TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 632, 10 August 1951, Page 12

TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES

THE OXFORD JUNIOR ENCYCLOPAEDIA, Vol. 4, Communications; general editors, Laura E. Salt and Robert Sinclair; Geoftrey Cumberlege-Oxford University Press. English price, 30/-. HOSE who are accustomed to work with words may be a little disconcerted to discover that in this latest volume of the Junior Encyclopaedia the communication of ideas is dealt with in just half the space given to the more

mechanical business of getting from one lace to another. hips and shipping, railway systems and locomotives, cars and aircraft-and a profusion of related illustrations which should make this volume one of the most popular with the junior schooloccupy just on twothirds of the 496 pages. It seems a generous allocation of space when one is aware that in two volumes yet to be published. (Industry and Commerce and Engineering) there is likely to be a good deal more about the same subjects.

At one or two points it might even be called over-generous. It is probably valuable to know something about the buckeye coupling (indeed, it might be a good thing if our own Railways Department knew more about it), but in the present volume the space given to it would almost suffice for a brief: discussion of the International Phonetic Script, which (like Grimm’s Law) is not listed at all. More incongruous is the inclusion of a brief summary of the case of the Marie Celeste, in which communication almost reached absolute zero. For those who have in recent years taken an increasing interest in mass communications-press, film and radiothe most serious criticism that could be made of the present volume is the omission from it of any reference to films as means of communicating ideas, Indeed, the omission is so complete as to seem almost intentional-in two and a half columns of letterpress on Propaganda and Advertising, for example, there is not a single word to suggest that the cinema plays any part in these activities, though such other propaganda outlets as "newspapers, pamphlets, leaflets, periodicals, postal circulars, public meetings, loud-speaker vans, and tadio broadcasting" are detailed. Nor are there any cross-references pointing back

or forward, though films have already been discussed as a recreation and may yet figure as one of the arts. Having made these reservations, it is proper © to... emphasise, that e new volume in all other respects appears to reach the excellent standards already established by the editors, Condensation does lead occasionally to over-simplifica-tion ("Political propaganda is almost the only kind known today"), but in general the work of summarising has been done

with clarity and precision.

J.

M.