College and Research Libraries


4061 College & Research Libraries • September 1965 

interviews and process charts. These · rep-
resent the best guesses to date, not to be 
used slavishly, but with some confidence 
and a willingness to refine them in the light 
of future experience, just as the other cost 
elements must be kept current. 

The study has widely refrained from 
identifying the libraries which use these 
processes. Librarians will continue their 
search for improvement in a dynamic tech-
nology. They well may wonder if any meth-
od will endure through the five to ten years 
it takes to amortize purchased equipment. 
Use of rental, leasing, trade-in, processing 
center, and service bureau arrangements re-
flect this growing desire for flexibility. The 
study does not mention the changing role 
for catalogs in card form in the face of im-
pending shifts to book catalogs or eventual 
console conversion. Nor does it look with 
any prophetic vision at the greater depth of 
control achievable over small units of in-
formation, even the individual character or 
its component bits, when using a digitized 
system such as the automatic tape type-
writer. The power to select and re-order in-
formation stored in paper tape for multiple 
purposes which is afforded by the Friden 
Selectadata unit, the special-purpose au-
tomation of the Crossfiler, or the general 
capability of any computer, all introduce 
valid considerations outside the apparent 
scope of the study. The report is basically 
a search for lowest isolated cost among 
those methods presently available to li-
braries for accomplishing a very prescribed 
task. By subtracting least cost from another, 
it is possible to obtain a fair measure of 
how much annual cost is attributable to in-
tentional choice of a system over the min-
imum that would have to be paid in any 
case to get the job done the cheapest way. 
Librarians should be aware that they now 
have some useful comparative data where 
before there was none, but they should not 
feel hindered from going against or beyond 
its advice for good reason.-Earl Farley, 
University of Kansas. 

Moving Library Materials. By Peter Spy-
ers-Duran. Rev. ed. Chicago: Library 
Technology Project, ALA, 1965. 63p. 
$2.50 (65-23947). 

This study is based on a bibliography of 
the subject which covers the years 1930 to 

1961, and on a questionnaire which includ-
ed thirty-one library moves in the range of 
8,000 to 700,000 volumes. As the author 
points out, it is difficult to find a single com-
prehensive analysis of the techniques of 
moving library materials. The present work 
is designed to outline the theoretical and 
practical requirements for moving books 
and library materials in libraries of every 
type and size. 

The arrangement of the study falls into 
three broad topics. The first section deals 
with the major steps involved in planning 
and scheduling the move. This analysis in-
cludes a time and motion study. In the sec-
ond section, the author discusses critically 
four types of moving methods. The last 
section is a collection of model specifications 
and contract forms. The use of such forms 
is necessary when a library move is being 
offered to professionals on a competitive 
basis. 

The text is clear, concise, and thorough in 
treatment, and is supplemented by a large 
number of tables and illustrations. Table I 
is particularly useful in that it presents an 
analysis of the questionnaires returned by 
the libraries. The bibliography emphasizes 
articles that have appeared since 1950. Un-
fortunately, several of the citations in the 
text are not entered in the bibliography. 

This study is deceptive in its simplicity. 
It should prove to be a valuable handbook 
to all librarians contemplating a move, espe-
cially those who wish to compare several 
possible methods, or those who have had no 
experience with operations of this kind.-
Michael Bruer, University of Notre Dame. 

Libraries of the Future. By J. C. R. Lick-
lider. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 
1965, xvii, 219p. $6. (65-13831). 

It can be an illuminating exercise in 
imaginative fantasy to extrapolate from 
present technology in order to describe the 
library of the future. This book is one of the 
best of these exercises. Author Licklider de-
scribes the "procognitive" system (the suc-
cessor to the library?) of the year 2000. Al-
though explicitly stated as not the objective 
of this book, the question is apparent on 
every page: how do we get from here to 
there? This is a problem that every librarian 
must face in the next decade, for technology 

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