College and Research Libraries


not, in 1934, "President of the Swann gal-
leries." He was, at that time, a bookseller 
and the Swann galleries, with which he 
never had any connection, was not in 
existence. These are minor blemishes on 
an interesting contribution.-David A. 
Randall, The Lilly Library~ Indiana Uni-
versity. 

An Introduction to Scientific Research in 
Librarianship. By Herbert Goldhor. Final 
Report, Project No. 7-1271, Contract No. 
OEC-1-7-071217-5113. U.S. Department 
of Health, Education and Welfare, Office 
of Education, Bureau of Research. Dis-
tributed by Illini Union Bookstore. 

This brief survey of research methods 
is designed for doctoral students in librar-
ianship and for practicing librarians who 
would like to become more critical con-

. sumers of research. Dr. Goldhor begins 
with a discussion of the basic approaches 
to knowledge and truth, and proceeds to 
describe and evaluate the methods used 
in the approach which he defines as sci-
entific research. The ful£llment of such 
a broad assignment in the space of 201 
pages results in exactly that which is sug-
gested by the title-an introduction. This 
is neither a textbook nor a manual, but an 
exposition for the beginner on the mean-
ing, goals, and limitations of scientific re-
search in librarianship. 

With topics ranging from historical re-
search to statistical inference, the treat-
ment is much too general to aid the stu-
dent in developing practical methodologi-
cal or critical skills. Dr. Goldhor's book 
rather serves to point out the techniques 
which the student should master in order 
to become an accomplished researcher. It 
also aims at developing a realistic attitude 
towards research, including an under-
standing that awesome patience is re-
quired to perform it properly, and an ap-
preciation of the fact that no single study 
is likely to resolve any significant research 
question . While there are some solid 
guidelines on how to identify a research-
able topic and how to approach the plan-
ning and design of a study, the serious 
student would need to go beyond Gold-
hor to the more detailed and t echnical 
works listed in his bibliographies. For a 

Recent Publications I 283 

general text, this reviewer's preference is 
Fred Kerlinger's Foundations of Behavior-
al Research. 

There are several notable and welcome 
emphases in Goldhor's work. Planning 
and design of the research study is given 
equal treatment with data collection and 
analysis. Hypothesis testing is emphasized. 
While Goldhor' s idealistic description of a 
hypothesis as a statement of relationship 
which is "universal, invariant and causal" 
will find only rare application in librarian-
ship, the use of less ambitious hypotheses 
as focusing devices would improve many 
studies in librarianship. The frequent 

· lack of a formal hypothesis statement in 
library research is related to the wide-
spread use of inadequate designs. 

Goldhor also emphasizes theory-orient-
ed research. The development of theory is 
necessary to amend perhaps the major de-
ficiency of library research in general, the 
fact that " ... most library research con-
sists of single studies whose results are not 
cumulative." If a unified, cumulative re-
search effort is to be sustained in any 
area of librarianship, it will occur only 
when some form of theory, good or bad, 
has been posited. For that reason Goldhor's 
emphasis on a theoretical orientation is 
precisely what is needed at this point. It 
serves as another reminder that research 
in librarianship still has a long way to go . 
-]oe HewiPt:, Univ ersity of Colorado. 

Magazines for Millions: The Story of 
Specialized Publications. By James L. C. 
Ford. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois 
University Press, 1969. 320p. $11.75. 
(79-76187). 

There is much in this book which will 
be of interest to librarians working with 
serials and to students and faculty in jour-
nalism and communications as well as to 
the lay reader concerning specialized 
magazines. It is a comprehensive study of 
the multimillion dollar business of pub-
lishing journals aimed toward the special 
interests of millions of readers. Mr. Ford's 
work is well organized and very readable 
-a difficult feat to accomplish as this type 
of material could easily end up in a form 
of bibliographic cataloging interspersed 
with statistics. Much of the information was