College and Research Libraries 160 I College & Research Libraries • March 1975 States Government as Publisher (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1943). Appendix III contains a directory of state agencies whose publications are listed in the main bibliog- raphy. State Government Reference Publica- tions contains two indexes-a Personal Au- thors and Titles Index and a Subject Index. It is assumed that the Personal Authors and Titles Index is selective since omissions were discovered (e.g., Telephone Direc- tory, Commonwealth of Kentucky; Manual, General Assembly, Missouri). In spite of minor criticisms, it is the re- viewer's opinion that State Government Reference Publications serves as an excel- lent example of publications being issued by state governments.-Earl Shumaker, Documents Librarian, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green. Stevens, Robert D., and Stevens, Helen C., eds. Reader in Documents on Interna- tional Organizations. (Reader Series in Library and Information Science) Engle- wood, Colo.: Microcard Editions Books, 1973. 410p. $17.95. In their introduction, Dr. and Mrs. Stev- ens note that the data in their book "will allay the fears of the generalist librarian" and provide information on international documents for use in library schools. U nfor- tunately, rather than fulfilling either of these laudable purposes, this compilation would seem more likely to dissuade the nonspecialist from seeking any further ac- quaintance with the documents of interna- tional organizations. Only half the book actually deals with international documents or with libraries' work with these, while the remainder is on international organizations themselves or on their libraries as special libraries, with no particular focus on documents. While no documents librarian would deny the impor- tance of a basic familiarity with an organi- zation's structure and functions, for a gen- eralist or student this aspect can be rather limited, since an understanding of the docu- ments themselves is far more crucial. A nonspecialist might well be daunted to find half the book devoted to organizational ar- ticles, including such facets as the Interna- tional Atomic Energy Agency's first year. The articles on documents vary in qual- ity, but have one thing in common: they are relatively old. Although no one would expect the eleven articles dealing with pre- U.N. documents · to be recent, one would hope for up-to-date information from the fifteen on documents during the U.N. peri- od. However, nine of these were written in the 1940s and 1950s, with the two latest dated 1966. Many of the articles were ex- cellent when they originally appeared, and some are still of value; but, since docu- ments are dynamic, the articles now contain much outdated and erroneous information, inextricably intertwined with data that is still completely valid. Only someone al- ready expert in the material could distin- guish between the two. The editors have occasionally corrected obsolete information, but not on a consistent basis. In a book directed toward the nonspe- cialist, one might question the inclusion of articles dealing with such topics as the ef- fect of World War II on the publication of individual League of Nations series or plans for issuing on microcards me:teorological ob- servations from the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year. Even some of the more general articles could discourage the non- specialist who comes across such items as two pages citing the seventy-four issues of the U.N.'s Disposition of Agenda Items and Index to Proceedings series published as of 1962 or a listing of the sixty-three draft conventions adopted by the International Labour Conference before 1939. Since there is no index, such items could not be readily located for reference purposes. The physical preparation of the book was somewhat casual. There are such typo- graphical errors as "sumbol" (p.134) and "sytle" (p.188). A reference to footnote one appears on page 36, but no footnote accom- panies the article. The wrong author's name appears in the running head on page 58. And did the editors really intend to de- scribe New York University's United Na- tions collection, with its coveted delegation status, as "meager" (p.218) or is this too a typographical error? In an era of straitened library budgets, this $17.95 book cannot be recommended for purchase.-Mary J. Ryan, University of California, Los Angeles.