College and Research Libraries 68 I College & Research Libraries • January 1978 writings "have a certain unity as statements of fact and opinion reflecting the profes- sional life of an academic librarian in America in the generation between the post-World-War-11 euphoria of the early 1950s and the bicentennial frenzies of pos-t-Watergate 1976." Included are such topics ·as a brief history of a scholarly li- brary, his personal views on library mechanization, intellectual freedom, censor- ship, the history and influence of library as- sociations, his reaction to library statistics, and ~9me thoughts on academic librari- anship. The concluding chapter entitled "Miscel- lanea" in itself makes this book worth hav- ing. It contains some of his salty letters to editors and a group of witty remarks so characteristic of Eli Oboler. He might have spared us a sample of his verse, however! This is not a "must purchase" book for every library since most of the writings have appeared in familiar journals. However, it is a useful compilation of the writings of an ar- ticulate, intelligent, critical librarian who has something to say and who is not afraid to say it. The volume is attractively pro- duced by Greenwood Press as number twenty in its series on Contributions in Li- brarianship and Information Science.-Dale M. Bentz, University Librarian, University of Iowa, Iowa City. Shores, Louis. The Generic Book: What It Is and How It Works. Learning for Living Series. Norman, Okla.: Library-College Associates, 1977. 164p. $5. LC 77-22891. ISBN 0-917706-02-1. By the "Generic Book" (a term that Shores insists on capitalizing) is meant "the total number of ways which men have of communicating with each other," and its utility in education is the availability to the individual learner of an infinite variety of ways to acquire knowledge and information. Three dimensions of the Generic Book are explored in detail: the subject (content), level, and format aspects. Then follow chap- ters on the characteristics of print versus graphic materials and of human versus en- vironmental resources as carriers of informa- tion. Although none of these concepts will be new to the veteran educator, Shores' discussion may prove enlightening to any- one who has not yet seriously considered how people learn most effectively. As the acknowledged and prolific dean of the library-college movement, one would expect Shores to have something significant to say about what constitutes effective edu- cational media. Indeed he has. The pity is, however, that his exposition is rambling, repetitive, and so theoretical-in the con- ceptual rather than the technical sense- that the reader who accepts his arguments is frustrated by the lack of practical sugges- tions for implementing what is in fact a serious educational manifesto. Furthermore, the exact relevance of the Generic Book construct for the librarian is only hinted at, with much more emphasis given to the role of the teacher in conven- tional terms. One would have to be quite familiar with the tenets of the library- college model to understand where the li- brarian fits in the larger picture since the words "library" and "librarian" are rarely used. Despite its brevity, the essential message of The Generic Book could have been con- veyed in one-tenth the pages. Shores' exposition moves at a snail's pace, further aggravated by the frequent use of such pa- tronizing phrases as "by now it should be clear," "needless to say," and "in light of all these things," and for the most part unre- lieved by documentation. The work has no index and concludes with a brief bibliogra- phy citing the old standbys of library-college thought. Although this tract does have its place in any extensive education or library science collection, it is a shame that by dwelling overlong on content, level, and format, Shores abuses two other key elements of human intellectual experience, time and space, muffling his sharp thought in clear but extraneous verbiage. In short, The Generic Book is a bore with a point.-Mary W. George, University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor. Kurth, William H., and Zubatsky, David S. Recommended Procedures for the Inter- nal Financial Auditing of University Li- braries. St. Louis, Mo.: Washington Univ. Libraries, 1977. 96p. (Available in + the ERIC data base: ED 142 185.) The subject of this publication is accu- rately stated by its title. Its value is that no such body of guidelines for audits of univer- sity libraries has previously appeared. Uni- versity library administrators and university auditors are the logical and intended audi- ence. The initial motivation leading to this study was the need to develop a systematic framework for auditing the Washington University Libraries. With the aid of a Council on Library Resources grant and re- sultant input from other university librarians and auditors, the authors were then able to broaden their studies beyond their local needs. The result is a set of general proce- dures that should be applicable, with modification for local convenience and prac- tice, to all university libraries. The heart and bulk (seventy-one pages) of the report is a questionnaire for the evalua- tion of internal accounting control of a uni- versity library. It is in essence a systematic way of calling attention to a priority list of items on which university library auditing should focus. The chief function of the re- maining sections of the report is to put this questionnaire into proper perspective by summarizing the work of an auditor and his or her proper relationship with university library management. The value of flow charting, sampling, and use of the computer for auditing is made clear. Library systems analysis has to date been concerned primarily with operational ef- ficiency. However, fiscal integrity would seem an equally important aspect of such analysis. The authors deserve praise for focusing the attention of librarians on this relatively neglected area and for making a practical contribution to it.-Fred]. Rein- ritz, Southern Connecticut State College, New Haven. London University Central Information Services (LUCIS) Guide to Computer- Based Information Services. 2d ed. Com- piled and edited by Angela Thomas. London: Central Information Services, Library Resources Co-ordinating Commit- tee, 1977. 1v. £6 (plus postage). ISBN 0-7187-0435-5. Recent Publications I 69 This reference work provides detailed de- scriptions of a total of 109 different biblio- graphic data bases. The descriptions are ar- ranged alphabetically, generally by the name of the data base producer. Each description begins with the pro- ducer's name, address, and telephone number and then subdivides the available information by the following headings: (1) subject coverage, (2) general description, (3) input, (4) computer-based services, (5) com- puter hardware of the producer, (6) publica- tions, (7) microform services, (8) other serv- ices, and (9) availabiljty of services from processor (i.e., availability of on-line serv- ices from major processors only). The descriptions range from one to six pages but generally occupy two pages. In- dexes are provided by ''mnemonic ac- ronym," data base name or acronym, and subject. The "mnemonic acronym" is a standard identification assigned to the data base by the editors and used throughout the indexes as a locater. For example, Chemical Abstracts is tagged as AMERIC CHEM SOC. The subject index, under the appro- priate headings, refers the reader to the mnemonic acronym, and the reader is ex- pected to follow the mnemonic trail back to the right entry, consulting the mnemonic acronym index if necessary. The work is deliberately unpaginated and the entries unnumbered in order to facili- tate insertion of supplementary pages. The editors state they intend to keep the work up to date and issue amended and new en- tries for insertion, but there is no informa- tion provided on the exact mechanism to be followed. The original ambition to make all the information machine-readable and to have it serve as the basis for a computerized referral center at the university was appar- ently thwarted by economic conditions. The two-page introduction attempts to be a primer on bibliographic data bases and their searching and goes to some care to define and distinguish terms such as "pro- ducer," "processor," "retrospective," "cur- rent awareness," "selective dissemination," "batch," "on-line," etc. It characterizes data bases as being of four key types: discipline- oriented, mission-oriented, problem- oriented, multidisciplinary.