College and Research Libraries


380 I College & Research Libraries • September 1974 

The editors should have provided a dif-
ferent direction for this book to face the 
fundamental questions librarians should or 
do have regarding the use of such reference 
tools. The obvious expertise of the authors 
could have been used to help other librari-
ans learn about providing electronic data 
bases in reference service to a library's 
users.-]ohn Lubans, ]r., Assistant Director 
for Public Services, University of Colorado 
Libraries, Boulder, Colorado. 

Proceedings of the 1973 Clinic on Library 
Applications of Data Processing: Net-
working and Other Forms of Co-opera-
tion. Ed. by F. Wilfrid Lancaster. Ur-
bana-Champaign, Ill.: University of Illi-
nois Graduate School of Library Science, 
1973. $6.00. 
This volume is a potpourri of materials 

on the application of computerized informa-
tion handling techniques to one of the most 
complex and convoluted of today' s ''hot 
topics" in librarianship-networking. We 
have here a good mix of people, including 
library systems personnel, senior adminis-
trators, and information specialists, chosen 
specifically for their professional experience 
with networking at one stage or another-
designing, planning, developing, operating, 
and evaluating. Library school teachers are 
conspicuously absent, for the emphasis is 
squarely on the practical, not the academic. 
Most of the activities discussed are attempts 
at centralized technical processing, but in-
formation retrieval services for users are 
covered in McCarn (MEDLINE) and in 
parts of the papers by Randall and by 
Evans, whose generalized schematic ap-
proach is intriguing enough to steal the 
show from the particular project he is de-
scribing. 

There are accounts of libraries "back-
ing into network operations" (Brodman), 
where a system was designed for one li-
brary and then adapted for many, and of 
formally organized and chartered affairs 
like OCLC (Long), which had its objec-
tives well enough defined at the outset to 
let a contract for the simulation of comput-
er performance characteristics in order to 
make the right choice of machine for its 
purpose. Jolliffe provides the only European 
contribution with a succinct account of 

Project LOC, a joint attempt to create a 
machine-readable union catalog of pre-1801 
materials held at Oxford, Cambridge, and 
the British Museum. This is not a network, 
of course, but it could become the basis for 
one, and much more should be known 
about it in the U.S. 

Whether or not the clinic succeeded in 
imparting help at the nuts and bolts level 
I do not know, but in published form the 
more interesting contributions are those 
that go beyond technical description to give 
us the flavor of what it is really like to be 
involved in computerized cooperation. The 
oft-repeated platitude that runs "The major 
problems are not technological, but organi-
zational and administrative" seems depress-
ingly confirmed by recurring comments on 
the problems of properly financing coopera-
tive activity; or persuading librarians to 
give up some control of their operations 
and services; of being dependent upon a 
computer center which has many other mis-
sions and user groups; of increasing user ex-
pectations which then are not fulfilled; of 
whether and how to charge for services, 
etc. Even taken singly, most libraries have 
found it difficult enough, organizationally, 
to understand and exploit the computer (as 
any Gentleman of Quality knows). The 
immediate chances of them multiplying 
their manifestly severe bureaucratic prob-
lems by ten and then succeeding cannot be 
very high. Joseph Becker ends the volume 
with the hortatory comment that a national 
network of all types of libraries cooperating 
about everything is "just around the bend." 
Given the general tenor of the preceding 
papers, that seems a trifle optimistic.-Pe-
ter G. Watson, University Library, Univer-
sity of California, Los Angeles. 

OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST 
TO ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS 

Ash, Rene L. The Motion Picture Film Edi-
t01'. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1974. 
171p. $6.00. (74-4072). (ISBN 0-8108-
0718-1). 

Atkins, Thomas V., ed. Cross-Reference In-
dex. A Subject Heading Guide. New 
York: Bowker, 1974. 255p. (73-23066). 
(ISBN 0-8352-0680-7). 

•