College and Research Libraries


274 College & Research Libraries 

Tanselie on bibliographic and scholarly 
publications, Daniel Traister on books 
about books, and Peter M. Van Wingen on 
relevant serials. This section is especially 
useful in providing a summary listing 
with critical comments for librarians and 
others wishing to keep up on current liter-
ature. Van Wing en includes lists of period-
icals by subject and alphabetically by title, 
with subscription information. 

Current issues and programs make up 
the third group of nine essays, with en-
tries on automation (Stephen Paul Davis); 
preservation (Carolyn Harris); theft 
(Marie E. Korey); and taxes and donations 
(Carol C . Henderson). Five programs or 
organizations are described: Columbia's 
Rare Book School, the American Anti-
quarian Society's Program in the History 
of the Book in American Culture, the Li-
brary of Congress's Center for the Book, 
ACRL' s Rare Books and Manuscripts Sec-
tion, and the Society of American Archi-
vists. The essays in this group are brief fac-
tual surveys. Appended to Carolyn 
Harris's article on preservation is a list, 
with addresses, of selected preservation 
materials suppliers and conservation facil-
ities. 

The second major section of the book 
contains the lists and directories. The brief 
section on educational opportunities 
could and should be expanded. A reader 
unfamiliar with individual programs in 
the listed library schools, except for the 
entries covering Columbia's library school 
and that for the University of Denver, 
would be unable to determine from the 
entries whether the various programs 
would allow for significant specialization 
in the rare books and manuscripts field. 
The other lists are: associations, auction-
eers, appraisers, libraries, and dealers. 
There is of course some duplication from 
lists available elsewhere, and the 210 
pages devoted to dealers is, perhaps nec-
essarily, unwieldy. The separate listing of 
appraisers is an especially useful direc-
tory. 

In discussing periodicals for the rare 
book trade, Peter Van Wing en points out 
that these types of publications often set 
standards in fine printing and graphic de-
sign. Unfortunately, this book, intended 

May 1985 

for the rare book enthusiast, fails in both 
those areas. All purchasers of reference 
books can empathize with efforts to keep 
production costs down, but reading the 
textual sections of this book, interesting as 
they are, will make most readers cry out 
for larger and darker type. The contents of 
a valuable reference book deserve better 
presentation.-Stephen H. Cape, Indiana 
University, Bloomington. 

Magrill, Rose Mary, and Doralyn J. 
Hickey. Acquisitions Management and 
Collection Development in Libraries. Chi-
cago: American Library Assn., 1984. 
241p. LC 84-9288. ISBN 0-8389-0408-4. 

Library Acquisition Policies and Proce-
dures. Ed. by Elizabeth Futas. Phoenix, 
Ariz.: Oryx, 1984. 2d ed. 615p. $38.50. 
LC 82-42925. ISBN 0-89774-024-6. 
It is a good time to reexamine the rela-

tionships between acquisitions and collec-
tion development work . Closely allied, 
these two areas form the heart of the li-
brary. And it is especially appropriate to 
turn attention to collection development 
at a time when available resources do not 
appear to be keeping pace with the costs of 
purchasing materials, paying salaries, and 
providing adequate equipment for the li-
brary staff and users, hence interfering 
with libraries' ability to provide for the 
varied needs of their patrons. The two 
books reviewed here are both revised ver-
sions of earlier works, updated precisely 
because libraries of all types have been ex-
periencing both new economic constraints 
and, ironically, the pressures of techno-
logical advances, which are rarely inex-
pensive. It is the task of collection devel-
opment, at times frustrating, to reconcile 
these conflicting demands in careful, ra-
tional, and creative ways. 

An excellent work from nearly every an-
gle, Acquisitions Management and Collection 
Development in Libraries builds on Stephen 
Ford's 1973 The Acquisition of Library Mate-
rials, also an ALA publication. Acquisi-
tions work has become more complex 
since Ford's book appeared, and Hickey 
and Magrillleave no stone unturned in de-
scribing and reviewing the ways in which 
this aspect of library work can be man-
aged. The book's premise is that "without 



an effective acquisitions management and 
collection development program, the ex-
pectations of library users can never be 
met" (p.ix). This point is carried through-
out the book: regardless of the size or type 
of library or the budget available, certain 
basic functions are crucial to fulfilling the 
goals of the institution. From here, Magrill 
and Hickey go on to discuss and evaluate 
those aspects, ranging from vendor per-
formance to the structure of gifts and ex-
changes programs to bibliographic search-
ing and faculty participation in collection 
development, which give form to an ac-
quisitions department. 

The division of the book into discrete 
task-oriented chapters is an especially 
strong point. The exposition within each 
section of the multiplicity of functions as-
sociated with what may, on the surface, 
seem to be a straightforward facet of the 
job helps to bring into focus the frequently 
blurred line between acquisitions and col-
lection development work. The authors 
do more than report, however; in each 
chapter they propose a variety of innova-
tive arrangements to serve as points of ref-
erence (and, perhaps, trial and error) for a 
range of library types-public, academic, 
special. 

Collection development has been de-
scribed as II one of the most discussed but 
least understood areas of librarianship" 
(p.3). It encompasses so many tasks, small 
and large, part public service, part techni-
cal service, that it often does elude defini-
tion. Thanks are due to Magrill and 
Hickey for casting a bright light on a com-
plex operation. They must also be praised 
for their apt use of statistics and the exten-
sive bibliographies that follow each of the 
twelve principal sections. This book will 
be an enduring contribution to the field. It 
should be read by any individual who is 
curious about collection development and 
by library students with such an inclina-
tion and also should be kept close at hand 
by all who are involved, formally or infor-
mally, in this area. They will find it useful 
as they find themselves, for example, 
grappling with approval plans, organiz-
ing serials records, or facing the difficult 
task of developing written collection poli-
cies, locally, regionally, or nationally. 

Recent Publications 275 

While Hickey and Magrill' s book is a 
comprehensive volume concerned with 
all shades and hues of acquisitions work, 
taking for granted that collection develop-
ment and acquisitions go hand-in-hand, 
Library Acquisition Policies and Procedures 
takes a more narrow approach. First pub-
lished in 1978, this revised edition consists 
of a short introduction to the subject and 
to the survey methodology, followed by 
the complete acquisitions policies of ten 
academic and fourteen public libraries. 
Also included is a compilation of partially 
reprinted policies from another handful of 
institutions. 

In the brief introduction, the author 
oversimplifies what it has meant to li-
braries to be faced with decreasing re-
sources. She refers to collection develop-
ment as II current jargon,'' as if it were a 
passing fancy. Futas establishes a strange 
dichotomy between quality and quantifi-
cation in building and maintaining collec-
tions, claiming that the need to be more 
accountable for money spent has brought 
about the ''demise of quality collections 
. . . it has meant the down playing of goals 
and objectives, principles of selection, and 
intellectual freedom" (p .vi). I would ar-
gue, as I suspect would Magrill and 
Hickey, quite the opposite: it is precisely 
because of this difficult process of institu-
tional soul-searching and analysis that li-
brarians have been forced to work still 
harder to establish meaningful priorities 
and to devise careful collection policies. 

The book is an ambitious undertaking, 
born as it was of an extensive survey and 
report of responses. Futas, however, does 
little more than lay out policies from li-
braries as dissimilar as Gallaudet College, 
South Seattle Community College, Boise 
Public Library, and Fort Vancouver Re-
gional Library. Her purpose is unclear in-
sofar as she warns her readers away, in 
her final introductory paragraph, from 
adopting the policies of other institutions 
even partially. This would seem to defeat 
the original purpose of presenting "sam-
ple" policies, since examining the results 
of the efforts of other institutions holds no 
danger as long as the unique set of circum-
stances of one's own library are taken into 
consideration before attempting to devise 



276 College & Research Libraries 

a comprehensive collection development 
policy. General models can and should be 
followed, especially in these days of in-
creasing national-level cooperation. By no 
means will that lessen the amount of local 
effort and careful planning that must go 
into a policy. We are not interested in 
copying each others' policies; we do want 
to learn by sharing insights and processes. 
That goal is indeed possible by referring to 
this book and to the many examples of ac-
quisitions policies it presents. 

In reporting on the survey she con-
ducted to determine the extent to which li-
braries have written and/ or unwritten ac-
quisitions policies, Futas shares some 
useful information with her readers. 
However, of some 4,500 questionnaires 
distributed, only 327 "usable" responses 
were returned. From this information the 
author has created a profile of academic 
and public library collection policies and 
processes. The idea is a good one; it is un-
fortunate that Futas did not disaggregate 
her respondents further by size, however, 
since the categories of "public" and "aca-
demic" make subtle analysis difficult at 
best. For example, the range of materials 
budgets represented in her first group, ac-
ademic libraries, runs from $0-$9,999 (two 
libraries) all the way to $1 million or more 
(some twenty libraries), with a peak at 
$100,000-$249,999. It is impossible to 
draw any meaningful conclusions about 
patterns in academic libraries with such a 
wide spread of statistical information. Yet, 
for example, Futas uses this data to calcu-
late percentages about who initiates order 
requests . It is not surprising that her sur-
vey shows that the number of bibliogra-
phers and collection development officers 
who are responsible for orders is low (9 
percent and 16 percent, respectively), nor 
that faculty participation is high (55 per-
cent); most smaller academic libraries are 
understaffed in their collection develop-
ment functions and rely heavily on faculty 
for initiation of orders. Had the author 
grouped her respondents according to 
size, a different and more accurate picture 
would have emerged. 

In conclusion, it should be stressed that 
these two books are not truly comparable. 
The Futas volume is important as an ex-
ample of the wide range of ways in which 

May 1985 

libraries organize their acquisitions func-
tions. It will be a useful working tool for 
staff participating in the development of 
policies, although its audience will neces-
sarily be more narrowly defined than the 
readership of the Magrill and Hickey 
work. The latter will only serve as a guide 
to the intricacies of collection develop-
ment work and as a source of citations for 
further reading on many related 
subjects.-Deborah Jakubs, Duke University. 

Retrospective Conversion: From Cards to 
Computer. Ed. by Anne G. Adler and 
Elizabeth A. Baber. Ann Arbor, Mich.: 
Pierian, 1984. 312p. $39.50. LC 84-
81656. ISBN 0-87650-177-3. 

Most libraries today are facing or have 
already faced the task of converting paper 
card catalogs to machine-readable files, 
with attendant planning and discussions 
of local policies and procedures to be fol-
lowed in the conversion process. Because 
of this common simultaneous process, the 
American Library Association LITA 
ISAS/RTSD Retrospective Conversion 
Discussion Group serves as a popular fo-
rum for airing retrocon issues. Case stud-
ies are interesting starting points for the 
group's biannual meetings, providing the 
same excellent background material that 
warrants their use in the many journal ar-
ticles that treat retrospective conversion. 
An entire book composed of case studies 
of retrospective conversion projects, how-
ever, makes for difficult reading. Lack of 
an index makes access to specific topics 
virtually impossible, so that one must read 
every detail of every project or else know 
in advance which project most closely 
matches the needs of his or her institution. 

The editors obviously had good inten-
tions in bringing together the separate 
projects into one book, since their early ex-
perience had shown them that not much 
was available on retrospective conversion. 
Their solution was to collect the papers 
presented at the discussion group with 
two updated versions of original projects 
into this book. As with many other collec-
tions, the articles themselves vary in style 
and depth . Some have been tightly edited 
for publication while others appear to be 
the original speech presented to the dis-