College and Research Libraries


444 I College & Research Libraries • September 1977 

concludes that the supply and demand sit,. 
uation as it existed required only a very 
small percentage of humanistic writings in 
manuscript to be made available through 
publishing. 

The statistical part of the book is based 
mainly on the British Museum Catalogue 
of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century. 
While, admittedly, this covers a large cross-
section of incunables, greater accuracy 
could have been achieved if some of the 
many national catalogs published since 
were used as well. 

The bibliography is extensive, yet one 
misses standard works which may have 
been of help, such as the diaries of Marino 
Sanuto, who as senator of the Venetian Re-
public faithfully recorded anything he 
found of interest from 1496 to 1533. Some-
what 1ater, but a good source for the study 
of the book trade and the mobility of books, 
is Schwetschke's Codex nundinarius which 
categorizes the books for sale at the Frank-
furt fairs by language, content, and place 
of publication. Other helpful works for this 
purpose are the published insurance and 
shipping inventory lists. 

The book is full of interesting facts and 
insights which will delight the reader such 
as those pertaining to joint publishing and 
the distinction between the printer and the 
entrepreneur publisher. The reader will 
find the book challenging as to the method 
and procedure used as well as to its con-
clusions.-Miroslav Krek, Brandeis Univer-
sity Library. 

Davinson, Donald. Theses and Dissertations 
as Information Sources. London: Clive 
Bingley; Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 
1977. 88p. $7.00. LC 76-54930. ISBN 
0-208-01539-6 Linnet; 0-85157-227-8 
Bingley. 
Donald Davinson's opening statement-

"Academic theses provide a fascinating field 
of study for the librarian"-in the intro-
duction whets the appetite of the reader, 
while the remainder of the work leaves the 
reader intellectually malnourished. The thin 
volume of eighty-eight pages itself seems 
undernourished. Chapter 1 begins on page 
11; a postscript of three pages includes a 
page of five lines in presenting an unanno-
tated list of thesis guides; and the work 

ends with five pages of indexes (author and 
title and subject) with more than one of the 
five pages left blank. 

Substantively, the reader will find little 
that is new or that has not been better pre-
sented elsewhere. For example, "The Bib-
liographic Control of Theses" (Chapter 3) 
is a superficial sampling of bibliographic 
sources without critical comment, while 
Reynolds' Guide to Theses and Disserta.,. 
tions (Gale, 197 5) seeks to present an ex-
haustive, international annotated bibliogra-
phy of such sources. 

Davinson' s intent to convey to the reader 
an international understanding of disserta-
tions as information sources is seldom at-
tained; the reader often is left with a 
hodgepodge of disjointed information. After 
a careful reexamination of Chapter 2, "The 
Nature and Purposes of Theses," the reader 
will be hard pressed to recall much infor-
mation which in any vital way might affect 
the ability of the dissertation to serve as an 
information vehicle. 

Few academic librarians need be re-
minded that this nation's current annual 
output of dissertations surpasses 30,000 
titles, a number which dwarfs this nation's 
annual output of commercially published, 
scholarly monographic titles. Given these 
and other nations' outpourings of scholarly 
information contained in dissertations, the 
importance of the dissertation as an infor-
mation source is self-evident. There is no 
dearth of questions concerning the disserta-
tion that need answers-for example, do 
the perceptions of librarians concerning dis-
sertations differ from those of dissertation 
authors? Would inclusion of dissertations 
in book review columns affect libra1y acqui-
sition programs? Does the acquisition of 
dissertations by libraries in microformat ad-
versely affect subsequent use? 

Recent inquiries into the role and use of 
dissertations by the Universities of Michi-
gan and Texas attest to the continuing con-
cern of others outside libraries for greater 
insights into the dissertation as an informa-
tion vehicle. Unfortunately for interested 
readers, Davinson's book adds little or no 
insight. The dissertation as a topic deserves 
better treatment than accorded by this title. 
-'"Calvin ]. Boyer, The University of Mis-
sissippi. 



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