College and Research Libraries nology neither fully evolved nor widely used, at least on a large scale, than to preservation microfilming (eleven pages), photocopying (three pages), and digital techniques (two pages). In the case of microfilming, this brev- ity seems problematic for a major preser- vation tool that is widely used in research libraries. The section on preser- vation microfilming concentrates on the selection of materials suitable for film- ing, bibliographic control, and the place of microfilm in the array of preservation options. These considerations are drawn from Nancy Gwinn's Preservation Micro- filming: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists (1987) and various RLG publications. The section on types of film is very brief, and given the level of technical detail else- where, one would expect a fuller discus- sion about the nature of silver halide, diazo, and vesicular film, and the rea- sons why the latter two are unsuitable for archival film copies. Nor is the glos- sary helpful here in noting the expected longevity of these types of film, and no- where does the caveat appear that the different sorts of film should never be stored together. A more serious shortcoming is the author's failure to convey the urgency of the brittle book problem. Likewise, he ignores the efforts of such entities as the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Council on Library Resources to craft a national agenda for preserving the intellectual content of an estimated twelve million unique titles in the na- tion's research collections. The Commis- sion is mentioned, but nowhere are its activities summarized. DePew mentions the Library of Congress's goal of deacid- ifying one million books annually over twenty years but not the National En- dowment for the Humanities's Brittle Book Program, a twenty-year plan pro- jecting the preservation microfilming of three million brittle books and serials. There is no discussion of the resulting large-scale, federally funded preserva- tion microfilming projects that are in- creasingly a feature of research libraries' preservation activities. A look at the range of individual projects and efforts Book Reviews 185 by various consortia with their various administrative possibilities might have provided a useful backdrop to De Pew's detailed discussion of numerous preser- vation techniques. As it develops, the field of preservation is moving beyond a concern for techniques alone to a con- scious focus on strategy, and this shift should receive some attention in a hand- book that claims to survey the literature. The omission of this aspect of the national perspective is mirrored in a ser- ies of omissions in detail. The list of preser- vation services neglects some major funding agencies like the National Li- brary of Medicine, and prominent mi- crofilmers like Research Publications and Micrographic Systems of Connec- ticut, both of which do contract work for major preservation projects. In spite of detailed treatment of the deacidification process, the book does not include Akzo Chemicals, the firm that holds the patent on the DEZ process favored by the Li- brary of Congress. In sum, the handbook is a highly detailed discussion of certain preserva- tion techniques without serious considera- tion of the institutional and national context in which those techniques are de- ployed. This flaw makes this work, while generally informative, less than a fully satisfying overview for college and research librarians.-Susanne F. Roberts, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Desktop Publishing in the University. Ed. by JoanN. Burstyn. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Univ. Pr., 1991. 137p. paper, $12.95 (ISBN 0-8156-8116-X). LC 91- 8759. Two and a half years ago, Syracuse University and the Association of Uni- versity Presses sponsored a conference on ''The Impact of Desktop Publishing on University Life." At the time, this was a topic fraught with exciting possibilities and hopes, but also questions, doubts, and even fears. The same atmosphere of uncertainty surrounds the topic today. Only the terminology has changed: the almost quaint-sounding phrase desktop publishing has been replaced by terms 186 College & Research Libraries like scholarly communication and elec- tronic publishing. Several of the articles in this slender volume are based on papers presented at that 1989 conference. They serve as evidence of the inexorable race of technological change, and of the inabil- ity of social, ethical, and economic systems to keep pace. Some questions have been answered since this conference was held, and re- search has refined our understanding of others. Perhaps it is no longer possible to deal with the whole spectrum of issues in electronic publishing in the sweeping fashion attempted in this volume. But for that very reason, librarians who are new to the topic may appreciate this modest overview. The articles are brief and informal, bearing unmistakable traces of their oral beginnings. The articles dealing with desktop pub- lishing in the narrow sense are the most straightforward and optimistic in the collection. In "Who Is in Control?" Robert L. Oakman describes the essen- tial role of the computer in producing scholarly editions of texts. David May's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice: A Publica- tion Manager's View" is a rather re- signed admission of the speed and flexibility to be gained by the decentral- ization of campus publications, despite loss of unity and control. Charles L. Creesy of Princeton University Press provides a case study of computeriza- tion within a publishing house in "Cut- ting Costs." When it comes to the wider implica- tions of electronic communication among scholars, however, the outlook is less rosy. Deborah S. Johnson ("Issues of Access and Equity") warns that the very "mal- leability" of computers can violate the integrity of the text, and that technology may exacerbate inequalities in the dis- tribution of resources. Czeslaw Jan Grycz ("On the Proper Role of Desktop Publishing in the Environment of Scholarly Publishing'') deplores both the decline in quality and the loss of bibliographic con- trol that result from self-publishing. Robert M. Hayes ("Who Should Be in Control?") points out that publishing in- volves more than the mere printing of March 1992 texts. It also entails the solicitation of manuscripts, quality control, and dis- tribution-controls that are missing in desktop publishing. Weighing in on the opposite side are those authors who welcome the changes made possible by technology, even while admitting that the . "rules that govern [this] discourse have yet to be decided." Joan W. Burstyn, the book's editor, points out that barriers are breaking down between teaching and research, text and commentary, the published and the unpublished. "We may be passing from the age of individually written works into an age of collaborative crea- tion," she remarks. In an interesting speculative piece, "Desktop Publishing: Its Impact on the Academic Commu- nity," Robert J. Silverman envisions the electronic publishing process of the fu- ture, with all its implications for peer review and tenure. For example, he fore- sees a process of post-publication review in the form of commentaries on an elec- tronic publication. Positive or negative, conservative or revolutionary, all the authors in this book sound the same themes and iden- tify the same areas of conflict and com- promise. Whether one calls it a breaking down of structures or a breaking down of barriers, no one denies that disintegra- tion and decentralization are taking place. Have new unifying structures emerged? Does quality necessarily suffer when traditional forms of control are abandoned? Do small institutions, researchers, and disciplines have more to gain or to lose from these changes? Will the linking of word and image brought about by the computer lead to new forms of learning and understand- ing? Or will this merging of specialized functions detract from both quality and efficiency? Finally, how will librarians guarantee bibliographic and physical access to the mass of material generated at the desktop? Librarians, after all, are only interested observers of the scholarly publishing scene; whereas the organiza- tion and preservation of knowledge are their responsibility.-Jean Alexander, North- western University, Evanston, Illinois.