College and Research Libraries Recent Publications COLLEGE & RESEARCH liBRARIES Fry, Bernard M., and White, Herbert S. Publishers and Libraries: A Study of Scholarly Research Journals, reviewed by William E. McGrath . 527 National Information Policy, reviewed by C. James Schmidt . 530 Wright, Louis B. Of Books and Men, reviewed by Ellsworth Mason . 531 A Study of Coverage Overlap among Fourteen Mafor Science and Technology Ab- stracting and Indexing Services, reviewed by Dolores B. Owen . 532 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing. The Economics of Library Au- tomation, reviewed by Audrey N. Grosch . 533 Painter, George D. William Caxton: A Biography, reviewed by John V. Richard- son, Jr. . 534 Welch, Theodore F. Toshokan: Libraries in Japanese Society, reviewed by Eugene Carvalho 536 Kunz, Werner; Rittel, Horst W. J.; and Schwuchow, Werner. Methods of Analysis and Evaluation of Information Needs, reviewed by Robert L. Burr . 537 Turner, Eric G. The Typology of the Early Codex, reviewed by Susan G. Swartz- burg 538 Wright, H . Curtis. The Oral Antecedents of Greek Librarianship, reviewed by Wayne A. Wiegand 540 Kehr, Wolfgang; Neubauer, Karl Wilhelm; and Stoltzenburg, Joachim, eds. Zur Theorie und Praxis des modernen Bibliothekswesens, reviewed by Meredith A. Butler 540 Library Acquisition Policies and Procedures, reviewed by Don Lanier . 542 Libraries ir. Post-Industrial Society, reviewed by Rev. Jovian Lang . 544 Tedd, L. A. An Introduction to Computer-Based Library Systems, reviewed by Stephen R. Salmon 545 Bry, Ilse. The Emerging Field of Sociobibliography, reviewed by Thelma Freides 546 Ladd, Boyd. National Inventory of Library Needs, 1975, reviewed by Glyn T. Evans 548 McCullough, Kathleen; Posey, Edwin D.; and Pickett, Doyle C. Approval Plans and Academic Libraries, reviewed by Peter Spyers-Duran . 548 International PRECIS Workshop, University of Maryland, 1976. The PRECIS In- dex System, reviewed by Jessica L. Harris . 549 Simpson, Antony E. Guide to Library Research in Public Administration, reviewed by David R. McDonald . 550 Other Publications of Interest to Academic Librarians . 552 BOOK REVIEWS Fry, Bernard M., and White, Herbert S. Publishers and Libraries: A Study of Scholarly Research Journals. With spe- cial additional material by Marjorie Shepley. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, D. C. Heath, 1976. 166p. $14.00. LC 76-22234. ISBN 0-669-00886-9. "The purpose of this study is to report on the viab;lity of the journals' system for communicating scholarly and research in- formation." This direct statement, the first sentence in the authors' introduction, is an eyecatcher. One immediately expects, par- ticularly from the phrase "viability for communicating information," a thorough, penetrating analysis and appraisal of the journals' success, failure, past, and future from sociological, psychological, political, and economic points of view. Such a study could have enormous ramifications. But the authors soon make it clear that their study is solely economic. Their specific objectives were: 1. The gathering of data in the principal areas of economic interaction between I 527 528 I College & Research Libraries • November 1977 publishers and producers and libraries as customers for scholarly and re- search journals. 2. The development of these data into proposed joint actions by publishers and research libraries aimed at achiev- ing cooperative and reasonable results agreeable to both communities. Every librarian is familiar with the eco- nomic trend of journal prices, and nearly everyone would like to know the ultimate effects of this trend. The questions of inter- est to the reviewer, then, are ( 1) whether the authors have accomplished their objec- tives and (2) whether the information they have given us is useful. The economic trend itself needs no addi- tional documentation. Ample statistics are available elsewhere. The authors were much more interested, as we are, in docu- mentation of the effects-such things as re- allocation of book funds to journals, the cancellation or decrease of subscriptions, alternatives to subscriptions, such as net- work dependency, and actions taken by publishers to increase revenues and reduce costs. The research methodology was a survey of journal publishers and academic, public, and special libraries for 1969, 1971, and 1973. The authors took great pains to as- sure that the libraries and publishers were randomly selected from various strata of size and type. Yet, as in so many statistical studies, the unit of analysis (i.e., the unit about which inferences are made) was never specified. If libraries were the popu- lation sampled, libraries would be the unit of analysis, as indeed they were in some ta- . bles. Journals, however, are also the popu- lation of concern and, therefore, should be the unit of analysis, as indeed they were in some tables. Confusion arises, however, be- cause in some cases the unit actually ana- lyzed was other than libraries and journals, e.g., the year, library size, or discipline. The authors also wanted their sample size to be large enough to assure statistical confidence. But they performed no statis- tical tests, though they assiduously report their n' s for means and percentages, their principal analytical statistics. These statis- tics cry out for some kind of significance test. Analysis of variance or, at the very least, cross-tabulations with chi-square would have been appropriate. Their con- clusions will stand or fall, therefore, on the reporting of means and percentages. Readers will want to evaluate conclusions for themselves. Some examples are: 1. Publishers' need to secure revenues from libraries is not matched by li- braries' ability to supply those rev- enues. 2. Economic problems of journals and libraries are not caused by wild and uncontrolled increases in the publica- tion of new journals. 3. There is no strong evidence that a price increase of a journal is a factor in its cancellation, but the increase may result in cancellation of some other journals. 4. In a laissez-faire system, where jour- nals survive or perish on decisions of the marketplace, university presses and others not for profit would be hardest hit. Moreover, en- tire subject disciplines, such as the humanities, would not retain their viability. 5. The price-budget imbalance is not brought about by excessive or sub- stantial profitability by publishers. 6. The situation for university presses is disastrous. 7. There is clear evidence of increased activity in networking, cooperative acquisitions, and interlibrary lending and that these activities affect pur- chasing decisions and, therefore, publishers; but there is no evidence that lending causes cancellations. 8. There is wholesale reallocation of budgets from books to periodicals. 9. Cost savings from cooperative cata- loging is being diverted to acquisi- tions. 10. Advertising, page charges, and sub- sidies are decreasing; therefore, pub- lishers must raise subscription prices. 11. Repackaging of publications in mon- ographic format had the greatest level of response, particularly from commercial publishers. 12. Little economic impact of alternative publication formats, such as micro- forms, can be ascertained. Have the authors accomplished their ob- jectives? They have certainly collected New Author ,Title,and Subject Guides to Books on Demand bring you IN ACCESS TO 84,000 BOOI