A True Politician: Rebecca Browning Rankin, Municipal Reference Librarian of the City of New York, 1920-1952.(Book review)

A True Politician: Rebecca Browning Rankin, Municipal Reference Librarian of the City of New York, 1920-1952. By Barry W. Seaver. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2003. v, 218 pp. $45.00 (paper). ISBN 0-7864-1634-3.

Barry W. Seaver's A True Politician chronicles the life of Rebecca Browning Rankin (1887-1965) and the development of municipal reference library service in New York City over a period of thirty-two years, spanning the Progressive Era and the beginnings of the cold war. Seaver uses a variety of primary sources, notably interviews with Rankin's associates at the New York Public Library (NYPL) and the Municipal Reference Library, along with transcripts of interviews conducted in 1964 by Phyllis Dain of Rankin and her friend and NYPL colleague Alice Bunting.

During the early twentieth century municipal reference libraries were established in major cities as…