College and Research Libraries Book Reviews / 445 recent years. The facts were gathered dur- ing 1961 and the delay in publication is to be regretted, but fortunately it can be an- ticipated that the picture will be brought up to date by the comprehensive study of Canadian libraries soon to be made by Lowell Martin. The provincial libraries, as defined by Dr. Beard, comprise the legislative library and the library extension agency of each of the ten provinces. The first third of his book is devoted to an account of their his- torical development; the remainder is a de- scription and comparison of them as they were in 1961, with chapters on organiza- tion, personnel, resources, administrative services and functions, reader services, and the "present versus potential role of pro- vincial libraries." Published information on the libraries was supplemented by an ex- tensive questionnaire and by personal in- terviews. In addition, sixteen leading Ca- nadian librarians representing institutions other than provincial libraries replied to a questionnaire that dealt with the place that provincial libraries ought to have in province-wide systems of library service. The ten provinces are perhaps even more diverse than the fifty states, and their legislative libraries and extension services vary widely. It is clear that Canadian li- brarians are not prepared to advocate any single pattern of organizational and gov- ernmental framework for provincial li- braries, but agreement is more general when functions, services, and resources are considered, and Dr. Beard's recommenda- tions appear to be thoroughly sound. He advocates legislation to provide a sound legal base for those provincial libraries that do not now have one; emphasis on better use of personnel and in-service train- ing; formulation of acquisition policies; agreements with other libraries for sharing of responsibility in building resources; closer cooperation with graduate library schools; a campaign for federal aid to li- braries; definition of the population for whom direct reader services are to be pro- vided; improved statistical records; and es- tablishment of minimum standards. He ob- serves also that further research is needed on the library extension services, which in some provinces are provided by agencies other than the regular library extension agency, and that further investigation is desirable of salaries, working conditions, personnel policies, and other factors affect- ing staff morale. There are frequent references to the ALA Standards for Library Functions at the State Level, but individual provincial li- braries have not been compared with state libraries. It would have been interesting to explore the likenesses and contrasts at least to some extent, but Dr. Beard has suc- ceeded very well in doing the job that he set out to do: he was provided an excellent foundation for further study and planning. —Edwin E. Williams, Harvard University. Information Work Today; Papers Pre- sented at a Symposium for Information Workers Held at Liverpool School of Librarianship in September, 1966. E d . by Bernard Houghton. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books & Clive Bingley, 1967. 119p. $4.50. A need exists for short courses designed specifically for industrial information work- ers who are new to the field. The short course appears to be a more practical train- ing alternative than either in-service train- ing or graduate study since it is both diffi- cult to devise a thorough in-service train- ing program and expensive for an organiza- tion to give employees leaves of absence for long periods of time. Information Work Today is a compila- tion of ten lectures presented as a short course sponsored by the Liverpool school of librarianship. The course is for profes- sional workers and, as such, is considerably more detailed and concentrated than a comparable course for clerical workers would be. The lectures present a broad survey of industrial information service. The first two lectures, by D. Mason and D. Ball, are applicable to any special library. The ad- ministrative and physical organization, the services which can be offered, the necessity of knowing the research interests of the users and of having personal contact with the users are described by them in non- technical language. The real value of this course is that it 446 / College 6- Research Libraries • September 1968 presents many of the numerous sources of information outside the immediate library collections which are available to British industry, and which are often overlooked. Descriptions of these sources comprise the major part of the lectures. There is an ex- cellent brief description of the British pat- ent system by F. Newby. Other lectures describe the public technical library serv- ices, commercial information sources, the organization and problems associated with the technical report literature, and special library cooperation in Britain. The last lec- ture, by B. C. Vickery, is an interesting introduction to the problems of organizing an information file. These problems could well be the subject of the next short course, if one is planned. Since the sources cited are primarily British, the usefulness of this book is some- what limited for American industrial infor- mation workers. However, within the stated objectives of the course—that is, as an introduction to British industrial infor- mation work—it fills the need for informa- tion at this level.—Ted Srygley, University of Florida. Health Sciences Librarianship. By Irving Lieberman. Seattle: University of Wash- ington Press, 1967. xii, 216p. To many medical librarians the estab- lished pattern of medical education seems to be one which library education might profitably follow. The characteristics of this pattern are that the teaching is done by practitioners of the art, and an internship follows to consolidate the teaching. With such a model constantly before them, it is not surprising that the medical librarians at an invitational conference on education for health sciences librarianship held in Seattle in September 1967 should find themselves pulling in a different direction from the library educators. Predictably, the special- ist librarians were concerned with cutting out the inessentials to get to the vital con- cern of specialized education, while the generalists inclined to the superimposing of specialized information onto a core com- mon to all library training. Amicability seems to have prevailed, perhaps unfor- tunately. Participation was no doubt a sal- utary experience but the published report includes little that is new except turns of phrase, and will hardly serve, as its editor hoped, as "a framework which any graduate library school might use in developing a program for health sciences librarianship." Dr. Brodman trenchantly states the need for all librarians to develop their own interface with the machine. Dr. Kronick jovially implies that the whole thing may be premature because there is insufficient data about the nature of the work to be done in medical libraries. Dr. Bodemer cor- rectly indicates that the history of medi- cine is one of several developing "social science" areas which will result in increasing demand on medical libraries from people outside the medical community, but he probably exaggerates the importance of medical history in the total picture. Dr. Pings hints at the great gap between theo- rizing and doing in library education when he says that the library school is presently the only institution that has the facility to sponsor and develop new hospital health science educational programs. (That will be the day.) The present state of medical library edu- cational programs is fairly well documented in the proceedings. The conclusions of the meeting, such as they were, are adequately summed up by Dr. Lieberman, and some gratuitous bulk is added by the inclusion of twenty-two pages of biographies of the participants.—G. S. T. Cavanaugh, Duke University. Progress of Libraries in Free India; Be- ing a Symposium on Library Science by Some Eminent and Experienced Li- brarians of India. E d . b y N . B . S e n . New Delhi: New Book Society of India, 1967. 247p. $6. This compilation is similar to the edi- tor's Development of Libraries in New In- dia, which was published in 1965. It con- sists of twenty-eight articles on a variety of topics related to libraries and librarianship in India. Most of the articles are by Indian librarians and teachers of library science who are well known and highly regarded in India, with a few articles by non-librar- ians also included. Unfortunately, the edi- tor has not organized the material in any