College and Research Libraries + cussed in addition to the mechanical details. These points are touched upon briefly in the Proceedings. There is room for another conference to digest the data and opinions brought into the open at Airlie. The Pro- ceedings constitute a most valuable source of data and opinion relating to library auto- mation.-Alan M. Rees, Western Reserve University. Encyclopaedias: Their History Throughout the Ages. A Bibliographical Guide with Extensive Historical Notes to the Gener- al Encyclopaedias Issued Throughout the World from 350 B.C. to the Present Day. By Robert Collison. New York & London, Hafner Publishing Company, 1964. 319p. $7.50. Mr. Collison, librarian of the BBC refer- ence library, has compiled several volumes for which reference librarians and students have been grateful. His most recent contri- bution puts us further in his debt, for he has brought together a quantity of information in this book on encyclopedias. It is more ambitious in plan and in scope than his books on bibliographies and dictionaries, since it is in the form of an historical narra- tive and aims at comprehensiveness. The narrative begins with the Greek sources of the western encyclopedic tradi- tion and ends with references to new ency- clopedias. It includes whole chapters on Diderot's Encyclopedie, on the Encyclo- paedia Britannica, and on the various publi- cations of the firm of Brockhaus. A chro- nology of significant dates and an introduc- tion discussing some of the problems in- volved in the production of encyclopedias precedes the main text, and following it are a general bibliography, a list of encyclo- pedias not mentioned in the text, and a re- print of Coleridge's "Preliminary Treatise on Method" from the Encyclopaedia Metro- politana. The chronological arrangement adopted by the author presents difficulties which he has not entirely overcome. It is not possible, for example, easily to trace the development of encylopedia making in any one country or culture because the only grouping by language is an incomplete list of lesser works in the appendix. Mr. Collison's ac- counts of the Arabic and Chinese encyclo- pedic traditions are practically worthless since he only provides brief descriptions of Book Reviews I 339 individual titles dispersed throughout the text. Index entries for languages or coun- tries would have partially solved this prob- lem, but the index to the book is limited to personal names and titles . It is incomplete even in these. The author's intention as to scope is not clear. The title indicates that the book is confined to general encyclopedias but there is a section on modem encyclopedias in spe- cial subject fields at th e end of the last chapter. Coverage of Asian works is very uneven; for example, no Japanese titles are mentioned. Numerous works of minor im- portance in western langauges are included, but others of equal claims are missing. Few important titles were overlooked, but surely the East German version of "Meyer" is worth mentioning. The treatment of individual works is mostly limited to externals of bibliographic detail, publishing history, and arrangement. The amount of space devoted to individual titles is not always in proportion to their im- portance-twenty lines is hardly adequate, for example, for the Enciclopedia Italiana. Judgments expressed are the conventional ones, although most read ers would not agree that the contents of the eleventh edi- tion of the Encyclopaedia Britannica "were kept within the mental range of the average man." References are provided in the text and at the end of chapters, as well as in the general bibliography. Th ey are not as com- plete or as precise as on e could wish; a list- ing of Templeman's and Wright's Bibli- ographies of Studies in Victorian Literature is not very helpful, and it is unfortunate that the only recent substantial discussion of the principles of encyclopedia making (in the September 1962 issue of the Amer- ican Behavioral Scientist) should have been overlooked. In spite of its imperfections, Mr. Colli- son's book, as the first attempt at a compre- hensive account of the d evelopment of the general encyclopedia, will undoubtely be useful. By indirectly exposing the shallow- ness of our present knowledge, it can per- haps serve another purpose in encouraging reference librarians and students to under- take more specialized studies in order to enrich our understanding of these important reference works.-Marjorie Karlson, Wash- ington University. · • •