College and Research Libraries 230 I College & Research Libraries • May 1973 the volume succeeds admirably. The publi- cation would have been of greater value, however, if the institute had also been con- vened to produce some sort of unified blue- print for action. The problems confronting users of nonbook materials and the need for an effective solution to these problems have been effectively documented; what is need- ed now is a directive on what steps must be taken to bring order out of bibliographic confusion. If there was any hope that the institute would produce such a directive, this hope does not appear to have been met.-Cathleen Flanagan, Graduate School of Library Science, University of Illinois. Kent, Allen and Lancour, Harold, ed. Copyright: Current Viewpoints on His- tory, Laws, Legislation. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1972. $11.95. The Copyright Act of 1909, though fre- quently amended, was constructed for an archaic era of communications. Attempts to write a comprehensive revision of do- mestic copyright legislation since 1956 have been constantly interrupted by one innova- tion after another in information handling and word processing. Although copyright legislation is based on a Constitutional pol- icy, the efforts at revision have had to fo- cus on difficult practical issues of the rights of various parties in the chain of diffusion of knowledge and the vested interests and practices of many segments of the infor- mation industry, including, of course, li- braries. The issues in copyright application and revision are complex and the literature con- cerning them vast, starting in recent times with thirty-five studies commissioned by the Copyright Office in the late 1950s. It is helpful, therefore, to have at least the key facts of copyright_ and of issues in revision affecting libraries brought together in one place. This was done recently in a series of short essays in the Encyclopedia of Li- brary and Information Science. The book here reviewed is a reprint of that material. The presentation is sound, but constrained by the limitations of space and the purpose of the Encyclopedia. Unfortunately, the essays are unevenly developed. Some are scholarly, some are rhetorical, some are dense, and some are light and inflated. Throughout there is a considerable redundancy, and lack of bal- ance. Nearly one-third of the book's 125 pages are devoted to a highly detailed dis- cussion of the viewpoint of a computer sci- entist, including a ten-page uncritical bib- liography of writings long and short on this aspect of the copyright issue-everything you wanted to know about the literature of computers and copyright and wished you had never asked! Add to that the pages that give the text of the two international copy- right agreements (good for reference but out of place in the midst of a series of short essays) and nearly one-half of the text is used up. The short piece on the publisher's point of view by Curtis Benjamin is merely a re- statement of the major provisions of the Copyright Act (given in another part of the volume in the text of the law), and of the problem area of its applications. There is no point of view at all. Charles Gosnell and Dan Lacy, long active in trying to bring order into the tangle, make their usual well-styled and cogent presentations on the librarian's point of view and the his- tory of revision. The sections on legal im- plications by Abe Goldman and on copy- right and the public interest by Lyman Patterson are superb and meaty, and right on the mark, particularly in the analysis of the irrelevance of the historical roots of copyright to today's social and technologi- cal environment. In short, the information in this book is basic and good, and in some places bril- liant. But the facts are too often repeated, the details of the key issues are lost in un- even style of presentation of the various views. Overall, the book is not worth the $11.95 price.-Russell Shank, Director of Libraries, Smithsonian Institution, Wash- ington, D.C. Coughlin, Robert E.; Taieb, Francoise; and Stevens, Benjamin H. Urban Analysis for Branch Library System Planning. Greenwood, 1972, 167p. Public library planners for over three decades have functioned with several basic assumptions regarding library facility loca- tion as it relates to maximum effective usage. These planning assumptions include 1 J location in a commercial or traffic generat- ing area; location of libraries more by where people go for weekly chores than by where they live; construction of larger units which usually serve larger neighborhoods; and the highest use comes in direct corre- lation with education and economic status. The team of Coughlin-Taieb-Stevens have for the first time set about to statistically analyze the placement of branch library fa- cilities in relation to service goals and per- formance. That they too use a multitude of assumptions as a base is not to discredit a study which attempts to provide measures and models for planning in the urban set- ting. The study uses the Free Library of Philadelphia as its case study. It is not surprising that the authors found the social-economic factor is the strongest determinate in the use of the public library. The placement of branches in shopping areas is questioned as a strong attraction factor as opposed to the provision of larger book collections. The team does admit that "People who combine a trip to the library with shopping are clearly willing to use a library farther from home than are persons who make no other stops on their library trip." They also admit that they lacked ccex- amples of libraries with large bookstock in areas of low social status or of libraries with small bookstock in areas of high social status." The much maligned book circula- tion statistics appear to have more statisti- cal correlation and validity than other sta- tistics now gathered by public libraries. Market areas are defined (area from which 80 percent of the users come) with ranges of 0.4 to 1.2 miles for children to 0.5 and 1.85 for adults. "The ratio is shortest in areas of low socio-economic status." The authors attempt to build models for branch library location but they raise more questions for further research than they present solutions for the library administra- tor/planner. It is admitted that c'perfect li- brary service is virtually unattainable" and that "only when cost is considered can one evaluate the trade-off between larger and more efficient libraries and a greater num- ber of libraries more closely spaced." The weakness of this study is that much of the analyzation is based upon presently collect- ed data and assumptions in lieu of data. Recent Publications I 231 The value of the study is that an attempt is made to provide data for a scientific method of branch location in relation to stated single system library goals. The mix- ture of political considerations with such a method is another story. There are many statistical conclusions in the books so that this study provides a useful tool for public library planners and is an important book in library planning.-John F. Anderson, City Librarian, San Francisco Public L i- brary, San Francisco, California. Nielsen, Waldemar A. The Big Founda- tions. A Twentieth Century Fund Study. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972. 12, 475p. $10.95. With federal grants disappearing and with appropriations from state legislatures growing thinner, many academic librarians have cast longing eyes on the large founda- tions as a possible source of additional sup- port for their libraries. Every time an- other millionaire dies and leaves his fortune to yet another foundation there is the po- tential for future library support. Yet an article in L] last year (July 1972) by a Ford Foundation official wouldn't give much encouragement to the academic li- brarian's dreams, his thesis having been that foundations look for the creative and innovative ideas within a broader frame- work. Waldemar Nielsen, also a former Ford Foundation official, may give us more hope. For if Nielsen is correct, the major- ity of American foundations in the $100 million plus category do not fulfill their oft-proclaimed mission of being pace-set- ters and of using their wealth for creative high-risk projects for which other funds are not available. "On the whole, the principal function that foundations now perform is to transfer funds to sustain reputable non- profit organizations in the private sector." ( p. 400) Among those "reputable non- profit organizations" are surely academic libraries and the unintended message of Nielsen's book may be for the librarian to cultivate friends or donors on the boards of these foundations. One could even argue that support of such traditional projects has validity and is even a worthy goal for foundations.