College and Research Libraries 294 College & Research Libraries discovery and constructive dialogue within the library and information com- munities that was characteristic of the con- ference itself." They succeeded most admirably.-LeMoyne W. Anderson, Colo- rado State University. Lancaster, F. W. Libraries and Librarians in an Age of Electronics. Arlington, Va.: IRP, 1982. 229p. LC 82-081403. ISBN 0- 87815-040-4. ''The book is laden . . . with all the de- fects of a first attempt, incomplete, and certainly not free from inconsistencies. Nevertheless I am convinced that it con- tains the incontrovertible formulation of an idea which, once enunciated clearly, will ... be accepted without dispute." Thus does Oswald Spengler introduce The Decline of the West, which rests on the the- sis that creative intellect is dead and that Spengler is the last philosopher whose ยท task is to ''sketch out this unphilosophical philosophy-the last that West Europe will know" (The Decline of the West, New York, Knopf, 1926, p.46-50). Lancaster's book is not a first attempt. In stitching together several previously pub- lished papers, it comes dangerously close to being a textbookish cut-and-paste bib- liographic review on the topic, ''The De- cline of the Library-maybe for sure." The author hopes the book "will stimu- late members of the library profession to reassess the role of the librarian as an in- formation specialist in a time of extensive social and technological change" (p.vii). Not likely. Like Cassandra, Lancaster's curse may be in being right, but un- heeded. If Cassandra had had a word processor and graduate students to help her would Troy have declined faster or slower? There is also the possibility that Lancaster does not have Apollo's gift of prophecy and is just plain wrong or mis- reading the data. There is, for example, the statement that ''development of ADONIS (Article Deliv- ery over Network Information Systems) has been stimulated by the finding that photocopy requests made to the British Li- brary Lending Division are dominated by requests for articles issued by commercial publishers and that 80% of all requests are July 1983 for articles 5 years old or less" (p.75). The source of this misinformation is not pro- vided, but one need only think of the age spread of books circulated by libraries or lSI's citation data by date to get a different picture. Or, check the record. (A. Clarke, "The Use of Serials at the British Library Lending Division in 1980," Interlending Review 9: 111-171981.) There may be a pa- perless society and possibly even a project ADONIS in our near future, but not if a short information half-life is the critical factor. Lancaster, finally looking back on more than 300 citations, years of thinking and teaching about librarians' electronic fate, consulting for the CIA, and massive expo- sure to the hard radiations of the Univer- sity of Illinois Library administration, can only ask at the end of his unphilosophical philosophy, ''Will the paperless society be in place by the end of the century? It seems highly likely that it will. But only time will tell" (p.206). This reviewer cannot recom- mend the work as being either particularly conclusive or stimulating as the basis for either that question or its answer.-Larry X. Besant, Linda Hall Library, Kansas City, Missouri. McGarry, Kevin J. The Changing Context of Information: An Introductory Analysis. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String, 1982. 189p. $19.50. ISBN 0-85157-325-8. Intended as a textbook in the founda- tions of information work, K. J. McGarry's survey is a ramble through the concepts and history of library and information sci- ence. McGarry has chosen a conversa- tional style, presumably to make the mate- rial more accessible to a generation raised in the aural tradition. Loosely connected clauses, eccentric punctuation, and fre- quent changes of tense, number, and per- son give the work the informal tone often found in transcriptions of taped inter- views. While McGarry's devices of casual discourse may ease the way for the mod- ern student, they are obstacles for the old- fashioned reader of library literature who expects and prefers expository prose. The word deals with four aspects of in- formation science: epistemology, the his- tory of writing and printing, scholarly Productivity is a critical concern in today 's library. That's why more and more decision makers are looking into Faxon. We can be the best source for all of your journal and continuation subscriptions. Our services enable you to devote your valuable person- nel resources to other crucial library functions . . As a full service agent with access to more than 150,000 different periodicals , we can handle ordering, claiming , check-in, and routing . Our growing international network links you to other libraries, publishers , and in the near future, other online systems. If you can profit from improved productivity, a call to Faxon figures . 1-800-225-6055 or 1-617-329-3350 (collect) &:.on ON THE FRONTIER OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT F W Faxon Company. Inc 15 Southwe st Park Wes twood . MA 02090 296 College & Research Libraries communication, and social aspects of in- formation exchange. Unifying these top- ics is McGarry's interest in the relation- ship of information to societal structure. The work is as much a manifesto as an analysis. The author believes that access to information will soon constitute the ma- jor basis for wealth. He assumes that in- formation workers have as a major objec- tive the lessening of social and economic inequities. He exhorts his readers to pur- sue the ideal of equal and open access to information in the interests of social jus- tice. McGarry provides little in the way of justification for his views. In a scant 188 pages, an author cannot, of course, treat any subject fully. McGarry rightly anticipated that specialists would fault him for omissions and simplifica- tions at "a thousand points. 11 While most of McGarry's lapses will not harm his readers, some omissions might lead to a misunderstanding of current trends. Con- spicuously missing are references to the Research Library Information Network, Boolean logic, commercial databases, and selectivity in automated information sys- tems. More frustrating than McGarry's omis- sion of factual information is his lack of reference to sources. Defending his method of providing only chapter-by- chapter bibliographies, McGarry explains that he ''attempted to comply with the re- quirements of scholarly courtesy by listing sources of quotations and statistical mat- ter and by encouraging readers to use the bibliographies provided. 11 McGarry, who treats scholarly communication in this work, surely knows that the acknowledg- ment of sources is more than a social ges- ture. It is a necessity in scholarly writing in order to give credit where due, to build a scholarly literature, and to stimulate criti- cal inquiry. Had McGarry tied his obser- vations more closely to his excellent bibliography, he would have greatly strengthened his credibility. One article that McGarry included, but seems not to have absorbed, deals with misogyny in library literature. McGarry sticks doggedly with the all-inclusive mas- culine pronoun until his final chapter when he unexpectedly introduces a single July 1983 ''she.'' More significant is McGarry's con- sistent neglect of the role of women as readers, teachers, writers, and librarians. Not all the flaws in this book are McGarry's fault. The author was not served well by his designer and editor. The typeface is small and the pages crowded. The scarcity of punctuation throughout, combined with the density of type, makes decipherment of the text diffi- cult. Finally, there are too many typo- graphical errors. Despite inadequacies, the work is still useful as ancillary reading for students en- tering information work. The author in- troduces virtually all the acronyms, jar- gon, and institutions of the profession. He provides a carefully selected and current bibliography in a field in which it is diffi- cult, to use the author's words, to keep ''bang up to date.'' And he identifies top- ics appropriate to the study of information work. McGarry's most valuable contribu- tion is his raising of ethical issues that he reasonably surmises information workers will face in the coming decades.-Deirdre C. Starn, Bibliographical Society of America. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, V.17. Ed. by Martha E. Williams, White Plains, N.Y.: Knowl- edge Industry Publications, 1982. 367p. $45. LC 66-25096. ISBN 0-86729-032-3. ISSN 0066-4200. CODEN:ARISBC. What can one say about a highly praised review series that has now published its seventeenth annual volume? More good things, mostly. ARIST' s first volume was published in 1966, to immediate and unceasing ac- claim, through the intrepid leadership of Carlos A. Cuadra. Cuadra served as editor for ten years, forging and enforcing high standards for scope, content, format, and indexing; his name will not be found in the introductory pages of the current vol- ume, but his imprint remains. His succes- sor as editor, Martha E. Williams, intrepid in her own right, has to a large degree re- tained, maintained, and in some respects enhanced those standards. ARIST is owned by the American Society for Infor- mation Science (ASIS); but, starting with