College and Research Libraries 706 College & Research Libraries mine the fiduciary obligations of trustees. Baughman allows the rulings of court cases to define the role of trustees rather than relying on traditional perceptions. He cites one case in which the trustees, on the advice of the president, attempted to close a college. The court ruled that the trustees' actions were neither necessary nor legal. Although predominantly a serious and thought-provoking book, Baughman makes the rash comment that the trustee should know more than the "pedantic" professional administrator. This is an un- justified and unsubstantiated misrepre- sentation of that group. It is likely that trustees will often know less about the specifics of an organization than profes- sional administrators, which is all the more reason for trustees to remain com- mitted and alert, always expecting ade- quate information. Baughman has taken what could be a very dry subject and turned it into an en- . gaging study. It is obvious from the qual- ity of the book that a great deal of work has gone into both the research and the writ- ing. The book is of interest not only to November 1989 trustees and administrators of nonprofit organizations but also to librarians, many of whom work for charitable nonprofit in- stitutions and can be directly affected by the involvement or lack of involvement of trustees. As a result of his investigation, Baughman establishes that although trustees are given great discretion in the management of their institutions, they must realize that they serve as guardians and managers of the country's richest treasures which are designated exclu- sively for the public good and must be ad- ministered according to the donor's wishes. The author concludes his work with a very helpful set of guidelines for board members of nonprofit organiza- tions.-Daniel A. Savage, Redeemer College, Ancaster, Ontario, Canada. Robbins, Jane Borsch, and Douglas Zweizig. Are We There Yet? Evaluating Li- brary Collections, Reference Services, Pro- grams, and Personnel. Madison, Wise.: School of Library and Information Stud- ies, Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, 1988. 152p. How to Get - Biological Abstracts® Coverage in 5 Easy Steps: 1. Travel to over 100 countries around the world . 2. Collect and monitor over 9,000 life science serial and non-serial publications . 3. Select more than 270,000 items throughout 1989. 4. Index them by author, biosystematics, generics and subjects. 5. Forget all this and subscribe to Biological Abstracts! BIOSIS has done all the hard work for you; all you have to do is call and subscribe today! Biological Abstracts provides abstracts and full bibliographic data, in English , to current published research from biological and biomedical journal literature. In addition, a cumulative index is available as a separate subscription item . You could follow the do-it-yourself system, or save money and time by contacting BIOSIS , Marketing Section, 2100 Arch Street, Dept. CRL1189ES, Philadelphia, PA 19103-1399 USA. Telephone (215) 587-4800 worldwide; toll free 1-800-523-4806 (USA except PA); Telex 831739; Fax (215) 587-2016. BIOSIS · Biological Abstracts is a registered trademark of BIOSIS. BIOSIS is a registered trademark of Biological Abstracts Inc. This monograph is a compilation of five tutorials dealing with evaluation that Rob- bins and Zweizig prepared for a continu- ing education course that appeared in American Libraries between October 1985 and February 1986. Included as well are seven companion pieces that were re- quired readings for participants in the course. The text is broken into five lessons, the first of which is a basic introduction to the purpose and process of evaluation. The four subsequent lessons each take one as- pect of library operations-collections, ref- erence services, service programs, and personnel-and show how the evaluation process can be applied. Supplementing each lesson are previously published arti- cles that discuss the particular topic and evaluation, although not necessarily the same process advocated by Robbins and Zweizig. Because of the format of the course, the lessons are relatively brief; they run about seven pages in length and only give an in- troductory overview. Nevertheless they Recent Publications 707 are clear, informative, and as thorough as can be expected under the circumstances. The title "Are We There Yet?" is the question the authors feel should be asked as opposed to ''How good is it?'' when ap- plying the evaluation process to an activ- ity. To them their "question sees evalua- tion as a process of checking on a regular basis to determine how much progress has been made towards a stated goal" (p.1). Evaluation, they feel, is an essential tool in the administrative function of a li- brary and provides for better decision making and improved operations. There- fore, a library needs to have a planning model (or process) by which it can focus its direction and make necessary evaluations along the way. Having laid this foundation, they then provide a seven-step evaluation process which can be utilized in a variety of in- stances for library operations. As noted, the remaining lessons show how the pro- cess can be applied. The supplemental readings help to en- hance the material the authors provide, 708 College & Research Libraries but not surprisingly, these vary in tone and quality. They range from a brief over- view of evaluation by Mary Jo Lynch enti- tled "Measurement of Public Library Ac- tivity: The Search For Practical Methods'' to a long survey article entitled "Evaluat- ing the Collection" by George S. Bonn. Also included is a particularly good work called ''Personnel Evaluation as an Impe- tus to Growth" by Ernest R. De Prospo. Because the intended purpose of the course was to provide an overview of eval- uation to a wide audience of practitioners, efforts have been made to show applica- tions in a variety of library settings: public, academic, and school. As such, some of the examples may appear less appropriate than others. This shouldn't deter the reader, however, because the authors have done a good job of presenting their information in an appropriate and very readable format. They have taken a com- plex process and made it understandable to the general reader. Unfortunately poor proofreading mars this otherwise admirable effort. Numer- November 1989 ous errors occur, the worst of which is missing or altered wording making some sentences totally unintelligible. It is too bad that some of the same thoroughness advocated for the evaluation process couldn't have been applied to the produc- tion of this work.-Robert Logsdon, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis. Seibert, Warren F., and others. Research Library Trends, 1951-1980 and Beyond: An Update of Purdue's "Past and Likely Future of 58 Research Libraries" (Lister Hill Tech- nical Report, LHNCBC 87-2). Washing- ton, D.C.: Department of Health and Human Services, 1987. 181p. As the title indicates, this report is an update of the earlier title, Research Library Trends, 1951-1980, published in 1965. The original data spanned the years 1951 through 1964 and were the foundation for forecasts of selected trends through 1980. The Purdue studies (p.xii) also updated the statistics through 1972. This volume presents some estimates of future trends through 1990. r ~OLLECTION ~ANALYSIS You need reliable quantitative data to justify collection management decisions. You need a flexible analysis system designed with your library's goals in mind. How does your collection measure up? Introducing ........................ OCLC/ AM/COS Collection Analysis Systems. Collection Analysis CD compares your holdings against those of similar institutions, using a subset of the OCLC database on compact disc. Tap~ Analysis gives you a custom-designed MARC tape analysis for your library or group. A Tape Match against Books for College Libraries is also offered. OCLC/ AMIGOS Collection Analysis Systems Available exclusively in the U.S. from AMIGOS Bibliographic Council, Inc. 11300 North Central Expressway, Suite 321 Dallas, Texas 75243 (800)843-8482 (214)750-6130