College and Research Libraries


to Rico, with subdivisions by city. The di-
rectory tries to bring together in one place 
the component libraries in a system (e.g., 
the public library and its branches m a 
given city or the various faculties and in-
stitutes of a university), but it does not do 
so for universities with facilities in several 
cities. Each entry contains the following in-
formation: name and address of library, 
name of librarian, number of volumes, date 
established, type of library (public, univer-
sity, school or special), subject specialization 
(only one or two given), and whether or 
not the library exchanges publications. The 
fact that the data is in Spanish should cause 
no problem to non-Spanish readers, because 
there is no text other than the preface, and 
the terms which occur in the listings are 
either cognates, or may be found quickly in 
any Spanish-English dictionary. 

The preface points out the difficulty of 
obtaining up-to-date information on the 
size of libraries and the names of their li-
brarians, and a special note for the section 
devoted to Cuba warns that there is much 
pre-1959 information which could not be 
made current. This perhaps explains why 
some of the statistics presented are at vari-
ance with those found in other sources (e.g., 
The World of Learning) and those obtained 
in personal contact with library staffs. 

Although the compilers apparently did 
not feel it to be a part of their task, an 
analysis of the data collected would have 
given a useful quantitative picture of Latin 
American libraries. For example, a count of 
libraries by country shows that Brazil, Ar-
gentina, Mexico, and Colombia are (as one 
might expect) far in the lead; each reports 
two hundred or more-a figure which no 
other nation approaches. This reader noted 
126 libraries of over fifty thousand volumes 
each, with the ten largest being, in descend-
ing order: National Library of Brazil, Na-
tional Library of Chile, General Adminis-
tration of Archives, Libraries, and Museums 
(Chile), National Library of Argentina, Fac-

ulty of Medicine (University of Buenos 
Aires), the national libraries of Uruguay, 
Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia, and the 
University of La Plata (Argentina). 

That the compilers recognize the short-
comings of this directory is clearly indicated 
by the fact that it carries the label "pro-

SEPTEMBER 1963 

visional edition." This reviewer offers the 
following suggestions for incorporation into 
the final version: ( 1) coverage on a more 
uniform basis of such types of libraries as 
those of university faculties and institutes 
and those of the bi-national centers; (2) 
expansion of listings to include the newly 
independent nations of the Caribbean and 
the remaining European possessions in the 
area, thus making the directory comprehen-
sive for the entire area south of the Rio 
Grande; (3) enlarging the data on each 
library to include size of staff, budget, vol-
umes circulated and possibly publications 
issued; (4) analysis, perhaps in an in.troduc-
tory section, of the information presented; 
and (5) preparation of an index of names 
of libraries and librarians and of the sub-
ject specialties indicated. Perhaps this is too 
much to expect from the limited staff of 
the Library Development Program without 
outside assistance from a university or foun-
dation, but the problem might be attacked 
over a period of time by dividing the com-
pilation into several regional volumes or 
even separate directories for each type of 
library. 

There is no doubt, however, that until a 
replacement for this provisional edition ap-
pears, it will serve not only as a useful di-
rectory but also as a guide to potential ex-
change sources among libraries in the Amer-
icas.-William Vernon jackson, University 
of Wisconsin. 

Information Retrieval 
Nonconventional Technical Information 

Systems in Current Use. No. 3. Washing-
ton, D.C.: National Science Foundation, 
October 1962. xx, 209p. 

In January of 1958, the National Science 
Foundation published a slender pamphlet 
of forty-three pages under the title Non-
conventional Technical Information Sys-
tems in Current Use. This compilation, pre-
pared by Madeline Berry (now Mrs. Hen-
derson) of the NSF Scientific Documentation 
Program, described twenty-four "technical 
information systems, currently in operation, 
embodying new principles for the organiza-
tion of subject matter or employing auto-
·matic eguipment for storage and search." 

435 



These systems were manual or mechanized 
and employed aspect cards or item cards. 
Five of the systems described were in use at 
government installations (National Insti-
tutes of Health, Naval Ordnance Test Sta-
tion, U.S. Army Biological Warfare Lab-
oratory, U.S. Geological Survey, and U.S. 
Patent Office), and all others were in large 
industrial organizations. 

A second, edition, listing thirty-four sys-
tems, appeared in September of 1959, by 
which time two universities (Purdue and 
the University of Illinois) had joined the 
ranks of the innovators. A supplement to 
the second edition, listing eighteen new sys-
tems (including a personal file at Wayne 
State University), was published in March 
1960. 

The third edition, which appeared in Oc-
tober of 1962, demonstrates the dramatic 
growth in numbers of nonconventional in-
formation retrieval systems in an astonish-
ingly short period of time. The present vol-
ume contains 209 pages, a five-fold increase 
over the first edition, and describes almost · 
ninety systems. Industry still leads in the 
use of these systems, fifty-one being in indus-
trial organizations; of these chemicals are 
the largest single group, though pharma-
ceuticals and electronics are well represent-
ed. The greatest expansion, however, seems 
to have taken place in the agencies of the 
federal government, represented by eighteen 
installations, almost a four-fold increase 
since 1958. Universities still lag, though 
their ranks have been augmented by the 
addition of Montreal, Pittsburgh, and West-
ern Reserve. A few independent research or-
ganizations (such as Battelle Memorial In-
stitute) have also begun the use of noncon-
ventional information systems. 

Increasing sophistication in such systems 
is also evident in the variety of principles 
now employed in their construction and the 
techniques applied in their use. The origi-
nal simple classification devised by Mrs. 
Henderson is no longer adequate, and the 
third edition is arranged as follows: 
1. Systems which store references (57) 

Manual (2) 
Uniterm (7) 
Peek-a-Boo (7) 
Edge-notched cards (3) 
Simple sorter (14) 

Collative (12) 
Photographic (2) 
Computer (10) 

2. Systems which store data (17) 
Chemical-biological test data (11) 
Administrative data (2) 
Other data (4) 

3. Systems which produce general search 
aids (15) 

Indexes, bibliographies, and publication 
aids (9) 

Machine-searchable files (4) 
The usefulness of this volume is increased 

by the inclusion of three appendices which 
are, respectively, a supplementary guide to 
individuals and organizations of which the 
systems are described in the body of the 
text; an index of geographical locations (the 
District of Columbia leads with twelve en-
tries, while Ohio and New Jersey rank next 
with eight each); and a "subject guide." A 
preliminary section also provides useful defi-
nitions and scope notes to the classification 
of the entries. 

Despite the fact that this pubHcation is 
not evaluative, and that the descriptions 
submitted are only edited, not verified, as 
the first ones were, as a general inventory 
the compilation should be useful to all who 
are concerned with the development of 
bibliographic and information systems, con-
ventional and otherwise. The Office of 
Science Information Service of the National 
Science Foundation is to be commended for 
making this material available at frequent 
intervals. 

Assuming the accuracy and completeness 
of this list, a number of important and in-
teresting observations can be made respect-
ing the emergence of nonconventional sys-
tems for the organization of information. 
The rapid proliferation is obvious, and the 
increasing sophistication has already been 
mentioned. Moreover, one may assume that 
they are proving to be successful, since of 
the total listed only six have been aban-
doned, and one of these was eliminated by 
a corporate merger. As noted above, indus-
try has taken the lead in developing these 
systems, and chemicals would seem to be 
most acutely aware of the need for improve-
ment in access to recorded information. 
Substantially more than half of the systems 
inventoried store references rather than sub-

436 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



r-

stantive data, which fact tends to substan-
tiate the contention of R. A. Fairthorne 
that, in most instances, "information re-
trieval" really means "document retrieval," 
and in the final analysis, much of the work 
in so-called information retrieval has really 
been the invention of mechanical stack-boys. 

Librarians in general, and those engaged 
in library education in particular, can find 
small reason for pride in this volume. In-
novation in information systems is definite-
ly not coming from the library world, and 
only one library school is listed in this com-
pilation. Admittedly, such a catalog as is 
here reviewed can throw no light on the 
extent to which these unconventional sys-
tems represent a real advance over tradi-
tional library methods, but there seems to 
be little basis for believing that this trend 
toward the unconventional will not become 
an important force in the librarianship of 
the future. If librarians continue in their 
neglect of it, they may one day find them-
selves hopelessly outdistanced in the race 
to surmount the rising Everest of man's 
recorded knowledge.-]. H. Shera7 Western 
Reserve University. 

Information Retrieval Management. Ed. by 
Lowell H. Hattery and Edward M. Mc-
Cormick. Detroit: American Data Process-
ing, 1962. 151p. $ 15. 

This is a potpourri of papers, adapted 
from the proceedings of the Fourth Insti-
tute on Information Storage and Retrieval 
presented in February 1962 at American 
University. As with all such stews, some of 
the meat is tender and tasty, most of the 
vegetables are either underdone or so pap-
like as to inhibit taste, and one's favorite 
ingredient is either absent or illcooked. 
Such collections are becoming all too fre-
quent. At least five such volumes on vari-
ous aspects of the information sciences have 
appeared in the winter and spring of 1962-
63. These potpourries may have stimulating 
paragraphs or even whole papers. As books, 
however, they suffer from discontinuity, 
hastily presented ideas with little support-
ing evidence, and advice reminiscent of 
commencement addresses. Above all, they 
illustrate the paucity of our knowledge, both 

SEPTEMBER 1963 

empirical and pragmatic, of information sys-
tems. 

The volume at hand is no exception. Ac-
cording to the editors, the purpose of the 
papers is "to present a broader systems ap-
proach to the handling of technical infor-
mation." (This reviewer can ' t find the ref-
erent to "broader" in the Preface.) Of the 
eighteen papers in the volume, only nine 
seem to fit the . "systems approach." (Per-
haps this is the meaning of "broader.") 
This does not mean the other papers are 
poor. In fact, the better papers appear out-
side the "systems approach." 

The papers can be divided (although 
they are not physically so divided) into five 
general categories. The first explores cul-
tural and intellectual aspects, and exhorts 
the reader to do something under such titles 
as "What Must Give in the Documentation 
Crisis." However, one should not miss Saul 
Gorn's paper "Computers, Communication 
and Science-Extending Man's Intellect," a 
perceptive tour de force on "computer ap-
preciation." 

The second subject area examines man-
agement's relations to information centers. 
Edward McCormick's paper, the last in the 
volume, is a good summal"y. In fact, it 
should be read first. 

In the third area, the papers explore fac-
ets of communication. H. P. Luhn, as usual, 
writes well on "Automated Intelligence Sys-
tems." Helen Brownson reviews the state of 
knowledge of the communication habits of 
scientists-a state, and Mrs. Brownson agrees, 
largely unknown and unexplored. As Don 
Swanson so aptly put it, past studies have 
been "descriptive rather than diagnostic." 
· In the fourth category, three papers skim 
rapidly over various approaches to informa-
tion management. In one paper, by C. D. 
Gull, the reader is urged to answer such 
questions as "Is our present system satisfac-
tory?" without a clue as to what a "satis-
factory" system is. 

The final three papers describe the oper-
ating experience of three information cen-
ters-Esso Research and Engineering, Gen-
eral Electric Flight Propulsion Division, and 
the Science and Technology Division of the 
Library of Congress. 

This volume, like others of the genera, is 
significant in its intimations of a future in 

437