College and Research Libraries MateTials. Chicago: American Library Assn., 1973. 251p. $9.95. In 1969, after considerable deliberation, an ALA committee recommended that a book on acquisitions work be prepared and published. Wulfekoeter's book ( 1961) was considered out-of-date and the need was felt for a synthesis of the abundance of lit- erature on new developments. Stephen Ford, formerly order librarian at the Uni- versity of Michigan, was found willing to prepare the book. According to the preface, it is designed for use as a textbook in li- brary schools and as a "conceptual manual" for practicing acquisitions librarians. Ford touches on most aspects of acquisitions work, such as searching, domestic and for- eign purchasing, blanket orders, out-of- print material, serials, automated order rou- tines, etc. A quick glance through the table of contents, the literature lists at the end of each chapter, the glossary, and the index at the end seems to point toward success because there are very few, if any, obvious omissions. Close reading, however, reveals two seri- ous problems which have been confirmed by evaluations from library ·staff with vary- ing experience and education. The first problem is the obvious failure to de£ne the book's audience. In trying to reach the public, school, college, and university ac- quisitions librarians, the trained and the un- trained as well as the student, Ford over- shoots his goal by a wide margin and, as a result, none are reached. He goes out of his way to cover all possible viewpoints, never going into too much detail, never showing preferences, and the result is a se- ries of halfway attempts. In this way, his description of the NP AC program has little meaning to anyone. He never really says what USBE is and does not even give aB address. A good example of his careful gen- eralization is the disappointing chapter on collection development and selection pro- cedures when he states: "Some academic libraries do not allocate funds to depart- menbl, and others have control over alloca- tions that permit library staff members to make purchases from them. In other institu- tions, allocations to faculty units are small and a large general fund gives the library faculty extensive responsibility for collec- tion development." Recent Publications I 377 My main criticism of Ford's book, how- ever, lies with editorial aspects. On page after page there are sentences and state- ments that at times are very hard to under- stand even for the well-trained reader. On page 50 Ford mentions that the annual sup- plements to the British Museum Catalogue appear periodically. But the worst sentence must be on page 123 where it reads: "Non- periodical serials also differ from other li- brary purchasing when they are purchased as series rather than as monographs. Li- brarians call these standing orders or con- tinuations." It is truly unfortunate that so much time and effort have been spent on this project by the author and numerous others. A less ambitious and more practical searching and acquisitions manual, such as the one Clara Brown did recently for serials (EBSCO, 1973), would have been far more useful, especially for those librarians involved in the continuous training of new staff. For the time being, we will have to go back to dog-eared homemade manuals, W)rnar's bibliography, and photocopies of good articles.-Hendrik Edelman, Assist- ant Director, Cornell University Libraries, Ithaca, New York. Williams, Harold. Book Clubs & Printing Societies of Great Britain and Ireland. Ann Arbor, Mich~ : Gryphon Books, 1971. (Repr. of 1929 ed.) 126p. $13.50. Here is a little volume that will delight the cockles of many a bookish antiquary's heart. It £rst appeared, in a severely limited edition and largely without notice, some forty-£ve years ago in London, and this Gryphon reprint now makes it for the £rst time generally available in this country. In- dividuals and libraries with interest in bib- liographic printing and the early book clubs and scholarly text societies will want copies. The author prefaces his text with a clear and succinct definition of his subject. "On the study of texts," he writes, "on the ap- peal of antiquarianism, on wayfarings among forgotten books or rare editions, and the contribution these ventures bring to our knowledge of history, of social life, and of literature, are founded those societies whose work this essay follows." After a brief survey of seventeenth- and 378 I College & Research Libraries • September 1974 eighteenth-centuty precursors to this partic- ular genre of book club, Sir Harold chroni- cles the establishment in 1812 and the early history of the Roxburghe Club. "In addi- tion to the practice of heavy dining," he re- ports, "it was early resolved that each mem- ber ... should, in turn, print 'some rare old · tract, or composition-chiefly of poet- ry; at his own expense." Roxburghe was followed in 1823 by the founding of the Bannatyne Club by Sir Walter Scott with the purpose of printing texts illustrative of the history of Scotland, a pattern promptly followed by a number of other similar associations in that country. Others-throughout the British Isles-dedi- cated their activities to slightly different specializations, and such names as the Cam- den, Chetham, Caxton, and Hakluyt socie- ties soon became well known to the histori- an of British life and culture. These in turn led to a proliferation of printing historical societies-such as the Pipe Roll, the Selden, and the Folk-Lore societies-and of print- ing literary societies-including the Early English Text Society, the Shakespeare So- ciety, and the Chaucer Society. Collectors soon had their printing clubs, such as Y e Sette of Odd Volumes and The First Edition Club, by which the book here un- der review was first commissioned. Biblio- graphical societies were not far behind. As a result of the work of these sixty or so organizations, many of which are still ac- tive, virtually thousands of texts have been made available to scholars, texts which would otherwise be languishing still in sin- gle manuscript. Although motivated in part by considerations of vanity and dilettant- ism, these printing societies have accrued a large debt of gratitude from scholarship, a debt which has not yet been fully recog- nized or acknowledged. But that is anoth- er book.-David Kaser, Graduate Library School, Indiana University, Bloomington. Foskett, A. C. The Universal Decimal Classification: The History, Present Status, and Future Prospects of a Large General Classification Scheme. London: Linnet Books & Clive Bingley, 1973. 17lp. And now rides forth on a white charger another brave knight to succor that elderly damsel in distress, Universal Decimal Clas- sification. Boldly he chants again the oft- told tale of her royal (albeit with bar sinis- ter) descent from Good King Melvil, her auspicious birth, her trials and tribulations, the mighty feats of her noble protectors, Sir Otlet, Sir LaFontaine, and Sir Duyvis, and the evil days which have fallen on her since their passing. Then he gets down to the nitty-gritty: There are full editions of UDC and me- dium editions and abridged editions and special subject editions, all in various stages of development, in various degrees of mod- ernity, and in various languages. Schedules are produced in volumes, in fascicles, in loose-leaf, and by computer. UDC still has the general intellectual pattern of DC with its bias and notational problems; and in de- velopment of detail synthesis appears alongside enumeration. Revision is spas- modic, cumbersome, decentralized, and slow. Two Unesco surveys have suggested that UDC could no longer serve as an ade- quate international general classification scheme. Ideas for the future of UDC have ranged from tinkering with its schedules and nota- tion (e.g., Caless, Perreault, and others) to fundamental reconstruction of the scheme (e.g., Mrs. I. Dahlberg). Perhaps even more important than a restructured scheme is a restructured management-more effi- cient, more centralized, and above all, ade- quately funded ( cf. Wellisch and others). But where to get the money? Although "the English edition of UDC sells quite well," yet "the United States would present a more difficult market" and "without fairly considerable support from sales in the USA it would be difficult to finance the improve- ments which all agree are necessary" (p.67-68). At this point Foskett sticks in a chapter on mechanization and another on the Clas- sification Research Group ( CRG) : mech- anization and UDC would go well together --e.g., the Freeman-Atherton project spon- sored by the American Institute of Physics. The work of CRG toward the construction of a new general classification scheme de- veloped a number of theories which might be helpful in revising UDC--e.g., levels of integration, categories, etc. And then we are returned to the future 1