College and Research Libraries 96 College & Research Libraries lowed by a ninety-page bibliography. As a survey and literature review, Klein's book fills a real need. A vast ar- ray of projects is described, from local history to biophysics, American Indian law, ecology, child development, ar- chaeology, American studies, im- munopharmacology, urban studies, ho- listic health care, and undergraduate liberal studies. The book does not, how- ever, quite achieve its goal of synthesis. The material is very compressed; much of it remains only partially digested. In- dividual chapters adhere to the focus and emphasis of the existing literature on various branches of interdisciplinar- ity, which can range from recommenda- tions on the best physical layout of office space for interdisciplinary teams to the structure of the universe. Nevertheless, this is a good introduction to an impor- tant subject. It answers questions we may not have had the wit to ask and challenges us with problems still unre- solved. The cumulative evidence compiled by Klein suggests a paradox at the heart of the idea of interdisciplinarity. It aims at a holistic, integrating synthesis, an alter- native to the fragmenting specialization of modern knowledge. But it has con- sistently failed to achieve this ideal. One might even argue that, in practice, inter- disciplinarity represents the deconstruc- tive, disintegrating force of new per- spectives, and that every interdiscipli- nary project is an ad hoc, temporary so- lution to a particular problem. As Klein and others openly admit, it may be that modern thought simply defies classification.-Jean M. Alexander, North- western University, Evanston, Il. Veaner, Allen B. Academic Librarianship in a Transformational Age: Program, Pol- itics, and Personnel. Boston: G .K. Hall, 1990, 520p. $40 (ISBN 0-8161-1866-3). LC 89-27335. Allen Veaner' s book is interesting, worthwhile, and at times exasperating. Although it is intended chiefly for '' aca- demic librarians holding or aspiring to administrative positions," Richard De- Gennaro rightly observes in his brief January 1991 foreword that ''anyone with a serious interest in the evolution and future of ac- ademic libraries" would profit from it. The first chapter, "The Transformed World of Academic Librarianship," in- troduces the larger context. Particularly imaginative is the author's description of the traditional academic library as a "manor," a relatively self-sufficient and autonomous entity in which "on-site staff provided services almost entirely from local holdings, custom-tailoring their own bibliographic control sys- tems.'' In less than a generation, Veaner finds, the academic library has shed its manorial trappings and become part of a community, transformed via "linkages to a vast ... worldwide array of biblio- graphic resources and services.'' The ac- ademic library as one-time manor now transformed is an image at once provoc- ative and deserving of further critical re- flection . In his second chapter, "The Academic Community as Institution and Work- place," Veaner correctly observes that ''the academic workplace is highly polit- ical and strongly elitist, an island of ex- clusivity in an openly democratic soci- ety.'' But most academics, on most days at least, probably would not share his bleak views of ''the viciousness of aca- demic politics. In their relentless and egotistic competition for resources, the faculty manifest bad behavior toward each other that, although refined in exe- cution, is no less savage than that pre- vailing in the outside world: extreme pettiness, backstabbing, treachery, ma- licious destruction of colleagues' ca- reers, one-upmanship, and dark and mean-spirited power plays .'' If this was the environment with which Veaner had to cope during his twenty-six years of li- brary experience at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California at Santa Barbara, it is no wonder that he left the academy to establish his own consulting firm. The following chapter, '' Adminis- trative Theories, Business Paradigms, and Work," contains a number of in- sightful observations about the nature of library work, who and what librarians are, and the "duality of employment" between professionals and support staff. Chapters on the administrative challenge and on the library's program are quite useful although here, as else- where, Veaner occasionally lapses into the hyperbolic: ''Only the highest levels of stamina and stability enable adminis- trators to cope with the work's demands and not lose either their health or their sanity." Most of the remaining chapters are given over to various aspects of organi- zational structure and personnel admin- istration. These include organizational communication, governance, duties and responsibilities of staff members, re- cruitment, performance appraisal, and staff development. Three additional chapters, "Managing Your Inheri- tances," "Entering and Departing the Administrative Suite," and "The Self: Time, Privacy, and Stress," resemble self-help books in both the content and tone of their advice to would-be aca- demic library administrators; the first of these contains a section on ''Building Your Own Professional Image," with subsections on "Voice," "Eye Con- tact," and "The Role of Touch." The fi- nal chapter provides a look at "2000 and Beyond." Throughout, Veaner draws repeatedly on the wider management literature as well as that of librarianship. In the preface, Veaner warns his read- ers that they will find'' comparatively lit- tle advice'' about any single function in academic libraries, except for personnel. In this instance he is uncharacteristically guilty of understating the matter. Much more space (though only two pages) is devoted to "references" than to "refer- ence work" and "cataloging" com- bined, and more space is devoted to "stress" than to "acquisitions" and ''collection development'' combined. "Circulation" (including all synonyms I could imagine) does not appear in the in- dex; there is, however, an entry for "bull sessions" and another for "head- hunters." There is nothing here on bib- liographic instruction. One scours the book in vain for details of the transfor- mation identified in the title, or details about the environment which is being Book Reviews 97 Biological Abstracts~ (BA) on Microfilm and SA Collective lndexes ... your BA on Microfilm provides cita- tions that lead you to in-depth biological and biomedical re- search findings derived from approximately 9,000 serials published in over 100 countries. The same comprehensive information found in the print- ed publication is covered, but with minimal storage space! 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Although traditional views of libraries tended to place too much emphasis on inanimate objects-volumes, furniture, buildings, etc.-Veaner' s description re- verses the error and gives us the people without an environment. Either omis- sion would be unfortunate in a book with such an encompassing title . Veaner' s focus is on the process of admin- istering, without much attention to the particulars of the environment that is be- ing administered-one that is popular these days. The virtues of Veaner' s book are sev- eral. It is a useful Baedeker to the terrain of academic library personnel issues. The author also provides interesting in- formation about developments and practices in British and Canadian librari- anship. In addition, the writing is lively, and Veaner is provocative. I happen to agree generally with a number of his ob- servations . A few of them: '' Administra- tion is the unequal allocation of insuffi- cient resources in a consultative but undemocratic style"; "Because librari- ans are often socialized to a perfectionis- tic tradition, they are sometimes ill equipped to cope with situations that do not provide all of the desired answers''; ''The work of librarians is governed by the professional paradox, 'everything is assigned and nothing is assigned' ''; ''The giving nature of librarianship may explain, in part, why librarians are not administration minded, have resisted quantification of their work, and have been slow to accept fiscal responsibility for their programs." Each chapter con- cludes with a list of references and a bib- liography so extensive that altogether they consume some 125 pages-one quarter of the total. The index, compiled by Susan Klement, is very good. As already noted, I occasionally found the book exasperating. Veaner contra- dicts himself from time to time, exempli- January 1991 fied by his difficulty deciding whether the ''manorial period'' for American ac- ademic libraries lasted until the 1930s, the 1950s, or the 1960s (p.3, 429) and by his statement that ''since faculty do not generally have job descriptions, neither should librarians," six pages after his discussing, approvingly, the inclusion of certain duties and responsibilities ''in each librarian's position description'' (p.245, 239). At other times, Veaner is more than simply opinionated; he gives advice as though it were holy writ, and he is not always on target. For instance, he asserts that a "lack of regular, sched- uled all-staff meetings simply indicates an uncaring administration unwilling to share information,'' without admitting the possibility that in some library envi- ronments other means of communica- tion may be more effective. Other dubi- ous pieces of unqualified advice: "it would be hard to operate even a small li- brary'' if cabinet meetings were not held at least weekly; "if employees are un- motivated it is generally the fault of management"; send a personal letter, not a form letter, to applicants who are no longer being considered for a posi- tion; if you want to maintain the status quo, hire a library assistant and don't waste your money on a professional. Moreover, the book would have profited from a stronger editorial hand. On five separate occasions Veaner praises Rich- ard DeGennaro. Considering that it was DeGennaro who authored this book's foreword, such treatment seems exces- sive. And someone, beginning with the author himself, should have caught the gaffe which finds Veaner mistaking the contents of Hannelore Rader's annual essay on "library orientation" when he recommends it, and it alone, as a source of information for orienting new staff to the workplace. These caveats notwith- standing, the virtues of the book far out- number its flaws. Veaner concludes his preface by pre- dicting that sometime between the years 2000 and 2020 "still another book" on academic library administration ''will then be required.'' I would venture a guess, instead, that well before the end of this century someone, perhaps Veaner himself, will produce such a book with the more inclusive focus of Rutherford D. Rogers and David C. We- ber's University Library Administration or Guy Lyle's The Administration of the Col- lege Library. In the meantime, academic librarians will profit from this work, es- pecially if they follow the author's ad- vice selectively and if they balance his portrayal of the land of academic librari- anship with the titles noted above and with other reading, including Beverly Lynch's recent The Academic Library In Transition. -Richard Hume Werking, Trin- ity University, San Antonio, Texas. Academic Libraries Research Perspec- tives. Ed. by Mary Jo Lynch and Arthur Young. ACRL Publications in Librarianship no. 47. Chicago: Ameri- can Library Assn., 1990. 271p. acid- free $27.50 (ISBN 0-8389-0532-3). LC 90-32120. This important book marks a stage in the development of librarianship as a science with an empirical base. The eight essays published here demonstrate that our profession, like other sciences, can build on research. We can cumulate it, replicate it, expand it where needed, and eschew pointless duplication. Moreover, we can apply the findings of empirical research to advance our prac- tice. What have we learned from research into the functions of academic libraries in the last twenty years? The eight writ- ers here, in chapters on collection devel- opment and management (Charles Os- burn), bibliographical control (Elaine Svenonius), access services (Jo Bell Whitlatch), instructional services (Mary W. George), bibliometrics (Paul Metz), the application of advanced technology (William Gray Potter), analysis and li- brary management (Malcolm Getz), and management theory and organizational structure (Beverly P. Lynch), character- ize, summarize, and direct our applica- tion of our research literature. They tell us what research has discovered and what remains to investigate. The biblio- graphic citations for each chapter, rang- Book Reviews 99 ing from seventeen (Getz) to 204 (George), also provide us with a map to the research literature. Compared to other disciplines, there- search base for librarianship is relatively new, not very deep, and often unused. Osburn characterizes the research in col- lection development and management as having started slowly and using di- verse methods; as applied, not basic; as pieces of a puzzle; and perhaps ready to move to a new plateau. Lynch observes, ''The literature on management of aca- demic libraries is large and diverse, and is comprised, by and large, of expert opinion. Little of this literature has a re- search orientation. The research that does exist is reported, for the most part, in doctoral dissertations and master's theses. These reports, unless revised and published in the journal literature, have little impact on the field as it is prac- ticed." Can we incorporate research findings into our work? This book suggests we can and should. For example, Sveno- nius, summarizing research on the data elements in descriptive cataloging, writes that library patrons use only a few of the data elements in the bibliographic record. "Full-level cataloging, particu- larly as rendered in the MARC biblio- graphic formats, is probably wasteful and excessive; it is certainly redundant. The present demand is for simpler and cheaper cataloging." While that de- mand is justified, she cautions that stan- dards for minimal level cataloging be de- veloped in light of research on all users of the catalog, including serious scholars, and acquisitions and reference librarians, as well as students and casual users. This book is full of information that we can apply on the job. For example, Whitlatch concludes that, in evaluating the job performance of reference staff, ''expert librarian judgment can serve as a substitute for surveying users." Or, we learn that patrons in the reference service tend to "approach staff who [are] standing rather than sitting." Li- brarians thinking of weeding collections should know that older books and peri-