College and Research Libraries it is an overview. H the price of $24.50 a copy for this paperback seems excessive, it is. Public library video represents a very fragmented and restrained service. Video is predominantly used for programs that are locally produced by amateurs. Most pro- grams are of a cultural or informational na- ture. Since the 1977 survey, budgets for video production remain small, and many programs exist on the basis of grants. As grants are terminated, unfortunately so are video programs. Also, videotape collections remain stilted, and selection is often based on nebulous criteria. This book may be of value to medium- size and smaller public libraries considering the purchase of a portapak or a half-inch cassette recorder. There are some good, although brief, discussions of video prob- lems that will surely be encountered. Among them are problems of funding, pro- gram selection, hardware compatibility and standardization, cataloging, and copyright. The BOCES case and network news off-air taping provide some insight into copyright problems. Educational uses of video are touched upon. Video is often used in the community involving services to the handicapped and disadvantaged. The information presented here on services is very specific and written in a case-by-case style . Closed circuit televi- sion is also used as an information retrieval medium, particularly in some medical cen- ters. Video is so versatile and complex that the medium must_ be critically assessed as to its purpose in the library in accordance with community interest and needs. Whether video is used for entertainment, education, information retrieval, or creative interest, its use must be balanced with community awareness, budgets, etc. The future of video seems to rest with the videodisc as a playback-only means of entertainment and education and with cablevision as a two-way medium for information transfer. Both have particulary interesting implications for libraries. User profiles of the twelve public librar- ies are one page or less in length and pro- vide an outline of programs, sources of funding, collections development, and com- Recent Publications I 369 munity involvement. The public library pro- files offer an information base for adding video programs or for comparing current levels of service with other libraries. Col- lege and university librarians will find this book of little value.-William A. Mcintyre, New Hampshire Vocational-Technical Col- lege, Nashua. Matthews, Joseph R. "The Four Online Bibliographic Utilities," Library Technol- ogy Reports 15:665--838 (Nov.-Dec. 1979). Single issue $40. ISSN 0024-2586. Avail- able from: American Library Association, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago IL 60611. Jacobs, Mary Ellen; Woods, Richard; and Yarborough, Judith. Online Resource Sharing II: A Comparison of OCLC, In- corporated, Research Libraries Informa- tion Network, and Washington Library Network. Editor: Susan K. Martin. San Jose, Calif.: California Library Authority for Systems and Services, 1979. 99p. $18.50 CLASS members ; $22.00 nonmembers. Available from: CLASS, Heritage on Microfilnt Rare and out-of-print titles and documents on 35mm silver halide microfilm. • French Books before 1601 • Scandinavian Culture • 18th Century English Literature • Victorian Fiction • Literature of Folklore • Hispanic Culture Send for catalog and title information today. GENEW\L MICROFilM COMP~Y 100 Inman St. , Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel. (617) 864-2820 370 I College & Research Libraries •] uly 1980 1415 Koll Circle, Suite 101, San Jose, CA 90512. Although the growth of the bibliographic utilities has been dramatic, less than 8 per- cent of the libraries in the U.S. and Canada currently use the services of a utility. For those libraries involved in choosing a utility, these two publications may be of assistance. The Matthews report compares the utilities with a view to exploring all the considera- tions important to the library contemplating the adoption of utility services. The intro- duction to the CLASS publication states that "the purpose of this edition ... is to help library administrators and their staffs assess not only the potential impact of online bibliographic systems upon their li- braries, but also upon the quality and vari- ety of services which their libraries provide to their users." Both publications cover OCLC, RLIN and WLN, while the Matthews report also includes UTLAS (University of Toronto Li- brary Automation System). The data in- cluded in the Matthews report are based upon interviews conducted with user libra- rians, commercial vendors, and the staffs of the utilities. It also includes the results of a survey questionnaire distributed to 200 lib- raries. By contrast, the CLASS publication contains only the data contributed by the three authors who are high-level repre- sentatives of their respective utilities. Ground rules were established by CLASS to prevent overselling on the part of the representatives, and the document was edited by a neutral party with established integrity. Matthews makes his comparison on a number of considerations including general descriptive information, functions and pro- ducts available, communications access modes, terminals -used, response times, re- liability, data bases, training, financial aspects, and. potential benefits. The CLASS document largely deals with the whats and hows with no evaluative comment. The comparison is made here on the basis of overall description of data bases and access, processes and products, applications of the systems to other library functions, financial and administrative considerations, adminis- tration of the systems, histories, and announced plans. Matthews provides more background by giving some thought to the four basic op- tions available to a library for providing biliographic control; these are manual cata- loging procedures, vendor services, in- house automation, and the on-line utilities. He covers the first three alternatives briefly and much too unevenly. Of the five pages in the section, two and one-half are devoted to a description of one vendor's product. A philosophical discussion of the advantages relating to each alternative with some gui- dance on how to get fuller information would have made this a more usable sec- tion. The publications are not equal in regard to evaluative comment. The CLASS docu- ment has little on response time, reliability, or other evaluative comparisons. Reliability is more completely covered by Matthews but is largely a description of computer architecture, down time, and communica- tion line reliability. Neither deals with the quality of personnel. Matthews includes a set of tables that allows for per-title unit cataloging cost com- parison. His report picks up where the other leaves off, since it includes a signi- ficant amount of evaluative judgment based upon the user survey. His summary com- parison of systems inludes a subjective rat- ing that goes beyond the factual data of either report. Matthews concludes with a fine, concise chapter on the future of a national bibliographic network. Both reports are quite readable. The CLASS document's format is excellent. It has a columnar arrangement perpendicular to the hinge that provides juxtaposition of text on the same aspect of each system. This · makes it very easy to look up a particu- lar point on one system and then see the comparable information on the other sys- tems on the same page. One significant de- fect in the Matthews report is the lack of page numbers in the table of contents apparently caused by a printing oversight. Each report has a glossary, useful appen- dixes (including sample contracts in Matth- ews report), and selective bibliographies. Both reports are expensive and therefore are probably limited in their usefulness to those who are making a decision of choice between utilities.-Richard W. Meyer, Clemson University, Clemson, South Caroli- na. New, Peter G. Book Production. Outlines of Modern Librarianship. London: Clive Bingley; New York: K. G. Saur, 1979. 152p. $10. ISBN 0-85157-266-9. Peter New's Book Production is one of the volumes in the very useful "Outlines of Modem Librarianship" ·series published by Clive Bingley of London. While the announced purpose of these brief manuals is to serve as introductions to, or even text- books in, a variety of courses of the stan- dard library science curriculum, in practice they appear to be particulary helpful as re- view books for students preparing for major examinations. The present volume is a small octavo of about 150 pages bound in paper-covered boards. The index is serviceable, and the few black-and-white illustrations are ade- quate, though clearly color would have helped to explain full-color halftones. There is no bibliography, but reference is made throughout to a very few essential British texts, particulary Sean Jennett's Making of Books (Faber, 1974). Obviously for Amer- ican instructors, however, the basic text would be Marshall Lee's Bookmaking (Bow- ker, 1979), which was presumably not avail- able to New when he wrote this book. The author, who has a library science background, has taught book production for nineteen years and has written extensively, including Reprography for Librarians (Bingley, 1975) and Education for Librar- ianship (Bingley, 1978), is, to say the least, well qualified for his task. New's interest in pedagogy shows in his thoughtful introductory chapter, "Study and Teaching of Book Production," and in his excellent organization of all subsequent chapters. Indeed the book provides the teacher with a ready-made outline for a unit or course in book production. Four chapters are devoted to the printing of text, an equal number to the printing of illustrations, one each to paper and binding, and a final chap- ter discusses design and typography. The presentation is what might be called "defini- tion-in-context." As each technical term is introduced, it is italicized and its meaning is given in relation to the process being de- Recent Publications I 371 scribed. The technique is effective, and. the format makes the book easy to use as a handbook should be. The index provides an alphabetical approach, though its convenience would be improved if boldface numbers were used to distinguish between definitions an~ simple mentions of the terms. In this sort of ani- mated glossary the difference between En- glish and American usage might be a prob- lem. There are such differences, filmsetting for photocomposition, photo-lithography for offset lithography, and unsewn for peifect binding, but they are few and should cause no serious misunderstandings; in fact, the American term is often given as a synonym. The cost of the book at $10 is more apt to discourage its widespread purchase by stu- dents in this country. Peter New's book is confidently recom- mended for purchase by faculty and stu- dents in library science, journalism, bib- liography, certain technical courses, or wherever a layman's understanding of the technical aspects of book production is sought, and by libraries serving such clien- teles.-Budd L. Gambee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Developing Library Effectiveness for the Next Decade. Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of IATUL, Leuven, May 16-21, 1977. Edited by Nancy Fjallbrant and Ker- stin McCarthy. Goteborg, Sweden: Inter- national Assn. of Technological University Libraries, Chalmers Univ. of Technology Library, 1978. 235p. ISBN 91-7260-257-0. As one might infer from the title, this book contains a diverse set of original pa- pers on library effectiveness presented at the May 1977 conference of the Internation- al Association of Technological University Libraries at Leuven, Belgium. It consists of nine, long, invited papers, as well as fifteen, shorter, spontaneously presented "communications." The general introduction of the confer- enc.e identified the specific problems facing university libraries that gave impetus to the conference theme: "the ever increasing pro- duction of publications, the never ending growth of student populations, the pressure on us to supply information more quickly, the appearance of more and more sophisti-