College and Research Libraries 320 I College & Research Libraries • July 1973 ministrator to use in developing initial plan- ning concepts, in formulating the planned program, and in organizing the details of layout, construction, and moving. Loretta J. Kiersky's "Selection of a Microfilm Read- er: A Checklist" is noteworthy for offering a basis for examining new or updated equipment. Janice Kreider's "Bibliography on Library Planning" is useful, listing en- tries covering the period 1963-70, this up- dating Gertrude Schutze' s bibliography which surveys the literature through 1962. Seven well-selected examples of special library floor plans, six examples of new li- braries, and one example of a remodeling, are also included at the back of the manual. These examples of library planning repre- sent a variety of types, from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Library to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Slide Library. E ach example is appropriately annotated in order to be of maximum use to the read- er. Further features of the manual include a brief classified directory of manufacturers and suppliers of library equipment. A sec- tion entitled "Location of Manufacturers and Suppliers" provides addresses for the agents mentioned in the classified directory. This section is followed by a general index to the volume. We highly recommend this impressive manual. It can be used by anyone faced with the challenging prospect of planning a library-not just us "Specials" but any kind of librarian.-Charlotte Georgi and Judith Truelson, Graduate School of Man- agement, University of California, Los An- geles. Duncan, Elizabeth E. Current Awareness and the Chemist. Metuchen, N.J.: Scare- crow Press, 1972. 150p. This is the author's dissertation for the Information Science Ph.D. at Pittsburgh. A broad statement of its aims (they change in some important details as the book prog- resses) is (a) to study the effects of a new mechanized information service-SDI from CA-Condensates, the machine-readable ver- sion of Chemical Abstracts-upon existing library services, specifically the availability of those current chemical periodicals subse- quently requested by users of the search service, and (b) to try, from this, to con- struct a decision model for the acquisition of such periodicals. The first of these is a problem currently exercising almost every- one working in this area; realization of the second seems still some way off, but both are certainly reasonable topics for a doctor- al project. The usual dissertation format is followed; review of the literature, background to the investigation, method of operation, report of work, evaluation of results. However, it transpired that the first part of the work yielded no data on usage, because no usage could be observed; the second part was thus never even approached. It is a commonplace that some investiga- tions do turn out to be dead ends; that is in the nature of honest scientific inquiry, it need not render the effort valueless, and it is not the point at issue here. Unfortu- nately Ms. Duncan apparently neither saw nor was shown an appropriate means to ex- tricate herself, and the result is a confused and disappointing study. One example will suffice. Her data showing no discernible re- lationship between the CA-Condensates output sent to a chemist and that chemist's demand for current periodical literature, Ms. Duncan decided to observe in the Pitt Chemistry Library the use of the printed Chemical Abstracts, in hopes of discover- ing by field-work something of a chemist's information habits. She watched for one hour forty minutes at different times of day for five working weeks and she logged pre- cisely one usage, which was not, as ill-luck would have it, connected to the computer- ized information search service at all. We then get a table of complete (twenty-four- hour) usage of CA for those weeks, which the library was gathering anyway, followed by an imposing Poisson equation to calcu- late the precise probability of there being only that one usage in the more than forty hours poor Ms. Duncan was on the job. Ultimately more disturbing than these expected "sledgehammer and nut" situa- tions, or the desperate digressions such as the entire last chapter, are the failings which may fairly be regarded as indepen- dent of the direction the work took. First, the author's credentials as a researcher are questionable: in the opening of the preface we read that the data gathered in part (a) of the work "was to be used to develop and to test a decision model." Obviously, if one tests one's model using the data or specifications by which one de- veloped it, it may safely be assumed that the model will be found to work beautiful- ly. Further evidence can be found in the repeated misinterpretation of charts, data, and other authors' statements. Second, al- though the author is attempting to study library-related activities, she gives every in- dication of not knowing, and not caring to + find out, how libraries work, and what li- brarians see themselves as doing. Third, general presentation is inexcusably sloppy; we may pass over the simple grammatical errors with the comment that they are far too copious for a doctoral dissertation, and a commercially published one at that. Like- • wise a writing style which is pervasively lazy (figures are always 'very interesting' or the information explosion 'very serious,' etc. ) one can live with. The many lapses of sentential logic in the narrative, how- ever, become a real obstacle to comprehen- sion. An author's argument in one sentence • became "this fact" in the next; chemists are assumed at one point to be unconcerned with a journal's editorial policy, at another, to be consciously utilizing it, etc. Writing like the following should never have passed so much scrutiny: "Although much research has shown that the average chemist limits his reading to only a few hours . a week, there seems to be a prevailing idea that he • would be a more creative (or productive) chemist if he read more. Though many sur- ·veys show that the creative scientist reads on the average more than the noncreative scientist the occurrence of these phenomena gives no justification for assuming that what is being observed is a cause and ef- ~ feet phenomenon. There is no inherent knowledge in the printed or tlie spoken word. Creativity in the chemist, like crea- tivity in anyone else, takes place in the mind of the individual. That this creativity may be stimulated by colleagues, by read- ing the published literature, or by hundreds - ~ of other ways may very well be true; but it may not be true." (p. 112.) Kent, in his foreword, far from giving any support to a student who is in a thorny predicament at least partly, one must con- clude, due to a lack of useful guidance, leaves the unmistakable impression that his main aim is to disassociate himself from the whole embarrassing affair. He largely avoids discussing the work he is supposed Recent Publications I 321 to be introducing and what he gives us in- ~tead is self-serving reminiscence, abysmal punning, unrelated generalities, and bad grammar of his own variety. The whole production leaves a sorry im- pression of library and information science education at the Ph.D. leveL-Peter G. Watson, Head~ Center for Information Ser- vices, University of California at Los An- geles Library. Reichmann, Felix and Tharpe, Josephine M., Bibliographic Control of Micro- forms. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. 256p. $12.50. In acknowledgement of the need for im- proved bibliographic control of microforms, the Association of Research Libraries, un- der contract with the Office of Education, sponsored a study "to determine the ele- ments of an effective system of bibliograph~ ic control of microforms which would per- mit the expeditious selection, acquisition, cataloging and use of micropublication both current and retrospective." The book under review is the product of this study. Major findings include the following: cat- aloging, shelflisting, and classification prac- tices vary enormously; many libraries fail to report their microform holdings to the National Register of Microform Masters; analytics for microform series are not ade- quately represented in public catalogs. As the ultimate solution to these problems, the authors recommend that "a national, ma- chine-readable index to microform publica- tions should be established." Reichmann and Tharpe solicited informa- tion from "250 American libraries and scholarly organizations and about 150 foreign institutions through approximately 1,500 letters and scores of telephone calls." The results of this monumental enterprise are documented in thirty-three pages of text. Almost half of that space is devoted to a description of micropublishing activ- ities in some seventy foreign countries; ad- dresses of agencies engaged in production and sale of microcopy are given. Thus the bulk of the analytic study itself is limited to just a few pages. As much as the authors' aim of conciseness is to be applauded, it be- comes all too obvious to the reader that such a concentrated treatment cannot pos- sibly do justice to the complex and far- ·reaching subject matter. Significant issues