College and Research Libraries


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 



334 I College & Research Libraries • July 1975 

form of products, services, and delivery 
mechanisms. This is an excellent back-
ground paper for any reader concerned 
with the operation, marketing, or use of in-
formation services. 

The papers noted above · provide the 
maiJ?. substance of this publication, and on 
balance, the book is recommended for 
reading and reference work-Charles P. 
Bourne, Director, Institute of Library Re-
search, University of California, Berkeley. 

Pflug, Warner W., comp. and ed. A Guide 
to the Archives of Labor History and 
Urban Affairs, Wayne State University. 
Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Pr., 1974. 
195p. $8.95. (LC 73-6004) (ISBN 0-
8143-1501-1) 
The publication of this guide is an im-

portant event for scholars interested in the 
study of American labor history, urban his-
tory, or twentieth-century Michigan his-
tory. With the generous assistance of the 
United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agri-
cultural Implement Workers Union, and 
particularly of its late president, Walter 
Reuther, the Archives of Labor History and 
Urban Affairs has grown into a nationally 
significant cultural institution. Its holdings, 
as of. January 1974, total over 230 acces-
sions of personal papers including those of 
Herman Benson, Selma Borchardt, Kath-
erine Pollak Ellickson, U.S. Senator Patrick 
Vincent McNamara, Nemma Sparks, Mark 
and Helen Starr, and Mary Heaton Vorse. 

Major archival accessions include the 
records of four national or international la-
bor organizations: the Air Line Pilots Asso-
ciation, the American Federation of Teach-
ers, the Newspaper Guild, the United Auto-
mobile Workers, and the United Farm 
Workers. Wayne holds the papers of over 
forty other organizations as well, among the 
most prominent of which are the Congress 
of Industrial Organizations (Department of 
Education and Research and the Office of 
the Secretary-Treasurer), the California 
Migrant Ministry, the Citizens Crusade 
Against Poverty, the Miners for Democracy, 
and the National Association for the Ad-
vancement of Colored People (Detroit 
Branch). Also among the documentary ma-
terials at Wayne are 133 oral history inter-
views on unionization in the automobile in-

dustry and 32 interviews on the ·role of 
blacks in organized labor. 

Although it must be welcomed by those 
interested in Wayne State's holdings, this 
publication unfortunately lacks the depth 
and consistency that could have . made it an 
outstanding archival finding aid. 

Brief paragraph-long descriptions, which 
do give us adequate information about the 
individuals whose papers are being de-
scribed, are occasionally uneven in their 
treatment of the subject matter represented 
in the collections. The sixty-five linear feet 
of the papers of George Addes, secretary-
treasurer of the U A W from 1936-194 7 
for example, are described in three sen: 
tences; the same amount of space is given 
to an analysis of the three items known as 
the John Anderson Papers. Similarly, the 
eight linear feet of records of Henry Krause 
receive more space in the text than the 
427~~ feet of materials and 500 volumes 
contributed to Wayne by Senator McNa-
mara. If the lack of balance between the 
size of the collection and the description 
can be explained by restrictions on the use 
of the more sparsely described collections 
or by the availability of detailed guides to 
such collections, no indication of such ex-
tenuating circumstances appears in these 
descriptions or others like them. 

Researchers will also find occasional gen-
eralizations in the collection descriptions 
annoying. Phrases such as correspondents 
include " ... most well-known union lead-
ers" (Richard T. Gosser Papers) or corre-
spondents include ". . . many other promi-
nent persons in labor, literary, and political 
fields" (Mary Heaton Vorse Papers) merely 
tantalize rather than inform. 

Archivists must also query the curious 
practice of separating the official correspon-
dence generated by union officers from the 
rest of the records of the United Automo-
bile Workers and the designation of such 
records as "private papers." The re~ords of 
over seventy union officers including Wal-
ter Reuther himself are termed private pa-
pers in the guide. The confusion that can 
result from this practice is exemplified by 
the appearance of Victor Reuther's records 
b0th under his name in the Personal Papers 
section of the publication and under the 
United Auto Workers records as "UAW