College and Research Libraries


extent that it exposes him to the kinds of 
analyses that are possible when one ap-
plies the techniques of operations research 
and systems analysis to a library system. 
Such applications are long overdue, and 
the potential results should improve the ef-
fectiveness of libraries severalfold. 

This book could be used as a beginning 
text in a course in library science in the 
area of library systems analysis. However, 
additional material would be needed to 
supplement it and to describe some of the 
other studies that have been done in li-
braries. A reviewer probably should make 
some critical comments even about a good 
book, and therefore my only comment 
would be that more material could have 
been included about other studies and 
models. For example, there are possible 
applications of non-linear programming to 
such inventory areas as journal and serial 
purchasing and selection. However, this is 
the kind of criticism that can be made of 
almost any book, namely, that it could 
have been more comprehensive. 

An overall evaluation finds the book to 
be an excellent contribution to the field of 
library science which will undoubtedly 
help to bring more science back into the 
field of library science.-Richard W. Trues-
well, University of Massachusetts. 

Oregon Imprints 1845-1870. By George N. 
Belknap. Eugene: University of Oregon 
Books, 1968. 305p. $10. 

Slowly, painstakingly, methodically, we 
are covering the nation. Someday the good 
work begun by Roorbach and Kelly, con-
tinued by the American Imprints Inven-
tory, and advanced by the intrepid Mc-
Murtrie, will be complete, and thereafter 
we will know with ninety-nine per cent 
certainty the work of the early printers and 
publishers who peopled this nation's mov-
ing frontiers. 

George N. Belknap's Oregon Imprints is 
the latest in a long series of volumes re-
cording the early publications of the re-
spective states, and it is a good one. Im-
printophiles will relish the compiler's ac-
count of his own seduction: 

About a year before Douglas McMurtrie's death 

Recen.t Publications I 449 

in September 1944, the manuscript of his Ore-
gon Imprints 1847-1870 was accepted for publi-
cation by the University of Oregon. As Univer-
sity Editor, I had expected that my part in the 
making of the book would be merely the routine 
checking of copy. But I did not know McMur-
trie. Questions on some minor details sent me 
to the University of Oregon Library. A report 
to Chicago of two or three small errors in 
descriptions-probably with a transparent note 
of editor's oneupmanship-brought flattering 
thanks for my diligence and sent me back to 
the Library for further checking. And then I 
found an imprint "not in McMurtrie" and an-
other, which, after an exciting exchange of let-
ters, went into the manuscript. Now I was 
hooked ... 

Sound familiar? 
During the subsequent fifteen years the 

compiler added 967 imprints to McMur-
trie's original 589 and deleted thirty-five 
for a final total of 1,521 entries. His dis-
coveries pushed the earliest known printing 
in the state back two years to 1~845. The 
resulting volume will stand for a long time 
as the definitive enumeration of early Ore-
gon printing, although one can imagine 
that somewhere the game has probably al-
ready begun of reporting a title "not in 
Belknap." 

The introduction to this work records 
the adventures and trials of the compiler 
rather than the standard historical essay on 
the first printing in the state. The illustra- · 
tions are well selected, clearly reproduced, 
and keyed to the text. The appendix com-
prises a list of 142 lost Oregon imprints. 
The indexes, both of subjects and of print-
ers and publishers, are comprehensive and 
accurate. 

Bibliographical description of the 1,521 
entries is appropriately full, including 
main entry, title page transcription includ-
ing line endings, printers' devices, pagina-
tion and size, frequent descriptive and his-
torical as well as contents notes, and loca-
tions of copies. It is done in the best biblio-
graphical and scholarly tradition and rep-
resents an important advance in our grow-
ing knowledge of our printing history. The 
volume is well designed and handsomely 
printed. May there be morel-David Kaser, 
Cornell University. • •