<b>Elizabeth H. Dow</b>. <i>Archivists, Collectors, Dealers, and Replevin: Case Studies on Private Ownership of Public Documents</i>. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2012. 144p. $65 (ISBN 9780810883772). LC2012-008889.

the content will remain relevant as more and more information literacy instruction moves into those formats. Though much of the discussion is theoretical, numerous citations (many annotated) provide the instruction practitioner with an entry point into the intimidating literature on teaching theory and practice.—Timothy Imagine this scenario: you're an archivist at a state university charged with the archival responsibilities for the papers of current and past university presidents. While looking through a catalog from a manuscript dealer, you see a set of documents created by one of your former university presidents in the early 20th century. The documents deal with a controversial issue and have historic value, and you have always wondered why your collection was missing these manuscripts. Suddenly, you've found them, and they are in the hands of a dealer. The selling of historical documents isn't uncommon— indeed, Sotheby's reports selling between 5,000 and 8,000 such documents each year. This scenario begs several questions: who owns government documents that have, for one reason or another, slipped into the hands of private dealers and col-lectors? Should they be available in the private market, or should they revert back to the government agency/archive where they, historically, might belong? What are the legal and ethical issues involved? Elizabeth Dow addresses this complicated issue in this new volume, Archivists, Collectors, Dealers, and Replevin: Case Studies on Private Ownership of Public Documents. (Replevin is a legal action brought by one party in an effort to recover specific items, such as manuscripts or documents, from another party.) Dow cites a personal interest in the topic: after she witnessed a certain amount of acrimony between archivists and manuscript dealers, she discloses that she's not only an archivist and archival educator, but she's married to a manuscript dealer with strong ties to the professional dealer network. It is from this perspective that she successfully argues both sides of this question. Dow takes a systematic approach, beginning with an historical overview of the collecting and care of documents by state and institutional agencies, followed by tales of theft and neglect that cast untold numbers of documents adrift from their institutional homes, where they would end up in the collector's market. For example, prior to the mid-20th century development of legislation and retention schedules designed to keep public documents in the hands of government agencies, it was common for government officials to keep public documents and treat them …