College and Research Libraries


Book Reviews 
Administrative Organization of Austra-

lian University Libraries. Ed. by 
F. D. O. Fielding. (Library Association 
of Australia, University and College Li-
braries Section. News Sheet, Supplement, 
No. 1). Adelaide, 1966. various pagings. 

The detailed analysis of the libraries of 
fourteen universities of Australia in 1966, 
as reflected in the charts and statistical 
data presented in this report, shows a 
striking growth since 1961, when it was 
the reviewer's privilege to work with the 
librarians of that country. Mr. Fielding, li-
brarian at the University of Queensland, 
has done a meticulous job in identifying 
various aspects of the organizations and 
operations of university libraries of the 
country, including such matters as library 
committees, personnel, selection and acqui-
sition activities, cataloging and classifica-
tion, housing and loan of materials, de-
partmental libraries, size of collections, and 
other aspects of the individual institutions. 
Organization charts of each library are in-
cluded. 

The usefulness of such a compilation to 
librarians of the country, as well as to stu-
dents and others interested in library de-
velopment, is quite apparent. The editor is 
modest about the likely helpfulness of the 
report, and suggests that "it may prove 
possible to revise this booklet from time 
to time." This should certainly be done. 
American librarians and students in library 
schools might find this document most illu-
minating in respect to the various aspects of 
Australian university libraries. The coopera-
tion in completion of the extensive ques-
tionnaires distributed by Mr. Fielding is 
in itself an indication of the excellent spirit 
of the librarians of the country to improve 
library service to students, faculty members, 
and researchers generally.—Maurice F. 
Tauber, Columbia University. 

Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules. P r e -
pared by the American Library Associa-
tion, the Library of Congress, the Library 
Association, and the Canadian Library 

6 2 / 

Association. North American Text. Chi-
cago: ALA, 1967. xxi, 339p. index. $8.50 
(66-29239). 
Reviewing the new code as an isolated 

document might, in one sense, result in a 
fairer review. The new code is after all a 
marked improvement over its predecessor. 
The basic differences between the two are 
well known in the profession and have 
been widely discussed. It is useful to have 
the rules for descriptive cataloging included 
in the same volume as those for main entry, 
even though these rules are substantially 
unchanged. There are some problems in 
treating rules for choice of entry separately 
from those for form of entry, but the ap-
proach is basically sound. The index is not 
as good as it might be (Festschriften, for 
example, are not indexed adequately, and 
technical reports appear not at all), but 
the work is physically attractive. 

Inevitably, however, reviewing the new 
code as an isolated document would be less 
useful than a consideration of that code 
in the context in which it appears. 

To begin with, it seems a pity that we 
have such an anomalous title page: this is 
the "North American Text" of an Anglo-
American code. Abstractly, it would seem 
better to have a real Anglo-American code 
even if this had been at the cost of North 
American acceptance of the British version 
in its entirety. 

It seems a further pity that these new 
cataloging rules deviate from the principles 
accepted nearly unanimously at the inter-
national level at the Paris Conference. This 
is particularly true since those principles 
were largely an American product, and 
since the Americans voted for their accept-
ance. It is perhaps exceptionally true in 
that their acceptance involved basic changes 
for some other countries and relatively 
minor ones for us. Shades of the League of 
Nations! 

But then what have we done? Having 
embraced in printed form a code in which 
the deviations from the Paris principles 
seem almost completely intended to mini-
mize problems occasioned in large research 



Book Reviews / 63 

libraries because of their historical accumu-
lations under older rules (please note: not 
necessarily under the older ALA rules), we 
then discover that our national library is 
not going to follow even what we have 
finally come up with. Instead, it will follow 
a policy of keeping to the old rules for any 
entry already established, and applying 
the new only for entries new to its par-
ticular catalogs; a policy for which it has 
coined the term "superimposition." 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, that same 
national library which, together with the 
Association of Research Libraries, exerted 
the major influence to make the new really 
the old, has courageously embarked upon 
a truly noteworthy and trailblazing effort 
to provide cataloging on a national scale in 
machine readable form. The preface to 
the new code tells us explicitly, however, 
that, while the code makers did not ignore 
machine (i.e., computer) considerations, 
they did nothing about them. A similar 
statement is to be found in the new fifing 
rules of the ALA, and is certainly implicit 
in the new edition of the Library of Con-
gress subject headings. 

Lubetzky's original effort toward clarity 
of principle has vanished, leaving behind 
significant traces of his mighty intellect in 
particular rules, but shattering the grand 
conception. Perhaps we should have ac-
cepted Lubetzky's original and then exiled 
him, as the Athenians did Solon, for ten 
years during which we could make no 
changes. 

We have managed, then, after our thirty-
five years of effort, to put together a new 
code which is better than what we had by 
a considerable factor. So much for achieve-
ment. But. . . 

We have muffed our chance for a code 
based clearly on principle, we have missed 
the boat on international cooperation (sig-
nificantly, just as the Library of Congress 
begins a magnificent program of interna-
tional cooperation in shared cataloging), 
we have allowed the problems of a rela-
tively few large existing libraries to take 
precedence over the emerging needs of 
many more libraries which will be the large 
existing libraries of the future, and we have 
ignored the new technology which we know 
represents what we must use in the future. 

But we discharged our responsibility to 
those existing large collections (many of 
which did not follow the old rules anyway); 
we did not upset too many applecarts; we 
have kept faith, not with Cutter and the 
giants, but with the catalog embroiderers of 
the twenties and thirties. 

And so, with a crash, to earth. We can 
live with the new code and even with the 
way in which the Library of Congress is 
applying it. We have to. But, inevitably, 
we will have to change—perhaps back 
toward Lubetzky and forward to the com-
puter simultaneously. It might be a good 
idea to start the work now. It has taken 
since 1941 to get to this point. Perhaps if 
we begin again right away we may finish 
our next code by 1983. 

And yet—one is tempted to soften the 
harshness of the above by asking if any-
thing more was really politically possible at 
this time. In any case, it is just as certain 
that if we have not done quite what we 
should, it is not something we can blame 
on the Library of Congress, or the com-
mittees, or the Association of Research Li-
braries, or ALA, or any other organization 
—but only on all of us, the profession as a 
whole. We have to live with it. Unfortu-
nately, so does our public—and our and 
their successors.—Theodore C. Hines, Co-
lumbia University. 

Classification for Medical Literature. By 
Eileen R. Cunningham. Revised and En-
larged by Eleanor G. Steinke and Mary 
Louise Gladish. 5th ed. Nashville: Van-
derbilt University Press, 1967. 267p. $6 
(67-17562). 

Eileen R. Cunningham produced the first 
edition of her classification system sHbrtly 
after 1929 when she became librarian of 
the Vanderbilt University medical schooj li-
brary, now the medical division of the Joint 
University Libraries in Nashville. The sys-
tem was designed to conform to the se-
quence of the medical curriculum, and was 
divided into four main parts: biologic sci-
ences, organic systems of the body, patho-
logic and clinical subjects, and paramedical 
works of interest in medical collections. The 
system's major features are its close rela-
tionships between complementary subjects,