College and Research Libraries


undergraduate history courses. As explana-
tion, he cites the opening up of general educa-
tion options, the dwindling need for secondary 
school history teachers, and the poor salability 
of history to students interested in finding 
jobs. 

The second chapter, entitled "Doing versus 
Taking It," places with the faculty the blame 
for history's poor image with students. Claim-
ing that the "guilt lies not with the discipline, 
but with the presentation," Haywood sees a 
need for historians to change their approach to 
history and their instructional methods. 

The final chapter offers three instances in 
which teachers have worked with librarians to 
involve students in compiling, or "doing," his-
tory. Two of the projects are at the high school 
level: students work on an oral history of their 
own school, and an ongoing course produces a 
media presentation about state personalities 
and events. Haywood also relates how he 
worked with a librarian at the college level to 
stimulate learning in a black history course. 

The transcript of the panel and audience 
discussion is of some interest but serves 
mainly to restate the thoughts of the second 
and third chapters. The conclusions reached 
are not new and seem obvious: teachers and 
librarians should work together to motivate 
and facilitate student learning. 

Any thinking about libraries from faculty 
and, especially, administrators is useful and 
encouraging. There is nothing in The Doing of 
History to incite the serious and often justified 
criticism directed at the library-college. It is a 
slight, though thought-provoking, account of 
how one professor discovered the importance 
of the library in his teaching. -Douglas 
Birdsall, Idaho State University, Pocatello. 

Bock, D. Joleen, and LaJeunesse, Leo R. The 
Learning Resources Center: A Planning 
Primer for Libraries in Transition. LJ Spe-
cial Report #3. New York: Library Journal, 
1977. 64p. $5. ISBN 0-8352-1051-0. ISSN 
0362-448X. 

Burlingame, Dwight F.; Fields, Dennis C.; 
and Schulzetenberg, Anthony C. The Col-
lege Learning Resource Center. Littleton, 
Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1978. 176p. $15 
U.S. and Canada; $18 elsewhere. LC 78-
13716. ISBN 0-87287-189-4. 
These works provide a good assessment of 

the recent trend in two- and four-year colleges 

Recent Publications I 177 

toward the unification of educational resources 
and services into a single administrative unit. 
The college learning resource center (LRC) 
expands the library in the traditional sense to 
interface with audiovisual services, graphic 
production, and instructional television com-
ponents. 

Bock and LaJeunesse have written an over-
view of learning resource programs as related 
to facilities design and program planning. It 
assesses the basic concepts that should be con-
sidered in the planning or restructuring ·of 
programs. The Burlingame , Fields, and 
Schulzetenberg book deals with the entire 
LRC phenomenon, with attention to its func-
tion and administration. It is designed for 
media personnel in existing and evolving pro-
grams. 

The emphasis of each book is on the practi-
cal application oflearning resources to the col-
lege environment. Written by media profes-
sionals, each book combines theoretical dis-
cussions and specific examples that typify on-
going programs in various U.S. colleges. 

In a nuts-and-bolts approach, Bock and La 
Jeunesse analyze LRC service components in 
terms of public services, technical services, 
production services, and related instructional 
services. Emphasis is placed on writing educa-
tional specifications in the planning stage. The 
specifications form the rationale and justifica-
tion for space allocation and utilization based 
on the expected function of the facility. There 
are some guidelines for preparing speci-
fications. An exemplary set of specifications is 
included along with organizational diagrams 
and flow charts of specific LRCs. The flow 
charting process is analyzed by levels, and 
brief synopses of PERT (Program Evaluation 
Review Technique) and CPM (Critical Path 
Method) are developed as alternative methods 
of tracking program development. 

There .is a good, succinct section on sug-
gested staffing patterns with task analyses and 
job descriptions. A rapid and somewhat su-
perficial overview of how the LRC fits in with 
curriculum, teaching methods, and the col-
lege community is included. This culminating 
section serves to link the other topics into a 
comprehensive package. 

The Burlingame, etc., book is an in-depth 
assessment of the LRC, and it is well 
documented. The first few chapters offer a 
philosophical foundation for the conceptuali-

·. 



178 I College & Research Libraries • March 1979 

zation of the LRC-its evolution, organiza-
tion, and operation. There is no singular 
heuristic LRC model since local conditions 
and service philosophies differ for each institu-
tion. Many of the service components, how-
ever, can be applied or modified to fit a par-
ticular situation. 

Numerous organizational charts of existing 
programs are included. The difference be-
tween them underscores the uniqueness of the 
environment of which each is a part. An under-
lying current of the book is functionalism 
through humanism. Some insight into the 
LRC as a process can be gleaned from the 
notion that it should be humanistically 
oriented and not strictly goal centered. Public 
service and user accessibility are keynotes, 
and systematic planning and intelligent deci-
sion making, according to the authors, are a 
significant part of the process and underlie 
good service. 

Instructional technology services, instruc-
tional development, and faculty development 
are also included with definitions for each. 
These discussions seem simplistic in the as-
sessment of these fields; nonetheless, they 
provide a good overview. MBO for LRCs is 
also discussed with a brief procedure for its 
implementation. MBO (management by ob-
jectives) is a complex technique, and it would 
be difficult to apply its -principles or even 
understand its value or potential use from this 
brief treatment. The concluding section 
explains various personnel and budgeting con-
siderations , and a synopsis of their workings 
and interrelationships is included. 

These books are good introductory as-
sessments of the current status of college 
learning resource centers. The books manage 
to provide a good blend of theory and practical-
ity. The success of the Bock and LaJeunesse 
book is predicated on doing what it purports to 
do; that is, it offers an overview of program 
planning. The Burlingame book is compre-
hensive in scope and is clearly written. In view 
of subject coverage and price they both should 
be recommended for professional reading and 
reference.-William A. Mcintyre, New 
Hampshire Vocational-Technical College, 
Nashua. 

Washington University. School of Medicine 
Library. Archives Procedural Manual. 2d 
ed. rev. St. Louis: Washington University 

School of Medicine Library, 1978. 143p. 
$7.25. ISBN 0-912260-08-4. (Available from 
Archives Section, Washington University 
School of Medicine Library, 4580 Scott 
Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110.) 
The Archives Procedural Manual of Wash-

ington University's School of Medicine Li-
brary consists of 143 pages, printed on only 
one side and bound with one of those awkward 
plastic loose-leafbinders, and includes twenty 
flow charts and eighteen forms devoted to ar-
chives, manuscripts, microfilming, and oral 
history. A little more than half is devoted to 
the microfilmed (all collections, now totaling 
nearly forty, are apparently microfilmed after 
processing) and computer-indexed oral history 
programs. 

This manual shares a common fault with 
many other library and archival procedure 
manuals. The emphasis is necessarily on the 
documentation of trivial steps in the process, 
the filling out of forms and the completion of 
procedures in the proper order. Slighted is the 
intellectual activity that marks the heart of the 
process, in part because it is not amenable to 
flowcharts and forms. Because of this, it would 
be a mistake to expect a procedures manual to 
teach a novice how to process a manuscript or 
archival group. 

Nevertheless, an understanding of the 
theory basic to the process is a necessary 
component-one that is lacking here. For in-
stance, a flowchart, after the importance of 
provenance and original order has been cited, 
directs the processor to divide the material 
into "subgroups" based on formats. In addi-
tion, the processing of loose papers, "sub-
group #3," indicates that they are to be specifi-
cally described at the item level in the inven-
tory. This is particularly ironic, considering 
the claim that it is the general applicability of 
this manual that caused it to be published. 

While nearly every page in this manual is 
dated August 1, 1978, indicating that it is a 
current revision, archaic practices and princi-
ples abound. For a nonarchival example of a 
living fossil, see the job descriptions in which 
the archivist, a "he," supervises the archives 
library assistant II, a "she," as well as the 
"microfilm camera operator in her work." 
Most of the reportedly twelve hundred pur-
chasers of the first edition will probably not 
need this second edition; the preface indicates 
that the only major change has been the addi-