College and Research Libraries


BOOK REVIEWS 

Hayes, Robert M., and Becker, Joseph. 
Handbook of Data Processing for Li-
braries. New York: Wiley, 1970. 
The authors are writing for many audi-

ences, and therefore, have provided a mani-
fold purpose for their volume. 

For the student, it should be a textbook, ed-
ucating him not only in methodology but also 
in the interrelationships between data process-
ing and the library. For the system designer, it 
should be a summary of the state-of-the-art, 
serving as a bridge between library objectives 
and the technology. 

Therefore, the authors themselves do not 
really see this compendium as a handbook. 
The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science 
and Technology defines a handbook as: 

A compact, fairly up-to-date, relatively com-
plete, authoritative compilation of specific data, 
procedures, and professional principles of a 
subject field. Much of the information is given 
in tables, graphs, and diagrams, and illustra-
tions are freely used. Symbols, equations, for-
mulas, abbreviations, and concise technical 
language all help condense much practical in-
formation into a handbook, but they also re-
quire that the reader already have rather broad 
knowledge of the field in order to use the work 
effectively. Hallmarks of a good handbook are 
an exhaustive index, up-to-date references, ex-
pert editorial staff, easy-to-read printing, and 
convenient format. 

The book does not really meet the ob-
jectives set forth for it as a textbook, a 
state-of-the-art, or a handbook. Some of the 
major criticisms are that the references are 
relatively out of date, the majority dating 
from 1967 or before; the index is good, but 
not exhaustive; no bibliography for the en-
tire work is included, yet is is replete with 
references. 

However, despite numerous typographi-
cal errors, the work is easy to read, and the 
authors are experts in their field. The vol-
ume is a curious mixture of polemic, case 

Recent Publications 

study using the University of California as 
a base, and factual data. The Handbook 
seems to be a compilation of some work 
which had been done previously, and some 
that was prepared for this volume. Some 
evidence follows: The text states that the 
"THESAURUS OF ENGINEERING AND 
SCIENTIFIC TERMS (TEST)" is being 
prepared on computer tape, and that DDC 
will be responsible for its maintenance, but 
no reference to the fact that TEST had 
been published in 1967, and that DDC is 
responsible (p.37); there is a good section 
on microfilms, yet no mention is made of 
ultrafiche or its variants; mention is made 
of the RECON project without referring to 
the publication which discusses its parame-
ters and costs (p.635), nor is it referred to 
in the index, nor is retrospective conversion 
picked up under "conversion" in the index 
(which might begin to lead to a lack of 
confidence in it) ; costs and cost accounting 
are separated by three chapters; holography 
is not mentioned at all. 

It is interesting that 875 pages of text are 
committed to the purposes mentioned pre-
viously yet there are implied caveats 
against automation throughout the text. For 
example: 

Libraries are concerned with files of truly enor-
mous magnitude. For example, whereas an in-
ventory control file for a very large company 
might contain 10 million characters, the card 
catalog of a typical library will contain 10 times 
as much-100 million characters. The card 
catalog of a large research library will contain 
over 1 billion characters, and the National 
Union Catalog has been estimated at 100 bil-
lion characters! The conversion of such im-
mense files into machine language is almost 
prohibitively expensive, but the storage and 
maintenance of them on a continuing basis is 
even more expensive-particularly since ready 
access to the catalog is essential. 
Unfortunately, again in sharp contrast to busi-
ness data processing, there is not a comparable 
degree of utilization by which to justify in-
curring such expenditures. For example, where-
as a typical inventory control file will serve 

/55 



56 I College & Research Libraries • January 1972 

activity that utilizes an average of 10 percent 
of the file each day, less than 0.1 percent of a 
library's catalog will be used each day. There 
is thus a relatively small base of activity over 
which to spread costs. The investment in con-
version, storage, and maintenance must there-
fore be justified by "increased benefits" to a 
much greater extent than in business data proc-
essing. 

Such warnings are well taken. 
The volume seems uneven and is re-

dundant in many places; for example, Fig. 
19.7, List of Representative Data Bases, 
p.692-94, and the Inventory of Available 
Data Bases, p.829-75. If more time had 
been taken in organizing and editing the 
text, this would have proved to be an even 
more valuable contribution.-Henry Voos, 
Rutgers University. 

Any Person, Any Study; An Essay on 
Higher Education in the United States. 
Eric Ashby. New York: McGraw-Hill, 
1971. 110p. $4.95. 

Newman, Frank, and others. Report on 
Higher Education, March, 1971 (HE 
5.250:50065). Washington, D.C.: U.S. 
Government Printing Office, 1971. $0.75. 

That higher education in the United 
States is in trouble today must be fully ap-
parent to anyone who does a fair amount 
of reading. Unfortunately, this is often 
clearer to almost any segment of society 
than the one most seriously affected: the 
academic community itself. Part of the 
problem, as we are accustomed to telling 
each other, comes from the enormous ex-
pansion of enrollments and facilities during 
the sixties with its corollary promises of 
more education for a larger proportion of 
the college-age populace. For many of us 
the short-term problem, as Ashby notes, is 
M-0-N-E-Y (p.5). Yet these are not the 
only problems and we delude ourselves in 
thinking that they are. Fortunately, these 
two books, one an analytical but highly 
readable treatise by a British educator and 
the other a report destined to have signifi-
cant impact upon the federal government, 
appear at a propitious moment in academic 
history. Both should find their way onto the 
shelves of all academic libraries. They 
should also be read and discussed by aca-
demic librarians both on campus and off. 

Any Person, Any Study is the first of a 

series of essays by "distinguished authori-
ties in other countries" under the sponsor-
ship of the Carnegie Commission on High-
er Education, whose books by this point 
should be familiar to every academic li-
brarian. These books are having an impact 
upon the general public that hasn't been 
achieved since James Bryant Conant took 
on the American high school in the late 
fifties. Almost every new volume in the 
Carnegie Commission series results in news-
paper headlines, the most provocative so 
far being Earl Cheit's The New Depression 
in Higher Education ( 1971), with its thesis 
that 71 percent of some forty-one of the na-
tion's most prestigious colleges and univer-
sities are either in serious financial trouble 
or heading that way. 

Unfortunately, Sir Eric Ashby's book is 
not likely to achieve such headlines, though 
it deserves more attention than many other 
Carnegie volumes. For Ashby, master of 
Clare College, Cambridge, and formerly 
vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, 
has challenged one of the basic premises 
of American higher education: that it 
should be. for everyone. Hence, of course, 
his title, taken from Ezra Cornell's famous 
statement that he intended to found a uni-
versity where any person could find any 
sort of study he wished. Cornell's idea and 
the land-grant movement went hand in 
hand, so that a hundred years later his am-
bition is close to fulfillment in many institu-
tions. 

What specifically does this British acade-
mician, with some forty years of intermit-
tent experience in American higher educa-
tion, see as the major question for our so-
ciety? He answers on the first page of his 
chapter on "Analysis" (p.23): " ... if en-
rollments continue to rise and finance con-
tinues to :Bow into higher education, will 
it be good enough simply to enlarge or 
multiply institutions without reconsidering 
their pattern, their curricula, their social 
purpose?" Ashby obviously thinks not and 
the Newman Report in its analysis concurs 
(p.61, 82-'83). For both books see an ur-
gent reexamination of institutional mission 
as necessary, with Ashby opting for the 
university as a place of rational enquiry and 
discourse, a posture he believes it is now 
in danger of losing. 

Basically, Ashby's book is a well-written