College and Research Libraries


272 I College & Research Libraries • May 1981 

where do Renford and Hendrickson discuss 
what topics or titles can best be covered in 
any particular form of instruction and why. 
For example, in the section on the presen-
tation aspects of the single lecture, they 
suggest ways of organizing material so that 
students are interested and engaged by it, 
but they never touch on pure BI theory: 
why certain concepts are appropriate to cer-
tain levels of users , how concepts should be 
sequenced, and how to present a versatile 
search strategy that can be transferred by 
the student to other disciplines and institu-
tions. This omission is regrettable , but to 
cover these areas the text would need to be 
twice as long. Perhaps we should be grate-
ful that the book has appeared at all-and 
not a moment too soon for most of us. 

Bibliographic Instruction : A Handbook is 
most highly recommended , in fact should 
be required, anywhere academic BI is 
seriously undertaken. Together with the 
ACRL volume (which, by the way, is cur-
rently being revised by a committee 
chaired by Beverly Renford) , it provides an 
excellent what-to-consider manual for the 
practitioner.-Mary W. George, Princeton 
University Library , Princeton , New jersey. 

The Library and Information Manager's 
Guide to Online Services. Edited by Ryan 
E. Hoover. Professional Librarian Series, 
V. 12. White Plains, N.Y. : Knowledge In-
dustry Publications, 1980. 270p. $29.50 
hardcover; $24.50 paper. LC 80-21602. 
ISBN 0-914236-60-1 hardcover; 0-914236-
52-0 paper. 

. A distinguishing feature of The Library 
and Information Manager's Guide to Online 
Services is the depth of documentation cited 
for every major topic covered. The citations 
reflect the relative maturity of online ser-
vices at the start of the 1980s. Anyone new 
to the field today faces information over-
flow, when a decade earlier the newcomer 
had only a few personal accounts to read. In 
a thorough manner, this Guide succeeds in 
focusing attention on key managerial issues 
and in presenting both valuable factual data 
and various viewpoints on controversial 
topics. 

The Guide consists of ten individually au-
thored chapters. Two chapters by Ryan E. 
Hoover-"Overview of Online Information 
Retrieval" and "The Mechanics of Online 

Searching"-are excellent introductions for 
any uninitiated searcher. Databases , their 
producers, and vendors of services are con-
cisely reviewed in two chapters by Kathleen 
Sheton and Alice Bahr. Management con-
cerns and questions of service policies are 
summarized by Donald T. Hawkins , while 
specific areas are further explored in three 
subsequent chapters. John C. Blair's paper 
focuses on measurement and evaluation of 
various aspects of online services and their 
management; promotion is covered with 
helpful hints and illustrative examples in a 
chapter by Alice Bahr; and Kristyn Kuroki 
discusses the range of available training 
modes for searchers. A chapter by Mary 
Berger and Barbara Quint is devoted to the 
growth and role of online user groups, a 
topic not as yet extensively documented in 
the literature. The final chapter, by Ryan 
Hoover , presents a view of the future in 
which a greater reliance on electronic stor-
age and retrieval of information will permit 
_the information specialist to provide in-
formation on demand , without the need for 
physical library buildings and collections. 

The reference use of the Guide is en-
hanced by a glossary of more than eighty 
online phrases , a short selected bibliogra-
phy, numerous citations footnoted at the 
end of each chapter, and a detailed index. 

The Guide is the twelfth title in the pub-
lisher's Professional Librarian series, which 
emphasizes practical information about tech-
nological developments , supported by oper-
ational examples. It is an easily usable pack-
age of practical information to aid those in-
te.rested in online services. Topics discussed 
are of universal interest to any type of li-
brary . However , as noted in the text , 
academic libraries have not met yet the full 
potential to use such services, and thus this 
Guide may be of particular interest to their 
users and staff.-Danuta A . Niteeki, Uni-
versity of Illinois , U rbaf!a-C hampaign. 

Annual Review of Information Science and 
Technology, Vol. 15, 1980. Edited by 
Martha E. Williams. White Plains , N.Y.: 
Knowledge Industry Publications, 1980. 
413p. $42.50. LC 66-25096. ISBN 
0-914236-65-2. ISSN 0066-4200. 
It is no exaggeration to say that the 

ARIST volumes have received more praise 
than any other information science publica-