College and Research Libraries 264 College & Research Libraries shows, many features of our profession, including its goals and functions, have not been givens but have changed considera- bly as social situations and acceptance by others have shifted. She correctly sur- mises that the development of profes- sional ideology is irregular and does not reflect something so obvious as the pro- gressive evolution of a basic mission, or the swing of a pendulum from conserva- tism to liberalism, but is a multidimen- sional process that requires a more com- plicated theoretical explanation. This she finds in the "role-set" model and the play of competing values between librarians, their clients, and their sponsors (trustees, university bureaucrats, etc.). She identi- fies three major lines of stress as a source of recurring conflicts in the period covered by her study: disputes arising out of the · assertion of institutional and status auton- omy and those emerging from what she calls the "elitist-populist dilemma" and the "neutrality-advocacy dilemma." It is a thoroughly original approach, and only occasionally does the inevitable jargon of her discipline make trouble for the non- sociologist reader. As a postscript, one cannot resist adding that in 1967, when Geller first published an article on this subject in Library Journal-indeed, one that was included in Eric Munn's anthology, Book Selection and Censorship in the Sixties (New York: Bowker, 1969)-she was editor of School Library Journal; today she works as an in- vestment broker.- William A. Moffett, Oberlin College Library, Ohio. Light, Richard J., and David B. Pillemer. Summing Up: The Science of Reviewing Re- search. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Pr., 1984. 191p. $17.50. LC 84- 4506 . ISBN 0-674-85430-6. (alk. paper) Advancing knowledge through a pro- cess of cumulation requires accurate and perceptive analyses of what has been studied, what has been discovered, and what remains to be done. Reviews of the literature, the authors maintain, are com- monly inadequate to the task, and they discuss, in detailed and sophisticated fashion, ways to improve them. They have excellent credentials for their task, May 1 1985 Light as professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education and Kennedy School of Government and Pillemer as assistant professor of Psychology at Wellesley Col- lege. A review of previous research, though an established expectation, is all too often done pro forma and in pedestrian fashion. The most common approach is simply to summarize, serially, studies that seem to have some relationship to the new study being undertaken. The result is often more confusing than helpful, for the sum- marized studies have been based upon different definitions, assumptions, and methods and produce findings that are in- conclusive or even contradictory. The re- searcher frequently concludes that the best course is simply to ignore the past and to begin again. Light and Pillemer convincingly argue that well-done re- views not only can prevent such duplica- tion but, even more important, can help to shape improved research studies that gen- uinely advance knowledge . In approaching their task, the authors emphasize four "themes": First, each review should be shaped to respond to a specific question or to a par- ticular purpose; a review designed as the basis for a pragmatic program decision ought to be quite different from a review that seeks to discover fundamental rela- tionships. Second, disagreements among studies, far from suggesting despair, ought to be considered opportunities for understand- ing; that different findings appear in stud- ies carried out in different places, for ex- ample, may suggest locales and their cultural components as promising vari- ables for further investigation. Third, the natural appeal of the objectiv- ity of quantitative measures should not be allowed to eliminate qualitative compo- nents; a statistically valid relationship may be comprehensible only in the con- text of informed interpretation of the real world situation. Fourth, statistical precision cannot re- place clear theoretical understanding; al- most always, even when a number of studies seems to produce consistent find- ings, penetrating judgment and analysis will add depth and breadth to the results. The book contains six chapters. After the first introductory chapter, the second, "Organizing a Reviewing Strategy," presents the authors' conviction that are- view should be structured to focus upon a specific question rather than simply to summarize a number of studies. "Quanti- tative Procedures" discusses selecting techniques appropriate to the question rather than routinely using conventional measures. Being soundly knowledgeable, Light and Pillemer are not intimidated by the mysteries and magic of statistics. For example, before even discussing statistical measures, they are careful to point out that every summarizing measure involves the loss of some of the details of the under- lying facts and that a researcher should be mindful of the implications of taking even that first step. Going on, they illustrate how the customary emphasis upon mea- sures of central tendency often masks im- portant variation and suggest, among other things, the potential of careful anal- ysis of outliers as a means to sharpen un- derstanding. "Numbers and Narrative: The Division Recent Publications 265 of Labor'' argues for careful attention to individual cases as a source of increased understanding and clarification. Throughout the work, the authors keep their attention close to the real-world events that are being studied and, to an extraordinary degree, they avoid the trap of becoming so enamored with methods and devices as to forget the true purpose of an investigation. They illustrate their general principles with examples and thus make themselves unusually clear. One in- genious device is a ''box'' presented along with the text in the same way that charts and tables are conventionally used. Within the box, they discuss in detail an example that illuminates a point in the main text. This device gives the reader the benefit of extended explanation without loss of the sequence and pace of the narra- tive discussion. "What We Have Learned" gives specific examples of ways that reviews have advanced knowledge by clarifying general findings, by integrat- ing a variety of findings, by settling con- troversies, and by providing new insights into various research strategies. The final chapter gives a checklist of characteristics DON'T TAKE THIS TEST . . . unless you'd like to learn more about publications from the world's largest biological and biomedical information service . QUESTIONS 1. Where would you look for journal article abstracts in any life science field? A. Biological Abstracts · B. Your Local Bookstore C. Library Card Catalog 2. Which publication alerts you to more than 140.000 papers presented each year at over 1500 major scientific conferences worldwide? A. Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature B. Biological Abstracts/RRM' C. The New York Times 3. Who publishes BA and BA/RRM? A. The Library of Congress B. BioSciences Information Service C. Rupert Murdoch ANSWERS II IIIII (~If ~~~~~ 1. Biological Abstracts (BA), produced semi· monthly, provides informative abstracts of cur· rent published research from the biological and biomedical journal literature. Approximately 220,000 items are being reported in 1985. 'l( ( __ , Ill\\\ - 2. In 1985. BIOSIS increased its already exten· sive coverage of the life science meeting litera· ture through Biological Abstracts/RRM (Re· ports. Reviews, Meetings) by 53,000 records over last year. BAIRRM also indexes notes, symposia papers, research reports, and reviews . 3. We do. BioSciences Information Service, the world 's most comprehensive information ser· vice for the life sciences. For a FREE brochure about our products and se rvt ces. cal l toll free tBOOi 523·4806 tU SA except AK . HI. PA 1 worldwtde 1215) 587-4800 . or wr1te BIOSIS User Servtces. 2100 Ar ch Street. Ph tladelphta PA 19103·1399 US A 810515 . Biological Abstracts and Biological Abstracts!RRM are rcg~ste•nd tradpma•"'s o' 81.:)Sc~~.,ces l'""l!~)rma!l()" Serv•.:.., 266 College & Research Libraries and questions to use in assessing and im- proving reviews. The whole book reflects alert and in- formed intelligence that, without pomp or pretension, sets out purposefully to re- form and improve a key element in the whole process of thought and research by which scholars hope to add to knowledge. The informed wisdom behind the book makes its advice and insights applicable to virtually all aspects of scholarship. It is thus a book that repays reading by almost anyone involved in serious study and is entirely likely to satisfy the publisher's prediction that it will ''become a method- ological classic."- W. L. Williamson, Uni- versity of Wisconsin, Madison. Metz, Paul. The Landscape of Literature: Use of Subject Collections in a University Li- brary . Chicago: American Library Assn., 1983. 143p. (ACRL Publications in Librarianship, no.43) $30. LC 83- 15511. ISBN 0-8389-3286. This work is a thought-provoking study of the use of libraries, and it is likely to be- come one of the most influential as well. Metz, user services librarian at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI), analyzed data from VPI's auto- mated circulation system in order to an- swer the question, "Who reads what?" Information on 58,457 books in circulation to 10,126 borrowers on two days in May 1982 provided the data for the study. The circulation data provided information on five categories of borrowers, their depart- mental affiliation (or major), and the clas- sification of the borrowed material, bro- ken into eighty-one subject categories. This review can only summarize some of the most important results of Metz' s study; the 143 pages are packed with in- formation. His most important finding is that the use of library collections is ex- tremely interdisciplinary, much more so than previous studies have indicated. Metz writes: The data show quite clearly that the majority of faculty use of most subject literatures is by outsiders-that is, by readers with other speci- alities than those primarily associated with those literatures. The findings support a view of the library as a most unrestricted and unpre- May 1985 dictable bazaar for the exchange of ideas andre- flect a much more catholic and interdependent view of knowledge than citation studies have ever suggested. This view of library use, in turn, suggests policies stressing the integration of services, an opposition to arbitrary barriers to the flow of information, and the avoidance of narrow specialization. (p .56-57) In the sciences, Metz' s study shows that not only did faculty in the sciences use the monographic collection (a majority had books checked out), but his study rein- forces other use studies that indicate that a large majority of the science faculty's li- brary needs are met by books in the sci- ences. However, the VPI study showed a higher use of literature outside the fac- ulty's specific discipline than indicated by citation studies. Social scientists at VPI were heavy li- brary users (two-thirds had books checked out; with an average of 16.3 books) with extensive reliance on materi- als outside their specific disciplines. Ge- ographers were especially interdiscipli- nary; only 7.8 percent of books in use by geographers were classed in geography, while 22.4 percent were in economics, and 9.5 percent were in sociology. Only 10.5 percent of books in use by psychologists were classed in that discipline. While these figures are not inconsistent with the findings of citation studies, what is new and surprising in the Metz study is the ex- tent of interdisciplinary use of the collec- tions. Metz suggests that reliance on fund allo- cations to departments for book selection may not build balanced collections, be- cause the needs of departmental users may not be the same as those of nonspe- cialists from whom ntuch of the use mate- rials in the discipline will come. Periodicals often present problems in use studies. Since at VPI periodicals do not circulate, they were not part of this larger study. However, Metz attempted to monitor their use in the library's photo- copy service. While the sample was small, the use'' seems'' to follow similar patterns as for monographs, but with ''a more nar- row concentration of use on materials in core literatures." As almost 70 percent of the books were