Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2025 -

Archives remain enigmatic entities in academia. They are recognized as indispensable to research, but the things themselves - their structures, the purposes they are meant to serve, the ways to use them - receive little critical inquiry. This is especially true when it comes to Eastern Europe, where the culture of archives and their organizing schemes are notoriously tricky for non-natives to navigate. The challenges intensify again when confronting the subject of Vatulescu's book: the "hostile" archives of Soviet-era secret police. These archives present a moral dilemma, for in them the privacy of individuals targeted for persecution and often, extermination, is invaded. Embracing the gravity of the situation, Vatulescu (New York Univ.) proposes, and demonstrates through case studies, methods for reading these archival documents more holistically and humanely. She recommends strategies for interpreting archival gaps and silences, for using adjacent files to make inferences about individuals, and for reading both "with" and "against the grain" of the archive. Similarly, Vatulescu stresses the "embodied" experience of archival work and consequently encourages users to engage mindfully with the different media that might be in a file and to develop a practice of "affective" reading. Her book is a triumph. Crucial reading for archivists, information professionals, and researchers alike.Summing Up: Essential. Graduate students through faculty; professionals.

Bomhold (Univ. of Southern Mississippi), coauthor of Twice Upon a Time: A Guide to Fractured, Altered, and Retold Folk and Fairy Tales (2008) and Build It, Make It, Do It, Play It! Subject Access to the Best How-To Guides for Children and Teens (2014), assembles a team of experts to provide actionable strategies and curated resources for serving marginalized communities. Grounded in the belief that empowering oneself leads to empowering others, this guide urges library professionals to examine their practices and critically expand services to underserved populations. Serving the Underserved opens by discussing theories of information-seeking behavior across diverse populations while emphasizing the importance of intersectionality, highlighting how overlapping identities shape experiences and access to information. Subsequent chapters lay a foundation for understanding the unique challenges faced by refugee, immigrant, and international communities, among others; people experiencing homelessness; people with physical disabilities; people with mental health disorders or neurodiversity; LGBTQ+ youth; older adults; and incarcerated or formerly incarcerated people. Each chapter offers practical tools, including examples of effective programs and discussion questions ideal for professional learning networks, making it a valuable blueprint for fostering inclusivity.Summing Up: Essential. Graduate students through faculty; professionals.