College and Research Libraries 370 College & Research Libraries cessive enthusiasm or fear. There is also considerable pragmatism. A 1978 article in the collection argues that austerity or re- duced support is something library ad- ministrators should learn to accept and manage, rather that wait out until the next period of affluence. The greatest value of the compilation, especially when read chronologically, is its recording of major trends: austerity, technology, and resource sharing.- Richard W. Boss, Information Systems, Con- sultants Inc., Washington, D.C. The World of Books and Information: Es- says in Honour of Lord Dainton. Lon- don: The British Library, 1987. 224p. $37.50 (ISBN-0-7123-0125-9). Maurice Line, in his foreword to this volume, suggests that Lord Dainton' s ''contribution to the library and informa- tion world must be one of the greatest ever made by a non-librarian." This contribu- tions includes serving as president of the Library Association (1977).; establishing Five Compelling Reasons To Use The 8/0SIS Previews® Database July 1988 (while chairman of the University Grants Committee) a Working Party on Capital Provision for University Libraries, which resulted in the production of the famous (or infamous) ''Atkinson Report'' on size and funding of British academic libraries; and, most importantly, serving as chair- man of the National Libraries Committee, which was directly responsible for the cre- ation of the British Library in 1973. Lord Dainton became Chairman of the British Library Board in 1978 and served in that capacity for more than seven years. The essays have little in common, other than the fact that they are all written by eminent librarians and other scholars who are among Lord Dainton' s admirers and friends. One brief essay is a "personal" bibliography of Scottish mountaineering and a second discusses Welsh authors and their books circa 1500-1642. Most, how- ever, are directly related to librarianship and scholarly publishing. Of potential in- terest to academic librarians in the U.S. are the essays on the functions of the li- COMPREHENSIVE Approximately 6,000,000 items in all areas of life science research . The world's largest life science database. RELEVANT Information you need for your research from over 9,000 serial and nonserial sources, including meeting papers, reports, books, reviews and U.S. patent records covering such areas as agriculture, pharmacology, medicine and biotechnology. CURRENT Updated four times per month , BIOSIS Previews keeps you informed of all the latest developments in the fields of biology and biomedicine. ACCESSIBLE Available through over 20 online and offline centers internationally. 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() ·~· a; ~ BIOSIS ' ci () MLS-160 People Dedicated to Providing Service to Libraries Jay Askuvich General Sales Manager Scott Schmidt Midwest Carl Dorr Southeast Lawrence Nagel West Forrest Link Kim Anderson Lorraine Best Northeast Mountain Plains Canada I Midwest Library Service 11443 St. Charles Rock Road Bridgeton , MO 63044 , USA Call toll-free 1-800-325-8833 Missouri librarians call toll-free 1-800-392-5024 Canadian librarians call toll-free 1-800-527-1659 372 College & Research Libraries brary in an "electronic campus" (by Lynne Brindley of Aston University); a de- scription of the "role" of the British Li- brary by Kenneth Cooper, its present chief executive; a discussion on the "gap be- tween ideal and reality'' in academic li- braries (Brian Enright, University of New- castle upon Tyne); a retrospective look at the Atkinson Report by J. Michael Sme- thurst of the British Library; Alexander Wilson's discussion on library preserva- tion strategies; and Maurice Line's views on what might constitute a "universal li- brary." In physical appearance this is an attrac- tive book although it is somewhat marred by careless errors (e.g., the title of Enright's article refers to "ideals and real- ity"). As to the contents, the heteroge- neous nature of the contributions make it exceedingly difficult to appraise. I would judge it to be of limited appeal to librarians in the U.S. because of its almost exclusive emphasis on the British scene and the fact - that, despite the eminence of the authors, many of the essays are quite lightweight. While they serve the intended purpose of honoring a great man they do not collec- tively make a profound contribution to the literature of librarianship.-F. W. Lancas- ter, University of lllinois, at Urbana-Cham- paign. American Literary Magazines: The Eight- eenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Ed. by Edward E. Chielens. New York: Green- wood, 1986. 503p. $65 (ISBN 0-313- 23985-1). LC 85-24793. American Literary Magazines will be in two volumes, the subtitle indicating the scope of this first installment, leaving the substantial body of twentieth-century American literary magazines to volume 2. The editor, Edward E. Chielens, has pre- viously published annotated bibliographi- cal guides to information sources, The Lit- erary Journal in America to 1900 and The Literary Journal iri America, 1900-1950, in 1975 and 1977 respectively in a Gale Re- search guide series. The present work provides "profile" es- says of usually no more than three to five pages, each followed by notes, a bibliogra- phy of information sources, and a publica- July 1988 tionhistory for (as the introduction puts it) "ninety-two of the most important" American literary magazines of the speci- fied period, with another ninety-nine ''less important titles . . . covered in an ac- companying appendix.'' The editor read- ily acknowledges the difficulty in deciding ''which magazines of the thousands pub- lished deserved coverage in full profiles,'' and, despite the pains he takes to explain and justify his choices, a number of inclu- sions and exclusions may strike some readers as capricious. The exclusion of Vanity Fair, Puck, the Philistine, and similar journals ''because they are being included in another book in this series on humor magazines" seems unfortunate (however defensible from the publisher's point of view) for a collection and its projected companion volume that "are intended as comprehensive sources of information" on their subject. The claim for comprehensiveness works against other exclusions as well-or, at least, decisions to provide a profile or rele- gate a journal to the category of ''less im- portant titles.'' Choosing to include a pro- file of Godey 's Ladies Book over its popular, long-running competitor, Peterson's Maga- zine, may be defensible, since the latter published fewer distinguished and subse- quently less influential literary figures than did Godey's. However, it seems a bit eccentric to relegate Lippincott's magazine to the list of "less important titles" (actu- ally an appendix entitled "Minor and Nonliterary Magazines," which includes very brief annotations for its ninety-nine entries). Lippincott's may have been ulti- mately less successful than Scribner's or the Atlantic, as its annotation claims, but it included among its contributors Sidney Lanier, William Gilmore Simms, Octave Thanet, Lafcadio Hearn, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Grace King, Henry James, and Anthony Trollope. Lippincott's published Oscar Wilde's ''Picture of Dorian Grey'' and introduced Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes to American readers. The deci- sion not to profile Lippincott's, Harper's Weekly, Colliers, The American, or De- morest's Monthly Magazine, and numerous others that have varying claims to literary interest or significance could be left to the