College and Research Libraries 178 I College & Research Libraries • March 1980 iniscent of the worst excesses of our odd- shaped high: school libraries in the 1960s . But in this case the twist is even more per- verse, since they have converted a square- floor-plan building into twin triangles on each floor. To be highly commended is the British tendency in the polytechnic universities to mount their library science school quarters on the top floor of the library, which is used aggressively as a workshop-teaching facility for library science students, a bedrock- sound practice that has long been aban- doned by American schools of librarian- ship.-Ellsworth Mason , University of Colorado at Boulder. Microforms Management in Special Librar- ies: A Reackr. Edited by Judy H. Fair. Microform Review Series in Library Mi- crographics Management, 5. Westport , Conn.: Microform Review, 1979. 272p. $21.95 . LC 78-13494 . ISBN 0-913672- 15-7. This reader is a heterogeneous collection of thirty-one essays from a wide variety of periodicals and monographs published be- tween 1966 and 1978 in the United States, Australia , and Great Britain . The authors are associated with law, music , map , busi- ness , hospital, local history, education, sci- ence, and engineering libraries. There are articles on equipment, user attitudes , and computer output microforms applications. The essays are organized into five sec- tions, each with a short introduction and a bibliography compiled by the editor. Collec- tively, these and other bibliographies in this volume could serve as basis for a historical reading list on microforms and some special applications. Some of the essays are infor- mative and up to date; others on specialized resources, equipment, and procedures are dated. Information contained in essays on the general topics of microforms in libraries is repetitive. Although the book and all sec- tion titles contain the word management, it is neither a central nor unifying theme. In the foreword , the editor states that the search for articles for inclusion in this vol- ume revealed a scarcity of writing on the principles of microform use in special librar- ies , but she hopes that one or more of the pieces will provide the inspiration for more communication on microforms. The book lives up to that hope and promise.-Leo R. Rift, Ithaca College , Ithaca , New York . The Map Librarian in the Modern World. Essays in Honour of Walter W. Ristow. Edited by Helen Wallis and Lothar Zogner. Presented by the IFLA Section of Geography and Map Libraries. Munich, New York: K. G. Saur, 1979. 295p. $26. ISBN 3-598-10063-9. This festschrift was compiled to honor Walter W. Ristow upon his retirement as chief, Geography & Map Division, Library of Congress . As with most festschriften, this is a mixed bag. Four LC staff members give a brief his- tory of the Library of Congress Geography & Map Division from 1897; Helen Wallis of the British Library tells of map librar- ianship' s coming of age; Lothar Zogner of the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulter- besitz discusses the training of map librar- ians ; Roman Drazniowsky, curator of the AGS collections , describes the American Geographical Society collections now at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; David Woodward of the Newberry Library de- scribes the He-rman Dunlap Smith Center for the History . of Cartography ; Joan Winearls of the University of Toronto de- scribes map collections and map librar- ianship in Canada; Ib Kejlbo of the Royal Danish Library describes map libraries in Denmark ; Edmond Pognon of the Bib- liotheque Nationale describes its map de- partment; Anna Kozlowa of the Lenin Li- brary describes the map collection in that institution; the late Ann-Mari Mickwitz writes of the N ordenskiold Collection in the University of Helsinki; Antoine De Smet of the Albert I Royal Library in Brussels dis- cusses the sixteenth-century cartophile Viglius ab Aytta; Hans van de Waal of the Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht describes the Dutch union map catalog; and Emil Meynen discusses the cataloging of thematic maps. Walter Ristow's forty-year career as a map librarian has witnessed the rise and matura- tion of the map library profession, and he has helped to shape and direct this growth. In a brief preface, Daniel Boorstin, Librar- ian of Congress, calls Ristow a " scholar- librarian," and in the area of published arti- cles he is an example to follow. Ristow's in- volvement with the creation of the Geo- graphy and Map Libraries Section of the In- ternational Federation of Library Associa- tions and Institutions is fittingly observed by the multi-national spread of these essays and by the fact that two of the contributions are in French and one is in German. To state the obvious, thi~ work belongs in map libraries and in the libraries of schools of librarianship. Beyond that, it must be re- garded as rather specialized. Within its sphere of limited appeal, this is a valuable work , describing several map collections and giving a feel for the present state of an aspect of librarianship, that has yet to reach the full heights of its achievements. -J. B. Post, Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . O'Hara , Frederic . A Guide to Publications of the Executive Branch. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Pr., 1979. 287p. $29.50 cloth ; $15 paper. LC 78-66368. ISBN 0-87650-072-6 cloth; 0-87650-088-2 paper. In contrast to its title, this reference work is a " guide" to publications of only the cabinet-level departments of the executive branch of the United States government. Even so, the author's efforts represent a formidable task that will be fully ap- preciated only by those who have tried to comprehend and to reduce to paper the pa- rameters of the massive publishing activity of the U.S . government. Compiled chiefly to serve as a selection tool, this work contains information concern- ing executive agencies and their functions that one might expect to find only in a de- tailed handbook or, indeed, in the United States Government Manual . This combina- tion would be quite incongruous for most reference works. Traditionally, selection ' tools , even those for government publica- tions, have been written along strict subject lines . Frederic O'Hara, professor of library science at Long Island University, deviates from this practice. His basis of organization is by publisher-in this case the agencies of the executive branch. This is possible since a government agency's publications reflect its relatively consistent concerns. The basic arrangement of the work is al- Recent Publications I 179 phabetical by executive branch depart- ments. Each agency within a department is then treated in turn. The function , scope, and description of the agency are provided, often in considerable detail. This is followed by a delineation of the Superintendent of Documents classification numbers assigned to the agency, bibliographies of agency p~b­ lications, and information about careers within the agency. Further categorical breakdowns of publications include: descrip- tions, histories, and grant programs of the agency; bibliographies generated by the agency; catalogs of audiovisual material; dic- tionaries and glossaries; statistical publica- tions; histories produced by the agency; di- rectories and addresses of regional offices; research results; regulations; and other use- ful series and titles. Entries under each category are fully and wittily annotated. In addition, each entry is symbolically designated for its suggested utility in a reference collection or vertical file in college, public, school, or special li- braries. Four separate indexes (agency, per- Out of Stock? Back Orders? 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