College and Research Libraries


Those who read it for pleasure may find 
that six hundred pages on book-trade his-
tory is at times grim going.-D. W. Davies, 
Lloyd Corporation Ltd., Claremont, Cali-
fornia. 

Thompson, Donald E. Indiana Authors and 
Their Books, 1917-1966. Crawfords-
ville, Ind.: Wabash College, 1974. 688p. 
In a superficial sense this volume repre-

sents an exercise in vanity. Funded by 
Hoosiers, sponsored by Hoosiers, prepared, 
published, and distributed by Hoosiers, it 
is a biographical directory of Hoosier au-
thors of the half century from 1917 to 
1966. We take care of our own .... 

But the motivation for the present vol-
ume has some nobler aspects as well. In-
diana has produced substantially more and 
better authors than one would normally 
expect. When the ten best-selling American 
novels for each year from 1895 to 1965 are 
assigned points (ten for first place, nine for 
second place, etc.), and their authors' na-
tive states are determined, the total points 
amassed by Indiana authors are second only 
to those of New York State. Indiana is also 
second only to New York State when fiction 
and nonfiction are taken together. Yet the 
population of Indiana has never attained 
one-fifth that of New York State. 

No one knows why authorship has so 
flourished in Indiana, and although the 
present volume does not attempt to ex-
plain it, it does lay out the data necessary 
for future analysis. Here are biographical 
sketches of the 2,751 authors who made it 
happen. Every author included either was 
"born in the state, or [if] born elsewhere, 
chose to spend the majority of his or her 
maturity within Indiana bounds." Authors 
solely of pamphlets, periodical articles, text-
books, genealogies, and similar publications 
are not included. A wide net has still been 
cast, however, and as a result the volume 
contains biographical sketches of authors 
as different as Kenneth Rexroth is from 
Vance Hartke, and as Ernie Pyle is from 
Alfred C. Kinsey. Much of the information 
presented on the lesser figures is virtually 
unobtainable through any other source. 

The present biographical directory is a 
continuation of a similar work compiled by 
R. E. Banta and published in 1949 entitled 
Indiana Authors and Their Books, 1816-

Recent Publications I 79 . 

1916. The two works together, therefore, 
now provide coverage for Indiana's first 
century-and-a-half of statehood. The new 
work matches the Banta volume both in 
quality of contents and in format and de-
sign. Yet it also suffers the same basic 
weakness. Since the coverage attempted is 
so broad, it is unlikely ever fully to be at-
tained. It is ironic, for example, that this 
reviewer, although gratified to find his own 
name in the new volume, must point out 
that his father, who also meets the criteria 
for inclusion, is unaccountably omitted. 
Other and more important omissions will 
be turning up for years. Such oversights, 
however, do not mean that this book will 
not serve a useful reference function in 
large libraries or in smaller ones with spe-
cial interest either in authorship or in the 
Hoosier state.-David Kaser, Graduate Li-
brary School, Indiana University, Blooming-
ton. 

Palmer, Richard Phillips. Case Studies in 
Library Computer Systems. New York: 
Bowker, 1973. 214p. 
This book consists of twenty case studies 

of computerization of classical library pro-
cedures and comments; there are no cases 
of network computerization. Six cases deal 
with circulation systems, eight with serials 
systems and six with acquisition systems. 
Graduate students in the School of Library 
Science at Simmons College did "much of 
the initial gathering of information." The 
author made additional on-site visits and 
wrote up the cases. He also introduces the 
book and summarizes it. 

The purpose of the book "is to describe 
and document a number of operational li-
brary computer systems, including their 
cost, so that librarians and library school 
students may better determine whether 
computers should be stamped out or wheth-
er they are appropriate for library use." 
(The phrase "stamped out" comes with 
Ellsworth Mason.) The author concludes 
that although there have been failures in 
library computerization, there also have 
been successes, and some of these successes 
are cases that appear in the book. He antic-
ipates that there will be an increasing num-
ber of successful library computer applica-
tions in the decade that lies ahead. 

By and large, the objectives of the cases