College and Research Libraries should be as a national goal the develop- ment of a coordinated National Informa- tion Policy; that · there should be in the Executive Office of the President an Office of Information Policy (either by creating a new entity or by refocusing and/ or re- structuring one or more existing entities) ; that there should be created an interagency Council on Information Policy chaired by the director of the Office of Information Policy; that the Office of Information Pol- icy should be assisted by a representative advisory committee. The Committee on the Right of Privacy began its study taking a narrow view of in- formation (i.e., data about individuals col- lected and maintained by federal agencies). It became evident early on that this view was inadequate, so a meeting was arranged by the National Commission on Libraries and Information Science (NCLIS) in July 1976 between members of the committee and representatives of various types of li- braries and information services and public and private agencies. Given its charge and the deadline of Sep- tember 1976, it is clear that the committee could have done little more than catalog the issues. This it has done with admirable clarity, arranging fifteen issues into five clusters: government information; informa- tion in commerce; interaction between tech- nology and government; international impli- cations; preparing for the information age. As we move toward the White House Conference, our mails will bring and our desks will be covered by an unequaled avalanche of "Reports from Washington," brought to us with the compliments of NC~IS. This document will not win a writ- ing award, but we will see none in the ava- lanche of more importance.-C. ]ames Schmidt, Director of Libraries, State Uni- versity of New York at Albany. Wright, Louis B. Of Books and Men. Co- lumbia, S.C.: Univ. of South Carolina Pr., 1976. 180p. $7.95. LC 76-26493. ISBN 0-87249-344-X. Louis Booker Wright is one of the few remaining eminent research scholar-librari- ans in the tradition of Reuben Gold Thwaites. Research associate virtually in charge of the Huntington Library for six- teen years and director of the Folger Li- Recent Publications I 531 brary for twenty, he was connected with a galaxy of intellectual enterprises, organi- zations, and institutions. For these activities he has been heaped with honors, including twenty-eight honorary doctorates. This is the second brief autobiographical book he has written since 197 4. Wright's accounts of the conversion of both the Huntington and the Folger, pre- eminent among our private research librar- ies, are of considerable interest, since he participated in both developments almost from the beginning. To convert even a great private library to research strength requires a great deal of thought and effort. When Indiana University was given the Lilly Library, Cecil Byrd (one of the finest bookmen in this profession) observed to me that to fill in the gaps between the great books and solidify it into a research collec- tion would take about thirty years. Indiana is still working on that very process. At the Huntington, Wright tqok a strictly pragmatic approach, including the acquisi- tion of microfilm, to solidify the fields of strength in Huntington's collection and ac- quire the ordinary books and reference books necessary to allow academic scholars to work fruitfully with the original collec- tion. Converting Huntington's original staff, infused with the collector's attitudes and values, to an outgoing, service-minded library staff, equipped to cope with the sometimes brutally utilitarian, self-centered demands of university scholars, was even more difficult. When he came to the Folger in 1948, it was in disrepute, disrepair, and disarray, with service denied to many qualified scholars, books biblio-piled but not cata- loged, and guards over the collection wear- ing guns. The same process used at the Huntington was applied to the Folger with success. The emergence of both libraries into the intellectual world was greatly facil- itated by programs of permanent research scholars and rotating research fellowships to encourage the development and use of the library. Wright correctly states that the importance of private research libraries will loom more important as the strength of the university research libraries dwindles. In- deed, in the 1980s, we all may tend to re- vert to the conditions of the Folger when Wright took it over-collections unsolidi- 532 I College & Research Libraries • November 1977 fied, books uncataloged, guards with guns. The book contains a range of other in- terests-sketches of Sir Thomas Bodley and Henry Clay Folger (though not of Hunting- ton), experiences in the British Museum Li- brary and the Bodleian in 1930, and reminiscences of a far more relaxed aca- demic world. The director of the Hunting- ton, in the 1930s, spent every summer at Bar Harbor. Of the two accounts, that of the Hunt- ington shows a certain amount of feeling, whereas that of the Folger is rather flat and mechanical. Wright's heart remained be- hind in southern California where he had been most happy. As autobiographical writ- ing, Wright's style, which holds his material at arm's length from himself, is unfortunate. His writing does not i!lvolve him as a per- son, and it does not reflect the qualities and mind of a remarkable person. Consequent- ly, although his material has a range of in- terest for anyone interested in libraries and scholarship, its presentation is not very ex- citing.-Ellsworth Mason, Head, Special Collections Department, University of Colo- rado, Boulder. A Study of Coverage Overlap among Four- teen Major Science and Technology Ab- stracting and Indexing Services. Toni Carbo Bearman, principal investigator. William A. Kunberger, project coordina- tor. NFAIS-77 I 1. Philadelphia: National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services (NFAIS), 1977. 75p., 8 micro- fiche in pocket. $15.00 (prepaid). Abstracting and indexing services are virtually essential for gaining access to in- formation contained in an ever-increasing volume of journals. It is hardly necessary to point out that, as the body of scientific literature has grown, problems in reaching information in this literature have intensi- fied. The authors state in their introduction: "If each A & I service must scan a constant- ly growing number of journals, including many which are interdisciplinary in scope, Personalized • -~\ 88rvJ.C8 • .. ~ ~ ;utomatically Faxon's automation means even more than computer speed and accuracy. It means systems designed to make Faxon customers virtual experts in subscription management. . Faxon's new SCOPE Service enables libraries to monitor price 1nc~eas~s over a three.-year period by taking price data directly from !h~1r umque personal h1story f1les stored in Faxon's computer. SCOPE IS Ideal for d~partment he?d~ and subject specialists who can make a thorough rev1ew of subscnpt1on costs as they relate to budgets prior to annual renewal. Serials control information is also available from Faxon's com- puter on either punched cards or magnetic tape. Libraries with data processing capabilities will find our input precise and time-saving. Faxon makes automation work for you ... personally. £m F.W. FAXOn COmPAnY, InC. library Magazine Subscription Agency 15 Southwest Park , Westwood, Massachusetts 02090 Tel: 800-225-7894 (toll-free) • 617-329-3350 (collect in Mass. and Canada only)