "whitewashes the ways in which librarians' historical complicity in refusing or restricting service to African Americans while espousing a 'free to all' rhetoric" actually undermines the core values of libraries and the information professions. Not Free, Not for All is an important reinterpretation of public-library collections and services for African Americans in the South during the Jim Crow era. The author provides a chronological narrative describing systemic racism and pervasive policies restricting access and examines the role of white, middle-class women in founding public libraries as white spaces. She describes segregated public library collections and services designed by and for black Americans and the slow and uneven library desegregation during the 1950s and 1960s. By recasting public libraries as public institutions that used tax-supported funding to prolong white supremacy, this research has implications on information policies, intellectual freedom, and educational inequities resonant in the social, political, and cultural barriers that persist with today's digital divide. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-level undergraduates through professionals/practitioners; general readers. --Denise Pan, University of Washington Libraries