College and Research Libraries it easier to get at knowledge and informa- tion of importance to all of us . . . , to throw light on the workings of the social science information system, and to support subject bibliography as a branch of study." While the intent may be simple, no doubt execution of the intent was not. The book clearly is a result of meticulous scholarship, creative effort, and thoughtful selection. These combine beautifully under Dr. Wln"'te' s direction into a thorough, scholar- ly contribution to bibliographic literature. The guide is divided into nine sections; social sciences in general, history, geogra- J}hy, economics and business administra- tion, sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, and political science. Each sec- tion, as in the first edition, is made up of a bibliographic essay on the discipline and its literature, followed by guides to the lit- erature and major reference works. The es- says are excellent and readable. The lists of sources and guides have been selected and annotated by authorities active in their respective fields. Biographical and profes- sional information about each contributor is included i'n the introduction and each section is signed. A library would do well to keep both edi- tions in its current reference collection. Be- cause Dr. White's associates have changed, the essays and emphases have changed. In the case of anthropology, Bernard J. Siegel (professor of anthropology, Stanford Uni- versity, and editor of Biennial Review of An- thropology) states specifically that his sur- vey in the second edition covers the litera- ture in anthropology between 1960 and 1971. It is inevitable that his bibliographic essay differs tremendously from that writ- ten by Felix Keesing in the first edition. The guides to the literature sections and reference materials sections are obviously more repetitive. The format of the second edition is, in my opinion, far more inviting and pleasing than the first. The annotations are authori- tative and useful. Cross-references are used extensively and well in dealing with this overlapping body of literature of the social sciences. The index is thorough. I would recommend that general refer- ence librarians at the college and university level not only buy this guide but read it as Recent Publications I 373 well. We all need to be reminded of cur- rent developments in each of these fields, to be reminded of sources we do not use frequently, and to be reminded that guides of this quality exist. Many sit forever on the shelves unused unless recommended to the scholar by the librarian.-]oyce Ball, Uni- versity of Nevada Libraries, Reno. Archives Procedural Manual. St. Louis, Missouri: Washington University School of Medicine Library, 1973. 118p. $5.00. Consistency. H one word must catch the attention of a librarian or archivist, be this it. Perhaps more so for the archivist who must maintain a complexity of specific pro- cedures within his/ her department to pro- vide adequate bibliographic control and or- ganization. The entire gamut of acquisi- tions, processing, storage, and reference are involved within the archival limits. Recent- ly, many archival institutions have been for- malizing daily procedures within their de- partment by way of a manual. Such at- tempts at standardization are commend- able, for without procedural manuals ar- chival consistency cannot be maintained. It is to this point that the staff at the archives of the Washington U Diversity School of Medicine Library addresses itself. This manual has been published to aid other archivists who might be considering setting up their own procedural system. Although the directions and forms apply to the spe- cific situation at Washington University, the Washington U Diversity archival staff be- lieves that the manual should be useful to the larger profession of archivists. The format is a spiral-type notebook printed in typescript with accessibility somewhat restricted due to no index and an insufficiently concise table of contents. The manual lists in minute detail the es- tablished steps entailed for the archival process from acquiring material through providing reference service. In addition to the textual explanation, excellent work-flow charts provide an added depth to the work. Also included are chapters that deal with procedures for such material as sound re- cordings, pictures, maps, and microforms. Examples of specific request forms and in- ternal control forms employed at the Wash- ington University Archives are also present- 374 I College & Research Libraries • September 1974 ed, but unfortunately, are carried to ex- tremes-such as thirty-three pages of tar- gets used for microfilming. Such examples illustrate the attention to detail apparent throughout this manual. Criticism of specific procedures would be both unfair and unwise. In the larger context, many ideas contained within the manual are applicable to other archival in- stitutions. Yet, a large degree of success with archival organization is rooted to the pragmatic qualities exhibited by the head of the archives department. Thus, proce- dures that might be applfcable to specific institutions with certain characteristics may not be workable at another institution. Fu- ture archival procedural writers hoping to glean insight into archival organization and processes should keep in mind that this manual represents procedures developed for a medical archives and that such an archi- val collection is somewhat restricted in both scope and size compared to many college and university collections. Nonetheless, the manual will provide guidance to those at- tempting to produce a procedural manual for their own institution-especially if used in conjunction with Forms Manual, pub- lished by the College and University Ar- chives Committee of the Socfety of Ameri- can Archivists ( 1973). One hopes that ar- chives with procedural manuals will re- spond positively to Washington University Medical Archives' suggestion to make them avai'lable for outside examination. The crea- tion of more such manuals will help stan- dardize procedures and will lead directly to the improved control, service, and bene- fit of an archives-and most importantly- consistency.-Charles R. McClure, Head, History-Government Department, U niver- sity of Texas at El Paso Library. Boyer, Calvin James. The Doctoral Disser- tation as an Information Source: A Study of Scientific Information Flow. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1973. 129p. $5.00. Libraries acquire for use by their patrons only a small fraction of the doctoral disser- tations written annually in the United States. If the research is not acquired ex- tensively in its original format, do disserta- tions serve as information sources in other traditional formal communication channels of open literature? That question is addressed in this mono- graph, which was originally written for a Ph.D. at the University of Texas. The in- vestigation was undertaken to determine to what extent dissertations serve as infor- mation sources and what are the character- istics of assimilation and diffusion patterns of dissertation contents. Mter all, with the average cost of each dissertation in the sci- ences being $62,000, shouldn't the findings be available to a wider audience? Using the proper research methodology of defining the population and then selecting the sam- ple, the author chose the four disciplines of botany, chemical engineering, chemistry, and psychology to prove his point. He fur- ther refined his sample to three universi- ties, and his final sample included 441 dis- sertations. The original portion of the study is preceded by a brief history of the disser- tation and a more lengthy review of related literature. Boyer found through his literature search that dissertations as a form of literature rep- resent a miniscule percentage of cited liter- ature and that they represent an even more miniscule percentage of materials acquired by libraries. In his research he found tliat most disser- tation-based materials, in the sciences, ap- pear in journals with an average of 1.43 articles per dissertation. Fifty-three percent of those had not been cited, and of those cited nearly two-thirds of the citations were made by persons known to the dissertation author, including 22 percent self-citations. One weakness of the research, readily ad- mitted by the author, is that examination was made of the formal written communi- cation channels only-including journal ar- ticles, bodks, or chapters of books. It com- pletely excludes oral communication in seminars, conferences, symposia, interper- sonal communications, and closed literature such as preprints, reprints, and technical reports. Therefore this study covers only one part, perhaps the less important one, in the communication process. Another point which should not be over- looked in the information How is that, par- ticularly in the sciences, the value of the content may be transitory or the quality may be questionable. J ,.