College and Research Libraries 458 I College & Research Libraries • November 1974 system of fee payment by coupon to the SILC method would be easy. Palmour was looking for solutions that could be implemented quickly; Hayes ad-. dressed himself to the various communica- tions problems that are inherent in the in- terlibrary loan process and explored ways of · using time-sharing computer systems to resolve some of ·them. The communication network that Hayes proposes would use the hardware and some software of an existing time-sharing system to facilitate the trans- mittal of interlibrary loan requests and oth- er ILL messages; to refer requests to bibli- ographic data centers for better citations than appear on the request forms and for location information; to serve as a clearing house for billing and payment of fees; to provide statistical reports on interlibrary loan traffic and workload; and to provide access to on-line data bases. Teletype ter- minals would be used to access the system. A major purpose of the Hayes study was to evaluate the technical, operational, man- agement, and economic feasibility of the proposed system. The evidence he has mar- shalled certainly supports his contentions that the "evaluations are essentially posi- tive . . . and the report recommends pro- ceeding further in development and pilot tests of the operation." Hayes has anticipat- ed the likely questions about the proposal and has countered them in turn. His argu- ments are convincing. One is led to conjec- ture, however, · about the implication of the adoption of the system. If TWX terminals are the means of access to the system, will small libraries be able to participate in it as fully as they would like? Will the pattern of interlibrary lending be changed by the system so that greater emphasis will be on local resources than now exists? Many li- braries now participate in one or more con- sortia, systems, councils, networks, etc., one of whose functions is to promote interli- brary lending within the group. Will SILC facilitate this interaction as Hayes suggests, or will it be just one more bureaucracy .for the ILL librarian to contend with? A pilot test of the system is recommended to get answers to these and other questions. A National Periodical Resources Center which would serve as the referral center for periodical requests which cannot be met through local resources is the recommenda- tion of Vernon Palmour, et al., in their study of access to periodical resources. The advantages of developing a new collection were weighed against supplementing an ex- isting collection to serve as the center. The proposal is based to a large degree on the organization and practices of the National Lending Library for Science and Technolo- gy of Great Britain ( NLL) before it be- came part of the British Library Lending Division ( BLL) . Palm our and his team contend that the critical need is for a new periodical collection. Does the merger of the NLL into BLL suggest a need here for a more comprehensive collection-one that could supply monographs as well as serials? If this question has any validity, then, would not an existing collection serve logi- cally as the resource center for both mono- graphs and periodicals? An essential ques- tion is: Would the recommendations of this study have been different if it had not been limited to periodical resources? Programs proposed in the SILC study and the Periodical Resources Center study require funding. Both studies recommend some form of federal subsidy as a means of support. What priorities are given to these programs? The entire library community must be involved in determining those pri- orities if available funds are to be used to maximum effectiveness.-Donald C. Cook, Assistant DirectC?r for Public Services, State University of New York at Stony Brook. Coodrum, Charles A. The Library of Con- gress. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974. 292p. This book should not be viewed as an en- cyclopedic work, or "What you always wanted to know about the Library of Con- gress but didn't know whom to ask." It was written for the Praeger Library of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies se- ries; the author succeeds admirably in achieving his purpose of giving a general overview of the institution. The success is due to the author's writing ability and sense of humor. He is also very familiar with the library and very diplomatic. Because he knows his subject well and writes succinct- ly and lucidly, he has provided an excellent description of the library's history, organiza- tion, and functions for the nonlibrarian. Examples of the unique materials in the special collections and nonbook units of the library are highlighted to make the sketches of those units particularly interesting. (John Y. Cole's A List for Further Reading, p.285- 88, provides access to more information about specific departments.) Librarians will not view this work as the definitive study of LC; the author himself notes this on p.175: . . . our hurried, obviously superficial glance at a few of the many libraries that make up the Library of Congress. Not only could whole books be written about a single room--or drawer or item of the Library-but whole books have been so written. The description of the six card catalogs cov- ers but one and a half pages. The explana- tions of the theories and practices of techni- cal processing are, of necessity, oversimpli- fied. There are no footnotes for the quotes used so effectively throughout the text. Al- though numbers of positions, job descrip- tions, and statistics of work accomplished are given, the book seems somehow unpeo- pled except for the superstars. Librarians will find the last five chapters particularly interesting. Here Mr. Goodrum asks how well is the library doing its job ( p.177) . He uses this question to structure his presentation of the needs and satisfac- tion level of the library's three principal user groups: Congress, the library profes- sion, and the scholarly research world. How the library goes about meeting these needs, the relationships between the library and each group, and some of the political reali- ties of those relationships are concisely re- ported. Mr. Goodrum objectively sets forth the demands on· the library's resources by each of the three and the conflicts which would be involved in meeting any particu- lar group's requirements completely. The chapters do not appear to be merely a per- sonal view or to favor one group. Rather, they do give a sharp outline of those con- flicts about the purpose of the Library of Congress and how that purpose may be de- termined and what the choice will mean to all those interested in the outcome. Mr. Goodrum's perceptio~s of the issues of con- cern have additional significance as the li- brary world awaits : the selection of a new Librarian of Congress. That person will Recent Publications I 459 have to have what Mr. Goodrum offers as the answer to the library's questions about the future, " ... more wisdom" (p.280). Mr. Goodrum's work does extremely well that which it sets out to do. As an added recommendation, it provides a clear state- ment of the library's directional conflicts. The· price of $10.00 unfortunately may pre- vent individual librarians from buying their own copies.-]udy H. Fair, DirectOr 'of the Library, The Urban Institute, Washington, D.C. National Library of Canada. Resources Sur- vey Section. Research Collections in Ca- nadian Libraries. Ottawa: Information Canada, 1972- . Part I, Universities. Volume 6, Canada (1974). lOOp. Volume six is a summary and a 'critique of the first five volumes in a continuing se- ries, which is entitled Research Collections in Canadian Libraries. The earlier volumes, each of which dealt with a geographic area of Canada, were all issued in 1972. They report statistically by subject forty-five col- lections in as many universities, or parts of universities, that offer graduate. studies in the humanities or the social sciences. It is planned that "the information will be kept up to date in the future and will be aug- ·mented by further surveys of federal gov- .ernment libraries, special libraries, and large public libraries, and by the extension of these surveys to include science and oth- er collections." On the whole Canada has been well served in the past by many and varying li- brary surveys-well served in part because the principal finding has always been so simple and so apparent. Canadians needed books. The satisfaction of this lack is still the main and most difficult task for the li- braries of this vast land. Volume six of this the latest, but not the best, survey is in two parts. The first part presents a list of recom- mendations which are addressed to libraries in general. There follows a historical sketch of Canadian universities a,nd two ftirther essays. One essay relates academic pro- grams to library resources, and the other deals with national information and library networks in the Canadian context . . A final piece, called "Surveying the Survey; A Self-