College and Research Libraries


added and improvements can be made.-
Vasa D. Mihailovich, University of North 
Carolina. 

Reader in Research Methods for Librari-
anship. Mary Lee Bundy and Paul Was-
serman, eds. Reader Series in Library and 
Information Science. Washington, D.C.: 
NCR Microcard Editions, 1970. 363p. 
$10.95. 

This is a collection of eleven periodical 
articles and seventeen chapters of books 
from nine different subject fields on various 
aspects of research. Half were originally 
published in 1960 or later, and another 40 
percent in the 1950's. There are several ap-
pendices, including a long annotated "Bib-
liography of Social Science Research Meth-
odology," a short "Bibliography of Library 
Research" (including Price's Little Science, 
Big Science), and a sample interview 
schedule, attitude survey form, and mail 
questionnaire. In addition, the editors have 
written brief introductions to each . of six 
parts of the volume and to each of the 
twenty-eight selections. There is no subject 
index. 

"The fundamental purpose of this volume 
is to assist its readers to genuinely perceive 
the nature of scholarship and its relation-
ship to the goals · of librarianship." (p.vii) 
The selections reprinted here succeed in 
general in fulfilling the first part of this 
goal, but not the second. Most of the selec-
tions are by distinguished authors and so-
cial scientists, e.g., Cohen and Nagle, Da-
vid Riesman, Robert K. Merton, and Sam-
uel A. Stouffer. Many of them are distinctly 
above the elementary level by deliberate 
intent of the editors (p. viii), and concern 
broad general developments (e.g. , the 
meaning of behavioralism) . Of the twenty-
eight selections, 46 percent are from soci-
ology, 18 percent from political science, 11 
percent from library science, and the other 
25 percent from six different fields ( includ-
ing one each from history and communica-
tions) . There are none from education, psy-
chology, journalism, marketing, or econom-
ics. 

It is clear that research methodology was 
meant to be de-emphasized, and only one 

Recent Publications I 419 

of the six sections (with five articles) is de-
voted to this topic. As a result, there is 
very little or nothing-anywhere in the 
book-on content analysis, preparation of 
questionnaires, interviewing (except for 
depth interviews in a disaster study proj-
ect) , experimental design (other than three 
pages from a 1950 article), analysis of data, 
statistical methods (apart from one selec-
tion on general principles), sampling, and 
other such topics. To judge from its title, 
this book was meant to do something spe· 
cifically for librarians. It would appear that 
the best parts of this volume would serve 
any of the social sciences; in this reviewer's 
experience, library school doctoral students, 
let alone library practitioners, need some-
thing less advanced and more directly con-
cerned with how to proceed. 

The most interesting section for this re-
viewer was that on "Research in Action," 
consisting of personal reviews by social sci-
entists of how they actually went about do-
ing research they had completed earlier. 
The section which came off least well was 
that on "Conceptual Approaches." This was 
the single longest section of the text, about 
20 percent, and presented attempts at the-
ory construction. In their own comments, 
the editors repeatedly emphasize the desir-
ability (indeed, the necessity) of theory to 
guide research in librarianship. But several 
of the articles they include make the point 
that both theory and data are needed, that 
neither is more important than the other, 
and that facts are the ultimate test of the-
ory (pp. 26, 42, 43, 47, 65, 197). 

The content of these twenty-eight selec-
tions has all been reset in two-column pages 
with unjustified right-hand margins and 
very few typographical errors. Not all the 
selections from books are identified by 
chapter number or paging. The names of 
the editors appear on the cover in reverse 
order from that on the title page.-H erbert 
Goldhor, University of Illinois. 

A History of Education for Librarianship 
in Colombia. By Richard Krzys and 
Gaston Litton. Metuchen, N.J.: Scare-
crow, 1969. 203p. $5.00. 

This book is both more and less than its