College and Research Libraries


420 I College & Research Libraries • September 1978 

protect or refine fruits of private research or 
explore commercial possibilities and patent-
ing. 

However elusive these reports are, librar-
ies cannot ignore them. They constitute an 
accepted channel of communication in sci-
entific and technical circles. They are, 
therefore, primary source material. These 
reports seldom reappear in their original 
form or in entirety. In recent years, much 
has been said about the complexity of bib-
liographic control and dissemination of un-
published reports. The time . is obviously 
ripe for a comprehensive manual that not 
only synthesizes the state of the art but also 
fills gaps in literature . 

The book under r~view, first published in 
London in 1976, assumes a certain familiar-
ity with information science terminology, 
but the authors cannot be faulted for tech-
nical treatment of the material. In fact, the 
two-part book introduces the reader to 
many types of unpublished reports and fol-
lows up with a thorough discussion of their 
origin and acquisition. Considerable atten-
tion is devoted to cataloging, abstracting, 
and indexing of the material. The subject 
analysis of the reports is a key element in 
any retrieval system, needing skill, in-
genuity, and training on the part of the li-
brary staff, a fact well brought out in the 
book. 

Particularly informative is the analysis of 
mechanization, automation, arid com-
puterization, especially in the treatment of 
microforms, including computer output mi-
croform (COM). To make the survey com-
plete, the authors also delve into the ques-
tion of security, storage, and weeding, as 
well as the organizational aspects of infor-
mation centers. Part II examines the gen-
eral principles as applied to the manage-
ment of smaller company units where the 
pressure for fast retrieval may be severe on 
the librarian. 

In addition to an extensive bibliography, 
the book contains handy lists of acronyms, 
abbreviations, and names and addresses of 
national information centers. While its focus 
is on larger centers and company-based 
units, the underlying principles have wider 
applications. Students as well as practition-
ers would, therefore, find the textbook 
treatment quite instructive. 

Admittedly, the authors do not touch 
upon how the problems of unpublished ma-
terials are tackled in countries like Japan 
and Eastern Europe. This may be left for 
later editions. It is also true that there is 
more to say in each section of the book than 
is possible to compress within a volume. 
Perhaps it is too much to ask for a case 
study approach, which would have brought 
out specific practices, followed by some of 
the better known information centers and 
corporate libraries.-Sarojini Balachandran, 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Baker, Robert K. Introduction to Library 
Research in French Literature. A 
Westview Special Study. Boulder, Colo.: 
Westview Press, 1978. 137p. $15 cloth; 
$6.95 paper. LC 77-18074. ISBN 
0-89158-060-3 (cloth) ; 0-89158-082-4 
(paper). 
This little volume of some 140 pages 

should henceforth be item number one in 
the impedimenta of every prospective 
French major or graduate student or, for 
that matter, anyone who wants to learn how 
to use a research library effectively. 

Robert Baker, who qualifies both as ref-
erence librarian and French scholar, has put 
together a compendium that introduces the 
student to the library starting with the card 
catalog and its intricacies, the classification 
systems-Dewey and LC-LC subject 
headings, and, finally, the reference tools. 
These are mostly French, but some of the 
bibliographies would, of course, be of more 
general use. Baker's treatment of subject 
headings is especially praiseworthy, as he 
shows again and again how they may be 
used to open up new avenues of investiga-
tion. 

One finds all the old stand-bys plus some 
more recent works like Paul Imbs' Tresor 
de la langue fraru;aise, (1971- ) and Fer-
nande Bassan' s Bibliography of French 
Language and Literature ·(1976), "addressed 
to the English-speaking reader with some 
knowledge of French." The Livres disponi-
bles '77, which continues the Catalogue de 
l'edition franr.;aise,. and the 1977 MLA 
Handbook, which replaces the MLA Style 
Sheet, probably came out too late for inclu-
sion; but these are bagatelles. Baker fre-
quently suggests consulting a reference li-



brarian, and he also indicates which of the 
tools might be purchased for home use. The 
section, "Using Your Time Effectively: The 
Mechanics of Research," is worthy of careful 
study and rereading. There is a good index 
and, at least in the hardcover edition, a few 
blank pages at the end for additions. 

At the end of his preface Baker writes, 

The ultimate test of this book is the student's 
heightened awareness of the wealth and variety 
'of resources available in the library; its measure 
of success lies in educating the French major to 
become a confident information seeker and a 
competent library researcher. 

The book merits high praise on both 
counts.-Paul]. Kann, Stanford University, 
Stanford, California. 

Rice, Stanley. Book Design: Systematic As-
pects. New York: Bowker, 1978. 274p. 
$17.50. LC 77-28186. ISBN 0-8352-
1044-8. 

Rice, Stanley. Book Design: Text Format 
Models. New York: Bowker, 1978. 215p. 
$17.50. LC 77-26908. ISBN 0-8352-
1045-6. 
Book Design: Systematic Aspects is a 

practical manual for. professional book de-
signers working in large publishing houses, 
particularly those oriented toward 
textbooks. Its emphasis is on efficient use of 
modern technology in the design and pro-
duction of a book: text, illustrations, print-
ing, and binding. The sole illustrations are 
charts, tables, lists, forms, and diagrams 
provided to help the book designer organize 
both time and resources for more effective 
productiveness. 

Because of its technical nature, the book's 
readership will be largely among book pro-
fessionals, while the more general reader 
will continue to prefer Marshall Lee's at-
tractive text, Bookmaking: The Illustrated 
Guide to Design and Production (Bowker, 
1965). Nevertheless, because it is more up 
to date and because it gives such a detailed 
analysis of the work of the book designer, 
the newer book will be a welcome addition 
to collections serving academic institutions 
where book publishing and technology are 
taught. 

Stanley Rice's theme throughout is that 
most book design decisions fall within a 
finite number of variables, and that book 

Recent Publications. I 421 

design-perhaps not great or innovative 
book design, but good book design-can be 
very largely routinized or systematized. 
This is precisely what his second book, 
Book Design: Text Format Models, pub-
lished uniformly with the first, proposes to 
do in the field of typography. 

Book designers in publishing houses have 
traditionally given typographic instructions to 
printers by means of intricate specifications 
written on the manuscripts and repeated· on 
order forms. The operation is complex and 
the resulting proofs often disappointing. 
What seemed a good idea in theory often 
looks different in print. This book provides 
a streamlined method of specifying typo-
graphic details on the one hand and visual 
examples of many variations of the usual 
format areas of books on the other. These 
format areas include not only the main text 
but also such details as tables, footnotes, 
mathematical displays, running titles, bib-
liographies, indexes, and the like. 
. There is one chapter devoted to each of 
twenty-one of these areas (some others are 
given in appendixes). Each chapter has a 
one- or two-page text indicating the typo-
graphic problems involved, followed by 
many pages that print out possible so-
lutions, . thus providing a visual guide to 
both designer and printer. The book assigns 
to each format area a "name tag" consisting 
of two capital letters, such as TX for main 
text, Ff for footnotes, and so on. Each for-
mat example is further identified by a 
lower-case letter, a, b, c, etc. 

Therefore, assuming that both the book 
designer and the printer agree to use this 
book as their typographic guide, communi-
cation between them is greatly simplified. 
After specifying the five typographic basics 
for a given book (type face, type size, type 
body, measure, and paragraph indentions) 
the book designer may indicate all other 
typographic decisions simply by using the 
"name tags," such as, Ffe, indicating that 
footnotes are to be pdnted according to 
example "e" in the chapter on footnotes. 
Allowance is made for the designer to 
specify certain exceptions to these models, 
but in the interests of efficiency, presum-
ably such exceptions would be kept to a 

· minimum. 
Rice is a well-known book designer and