College and Research Libraries 332 I College & Research Libraries • July 1975 tively unimportant series (Driver, All Hands, BNDD Bulletin) and the exclusion of important publications (American State Papers, publications of the Joint Publica- tions Research Service, annual report of the Congressional Research Service) . The authoritative monograph on govern- ment publications is Schmeckebier and Eastin, and for a detailed account of the daily operations of a documents collection Harleston and Stoffie, Administration of Government Document Collections ( 1974), is a good source. Introduction to United States Public Documents is a current, well- written volume which should prove useful as an elementary manual in graduate li- brary programs and for those unfamiliar with the complex world of federal publica- tions.-Alan Edward Schorr, Government Publications and Af ap Librarian, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Vesenyi, Paul E. An Introduction to Peri- odical Bibliography. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Pr., 1974. 382p. $12.95. (LC 74- 19777) (ISBN 0-87650-045-9) The title aptly describes the contents of this reference book, for it is solely an intro- duction to bibliographies devoted to peri- odical literature throughout the world in all subject fields from their inception to the present. The coverage includes indexes, ab- stracts, union lists, directories, and transla- tion services. The book is divided into two parts, one-third of which is text, while the remainder is an annotated list of periodical bibliographies. An index is provided for the first part and a subject guide for the sec- ond. Before launching into a history of peri- odical bibliographies, the author defines a periodical, outlines its origins, and describes variations in citations and the types of bib- liographies, along with their organization. The historical part of the text covers seven- ty-four pages in which indexes, abstracts, union lists, and directories are cited. It is divided into four chapters: from the begin- ning to the eighteenth century, nineteenth century, pre- World War II, and post- World War II. The separation of the twentieth century into two chapters has resulted in fragmenting the bibliographical history. Many of the periodical bibliographies inter- rupted during the war years were resumed later, some in a slightly modified format. Yet they were still basically the same work, so the author, unable to make a clean divi- sion, has duplicated portions of the history in the later chapter. The final two chapters are devoted to standardization of periodi- cals and to translation centers. A brief foreword introduces the alpha- betically arranged bibliography section, which the author has deliberately weighted in favor of the social sciences and humani- ties. This arrangement has obvious advan- tages for the compiler, because the subject guide provided at the end of the volume requires no page references since the cited titles are in alphabetical sequence. A high percentage, if not all, of the European peri- odical bibliographies in this section ap- peared in an earlier work by Paul Vesenyi entitled European Periodical Literature in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1969). The citations have been modified and the ar- rangement altered. No global guidelines are provided with regard to selection policy; therefore, the omission of important periodical bibliogra- phies, such as the Index to New Zealand Periodicals, and Serials in Australian Li- braries: Social Sciences and Humanities; A Union List, must be regarded as an over- sight. Western European and North Ameri- can reference tools have received the great- est attention. Throughout the text the author has indi- cated gaps in the bibliographical coverage of periodical literature that require filling. If he had concentrated on one of these areas or had devoted himself to the compre- hensive coverage of a single type of periodi- cal bibliography, such as indexes, the end product would have been a valuable ref- erence tool. As it is, the work is far too sketchy to be of any real value in a refer- ence collection. The author describes it as "a complementary tool in the study of ref- erence services ," but even in this role its merit is questionable since there are already several good introductions to reference sources that cover periodical as well as monograph bibliographies.-Judith Can- nan, Associate Librarian, Serials Depart- ment, Cornell University Libraries, Ithaca, New York. Fenichel, Carol, ed. Changing Patterns in Information Retrieval. Tenth Annual National Information Retrieval Collo- quium, May 3-4, 1973, Philadelphia Pennsylvania. Washington: American Society for Information Science, 1974. 175p. $15.00. (LC 66-29616) (ISBN 0-87715-106-7) This collection of twenty presentations from a May 1973 conference has lost some of its potential value because of the aging of its material during the time it took to get out in printed form. It also suffers an un- evenness in quality of the papers, as if there had been no formal technical refereeing and screening of the written papers for publication. Some of the papers are very good, and some should be an embarrass- ment to the corporate sponsors of the writ- ten proceedings. It is too bad the editor could not instead produce a collection of selected papers from the conference. There is no doubt that it was a good conference and that the participants had an informa- tion transfer experience that was effective for them, but this positive value does not come through in the printed proceedings, and it seems a waste to create a permanent archive record of some of the presentations made at this meeting. This is, of course, a problem with many other conference pro- ceedings. The editor of these particular pro- ceedings must have felt some of the same concerns, because the preface notes that "most who have attended the Colloquia ag~ee that these meetings have something umque to offer-something that comes from the spontaneous interaction of the va- riety of people who attend. Previous edi- to~s have noted the difficulty of transmitting th1s atmosphere in the proceedings. I share their frustration." There are many good papers in this col- lection, starting with Bob Taylor's keynote statement that provides a good transition from the 1960 to 1973 work, noting what is still important to consider. Don King and Vernon Palmour, researchers who have been personally involved in much of the more significant user study work done to date, provide an excellent commentary and Recent Publications I 333 review of user behavior, primarily in the context of sci-tech information. They also suggest areas where more work needs to be done and are particularly concerned with the mechanisms for transmitting formal messages from authors to users. Some help- ful followup points are provided in a brief note by Francis Wolek. Brown and Agra- wala provide a brief but very useful report with empirical data on MEDLINE use. Based on a fifteen-day computer log of 4,300 sessions of MEDLINE system activi- ty, data are reported on such points as use by time of day, distribution of user response time (i.e., user "think time"), distribution of system response time, and distribution of number of commands per session. Deahl describes and contrasts user be- havior, both in traditional referral process and in a modern urban setting using on-line reference tools, to work with low income residents. Katzer provides a good review of some of the remaining problems of re- trieval systems. Mary Stevens, as usual, does an excellent job of reviewing and summarizing the im- portant points from the prior literature-in this case dealing with strategies for organiz- ing and searching files of infmmation. This is one of the best parts of this book and should be required reading for all informa- tion science students. Louise Schultz provides a good review of data base production and use, primarily from the point of view of the abstracting and indexing services. Some practical com- ments are given regarding the use of sup- port tools to aid query formulation process. Bob Landau gives some helpful estimates of the extent of availability and use of on- line file searching and some estimates of operating costs for such services. Lee Burchinal provides a good tutorial progress report of U.S. science information services, including the major computer- based search centers, alternatives to pri- mary publication, data retrieval, and sug- gested new directions for NSF. John Murdock presents a helpful state- of-the-art review of economic aspects of in- formation. This includes price perception and sensitivity for individual and organiza- tional purchasers; ten-year trends and pro- jections; and changes in the nature and