College and Research Libraries vide very little practical assistance in budget planning, this paper may trigger some rethinking of internal resource allo- cations for interlibrary loan and collection development. This collection of articles provides an of- ten interesting sampler of issues in library financing. In some articles, it approaches the substance of a buffet dinner but, ulti- mately, lacks the fulfillment of a well de- signed, satisfying meal.-Gary M. Shirk, Yankee Book Peddler, Inc. Saffady, William. Introduction to Automa- tion for Librarians. Chicago, American Li- brary Assn. 1983. 312p. $35. LC 83-7164. ISBN 0-8389-0386-X. The author indicates that "this book is intended for librarians, information spe- cialists, library school students, and oth- ers who want a tutorial survey . . . of in- formation processing technology. . . . '' The first section of the book would also serve very well for any individual, even one not particularly interested in libraries, who needs a basic understanding of com- puters and how they work. The first section of the book, entitled "The Fundamentals," sets forth a basic introduction to computer hardware, soft- ware, and various data processing con- cepts, such as batch and online process- ing, separate file and database management methods of data organiza- tion, centralized and distributed process- ing, and types of computer networks. There is enough historical background to make the reader understand how hard- ware and software capabilities have changed, but there is no attempt to pro- vide a complete history of the field. The paragraphs on binary coding and the table comparing ASCII and EBCDIC coding schemes are a much clearer presentation than most such explanations. The emphasis is on systems capable of running large-scale library applications, with a brief comment on microcomputers. There is also a separate chapter on auto- mated office systems, including facsimile transmission, videodiscs, copying ma- chines, microfilm, dictation equipment, and automated text processing. This is an extremely important area that many li- Recent Publications 517 brarians overlook in their desire to auto- mate bibliographic processes and to pro- vide their users with online access to the commercial data bases. The second section of the book, which is almost exactly half of the total work, deals with library applications of automation, with separate chapters on computerized circulation control systems, automated cataloging, automated reference service, and automated acquisitions and serials control. In the chapter on cataloging, the sections on the MARC format and the bib- liographic utilities are particularly useful. As is always the case with Mr. Saffady' s work, the book is well and clearly written. It is provided with numerous useful illus- trations and has an extensive list of sug- gested readings at the end of each chapter. It should be read by all librarians who are, or are going to be, involved with library automation. Unfortunately, as is always the case with a work of this sort, it is al- ready somewhat out-of-date; hopefully, plans for a future editions are being made.-Louis A. Schultheiss, University of Illinois at Chicago. Hulick, Stephen. Structure and Subject In- teraction: Toward a Sociology of Knowledge in the Social Sciences. New York: Dekker, 1982. 250p. (Books in Library and Infor- mation Science, No. 41) $35. LC 82- 17140. ISBN 0-8247-1847-X. In the final chapter-entitled "So What?" -of this brave and thoughtful book, Stephen Bulick summarizes the questions he has asked and the conclu- sions he has drawn: ''The two themes mainly in the author's mind during the course of this work were the sociology of knowledge and the development and maintenance of library collections. It was almost a revelation to come to the conclu- sion that the latter may be a practical appli- cation of the former. Or, more accurately, its operational extension." (p.160) Read- ers who have followed his argument to its conclusion will almost surely agree that the link between these seemingly distant domains, first suggested by James C. Baughman, has been established. Recognizing that circulation data can speak to the same bibliometric questions 518 College & Research Libraries to which citation analysis has long been applied, Bulick examines the degree to which disciplines use their own literatures or borrow extensively from others. Those which rely heavily on endogenous litera- tures are considered to be "analytical" disciplines whose paradigms, in Kuhn's sense, are well developed; those which borrow heavily from other fields are '' syn- thetic'' and have less full and mature para- digms. Using his measures this way, Bulick ar- gues that economists' focused, or "ethno- centric'' use of materials shows a degree of consensus on basic issues of theory and technique not matched by the other social sciences. Geography, with its notoriously unfavorable balance of trade with other disciplines, is ranked lowest on these measures, leaving sociology, anthropol- ogy, and political science somewhere in between. Bulick' s discussion of the individual so- cial sciences incorporates a skilled and in- formed interleaving of the history both of the several disciplines themselves and of their treatment by the LC classification scheme. We too often think of the latter as received from above, but Bulick reminds us that in its developmental stages, LC was an emerging commentary on and at- tempt to organize emerging disciplines. Bulick' s most interesting conclusion, based both on patterns of cross- disciplinary use and on various measures of association which assess the conjoint reading between pairs of disciplines, is that the boundaries of the individual so- cial sciences .may never become as clear as those of the physical sciences. But the so- cial sciences as a whole, with their com- munal interests in literatures within social science and its special cousin, history, may be blending into a unified social sci- ence. This is not a perfect book. It is somewhat specialized, in that the structure of branch libraries at Pittsburgh necessarily ex- cluded the sciences from consideration, and Bulick chooses not to discuss the hu- manities. One might ask for more consid- eration of use patterns between specific pairs of disciplines and of what this means. One can quibble with the misuse November 1984 of the term "sociology of knowledge" or argue that the Bradford/Zip£ distribution t€lls us little of interest to librarians that a simple J-curve of use does not convey and that it does not merit the attention Bulick gives it. One can definitely become upset, as I imagine Bulick himself is, that an im- portant table is mislabelled-readers should bring themselves to note in their li- brary copies that the column headings of Table 6.23 should all slide one place to the right. Imperfect? Of course, and fascinating. The only serious flaw with this book is that we are ignoring it. Reviews have been few and only some 120 OCLC libraries have cataloged it. Either librarians are unsure that an understanding of the disciplines they serve has anything to say about how they should conduct their business, or there is something wrong with the system of gatekeepers that is supposed to help us sort out the big books from the little books.-Paul Metz, Virginia Polytechnic In- stitute. Career Profiles and Sex Discrimination in the Library Profession. Prepared by Kathleen Heim and Leigh S. Estabrook. Chicago: American Library Assn., 1983. 82p. $15. LC 83-3838. ISBN 0-8389-3282- 7. Results of statistical surveys frequently pose more interesting questions than those which prompted the survey in the first place. Heim and Estabrook's project is no exception. The task that Heim, Esta- brook, and the ALA Committee on the Status of Women in Librarianship (COSWL) set for themselves was a com- prehensive career study of librarians, ex- amining in particular the differences in status (salary, administrative responsibil- ity, career advancement) between female and male members of the American Li- brary Association. Career Profiles and Sex Discrimination reports the results of their research but, in a mere 46 pages of text, ac- complishes much more. As principle investigators Heim and Es- tabrook are quite explicit about the dual purpose and goal of their research, this study was designed not only to provide data useful for analyzing and evaluating