College and Research Libraries


from which the students have come are not, 
over the length and breadth of the country, 
at all well provided with school libraries, 
and among them the qualified school librar-
ian is virtually unknown. The fact that the 
students did not pass beyond the · com-
pulsory schooling age of fifteen may par-
tially be attributed to their relatively low 
interest in reading. They have not in many 
instances been regular users of public li-
brary services. In other words, they come 
to the college with an inadequate back-
ground of library usage. Their success in 
their course work and their subsequent ca-
reer will, however, depend to some extent 
(however small) on their ability to utilize 
the college libraries. The library must also 
cooperate in the task of helping to fill some 
of the deficiencies in general education. 
This, at any rate, is a part of the act of 
faith which lay behind the postwar expan-
sion of libraries in such institutions. 

The authors of this composite work are, 
for the most part, actively engaged in this 
challenging, even if somewhat forlorn , area 
of librarianship. The chapters deal with the 
actual presentation of material for certain 
categories of student as well as the more 
vexing question of the role of the library as 
a liberalizing influence amid a welter of 
vocational courses. The book gives a clear 
idea of the problems which are being faced, 
and the enthusiasm of those engaged in the 
battle can easily be deduced.-Ray Stokes, 
Loughborough Technical College. 

Report on Project History Retrieval. 
Tests and Demonstrations of an Optic-
Coincidence System of Information Re-
trieval for Historic Materials. By Eliza-
beth In german Wood. Philadelphia: 
Drexel Institute of Technology, Graduate 
School of Library Science, c.1966 
(Drexel Library School Series Number 
14). xiii, 123p. $3. (66-21944). 

Mrs. Wood's book is a description of a 
system of information retrieval called optic-
coincidence. In brief, the system works in 
this manner. Each item, document, book, 
print, or what have you, is described on an 
index form by author, title, and/or other 
appropriate entries. Each item is numbered. 
Characteristics, or descriptors, akin to sub-
ject headings, which best fit the piece at 
hand, are chosen from a master list. A 

Book Reviews I 143 

gridded card for each characteristic is made 
and a hole is drilled in it at the coordinates 
which indicate the serial number of each 
item having this description. Finally, the 
user selects term cards which best describe 
the questions he has in mind, piles them 
together and shines a light through the lot. 
The places where the light comes through 
indicates the serial numbers of items in the 
collection which fill the reader's require-
ments. The reader then goes to the num-
bered index forms, as provided by the grid 
coordinates, and compiles a list of mate-
rials he wishes to use in the depository. 
Each term card, measuring about 8" x 10", 
has locations for 10,000 numbers; thus, as 
many as 10,000 items can be recorded on 
each term card. 

Mrs. Wood is using this system with suc-
cess at her own operation, the Joseph 
Drexel Institute, and the Copeland-Audelot 
at the Henry Francis DuPont Winterthur 
museum. With the help of that institution, 
Drexel Institute and the Copeland-Audelot 
Foundation, she explored the possibilities 
of the system in collections at the Library 
Company of Philadelphia (books); the 
Delaware state archives (governmental ar-
chives) ; the New York Historical Society 
(miscellaneous personal manuscripts); Eleu-
therian Mills historical library (family pa-
pers) ; Archives of American Art (large 
quantities of microfilmed papers) ; Virginia 
colonial records project (microfilmed official 
records) ; the Lewis-Walpole collection of 
eighteenth century English prints; Smith-
sonian Institution (silver objects); Winter-
thur museum (furniture) ; and finally, an 
amalgamation of all nine samples into a 
union index. 

Mrs. Wood reported her conclusions to a 
conclave held in Philadelphia in the spring 
of 1966. As one of the participants at that 
meeting, this reviewer came away with the 
opinion that this system probably was not 
suited to large collections of materials. Mrs. 
Wood, in her published report, tends to 
agree. Had her samples, which were limited 
to relatively small numbers of items in each 
of the nine institutions, been larger, it 
might have been possible to show that these 
fears were unfounded. 

Be that as it may, it appears that Mrs. 
Wood has proved that the optic-coincidence 
system of indexing materials in a relatively 



144 1 College & Research Libraries • March, 1967 

small collection will work economically and 
efficiently. Indeed, the curator of silver at 
the Smithsonian was enthusiastic over the 
possibilities of the system, providing her 
with a useful means of categorizing her ma-
terials. In short, for certain types of collec-
tions, this system may be one answer for 
the mechanical means of information re-
trievaL-Marcus A. McCorison, American 
Antiquarian Society. 

Interlibrary Request and Loan Transac-
tions Among Medical Libraries of the 
Greater New York Area. By Lee Ash 
and Vernon R. Bruette. New York: The 
Survey of Medical Library Resources of 
Greater New York, 1966. 199p. $5. (66-
26014). 

Interlibrary loans are big business. This 
survey provides badly needed facts and 
suggests trends. While some of the findings 
are hardly unexpected, there are a few 
surprises. 

The survey was set up in 1963 by funds 
from the Health Research Council of the 
City of New York. Gertrude Annan served 
as principal investigator with Jacqueline 
Felter and Erich Meyerhoff as co-investi-
gators. The Medical Library Center of New 
York supplied office space and equipment. 
The original broad charge to the surveyors 
was soon narrowed to concentrate on inter-
library loans. 

The surveyors pragmatically decided to 
use all of New York state and the area from 
Groton , Connecticut, through northern New 
Jersey for loans and requests. In addition, 
loans made to the survey libraries from the 
College of Physicians of Philadelphia and 
the National Library of Medicine were in-
cluded. Questionnaires were sent to 441 
libraries, 278 returned completed reports, 
and 224 agreed to take part in the survey. 
Of the 217 libraries which remained in the 
program for the full year, seventy-nine pro-
vided the bulk of the material. 

The data used, which included requests 
for original materials and for photorepro-
ductions, amounted to 99,452 transactions 
(27,825 requests by the survey libraries, 
and 71 ,627 requests to the survey libraries). 

Of the serial requests made by the survey 
libraries 42.1 per cent were made by nine-
teen commercial concerns. The requests re-
ceived by the survey libraries showed that 

50.1 per cent came from the commercial 
concerns (mostly pharmaceutical houses ) . 
The National Library of Medicine received 
14.5 per cent of all serial requests by the 
survey libraries. Some 9.6 per cent of the 
total requests went unfilled. 

One of the biggest surprises for the sur-
veyors was that almost 18 per cent of the 
requests by the survey libraries were made 
outside the survey area. This has some im-
portant implications for regional planning. 

Tables break down the transactions by 
borrower, lender, and type, date, language, 
and subject of publication. The source 
records have been kept at the Center and 
are available for further study. The sur-
veyors hope to publish elsewhere more de-
tailed tables showing rank orders and num-
bers of requests and loans for the frequent-
ly-used journals. 

In addition to drawing attention to the 
need for detailed cost studies (to include 
both direct and indirect elements), the sur-
veyors conclude by emphasizing that the 
burden on the larger libraries must be re-
lieved, that these libraries should "supple-
ment" not "supply." They also stress the 
importance of on-the-spot service in the 
small libraries. 

This is a census of a region and not a 
sample that could validly be extended over 
the country. It is a valuable report that 
should have a profound effect in the New 
York region and could have an effect nation-
ally if other groups pick up the challenge 
and make comparable studies.-William K. 
Beatty, Northwestern University. 

Books in America's Past. Essays Honor-
ing Rudolph H. Gjelsness. Ed. by David 
Kaser. (Published for the Bib1iographical 
Society of the University of Virginia. ) 
Charlottesville: The University Press of 
Virginia, c:1966. x 279p. $8.75. 

When Rudolph H. Gjelsness retired in 
1965, he had served the profession of li-
brarianship for more than forty-five years, 
the last twenty-five years as chairman of 
the department of library science at the 
University of Michigan. This tastefully de-
signed volume was published as a token of 
respect for Gjelsness' long, distinguished, 
and fruitful career as librarian, library edu-
cator, and scholar. 

The volume contains thirteen contribu-