College and Research Libraries The Small College The Small College Talks Back, An Intimate Appraisal. By W i l l i a m W . H a l l , J r . N e w Y o r k , Richard R. Smith, 1951. 214P. $ 3 . 0 0 . President H a l l ' s avowed purpose is " t o t h r o w a little light on an important and t r a d i - tional segment of higher education in America by use of the case method. F r o m the events in the life of one college during the adminis- tration of a single president may be d r a w n lessons of much wider applicability. . . ." T h i s book, then, attempts to be nothing more nor less than a highly personal account of the conduct of the president's office at the College of I d a h o f r o m 1939 to 1948. Problems are f r a n k l y stated and reasoned. T h e answers are not all here, f o r no college president has all the answers. President H a l l offers the reading public the opportunity to accompany him in the conduct of his responsibilities and to d r a w its own conclusions on how these w e r e discharged. T h i s is done with f r a n k - ness, vigor and l i t e r a r y ability. E d u c a t o r and layman alike will have difficulty in putting this volume down, once begun. W h a t a re- freshing change f r o m most professional l i t e r a - t u r e ! T h e problems of most colleges and many universities are all here. Faculty salaries were, as in other places, still at a mid-thirties low, and a certain amount of stagnation had set in. H o w could one a t t r a c t scholarly young men with real teaching ability to this small institution in the sagebrush? T h e en- dowment was insignificant and the d r a f t soon cut deeply into enrolment. H o w , to quote a chapter heading, make " T w o and T w o M a k e Six"? T h e college is situated in an emerging area, coming out f r o m the r a w and rugged con- ditions of its pioneering past and into a set- tling existence with new industries and a cul- t u r e and personality all its own. I n t o this the college must fit. T h e college must blaze its own path to meet the needs of its area and p e r f o r m a function different f r o m the state university, its great competitor. H o w voca- tional education was finally ruled out and the liberal a r t s firmly established as policy to the satisfaction of trustees and alumni is an in- teresting story with lessons f o r all educators. M u c h of the w o r k of a college president is, of course, in raising f u n d s and in public rela- tions. H e r e the characters are d r a w n sharp and clear, to the discomfort of some and glory of others. T h e trustees, individually and collectively, are not excepted. T h e mem- ber whose chief contribution to the college is termed "opening the meeting with prayer and seconding the motions," exists perhaps on other boards but does not expect such prominent recognition. A prominent and distressing lack is the scant attention given to the college library. L i b r a r i a n s of liberal a r t s colleges will find this volume highly u s e f u l f o r its light on the problems faced in the president's office. T h e y will have difficulty in reading the book be- cause, judging f r o m personal experience, their wives and secretaries will r e f u s e to give it up. I t belongs, f o r all its deceptive spontaneity and charm, in any collection on higher edu- cation. W o u l d t h a t some librarian had the wit and time to produce a similar book on his o w n w o r k . — A r t h u r T. Hamlin, Association of College and Reference Libraries. Bibliography in an Age of Science Bibliography in an Age of Science. By L o u i s N . Ridenour, Ralph R. Shaw and A l b e r t G . H i l l . U r b a n a , University of Illinois Press, 1951. gop. $ 2 . 5 0 . L i b r a r i a n s reading these second W i n d s o r lectures will have the eerie sensation of mov- ing along the thin knife edge of the barely known into the realm of science fiction— science fiction set in the library. L i b r a r i a n readers will be "uneasy unless they have pre- pared themselves by acquiring a bowing acquaintance with Berkeley's Giant Brains and W i e n e r ' s Cybernetics. T h e statements made and implications d r a w n by D e a n Ridenour, a physicist and r a d a r expert, and by P r o f e s s o r Hill, another physicist and one- time Bell telephone engineer, out-fantasy Frederick Keppel's "Looking F o r w a r d , A OCTOBER, 1951 32 7 Fantasy" in the 1939 A L A symposium, The Library of Tomorrow. Ralph Shaw's lecture is comfortably more familiar as to content, but even he verges on the unfamiliar world of binary digits and electronic pencils. Ridenour points out that the present-day problems of acquisition, storage and indexing are the product of modern technology which libraries have failed to exploit in seeking so- lutions. In Ridenour's view the slowing down of libraries' growth rate, in the face of increasing materials and increasing demands, is a sign of inadequate technique. T h e costs of cataloging and storage by current tech- niques are approaching society's limit of ac- ceptance. T o better the situation Ridenour proposes that library problems be studied from the standpoint of operational research, a technique brought to a high order of de- velopment during the w a r and described in Methods of Operations Research by P . M . M o r s e and G . E. Kimball. T h r o u g h this mode of attack Hill would add that of the "systems engineer," a concept borrowed from the Bell telephone systems, whose f u n d a - mental problems are not dissimilar to those of libraries. A telephone system involves the interrelation of a theoretically infinite num- ber of telephone instruments whose switching problems increase as a square of the number of instruments. If one assumes that the ob- jective of libraries is to put into the hands of its clients appropriate units of information, which are interrelated with respect to the clients' need for them, the significance of this advice is apparent. Both systems, engineering and the methods employed by operational analysis, are wholly alien to the substance of library education and usually to the back- ground of librarians. I t seems likely, there- fore, that libraries will be the victim of a cultural age unless the application of these techniques is stimulated by the application of more money than libraries are accustomed to secure from their normal sources. Shaw's lecture brings us cfoser to reality; it is a realistic evaluative resume of mechani- cal, electrical and electronic devices for stor- ing, sorting and reproducing bibliographic materials. Since most of these devices were developed for other than bibliographical use (except the Rapid Selector) none is well adapted to library uses but all are predictive of more appropriate devices which might be evolved. A valuable axiom to be kept in mind when considering the use of novel equipment in libraries can be derived from Shaw's re- m a r k s : " T h e productive speed of a process involving a very rapid machine can be no greater than the speed of the slowest por- tion of the process." Hill reports briefly on the M I T program in scientific age to learning. I t is fashionable to propose projects f o r the attention of the Ford Foundation. If one agrees with the predictions of the authors, it would be most appropriate to urge this newest member of the foundation family to create a large subsidiary to study the prob- lems inherent in the reproduction, storage and dissemination of the records of human thought and to develop methods and devices for solv- ing them. Probably it is only by such a well- financed and coordinated attack that library technology can be brought quickly enough to a proper level to prevent severe damage to the library in its present institutional role.— Donald Coney, University of California Li- brary, Berkeley. Fast p r o t e c t i o n for p a m p h l e t s a n d p a p e r - c o v e r e d p e r i o d i c a l s u p to % inch thick. • Nothing to moisten, sew or drill. • Staples penetrate special hinge strip easily. • Inexpensive—cuts costs in pro- cessing. • Available in all standard sizes. • See page 43—New No. 51 Catalog. tyzyhndY otte- lac. L I B R A R Y S U P P L I E S S Y R A C U S E • N E W Y O R K 390 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES