College and Research Libraries 566 I College & Research Libraries • November 1976 gued in the Library Assistant: .. If I want a book I am justified in regarding your disap- probation, however reasonable in your own eyes, as irrelevant." But British librarians of opposite persuasion have allowed only married couples to borrow the Kinsey Re- port, and they have repeatedly justified their opposition to .. inferior" children's books with a familiar refrain: .. There is no ban on Enid Blyton, we just do not buy her books." Thompson's book is a testament to the durability of that hearty British species, the writer of letters to the editor, but therein lies its not inconsiderable fault. It consists largely of quotations-from the daily press and library journals-whose mind-numbing repetitiousness makes the reader wish the author had chosen other, more readable means to document his case. The title is misleading; the book skips over the first four decades of the century in a scant ten pages.-Roger L. Funk, Assistant Director, Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association. Lewis, Felice Flanery. Literature, Obscen- ity & Law. Carbondale and Edwards- ville: Southern Illinois Univ. Pr., 1976. 297p. $12.50 . . (LC 75-42094) (ISBN 0- 8093-07 49-9) Academic librarians usually feel them- selves above the continuing battle between the censor and the advocate of intellectual freedom. By definition, they say, the aca- demic library is the place where no censor is either welcome or effective. But, upon consideration, it is easy to identify many ways in which the supposedly seamless web of academic librarianship could be-- and frequently is-breached. Every type of librarian needs to know as much as pos- sible about the past history and likely fu- ture trends of both the publication of and judicial restraints on literary works dealing with sex. It is rather surprising that Dr. Lewis (Dean of Conolly College, The Brooklyn Center, Long Island University) has herein written the very first book to deal with all ... . . works of imaginative literature . . . known to have been the subject of obscen- ity litigation in the United States ... ," as well as related judicial opinions. Despite what the popular belief seems to be, Dean Lewis stresses the well-documented fact that·· ... censors have not discriminated be- tween outstanding cultural contributions and . . . worthless pornography," although judges usually have, especially at the Su- preme Court level. In highly readable fashion Dean Lewis reminds us that a great many of our leading litterateurs-including Whitman, Dreiser, Cabell, Faulkner, Sinclair, Farrell, Cald- well, Hellman, Edmund Wilson, and O'Hara-have faced the censor's censure. The record is not one to make freedom-lov- ing Americans proud, but it is useful to have it available through this volume. Near- ly one-third of the book's text (seventy- eight pages) is devoted to detailed descrip- tions and/ or illustrative quotations from fiction, poetry, and drama involved in American obscenity cases since 1890 (which, the author claims, was the begin- ning of both a sexual revolution in Amer- ican fiction and of the first really substan- tial effort to censor by law and legal action such fiction without regard to literary mer- it). Her book is comprehensive and clear but could have profited from more attention to the efforts of those groups and individuals who led the anticensorship fight-the American Civil Liberties Union (one brief reference) and the American Library As- sociation (unmentioned), for example. There is a great deal included on the ef- forts of the so-called ••antivice" groups. But, as a pioneering and thorough work in a highly significant field for librarians and others devoted to intellectual freedom, it deserves a place on the shelves of every academic librarian and library.-Eli M. Oboler, University Librarian, Idaho State University, Pocatello. Kochen, Manfred, ed. Information for Ac- tion: From Knowledge to Action. (Li- brary and Information Science Series) New York: Academic Pr., 1975. 248p. $12.50. (LC 75-3968) (ISBN 0-12- 417950-9) Among the fifteen papers in this collec- tion there may be hidden a classic little es- say that future information scientists will cite again and again. Unfortunately, such distinction is not obvious to this reviewer. Applause must come from another quarter. Despite its title (and the series within which Academic Press has decided to in- clude it), this is a book more about politics and the environment than about informa- tion science; more about action and social consciousness than about the transmission of knowledge. Its thrust, as Kochen candid- ly admits in the preface and in his first es- say ("Evolution of Brainlike Social Or- gans"), is to promote the concept of ". . . a movement, a social organ, a set of prin- ciples, called WISE (World Information Synthesis Encyclopedia)" (p.xi). This acronymic information monster might set us all free. It is a takeoff on one of H. G. Wells' least well-known ideas, that of a "world encyclopedia" Wells wrote about in a paper of that title which was published as one item in a 1938 collection of his es- says titled World Brain. As I understand it, Kochen and his fel- low essayists (E. B. Parker, C. W. Church- man, G. Feinberg, J. Platt, arid K. W. Deutsch) in the first section of the present book see modern computer technology as having the ability to implement the world brain-a fantastically intricate interconnec- tion of all data bases accessible to (by) anyone. But there is wide divergence in their ideas of its structure, a timetable for implementation, etc. For example, Kochen suggests that WISE is here now (or at least well under way), and that we have the capability for immediate implementation, while Churchman ("What is Information for Policy Making?" p.33-40) isn't even sure we know how to develop such a sys- tem. Churchman makes a distinction be- tween "suggestive information systems" which merely provide raw data and "deci- sive" ones which cull out extraneous infor- mation. He says that WISE must be a de- cisive system then goes on to say (p.39), "I am not going to suggest here how we should design decisive . . . systems. They are not on the drawing boards now. We don't know enough to even begin to think how they should be designed most effec- tively." (Italics added.) This divergence of belief runs to some extent throughout the book. One essayist proposes something, a later one (apparently Recent Publications I 561 without knowledge of the other author's statement) says quite the contrary. Perhaps only one theme in the book is constant: There are many things wrong with the world and its humans; most of them could be cured by more comprehensive informa- tion availability. Edwin B. Parker sets that theme in the second essay ("Who Should Control Society's Information Resources?" p.21-31) when he says (p.28), "But we would have a different kind of environment if every activist had as good information about what is going on in Washington as do the Standard Oil Lobbyists." And that concept is still obvious in the concluding chapter, which was apparently written by the editor, but is not attributed. It says (p.203): We conclude with a call to action on a note of hope. The enthusiastic effort to specify WISE, the intellectual pleasures of debating its pros and cons, and creating alternative conceptions, the commitment Back Order Problems? We are tenacious at Book House. In our concern about your order, we continue to birddog it until we deliver the book or find it out-of- print. Only upon your instructions do we cancel. We call our program ''Concerned Service" and it pays off for academic libraries through- out the U.S.A. Let us show youl For any book in print . (U.S. and Canada), send your orders to the Book House. Call 517-849-9361 Collect A The House of Superior 71» Library Service BOOK HOUSE 208 West Chicago Jonesville, Mich. 49250 568 f College & Research Libraries • November 1976 to make pilot versions work may have the effect of changing our image of what is feasible and desirable. We must not see ourselves in a lifeboat that is already so overcrowded that accepting more drown- ing persons endangers the boat and all in it, because we can expand its capacity by expanding our capacity for more imagina- tive problem-representations and more cre- ative ways of coping. An appended essay brings us back to re- ality with some discussion of the economic problems involved in a world brain. How, for example, shall we adequately compen- sate creators of information? And then there are the much more complex problems of hardware and software design compatibil- ity, the immense costs of data input, and such problems as coding for optimum re- trieval of related information. This review- er, perhaps too cynical, was reminded m_any times during his reading of the old, old JOke about the ultimate computer and data base. Having designed and built the hardware, and having patiently fed it every scrap of information known, the information scien- tists gather round to ask the ultimate ma- chine the ultimate question: "Is there a God?" The machine speaks back in a deep rumbling voice, "Now there is!" WISE may be wise, but I would judge it to be a step nearer to 1984.-W. David Laird, Univer- sity Librarian, University of Arizona, -Tuc- son. Stecher, Elizabeth. Catalogue Provision in Libraries of Colleges of Advanced Edu- cation. Melbourne: Royal Melbourne In- stitute of Technology, 1975. 1v. (var. pag.) $5.00 Australian plus freight. (ISBN 0-909099-00-6) (Available from Publishing Dept., Royal Melbourne In- stitute of Technology, 124 LaTrobe Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3000.) A research project to investigate suitable methods of production of catalogs for col- leges of advanced education libraries from computer-based data files was undertaken by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Tech- nology Library. This is the report of the de- tailed study directed by Elizabeth Stecher. The project appears to have been per- formed in a rather elaborate way, and the report is w:ritten in a way that makes it basically unreadable. The findings of the study indicate that computer-output-microform (COM) gen- erated microfilm catalogs have advantages over computer-printed book catalogs. The cost figures presented in this report have no relationship to cost figures available in the U.S. In fact, in Australia, according to this report, more than twenty copies of a microfilm catalog cost more than the same number of book catalogs. This fact seems unusual even for Australian costs. The superficial consideration of micro- fiche versus miCrofilm that this study re- ports is the only major area of the study that lacks extensive attention. The pub- lished literature on the kind of microform used for catalogs is extensive. The bibliog- raphy of the current reports cites many _of the better-known articles, but the conflict of form has not been persued here. This in-depth study and the elaborate manipulation of the data appears to be much more than is needed to arrive at the end result. The specific hypotheses that are presented and the testing and end results are obvious and have been previously studied elsewhere. There is little to be · gained by every library doing or redoing other similar studies. This report does not provide any new information.-Helen R. Citron, Head of Administrative Services, Georgia Tech Library, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Ellsworth, Diane J ., and Stevens, Norman D., eds. Landmarks of Library Litera- ture, 1876-1976. Metuchen, N.J.: Scare- crow, 1976. 520p. $17.50. (LC 75- 45139) (ISBN 0-8108-0899-4) There are those among us who have long complained that as a profession we have lost our sense of history; that we dissipate our energies needlessly ricocheting from en- thusiasm to enthusiasm, crying "Lo here," and "Lo there," making extravagant claims of salvation in the name of every cockama- mie idea that comes to mind. If we can talk louder than anyone else, we can make peo- ple listen, and if we are persuasive enough we can get them to follow until they learn, as we all have to learn sooner or later, that if the idea is worth anything, it will be