College and Research Libraries 166 I College & Research Libraries • March 1973 if you don't read it. The text is decorated with interesting drawings (study the title page carefully) and what the eds. call "or- ganic lettering" challenging even the straightest-faced to smile a little. Just to whet your appetite, here are some of the titles: "The Liberation of Sweet Li- brary Lips," "How to Annihilate Service to Teenagers," "Sex and the Single Cataloger," "Library School Lunacy" and "The Recruit- er Speaks (with forked tongue in both cheeks)." Getting the idea? Then I'll proceed with a few words on the text. The book is divided into sections on library rules, outreach pro- grams, organization and administration, al- ternatives, library literatUre, prospects for the future and the image of librarians. The editors sprinkle the tome with their own comments and end it with biographical statements about the collaborators ( includ- ing their astrological signs) . The image mentioned above is-how did you guess?-that miserable one we've all been battling: the mean, bunned o.m. I re- peat Richard Moses' poem: "Old-made la- dies/ sipping custom's tea/ sweet sugar smiles/ to hide a lemon's longing." Art Plotnik relates his feelings about silence and the results of daring to publish a NO SI- LENCE sign in the centerfold of Wilson Li- brary Bulletin. (As the eds. point out, he is also known for his observation that ccLi- brarianship is not all glamour.") Kathleen Glab asks if you've ever met a sensuous li- brarian. Since she knows you probably haven't, she generously gives a few tips on becoming one. "Move your whole body and not just your index finger. Make your library a place of pleasure as well as a place of learning." In the c• officious orthodoxy'' section we are reminded of (and, I hope, embarrassed about) subject headings, library school, and other absurdities. And we are treated to a play called "Phddt," in which the cast is a library school faculty discussing how to avoid anything resembling librarianship. Sanford Berman complains about the fail- ure of libraries to represent the counter- culture. More articles follow about outreach to migrant workers in N.J. and attempted service to young adults in Orange County, California. ("What other library had an armed and uniformed policeman stationed in the YA study areas during peak evening hours? Can responsible librarians justify treating any group of patrons as though they were a plague of locusts?") "The Tur- key Trot in Dallas" attacks misguided chil- dren's lit people. Organization and administration are hit next. Judy Hadley points out that the para- profs and student assistants are human be- ings and have talent and brains. Shannon Patterson asks supervisors "Just what are you administering?" and Joan Dillon de- fends unionization. Probably the best article (though the most depressing) is "We Lost It at the Li- brary," in which Mary McKenny and Edith Ericson recall how they were conned into a library supposedly run as a participatory democracy. If the rest of this book gives you hope for change, look out. These wom- en will jolt you back to reality. They thought they had found Utopia but were bitterly deceived. This is a book you will read in one night. Although the pieces are uneven-some naive and poorly written-you will probably want to read them all. They are cries for help and understanding from a vocal and growing part of our community .-Georgia Mulligan, Information Unlimited, Berkeley, California. Baumann, Charles H. The Influence of Angus Snead Macdonald and the Snead Bookstack on Library Architecture. Me- tuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1972. 307p. Baumann employs well documented re- search which provides the reader with in- sights into understanding Angus Snead Macdonald's impact on library design for almost a half a century. However, insights into Macdonald's more personal life are sad- ly lacking. The author admits that it was "difficult to talk separately of Angus Snead Macdonald and Snead and Company." This reviewer feels that Mr. Baumann could have overcome this difficulty by sketching more fully all sides of Macdonald's life. The read- er can't help but want to know more about Macdonald after reading this book. The author is thorough when he relates Macdonald's early contributions to library construction such as his desire to standard- ize stack construction by defining the 3 foot shelf, the Snead Reflector, the solid con- crete floor, and efforts to develop new tech- niques for ventilating libraries. Baumann is not so explicit in tracing the history of li- brary architecture up the twentieth century. He merely provides a background. The reader should not hesitate to read other sources for a more comprehensive treatment of the history of library architecture. One of Baumann's themes does emerge quite early and that is the "eroding of the stack form" by merging readers and books. Baumann takes this theme, the "eroding of the stack form," and develops it by sum- marizing Macdonald's 1933 article "A Li- brary of the Future" which spelled out Macdonald's theory of modular design for libraries. The term "modular" would be used much later. Macdonald saw libraries with lower ceilings, lounge furniture in stack areas, complete access to books, elimination of interior dividing walls, flexible units of space nine feet by nine feet, and ccsoftly glowing tubes on the ceiling." It's a shame that Baumann interjects that sixty-seven lines had to be cut from the festschrift ver- sion of the article so that it could be ac- commodated in two issues of Library Jour- nal. However, such irrelevant data does not harm an otherwise smooth transition the au- thor makes to the State University of Iowa where Ralph Ellsworth suggests to Macdon- ald that spaces be on 20' by 1 0' centers or to a 1955 article in which Macdonald rec- ommends 27 foot square modules. The reader is made very aware that the modular concept in library design is actually a very recent development. Baumann uses the subtle technique of re- lating many seemingly isolated events in Macdonald's life which, as a composite, il- lustrate just how broad was the scope of the activities of Macdonald and Snead and Company. The author views Macdonald as a catalyst who was in touch with his time and took full advantage of every opportuni- ty to promote his ideas on library construc- tion and to promote the business interests of Snead and Company. The author leads the reader to an under- standing of how the current methods of li- brary construction came about. Those preju- diced against modular construction as ugly will be happy to read that even Macdonald always included some two story space in his Recent Publications I 167 designs to break up the monotonous lines of a modular building. As effective as the author is in bringing about this understand- ing, the reader must be aware that such a thoroughly documented account can be very boring reading. The reader who stays with it will get a fairly good picture of the evolu- tion of the modular concept and its effect on library design. A scant index is a drawback. The illustra- tions are pertinent but lack clarity. There is a Library Building Survey, 1930--1960, of public and academic libraries indicating use of fixed stacks, requirement for interior reading spaces, use of fluorescent lighting, air conditioning, modular construction, and column spacing and also a listing of Snead and Company bookstack installations from 1887 to 1952 throughout the world. A twenty page selected bibliography is ap- pended.-John K. Mayeski, Planning Assist- ant, University of Washington Library-, Seat- tle, Washington. Goulart, Ron. Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines. Arling- ton House, 1972. $7.95. In the bleak years of the Great Depres- sion, millions of stay-at-home readers found vicarious adventure and romance in the pages of pulp magazines. Printed on the cheapest paper and priced at ten or fifteen cents an issue, pulpwood magazines first ap- peared on the American scene in the late nineteenth century, but their peak popular- ity came during the 1920s and 30s when more than 200 were sold on newstands. The authors of these lurid tales range from such respected writers as Tennessee Williams, Harold Lamb, and Erie Stanley Gardner, who began their careers as contributors to the pulps, to Edgar Rice Burroughs and the legendary Robert E. Howard. H. L. Menc- ken founded a pulp called The Black Mask in 1920, and Sinclair Lewis worked for a time as an editorial assistant on Adventure, ccthe aristocrat of cheap magazines." A wide range of subjects were represent- ed in this flamboyant literature-crime, sports, science, adventure at sea, in the air, and in the American West. "In the decades between the two World Wars," Goulart points out, c'the pulps became one of the major packagers of fiction heroes." Although their lurid cover illustrations depicting the