College and Research Libraries 352 I College & Research Libraries • July 1977 networks on other library cooperatives or on member library organization, character set limitations, formats for nonbook materi- als, the potentially significant FEDLINK data base planning projects, and the net- working activities of the National Agricul- tural Library and the National Library of Medicine are among the topics which are either omitted or treated in a perfunctory manner. Less serious, but annoying, are the use of abbreviations in the text, minor fac- tual errors (TYMNET is more than a "teletypewriter communications link"; the Smithsonian Institution is not in Mary- land) , and obvious lapses in proofreading (e.g., "loan" for "load" on page 5; repeat of "are" on page 29). The publication is spiral-bound, soft- cover, and reproduced by photo-offset al- though not always carefully typed. With the exception of several necessarily costly works on printing, and other publications from Knowledge Industry Publications, this publication has by far the highest per-page cost of any title to be reviewed in College & Research Libraries, even if the 38-page "List of Networks" is included. In sum- mary, this is a useful addition to the litera- ture on library networks but still far from the quality monograph that should be de- voted to this important topic.-Darrell H. Lemke, Coordinator of Library Programs, Comortium of Universities of the Washing- ton Metropolitan Area. A Search for New Insights in Librarians hip: A Day of Comparative Studies. Proceed- ings of a Conference Held in the Library School Commons, Helen C. White Hall, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis- consin, April 25, 1975. Edited by Wil- liam L. Williamson. Madison: Library School, Univ. of Wisconsin, 1976. 106p. $4.00. (Order from: Publications Com- mittee, Library School, Univ. of Wiscon- sin, 600 North Park Street, Madison, WI 53706.) This volume contains seven papers, most by doctoral students enrolled in the Semi- nar in Comparative Librarianship. The sem- inar's methodological focus is to attempt "to assemble the data of institutional devel- opment, namely library statistics and those demographic conditions which seemed to correlate best with given levels of develop- ment" ( p.58). Four papers resulted from such efforts. Three papers use a two-nation approach: Donald C. Johnson's study, "Bibliographical Controls and Some Other Indicators of the Status of Librarianship in Ceylon and Pakistan," compares general factors that in- fluence library development and a series of bibliographic controls, and the author con- cludes that "local conditions are likely to play a dominant role that overrides the impact of a common colonial experience" ( p.33). In "A Comparison of Jamaican and Puerto Rican Library Development," Dan- iel Flores Duran notes the importance "of outside forces in situations without strong indigenous library traditions" ( p .1 00) . Peter Neenan reviews the "Development of Library Education Programs in the Two Germanies since 1945" and sees there "a clear illustration of the effect of different styles of political and philosophical ap- proach" upon agencies of library education (p.46). Robert V. Williams, author of the most ambitious paper (statistically speaking), "Indicators of Library Development: Latin America," employs the computer to analyze an array of variables to test a series of hypotheses relating library development to a number of indicators. He finds it neces- sary to reject all his hypotheses, concluding that the attempt provides no solid leads to hypotheses of causality and that he has been dealing with too many variables in an initial study of this kind. A fifth paper, "Indicators of Library De- velopment: Counties of Southwestern Wis- consin," by Larry Gertzog, reminds us that comparative studies need not cross national political boundaries. He questions "why one county in southwestern Wisconsin had de- cided consistently over an eighteen year period not to involve itself in a public li- brary system with its neighboring counties" and concludes by doubting that "any indi- cators, no matter how clearly derived or how universal in application, can eliminate the need to understand the unique back- ground of each situation under study" (p.67). There are two general papers. In an opening piece, "Publishing and the Intel- Pay only a fraction of the cost of acquiring basic librar1 research material with IHS@ Books in Microfiche Programs " ... there is a body of knowledge-the classics , the important scholarly titles , and the definitive works on .. . subjects of interest to an undergraduate community-which should be in any college library ." Books for College Libraries, 1967. Information Handling Services (IHS) has published and continues to publish in micro- fiche many of the titles listed in the bibliography , Books for College Libraries, published b'( the American Library Association. The microfiche materials are organized by Library o Congress (BCL) subject into 19 groups , with BCL groups 1 through 15 immediately available . Groups may be purchased separately. Softbound title lists, alphabetized by author, are available for BCL groups 1-15. The titles are cross-referenced to the fiche by means of an identifying (access) number. 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Inc -- 354 I College & Research Libraries • July 1977 lectual 'System'" (also published in the Annals of the American Academy of Politi- cal and Social Science, September 1975), Philip G. Altbach, State University of New York at Buffalo, describes the critical role books continue to play in the intellectual system of most societies. The other general paper, by the editor, William L. William- son, is "Comparative Studies: Onions? or the Emperor's New Clothes?" and contains some general remarks about comparative studies. Even though it makes no pretense of giving us definitive studies, this little vol- ume can prove useful as a compilation of several case studies. But one wishes Wil- liamson had converted his remarks into a general introductory essay, thus indicating at the outset the methodological basis of the Wisconsin seminar, instead of leaving the readers to discover it for themselves. The inclusion of maps would have been a helpful addition; and despite the note ad- vising that the volume contains "an edited version" of the papers, there is some incon- sistency in footnote style, and some cita- tions appear to be incomplete. Neverthe- less, the Library School at Madison de- serves commendation for making available a series of papers useful to those interested in comparative librarianship.-William Ver- non Jackson, The University of Texas at Austin. Johnson, Elmer D., and Harris, Michael H. History of Libraries in the Western World. 3d ed., completely revised. Me- tuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1976. 354p. $10.00. LC 76-25422. ISBN 0-8108- 0949-4. The first edition of this familiar work ap- peared in 1965 as a transmogrification of a still earlier Johnson book published by Scarecrow Press ten years before. It repre- sented a unique attempt to provide a sur- vey of the spread and expansion of libraries from earliest times in Europe and the Unit- ed States. Its success as a text in library schools led to a second edition expanded to include developments in Canada and Latin America. Its publisher, however, soon discovered that more was not better: the higher cost, the sheer bulk of 521 pages, and the repetitious nature of the contents made the second edition a much less at- tractive commodity. As a result, Michael Harris (University of Kentucky Library School) was called in to perform surgery. In terms of the imme- diate goal of reducing its size, the third edition succeeds handsomely. With only 354 pages, it is slimmer than even the first edition and sells for $2.50 less than its predecessor. It achieves this by the adop- tion of a more efficient format that crowds 20 percent more words onto a page, by the elimination of some sections altogether (those dealing with modem private librar- ies, for example), by vigorously pruning reading lists at the end of each chapter, and by severely cutting the index to a quar- ter of its previous size. But alas, less is not necessarily all that better, either. The updating of the reading lists and the deletion of obsolete and not readily accessible entries that padded earli- er editions are perhaps the most positive re- sults. The book itself falls considerably short of success both in terms of its overall style and presentation as well as in the very way in which it conceives of its subject. It may be questionable for this journal to subject to very close scrutiny a textbook, particularly one claiming no pretentions to serious scholarship. But it is worth consid- ering some flaws in what may still be con- sidered as one of the more useful texts because they reflect characteristic short- comings, not only of library history as it has been written, but of the kind of tedious courses to which library school students are often subjected. Despite the publisher's claim, the book has not been "completely revised in the light of recent advances." There has been some tinkering with transitional sentences, some dropping of paragraphs here and there. There has been a good deal of scis- sors-and-paste rearrangement. But the book, for the most part, has not been recast or re- written except in the most superficial sense. Overall it is still-what its pedestrian style has never disguised-a dry, enumerative account of the establishment through time of "organized collections of graphic 'materi- als." It takes its reader from country to coun- try and from century to century through