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Sol Tax
Gregory A. Finnegan (Gregory.A.Finnegan@DARTMOUTH.EDU)
Mon, 9 Jan 1995 12:05:24 EST
As always, it's hard to add to a posting by Mike Salovesh, but there's
another area in which Sol made a major contribution: the bibliography, and
librarianship, of anthropology. Sol was a founder and guiding (and funding)
source for LARG, the Library-Anthropology Resource Group. This Chicago-based
organization of a dozen or so anthropologists and librarians (and some of us
who're both) has provided one of the few arenas for discussion of the
bibliography of anthropology, and has produced several valuable reference
tools in the process. Only now, and slowly, is there an organized effort to
get such issues before the AAA. Sol Tax encouraged this when few did.
PSYCH ABSTRACTS and SOC ABSTRACTS are supported by the APA and ASA, and the
RAI supports ANTHROPOLOGICAL INDEX, but the AAA does not consider tracking
the current scholarship of the discipline(s?) to be part of our collective
responsibility to ourselves. As in so many other things, Sol's vision (and
very practical leadership) was ahead of the profession.
His philosophy of publication was also a great lesson to us younger folk,
especially those of us too inclined to fuss over an infinity of details.
Sol's attitude showed a sense of research and writing both as a tool, a means
to an end, and as part of a collective, collaborative process: he urged
quick publication, with the statement that omissions and corrections would be
supplied by users and would improve the next edition. While that's not
utterly practical in a time of slashed book budgets, it's still an inspiring
reminder that our work--primary, secondary, tertiary (like much of
LARG's)--has its meaning only in a community of scholars critiquing (and
learning from) each other.
Sol's own lineage prepared him well to understand the information issues of
Anthropology: one of his daughters chaired an anthro dept, while the other
headed the country's leading Slavic studies library.
And it should also not be forgotten that Sol also was a major encouragement
to those relatively few anthropologists interested in visual anthropology; he
was a trustee of the Smithsonian's attempt to establish an archive of
ethnographic film.
As Mike said, we have indeed suffered a great loss--but insofar as such a
loss can be mitigated, the enormous legacy that Sol leaves us, in people,
journals, and organizations, is a great comfort. We should all aspire, in
our wildest fantasies, to 10% of what he accomplished.
Greg Finnegan
until 13 Jan:
Greg.Finnegan@Dartmouth.edu
Reference-Bibliographer
& Adjunct Assoc. Prof. of Anthro.
Dartmouth College Library
6025 Baker Library, Room 104
Hanover NH 03755-3525
603/646-2833 voice
603/646-2167 fax
after 17 Jan:
Associate Librarian for Public Services and Head of Reference
Tozzer Library
Harvard University
21 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge MA 02138-2089
telephone: 617-495-2253
fax: 617-496-2741
e-mail: Gregory_Finnegan@Harvard.edu
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