College and Research Libraries


598 I College & Research Libraries· November 1981 

computer-based services are being used in li-
braries. The author mixes generic explana-
tion of activities such as database searching 
with practical examples to give the reader an 
up-to-date picture of library computing. In 
this respect, the text is a good companion to 
some of the earlier works on the same subject. 
The author occasionally creates an impres-
sion that the possibilities for automation in a 
particular area are completely defined by his 
examples and his description of current prac-
tice. As hardware changes and software im-
proves, many library automated systems will 
certainly change character dramatically. 

Systems Thinking attempts to help library 
managers by delving into the systems theory 
and systems-modeling world and searching 
out means of using the methodologies of these 
disciplines. The author attempts to build a 
foundation of concepts and then proceeds to 
relate them to library problems. 

Unfortunately the book is an extremely dif-
ficult text to read. The author's style obscures 
what he is trying to achieve. Thete is room 
within librarianship for a certain amount of 
"purely theoretical" discussion as long as the 
objective is the eventual enhancement of 
practical activity. I think that the author un-
derstands this and intended to add to our 
ability to view library decision making 
within a theoretical context. However, this 
reader found that the writing style, the use of 
jargon, and the organization of the text com-
bined to create an almost impenetrable 
treatise.-Peter G. Lipman, Brown Univer-
sity, Providence, Rhode Island. 

Maranjian, Lorig, and Boss, Richard W. Fee-
based Information Services; A Study of a 
Growing Industry. Information Manage-
ment Series/!. New York and London: R. 
R. Bowker Co., 1980. 199p. 
This is a clear, factual description of cur-

rent services offered in the United States and 
Canada by commercial and free-lance firms 
that gather data and organize or analyze 
them for a fee, using the methods of tradi-
tionallibrarianship supplemented with tech-
niques such as online literature searching and 
telephone interviewing. Maranjian, at the 
time the book was written, was a research 
assistant with Information Systems Consul-
tants, Inc., of Bethesda, Maryland, and Bos-
ton; she is now administrative assistant with 

Creative Strategies International of London, 
England. Boss is senior consultant with ISCI 
and is well know as a writer and speaker on 
library automation and kindred subjects. 

The study is based mainly on the answers 
received on questionnaires filled out by 105 
proprietors of information services. The au-
thors have reported on answers from seven 
types of services: (1) large firms (with more 
than twenty-five employees), (2) medium-
sized companies, (3) small companies (fewer 
than five employees, according to a state-
ment on p.3; fewer than six, according to an-
other on p.20, (4) free-lancers, (5) services in 
not-for-profit organizations such as libraries 
and professional societies, (6) Canadian ser-
vices (the reason for the separate treatment of 
this group is not given), and (7) services 
mainly intended to serve units of the firms of 
which they are parts. 

The forty-two-item questionnaire asked 
for a wide variety of information about each 
organization surveyed. Topics included 
kinds of services offered, kinds of resources 
used (databases, collections of nearby li-
braries, etc.), size and background of staff, 
marketing practices, pricing policy, amount 
of business, and capitalization. Respondents 
were also asked to predict the future of their 
firms and of information brokering in gen-
eral. 

Several descriptions or "profiles" of indi-
vidual firms of various types help the reader 
to understand how this industry operates. 
The first firm treated in this way, FIND/ 
SVP, which is fascinating but not at all typi-
cal, has revenues exceeding three million dol-
lars a year. It is affiliated with an even larger 
Parisian firm, SVP (Sil Vous Plait), and an 
entire family of firms throughout the world. 

In other sections, the authors speculate on 
the future of this branch of the information 
industry, discuss relations with libraries, and 
briefly describe the state of the industry in the 
United Kingdom. 

Special features include a brief list of 
sources of help for small businesses and a 
group of reproductions of advertisements 
used by some firms. One feature is surely not 
very helpful to adult readers: several chapters 
are followed by brief, simple questions and 
answers about the text which are reminiscent 
of those in junior high school books. 

The information in the book will be partie-



Lexington Books is now accepting manuscript 
submissions for its new series in libraries and 
librarianship. We are choosing an editorial board, 
and the name of _the general editor of the series 
will be announced soon. 

There are two parts to our general editorial 
policy: (1) the series will be broad in scope, and (2) 
it will for the most part contain books dealing with 
change in libraries and librarianship. Topics that 
come to mind now are administration, bibliog-
raphy, cataloguing, computer applications, finance, 
and the question of professionalism in librarian-
ship. As this partial list shows, the series will not 
be limited to one or another sort of book. We 
welcome suggestions. 

We have established this series partly in re-
sponse to the need for a rapid publishing outlet in 
library science. All too often current material is 
subjected to the long production cycles of pub-
lishers. At Lexington Books we produce bound 
books in four months, on the average, from receipt 
of final manuscript from the author. Our editing, 
while stringent, is done without delay; and our 
typesetting, printing, and binding, while done in 
the traditional ways, are done quickly. 

Our marketing arrangements are already in 
place, since we have been publishing for more than 
ten years. We maintain a network of agents 
throughout the world to promote and stock our 
books, and sell in every country where people buy 
books. 

If you know of a project you think should be 
published, please tell us about it. 

The Director 
Lexington Books 

D.C: Heath and Company 
125 Spring Street 

Lexington, Massachusetts 02173 
(617) 862-6650 
(212) 924-6460 



600 I College & Research Libraries • November 1981 

ularly useful to anyone who operates or plans 
to operate a fee-based information service. It 
should also be read by public, academic, and 
special librarians, however, as it explains ex-
actly why people are willing to pay for some 
kinds of information even though others are 
available without charge. Furthermore, the 
book is delightfully calm in tone: unlike some 
of the literature in this field, it predicts the 
demise of no institution of any kind.-
Haynes McMullen, University of North Car-
olina at Chapel Hill. 

Research on the Impact of a Computerized Cir-
culation System on the Performance of a 
Large College Library. Part One: The Main 
Library. Report on National Science Foun-
dation Grant no. 1ST 78-10821 for the pe-
riod September 15, 1978-June 1, 1980. 
Prepared by Katherine A. Frohmberg and 
William A. Moffett. Order no. PB 81-
199549. Oberlin, OH; Oberlin College Li-
brary, 1981. 89p. $9.50 paper; $3.50 mi-
crofiche. 
This report, prepared to satisfy contrac-

tual requirements of the £under, theN ational 
Science Foundation, should not have been 
published in its present form. In terms of 
meaningful content there is only enough ma-
terial for a journal article. For eighty-nine 
pages printed only on one side, with large 
type, wide margins, and amateurishly drawn 
graphs, a price tag of $9.50 seems excessive. 

Oberlin College used "the occasion of the 
introduction of an automated circulation sys-
tem in 1978 to study certain measures of li-
brary performance." These measures include 
availability, building use, visits to the li-
brary, number of checkouts, required time to 
charge a book, and patron attitudes. These 
are not new measures, nor are the methods 
new. Paul Kantor, who served as a consul-
tant to the study' has already published much 
of this material. 

Treatment of the findings from the study is 
uneven. For example, chapter five includes a 
twenty-five-item questionnaire given to 
Oberlin students. The following chapter con-
tains a very technical discussion of modeling 
variables including those from the question-
naire. Yet the responses from the question-
naire are not discussed until chapter eight, 
and then, only four of the questions are ana-
lyzed. 

Basically the study found that availability 
and accessibility improved as a result of auto-
mation. Student's favorable attitudes toward 
the library declined with the introduction of 
the system but improved as checkout time 
decreased.- Ellen Altman, University of Ar-
izona, Tucson. 

Rink, Evald. Technical Americana: A Check-
list of Technical Publications Printed Before 
1831. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Interna-
tional Pubs., 1981. $60. LC 81-4036. ISBN 
0-527-75447-1. 
This is a pioneer treatment of the subject 

and as such is an important reference work 
for those concerned with the early history of 
technology and industrial development in the 
United States. The 6,065 titles and editions 
are grouped chronologically within seventy-
five subheadings. The subheadings are in 
turn gathered under twelve main headings: 
general works, technology, agriculture, 
crafts and trade, medical technology, mili-
tary technology, civil engineering, mechani-
cal engineering, manufacturing, mining and 
mineral production, sea transportation and 
inland transportation. The scope is restricted 
to books published in this country prior to 
1831, both original works and reprints of 
British or translations of continental writers. 
It is a record of the literature of technology 
produced by American publishers for the use 
of Americans. The largest portion (85 per-
cent) are nineteenth-century publications. 
The largest main heading is "Inland Trans-
portation," which occupies one third of the 
work. "Agriculture" is the next largest with 
14 percent. 

The author explicitly states that this is not a 
bibliographical study of individual items, 
but an ~ffort to make the publications listed 
"available to the users". Descriptions are 
therefore "limited to essential features suffi-
ciently complete for their identification." 
They consist of a main entry, the title short-
ened where appropriate, and an imprint in a 
standardized form which gives place, printer 
or publisher, and date. The collation is in a 
library format. In some cases there is an addi-
tional note when the title 'information is not 
complete. Although thirty-four bibliogra-
phies are listed as references, each entry has 
only one bibliographical citation, preferably 
to an imprint bibliography such as Evans,