College and Research Libraries thirteen previously published lists of ref- erences. Three are concerned with the nov- elist Tobias Smollett (with some repetition), and one each with Edmund Burke, Thomas Frognall Dibdin, Henry Fielding, Edward Gibbon, William Godwin, Samuel Richard- son, Laurence Sterne, Edward Young, eighteenth century medicine, and eigh- teenth century novels. As all the lists were prepared and published separately at least twenty years ago and the editor says: "In this reprinting, I have made no changes," the present volume is a kind of memorial to years gone by. It may have some use- fulness while we await the promised second volume of the New Cambridge Bibliog- raphy of English Literature. Interestingly, comparison of the Dibdin list with that in the already. published third volume of NCBEL finds Cordasco supplying some val- uable references not in the Cambridge vol- ume and showing that it does not do to be condescending towards anyone's labors , es- pecially when it comes to reference bibliog- raphy.-Henry Pettit, University of Colo- rado. Libraries, Readers, and Book Selection. Ed. by Jean Spealman Kujoth. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1969. 457p. $10.00. Book selection is generally acknowledged to play a vital role among the professional responsibilities of the librarian, but until recently there has been surprisingly little written about the subject. The only up-to- date, substantial, monographic treatments that come to mind are Danton's Book Se- lection and Collections; a Comparison of German and American University Libraries ( 1963) and the Carter and Bonk textbook, Building Library Collections (3d ed., 1969). During the past few years, the subject has begun to receive more attention in the periodical literature of the profession. In Libraries, Readers and Book Selection, Jean Kujoth has endeavored to make some of this scattered material more readily available by gathering together forty-four recent journal articles which have some relevance for book selection in libraries. The Recent Publications I 359 readings are arranged under the following categories: ( 1) Professional Reading (i.e., the reading ·of professionals) ; ( 2) Reading Interests and Needs of Special Groups; ( 3) Communication and Reading Values; ( 4) The Public Library's Collection; ( 5) The Academic Library's Collection; ( 6) Trends, Issues and Influences Affecting Book Selection; and ( 7) Censorship and Controversial Books. Most of the articles which appear in the first three sections, comprising more than half the book, are only indirectly concerned with book selection. These sections concen- trate on describing characteristics of the di- verse clientele which libraries serve and .discuss the role of books and reading in contemporary society. Sections four through seven contain articles which deal more di- rectly with the subject. Academic libraries receive very limited coverage. Only four ar- ticles are included in section five , and the total length of the section is less than thirty pages. The organization of Libraries, Readers and Book Selection suggests that it is the outgrowth of an introductory library school course in book selection. Its approach is comprehensive; the compiler attempts to provide relevant material for a wide range of potential interests. This unfortunately precludes the possibility of treating any facet of the subject in detail. This de- ficiency in focus is aggravated by the lim- itation of having to rely on a variety of previously published articles written by people with dissimilar points of view. The selections are presented without editorial comment, and it sometimes becomes some- thing of a puzzle to determine why an ar- ticle has been placed where it has, or, in a few cases, why it has been included at all. Every librarian with an interest in book selection and in the relationships which exist between the library's clienteles and its collections will find something of in- terest in this book. The articles are usually of high quality, and the diverse topics and approaches may provide new frames of reference for the consideration of old prob- lems. I suspect, however, that there is little in the collection that will be new to the experienced librarian who is a regular read- 360 I College & Research Libraries • September 1970 er of library literature, and the academic li- brarian, in particular, will be disappointed in the coverage given his specialty. Small isolated libraries without regular access to the more common library periodicals may find this book worth its substantial pur- chase price. Academic libraries which sup- port a program of library education will undoubtedly want a copy for their students of librarianship. The large class of libraries which falls outside these categories might ABSTRACTS do well to invest the money in some more uniquely useful item. The book includes an index of authors and a brief but adequate subject index. The production and typography character- istic of Scarecrow publications have re- ceived enough critical comment elsewhere. It suffices to say that this example exhibits the defects we have learned to expect from that concern.-]erold Nelson , University of California, Berkeley. The following abstracts are based on those prepared by the Clearinghouse for Library and Information Sciences of the Educational Resources I nfor- mation Center (ERIC/ CLIS), American Society for Information Science, 1140 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 804, Washington, D.C. 20036. Documents wi'th an ED number may be ordered in either microfiche (MF) or hard copy (HC) from ERIC Document Reproduction Service, National Cash Register Company, 4936 Fairmont Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland 20014. Orders must include ED number and specification of format de- sired. A $0.50 handling charge will be added to all orders. Payment must accompany orders totaling less than $5.00. Orders from states with sales tax laws must include payment of the appropriate tax or include tax ex- emption certificates. Documents available from the Clearinghouse for Federal Scientific and Technical Information, Springfield, Virginia 22151 have CFSTI number and price following the citation. Microfiche 1969-A User Survey. By Har- old Wooster. 1969. 20p. (ED 038 984; available from CFSTI as AD 695 049, MF-$0.65 HC-$3.00). An informal survey of microfiche users was conducted by correspondence, result- ing in over 300 letters. Industrial libraries led all others in their acceptance of fiche, with a ratio of two to one in favor. Half of the individual users despised fiche; 25 per- cent liked it with some reservations and 25 percent were strongly in favor. Half of those who liked fiche had found it useful in handling personal reprint collections, primarily because it saved storage space, but also because it was easy to retrieve and manipulate, and was inexpensive. The chief reason for disliking fiche was the un- availability of readers, either on the job or at home; a close second was the poor op- tical and mechanical quality of the readers currently available. The author offers three alternative strategies for dealing with mi- crofiche ( 1) ignore it and it will go away, ( 2) drive it underground, and ( 3) learn to live with it until something better comes along. In pursuit of ( 3) practical sugges- tions are offered for format of reports to be reproduced on microfiche.