College and Research Libraries as Baker and Taylor's LIBRIS. George Lowry's A Searcher's Manual (Shoe String, 1965), based on the Searching Unit of the Acquisitions Department of the Columbia University Libraries, is a similar manual that is less slanted toward one li- brary's unique practices. In gaining its uni- versality, it sacrifices some of its potiential to spark ideas for new methods springing from specific practices. Also, because of its age, it does not include searching in the data bases of any of the computer networks such as OCLC' s. It would be worth having, however, if one needs to make a study of existing manuals before developing one's own. Another source for ideas is Ted Grieder's 1978 book Acquisitions: Where, What, and How (Greenwood Press). This book contains a useful chapter on compiling a search manual. However, it also was published be- fore the author had much experience with network searching and, in addition , is inten- tionally more general than Lowry's manual. Anyone wanting a good example of a de- tailed search manual for a large university library will find Cornell' s to be a worth- while purchase.-Martha Willett, Indiana State University, Evansville. Cargill, Jennifer S. , and Alley , Brian. Prac- tical Approval Plan Management. Phoenix, Ariz. : Oryx, 1979. 95p. $12.95. LC 79-23389. ISBN 0-912700-52-1. After several years in hiding, articles and books on approval plans have reappeared , with an entire conference being devoted to the subject last fall . Jennifer Cargill, head of acquisitions at Miami University (Ohio) and Brian Alley , head of technical services at Miami, have joined this renaissance with a study directed to the librarian who needs guidance in actually establishing and operat- ing approval plans . Since the two major books on acquisitions (Ford, Acquisitions of Library Materials ; Grieder, Acquisitions) give little guidance in this area, a practical study is certainly a worthwhile goal. Unfor- tunately, the book falls short of its promise . The slim volume (only eighty-eight pages, not including a very short bibliography and index) covers establishment of approval plans, selection of a dealer, profiling, pro- cessing of material received, bids and con- Recent Publications I 469 tracts, and fiscal management. The latter two chapters, which are the strongest, pro- vide some information not readily available. The majority of the book, however, gives only a general overview and fails to convey to the reader the complexity involved in operating a successful approval plan. The authors do not provide a critical analysis of approval plans but unwarrantably assume that such plans are the most efficient and economical way to obtain books. The study is based primarily on approval plan services offered by Blackwell North America and Baker and Taylor; these two dealers are often quoted and used uncritically as sources of information. This is a question- able practice, something akin to quoting OCLC to prove the advantages of network- ing. Variations of approval plans , such as those designed to obtain publications of cer- tain presses or authors, are not mentioned, nor is there any information on foreign plans (except for a few comments about Blackwell's, ·England), a major oversight as such plans can't be built on the same model used to construct domestic plans. Also miss- ing is any -description of monitoring the plans to verify receipt of materials, or how to claim nonreceived items. The simplistic view of approval plans and the lack of coverage of many important topics related to approval plans make it im- possible to recommend this book. This is unfortunate, for not only is the topic impor- tant, but also the authors have demon- strated much better work in their quarterly publication, IULC Technical Services News- letter .-William Schenck, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . United States. Library of Congress. Processing Dept. Library of Congress Cataloging Service, with a Comprehen- sive Subject Inckx. Bulletins 1-125. De- troit: Gale, 1980. 2v. $78. LC 79-25343. ISBN 0-8103-1103-8. This handsomely bound two-volume set is a reprint of all Cataloging Service bulletins emanating from the Library of Congress, beginning with the first in June 1945 through Spring 1978. The bulletins, which reflect LC policy and practice in every area of monographic and serials cataloging, are an indispensable tool in every cataloging de- 470 I College & Research Libraries • September 1980 partment seeking to adhere to an identi- fiable bibliographic standard. Their pages reflect also the revolutionary changes that have taken place in recent cataloging his- tory, and as a dramatic example, "cf.," if you will, the discussion of the "Preparation of rubber stamps . . . which will embody the individual subscriber's specifications for card orders" (CSB 3:3) with MARC tagging instructions (124:7-11 and 21-26). In be- tween are such diverse topics as LC' s inter- pretations of AACR and its _two 1949 prede- cessors (American Library Association Cata- loging Rules for Author and Title Entries, 2d ed., and Rules for Descriptive Catalog- ing in the Library of Congress), subject cataloging of variant editions of the same work, and, as one illustration of growing in- ternational cooperation in the standardiza- tion of bibliographic records and practice, the IFLA Working Group on Corporate Headings. All of the foregoing is, of course, the work of LC' s Processing Department; the editors at Gale have added only what they call a "comprehensive subject index." No annotations to the text of the bulletins have been attempted, although incorporating cancellations, changes, or corrections at point of occurrence (e.g., noting in 110:3 that the discussion on serials with generic titles is continued in 112: 10) would have facilitated use and surely would have been easy to do. The criticism holds also for ex- pansion of examples, such as those for free- floating subdivisions of subject headings in 114:9, originally published in 111:8. As it is, one must check all of the bulletins cited in the index under a particular subject to be sure that earlier information has not been superseded; the difference is a historical rather than a working document. The only feature distinguishing this pub- lication from a straight reprint, then, is its thirty-eight-page index, an index that has been preceded by those of Nancy B. Olson (no.1-125; Lake Crystal, Minn., cl979) and James H. Montgomery (no. 79-121; Still- water, Okla., 1979?). (Another by Joan B. Dible, Stanford, cl977, covers only no.10~ 23 and is not considered here.) The Gale typeface is clearer and more ·readable than either Olson or Montgomery, which are printout and typescript respec- tively. Olson's printout also dictates the rep- etition of a subject as often as it occurs in the bulletins, rather than neatly grouping the relevant bulletin numbers behind each once-listed subject, as Gale does. Whereas Olson has numerous listings under both the superseded term "Transliteration" and its successor "Romanization" and fails to con- nect them, and Montgomery uses the later term but fails to refer from the old, Gale does right by both, using the later term and referring from the old. All three indexes list additions and changes to specific catalogin,g rules under the rule number, a most wel- come feature, and all three are generous with cross-references, Gale offering "more than three hundred., Given that large number, however, there are some curious lacunae. There is no cross- reference from "Generic title,, and one must scan the numewus entries under "Se- rial," "Serials," and "Series" to find "Series with Generic Titles," where a single citation (119:12-13) is given. In contrast, Olson lists five separate bulletins, and Montgomery, who cross-referenced to both monographic series and serials, lists four. Neither "Limit- ed cataloging,, important for libraries doing retrospective buying, nor "Superim- position,, impor·tant for consistency of names, are listed either as entries or as cross-references (the latter subject also true of Montgomery), but turn up under "Cata- loging Policies at LC." Only three other subjects join "Limited cataloging" and "Su- perimposition" as cataloging policies (cata- loging memoranda, categorization of mate- rial, and priorities), although it could be argued that practically all of the bulletins and their myriad contents represent LC cataloging policy. Another very broad sub- ject, "LC Printed Cards," which consumes almost three of the thirty-eight pages and is heavily subdivided, could usefully have had its subdivisions entered directly or at the very least consistently cross-referenced for easier access to the information. Well, not to pick nits. The instant- gratification school of index users would argue for limitless cross-references, and its radical wing even for repetition of citations under various forms of the subject. The strict structuralist school prefers indexes heavily indented under "logical" _entries, New from Noyes Up-To-Date References For Your Specialized Needs Available Fall1980 PESTICIDE MANUFACTURING AND TOXIC MATERIALS CONTROL ENCYCLOPEDIA; edited by Marshall Sittig: Describes manufacturing processes for 514 pesticide materials; as well a:; health data relating to toxicity. ISBN 0-8155-0814-X; $96. LARGE AND SMALL SCALE ETHYL ALCOHOL MANUFACTURING PROCESSES FROM AGRICULTURAL RAW MATERIALS; edited by J.K. Paul: Gives considerable de- sign details for manufacturing ethyl alcohol in plants with capacities of 25 gal- lons per hour to 100 million gallons per year. ISBN 0-8155-0815-8; $48. ENHANCED RECOVERY OF RESIDUAL AND HEAVY OILS-Second Edition; edited by M.M. Schumacher: Describes numerous secondary and tertiary recovery proc- esses for oil recovery; as well as other methods for augmenting production and heavy oil recovery. ISBN 0-8155-0816-6; $48. ZEOLITE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS-Recent Advances; edited by Jeanette Scott: Describes numerous processes for manufacturing zeolite materials, as well as important and rapidly increasing applications. ISBN 0-8155-0817-4; $64. ELECTROLESS AND OTHER NONELECTROL YTIC PLATING TECHNIQUES-Recent De- velopments; edited by J.l. Duffy: Describes numerous processes for plating thin metallic coatings on various substrates; an important consideration in the electronics and related industries. ISBN 0-8155-0818-2; $45. SMALL AND MICRO HYDROELECTRIC POWER PLANTS-Technology and Feasibility; edited by Robert Noyes: Considerable information is given on small scale (<15 MW) and micro (<100 kW) hydroelectric power technology. ISBN 0-8155-0819-0; $42. EXTERIOR WATER-BASED TRADE PAINT FORMULATIONS; by Ernest W. Flick: A practical volume containing 292 paint formulations intended for professionals in the coatings and related raw materials industries. ISBN 0-8155-0820-4; $36. FLOTATION AGENTS AND PROCESSES-Technology and Applications; edited by M.W. Ranney: Describes numerous methods and agents used to recover a greater per- centage of valuable minerals from ores of low assay. ISBN 0-8155-0821-2; $48. CEMENT AND MORTAR TECHI\IOLOGY AND ADDITIVES-Developments Since 1977; edited by M.H. Gutcho: Describes the latest cement and mortar technology and the numerous additives utilized to impart specific properties. ISBN 0-8155-0822-0; $54. ndc NOYES NOYES DATA CORPORATION NOYES MEDICAL PUBLICATIONS 118 Mill Road, Park Ridge, NJ 07656 472 I College & Research Libraries • September 1980 with every foray into its pages a test of seriousness of purpose. The Gale index for- tunately falls somewhere in between, is un- deniably good, and could be better; it is neither clearly superior nor demonstrably inferior to what is already available. Librar- ies that have not kept their earlier CSBs, or did not require a working knowledge of how and why LC did it so well until networking forced the issue, or for whatever rea·son need a complete run of the CSBs, compact- ly packaged, with a within-covers index, could hardly do better. Others will need to weigh carefully the outlay of seventy-eight big ones against living in annotated and dog-eared comfort with what they already have .-Eleanor R. Payne, University of California, Davis. Kaser, David. A Book for a Sixpence: The Circulating Library in America. Beta Phi Mu Chapbook Number 14. Lexington, Kentucky : Beta Phi Mu, 1980. 194p. $9. LC 79-4298. ISBN 0-910230-14-5. This publication gives American library history a full-dress counterpart to the his- tory of circulating libraries in Great Britain presented in Devendra P. Varma's The Evergreen Tree of Diabolical Knowledge (Washington: Consortium Press, 1972). The very topic seems to inspire care in design, for both are especially pleasing examples of bookmaking. The circulating library seems to have originated in America in 1762 when William Rind added a rental collection to his Annap- olis bookstore. Patterned on agencies known in Britain and on the Continent for at least a half century and soon joined by others in America , Rind's circulating library was evidently a response to a widespread need rather than the consequence of a unique idea. Interesting and important though it is to consider circulating libraries for themselves , the greater s·ignificance of such study is their meaning and contribution to the growth of libraries in general and the free public library in particular. That important agency was established as a conseque nce of two major developments , the acceptance of the principle of public support for education AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. "serving academic and research libraries" 42 Chasner Street • Hempstead, NY 11550 Call us 516/489-4011 collect!