reviews Book Reviews 205 on this project. It has done such fine work previously resurrecting titles that deserve new life that I am puzzled by their judg- ment in this case. Better that Tolzmann had begun ab ovo and written his own history of libraries, one that had the free- dom and space to adapt old stories to new purposes. As it stands, however, this is a book that will probably satisfy neither the scholar, nor the librarian, nor the collec- tor.—Michael Ryan, University of Pennsyl- vania. Weller, Ann C. Editorial Peer Review: Its Strengths and Weaknesses. Medford, N.J.: Information Today (ASIST Mono- graph Series), 2001. 342p. $35.60 (members); $44.50 (nonmembers) (ISBN 1573871001). LC 00-47204. The process of refereeing articles submit- ted for publication to scholarly and sci- entific journals is of central concern in academe and the professions. The deci- sion to publish or not to publish is one on which sciences advance, the orderly progress of knowledge is achieved, and individual careers depend. It is a process through which, presumably, all new con- tributions are validated by the judgments of authors’ and researchers’ professional peers and deemed fit to join the knowl- edge base of the discipline Attention has been given to this phe- nomenon only during the past few de- cades. Prior to the 1960s, there was virtu- ally no interest in the phenomenon, at least as a researchable topic in itself. Indeed, it is questionable that there were enough problems in the process to raise questions of its legitimacy, its pervasiveness, or its ultimate impact in the scholarly commu- nity prior to the expansion of research, of the number of research journals, and of the general level of interest in the equity of access to publishing outlets prior to the 1960s. Although it was not unknown for editors of scholarly and research journals to send manuscripts out to be evaluated by experts not immediately associated with the journals, it was not a common practice in many areas until well after World War Two and even into the 1970s in some disciplines. The book at hand is not a piece of origi- nal research or the result of an indepen- dent investigation. The author’s purpose is much more modest. Her avowed intent has been simply “to conduct a systematic review of published studies on the edito- rial peer review process” from the earli- est studies she could identify through her closing date of 1997. Weller presents here a highly structured approach to the or- ganization of the reviews, beginning each chapter with an overview of the issues involved. She posits an explicit set of questions to be answered and a set of in- clusion criteria for the research reports included in each section before describ- ing those articles that address her ques- tions and meet her criteria. Each chapter concludes with a general assessment of the research in the area treated in it and recommendations for further research. Most of these suggest more work along the same line and, for the most part, are directed toward practical ends—to im- prove the editorial review process. It is a practical, instrumental approach. The array of concerns this book ad- dresses extends much further than the simple practicality this description might suggest. Enough research has been con- ducted and published over the past four decades to produce a respectable show- ing, and she touches on every conceivable aspect of the issues involved in the pro- cess. After a general introduction to the problem, she considers studies of rejected manuscripts, the composition of editorial review boards, and the role of editors. She continues to evaluate research into the various roles of reviewers, their biases and agreements, and the use of special- ized reviewers of statistical elements of research. She concludes the book with a chapter on the role of referees in the elec- tronic environment and a final short chap- ter of general recommendations and ob- servations on the editorial review process. Through it all, she maintains a remark- ably objective and descriptive tone, which, at times, is leavened with obser- vations on the limitations and fallacies 206 College & Research Libraries March 2002 involved in the design and execution of the studies under discussion. Her assess- ment of the validity of utilizing fabricated manuscripts to assess the biases of refer- ees, in particular, illustrates her excellent command of the methodologies involved. Weller usually arrives at balanced, well-conceived conclusions, but at times, her familiarity with the topic and her commitment to the success and preserva- tion of the refereeing process betrays her. The chapter on reviewer biases is a sound piece of work and her assessment of the research in this area is generally solid, but she does encounter some problems, prob- ably brought about from her acceptance of the researchers’ assumptions underly- ing their own work. She notes, for ex- ample, that “the studies of reviewer bias must be considered in light of studies that have shown that researchers and schol- ars from major institutions publish more than researchers and scholars from less prominent institutions.” She cites the fail- ure of researchers into the process to ex- amine the phenomenon of authors resub- mitting rejected manuscripts or the rela- tionship between prolific authors and blind refereeing as possible reasons for this phenomenon. What she ignores, it seems, is the more obvious connection. It is precisely because more scholars and researchers from prominent institutions publish more than those from minor in- stitutions that their institutions are con- sidered prominent. If most of the repu- table research in any field is published by the faculty of Northeast State College, then Northeast State College is, by defi- nition, a prominent institution. Her recommendation that journal edi- tors inform readers of the level of peer review undergone by each article also strikes a dissonant chord. The notion that a subtitle would be appended to each ar- ticle by the editors as a permanent iden- tifier forming part of the bibliographic record could be appealing but is probably impractical from an editorial perspective and undesirable from an author’s view. It seems unlikely that many authors would be amenable to such a tag becom- ing part of their title. To be sure, the author’s lapses of judg- ment are never as complete as those of some of the researchers she reviews. M. S. Kochar’s idea, published in a 1986 is- sue of Journal of Chronic Diseases, that the major medical journals might band to- gether to evaluate manuscripts submitted to the collective journals represented and apportion them out to the individual jour- nals for publication was described with- out irony. Weller did note, though, that the idea acquired no citations in the Web of Science at least in the following decade. Anne Weller’s contribution to the lit- erature of editorial peer review goes well beyond her modest attempt at reviewing the research literature. Indeed, some 25 percent of the hundreds of pieces com- mented on in this book are thought pieces, editorials, and policy statements rather than research. This book represents more a survey of thought about the process than research into it. It is well constructed, well written, and thorough in its cover- age of the literature of editorial peer re- view. However, it is difficult to find an intended readership for the work. The lack of an author index makes it impos- sible to identify any particular piece of research or writing, and the abbreviated subject index is redundant given the clar- ity of the chapter divisions. It is neither a book that can be read nor one that can readily serve as a reference. However, it is a book that should be in any collection serving researchers and authors or gradu- ate students aspiring to publish their re- search. In addition to the understanding of the process of scientific refereeing, Weller’s frequently perceptive critiques of existing research and suggestions for fur- ther research, particularly in her conclud- ing chapter, may fuel and inspire research in the area. Weller has produced a dense, sometimes difficult, book, but one that is worth the effort.—Lee Shiflett, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. << /ASCII85EncodePages false /AllowTransparency false /AutoPositionEPSFiles true /AutoRotatePages /All /Binding /Left /CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 20%) /CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CalCMYKProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Warning /CompatibilityLevel 1.3 /CompressObjects /Tags /CompressPages true /ConvertImagesToIndexed true /PassThroughJPEGImages true /CreateJobTicket false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /DetectBlends true /DetectCurves 0.0000 /ColorConversionStrategy /CMYK /DoThumbnails false /EmbedAllFonts true /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /EmbedJobOptions true /DSCReportingLevel 0 /EmitDSCWarnings false /EndPage -1 /ImageMemory 1048576 /LockDistillerParams false /MaxSubsetPct 1 /Optimize true /OPM 1 /ParseDSCComments true /ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true /PreserveCopyPage true /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveEPSInfo true /PreserveFlatness false /PreserveHalftoneInfo true /PreserveOPIComments false /PreserveOverprintSettings true /StartPage 1 /SubsetFonts false /TransferFunctionInfo /Apply /UCRandBGInfo /Preserve /UsePrologue false /ColorSettingsFile () /AlwaysEmbed [ true ] /NeverEmbed [ true ] /AntiAliasColorImages false /CropColorImages false /ColorImageMinResolution 151 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleColorImages true /ColorImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDepth -1 /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeColorImages true /ColorImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterColorImages true /ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /ColorACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /ColorImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000ColorImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages false /GrayImageMinResolution 151 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /GrayImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000GrayImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages false /MonoImageMinResolution 600 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.16667 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict << /K -1 >> /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile () /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False /CreateJDFFile false /Description << /ENU (IPC Print Services, Inc. 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