College and Research Libraries


ed from the pages of professional journals like 
Science. Payment for writing would have to ex-
ceed the literary quarterlies by at least fivefold. 
None of the reviewers would have to be put in 
the position of being "regulars," lest they stag-
nate, nor must they be overworked, lest they 
come to view writing for the magazine as a 
chore. The orientation of the whole enterprise 
must by no means be exclusively literary, and 
its commitment should always be to the life of 
the mind, its sole raison d'etre. 

Have we set our sights too low? 
But-and here is the kicker-Mr. Hol-

lander then notes: "At a casual estimate, 
this would cost at least $750,000 a year." 
-Richard Harwell, Bowdoin College. 

Indexing Theory, Indexing Methods, and 
Search Devices. By Frederick Jonker. 
New York: Scarecrow Press, 1964. 124p. 
$4. (64-11785). 

Indexing is not a new subject to the li-
brarian. It is taught extensively in library 
schools, and the professional literature 
abounds with definitive works and ·treatises 
on methods and practice. With the growth 
·of scientific and technical literature and the 
advent of automation, deeper studies have 
been made to increase knowledge and 
understanding of the weaknesses and 
strengths of conventional techniques. Docu-
mentalists have explored unconventional 
avenues of research. The field is therefore in 
a receptive mood to welcome a solid book 
on indexing which sets forth the general 
principles of the science. In this respect, the ' 
text under review falls nowhere near the 
target. 

Rather than advancing a major theory, or 
even evaluating current methods, the book 
only verbalizes some unsteady personal ob-
servations of its author. This alone is con-
fusing because th~ text is couched in the 
author's private, technical vocabulary. He 

. speaks of the "terminological continuum," 
"access guides," "living language," "unper-
muted multiple-criterion classification," "sys-
tematicity," etc. Not one of these words and 
phrases is explained in terms of their rela-
tionship to established definitions or doc-
trine. The bibliography reflects a shallow ap-
preciation of standard source material. 

Evidently only slight attention was given 

NOVEMBER 1964 

to page makeup and editorial organization. 
Several of the illustrations are too small to 
decipher, and some graphs are either partial-
ly or completely unlabeled. A misspelled 
word appears on the table of contents page, 
and others are conspicuous through the 
book. An entire section listed in the table 
of contents is missing from the text.-Jo-
seph Becker, Washington, D.C. 

Library Administration: Theory and 
Practice. By R. L. Mittal. Delhi: Metro-
politan Book Company, 1964. xiv, 514p. 
$5.50 . . 

Believing as he does that the standard 
works in library administration, foreign and 
domestic, have an "alien background" and 
fail to meet the needs of Indian students and 
librarians, the deputy librarian of Panjab 
University library has written this book "to 
present in a compendious form various prin-
ciples and practices concerning [the] ad-
ministration of libraries." 

Mr. Mittal's compendium opens with 
three chapters on the "Philosophy of Li-
brarianship," "Library in Education," and 
"Library Administration: Function and 
Principles." These are followed by a dis-
cussion of principles of personnel admin-
istration and library finance. Some later 
chapters outline in great detail the activities 
and operations of libraries in the manner 
of a staff manual: "Processing Work," 
"Maintenance Work," "Stacking and Shelv-
ing Methods," "Care and Repair of Books," 
"Periodicals Work," "Library Rules and 
Regulations," and "Charging and Discharg-
ing Methods." Toward the middle of the 
book there is a chapter on reference service 
in which the author offers his Odyssey of 
reference books. This change in menu is a 
welcome relief but, in view of the author's 
stated purpose, it is surprising to find his 
annotated list of reference works so heavily 
slanted toward American publications. There 
is an index but no separate bibliography. 

This book, I am sure, will prove a useful 
contribution to Indian librarians and Indian 
students of librarianship. In a sense it is a 
kind of reference work and it suffers some 
of the weaknesses of a reference book which 
was not designed as such. Quotations, for-
mulae, statistics, names, and footnotes shu£-

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