David Wilson
Contributor
I have a modest diving library of around 200 titles, all published before the 1980s. I'm a passionate practitioner and historian of vintage equipment snorkelling.
Many great diving books appeared during the first three post World War II decades and many of them deserve to be rediscovered by new generations of scuba and breathhold divers. I'll confine myself in this thread to a slim volume published by the National Association for Underwater Instructors (NAUI) in 1973. I'm writing about Down to the sea with books: NAUI International Bibliography of Diving and Related Sciences, compiled by Stephen W. Collins III, NAUI Technical Publication Number Four. It's hardly what you would call a pretty book to look at, there are no illustrations, and the tiny sans-serif lettering, printed on a green background, on every page strains my eyes every time I pick the booklet up from my bookshelf.
So why do I prize this soft-covered, dog-eared title so much? Well, everybody's favourite books recall something of their readers' personal histories. I've always been a book collector, but my diving library up to the 1970s was relatively small and confined largely to European books, picked up in second-hand bookshops in England, France, Germany and Italy. I had very few American diving books and, wanting to remedy this deficiency, I purchased Stephen W. Collins' booklet having seen it advertised, I believe, in "Skin Diver", which was sold in the UK. Towards the end of the 1970s I had my first opportunity to cross the Atlantic from England and go States-side for a Christmas vacation in the company of my brother. I flew to Seattle then San Francisco, where we rode the Greyhound to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and back to San Francisco. During each stage of the roadtrip I sought out used book stores where I often chanced upon US vintage diving books. San Francisco and Los Angeles used book stores were particularly rich sources. When I got back home to "Blighty" I began to make notes in Collins' bibliography, marking the titles I had added to my modest library. Subsequently I visited my brother in Minneapolis most summers, often visiting another US destination during the trip, where I would again scour the local used book stores. My copy of the bibliography gradually filled up with pencil marks.
So much for personal reasons why I cherish this booklet. I got to know its limitations too, because "International" turned out to mean "so long as the book listed is in English". Even so, the bibliography with its 1500 listed diving titles remains very comprehensive. I think it's a worthy booklet for anybody to own and peruse, although it's currently out of print. I may be wrong, but I believe it's the only "stand-alone" diving bibliography around. If I'm wrong, please feel free to put me right. "Down to the sea with books" is not only valuable because of the breadth of its content, but also because of the way it breaks its collection of titles into thematic sections, or "topics". I will list them below and hope that they may be of use if this book review forum is ever furnished with subforums.
Anyway, here are the headings in the "topics" section of this bibliography:
There's some overlap in the coverage of the topics, e.g. "Sports diving and underwater education" and "Underwater instruction: swimming, skin and scuba diving", but book titles only appear once, so there's some subjectivity in the choice of "topics". I wonder what others think about these bibliographic topic headings and whether modern diving books would require the creation of new topic headings?
Many great diving books appeared during the first three post World War II decades and many of them deserve to be rediscovered by new generations of scuba and breathhold divers. I'll confine myself in this thread to a slim volume published by the National Association for Underwater Instructors (NAUI) in 1973. I'm writing about Down to the sea with books: NAUI International Bibliography of Diving and Related Sciences, compiled by Stephen W. Collins III, NAUI Technical Publication Number Four. It's hardly what you would call a pretty book to look at, there are no illustrations, and the tiny sans-serif lettering, printed on a green background, on every page strains my eyes every time I pick the booklet up from my bookshelf.
So why do I prize this soft-covered, dog-eared title so much? Well, everybody's favourite books recall something of their readers' personal histories. I've always been a book collector, but my diving library up to the 1970s was relatively small and confined largely to European books, picked up in second-hand bookshops in England, France, Germany and Italy. I had very few American diving books and, wanting to remedy this deficiency, I purchased Stephen W. Collins' booklet having seen it advertised, I believe, in "Skin Diver", which was sold in the UK. Towards the end of the 1970s I had my first opportunity to cross the Atlantic from England and go States-side for a Christmas vacation in the company of my brother. I flew to Seattle then San Francisco, where we rode the Greyhound to Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and back to San Francisco. During each stage of the roadtrip I sought out used book stores where I often chanced upon US vintage diving books. San Francisco and Los Angeles used book stores were particularly rich sources. When I got back home to "Blighty" I began to make notes in Collins' bibliography, marking the titles I had added to my modest library. Subsequently I visited my brother in Minneapolis most summers, often visiting another US destination during the trip, where I would again scour the local used book stores. My copy of the bibliography gradually filled up with pencil marks.
So much for personal reasons why I cherish this booklet. I got to know its limitations too, because "International" turned out to mean "so long as the book listed is in English". Even so, the bibliography with its 1500 listed diving titles remains very comprehensive. I think it's a worthy booklet for anybody to own and peruse, although it's currently out of print. I may be wrong, but I believe it's the only "stand-alone" diving bibliography around. If I'm wrong, please feel free to put me right. "Down to the sea with books" is not only valuable because of the breadth of its content, but also because of the way it breaks its collection of titles into thematic sections, or "topics". I will list them below and hope that they may be of use if this book review forum is ever furnished with subforums.
Anyway, here are the headings in the "topics" section of this bibliography:
- Aquatic life
- Cave Diving
- Commercial diving: underwater work and salvage
- Diving equipment and maintenance
- Diving for treasure
- Diving medicine and physiology
- First aid, life saving, scuba rescue and water safety
- Legal aspects of diving and maritime law
- Limnology
- Marine biology and marine life
- Marine sciences and technology
- Oceanography
- Scientific and research diving
- Shell collecting and aquariums
- Sound - underwater
- Sports diving and underwater education
- Underwater adventure and exploration
- Underwater archeology
- Underwater instruction: swimming, skin and scuba diving
- Underwater navigation and search procedure
- Underwater photography
- Underwater submersibles and habitats
There's some overlap in the coverage of the topics, e.g. "Sports diving and underwater education" and "Underwater instruction: swimming, skin and scuba diving", but book titles only appear once, so there's some subjectivity in the choice of "topics". I wonder what others think about these bibliographic topic headings and whether modern diving books would require the creation of new topic headings?
