College and Research Libraries


172 I College & Research Libraries • March 1981 

Library Cooperation: Trends, Possibilities 
and Conditions . Proceedings of the 
Eighth Meeting of IATUL, Enschede, 
May 28-June 1, 1979. Edited by Nancy 
Fjallbrant. Goteborg, Sweden: IATUL, 
1980. 223p. ISBN 91-7032-005-5. 
This volume contains twenty-six papers 

on cooperation among institutions in various 
library activities although a few papers are 
single-institution oriented. The first and last 
papers are by officers of the British Library, 
with Maurice Line, director-general of the 
British Library Lending Division , starting 
off with "Is Cooperation a Good Thing?" 
and ending with a presentation by Michael 
Hill, director of the Science Reference Li-
brary of the British Library, .entitled "To 
Cooperate or Not to Cooperate." Line, long 
a centralist, is doubtful, with his doubt 

· being based on closely reasoned arguments 
based largely on assumptions rather than 
data. Hill draws his conclusions from vari-
ous experiences that have uncovered pit-
falls, struggles, and extensive effort re-
quired when institutions work together to 
attain a common benefit. 

The standard cliche stating that "the pa-
pers are of uneven quality" certainly applies 
to this volume. Nevertheless, the majority 
of the papers contain useful observations 
and descriptions that would be helpful to 
anyone concerned with a cooperative ven-
ture. A half-dozen of the papers describe 
computer applications in different types of 
cooperative activity that will certainly be 
useful to those employing computers in ob-
taining common benefits rather than using 
traditional manual procedures. Of particular 
interest are two papers describing comput-
erized networks, namely the PICA system 
in the Netherlands and the LIBRIS system 
in Sweden. 

This volume does not resolve the multitu-
dinous problems associated with library 
cooperation, nor is it a cooperator's vade 
mecum; indeed, such books do not exist. 
However, this book further contributes to 
an understanding of library cooperation and 
should be on the shelves of any library con-
cerned with cooperation or having users 
concerned with cooperation.-Frederick G. 
Kilgour, OCLC , Inc., Columbus, Ohio. 

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