College and Research Libraries 358 I College & Research Libraries • july 1980 time will enhance our understanding of the subject. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change deserves to be studied by all who are con- cerned with the efficacy of print. It is a thoughtful and sophisticated approach to the kinds of effects that can be anticipated from communication and how they can be dis- cerned. Laid in the social and intellectual structures that facilitated or resisted the progress of print, the text observes the un- winding of human knowledge in the course of years. This is consistent with the author's choice of the printing press as an agent of change instead of the agent of change in her title. More recent developments in com- munication could benefit from similar study. The development of the power press and other advanced mechanization contributed to the speed and volume of the production and dissemination of print in the nineteenth century that may have been proportionate to the increase of the hand press over manuscripts. The electronic revolution of our own time-the media, the computer, the vision of a paperless society-has re- suited from technological advances far more radical than the recombination of traditional materials and processes involved in the in- vention of printing and the power press. It has resulted not only in the manifold mag- nification of the speed and volume with which communications are reproduced and disseminated but also in new ways for the generation of data. One should not look for too close a parallel in the effects of these la- ter revolutions with the effects Eisenstein infers from the early progress of printing, but she has pointed a way in which effects might be studied without waiting several centuries.-Howard W. Winger, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Irvine, Betty J. Slick Libraries: A Guide for Academic Institutions, Museums, and Special Collections. With the assistance of P. Eileen Fry. 2d. ed. Littleton, Colo: Libraries Unlimited, 1979. 321p. $19.50 U: S. & Canada, $23 elsewhere. LC 79- 17354. ISBN 0-87287-202-5. This new edition of a book, first pub- lished in 1974, follows exactly the same for- AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. ; AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. "serving academic and research libraries" 42 Chasner Street • Hempstead, NY 11550 Call us 516/489-4011 collect! mat as the older one. There are nine sub- ject chapters, covering the history of slide librarianship, administration and staffing, classification and cataloging, record-keeping and indexing systems, acquisition and pro- duction, storage and access systems, plan- ning for physical facilities, projection sys- tems, and miscellaneous equipment and supplies. These chapters occupy roughly two-thirds of the book's total length, the re- mainder being taken u'p by an extensive bibliography and three directories (of equip- ment manufacturers, slide sources, and U.S. slide libraries, respectively). There is little change, save for a few new references, in the chapters on history and administration and staffing. Nor is there much change in chapter 8 (projection sys- tems) and chapter 9 (miscellaneous equip- ment such as light tables and slide mounts), although the "Acknowledgments" claim that these sections were substantially altered by Fry. In reality, the major changes here are the equipment examples discussed. In talk- ing about partially enclosed soundproof viewing booths, for example, the new edi- tion describes a model used at the U niversi- ty of Missouri-Kansas City, while the older edition featured the Indiana University sys- tem. Where the real revision seems to have taken place is in the discussion of classifica- tion and cataloging. The first edition de- voted thirty-two pages to this topic; the new edition nearly doubles this amount. The chapter begins with a survey of handbooks and manuals that discuss the cataloging of nonprint materials; to this discussion the new edition adds examples of two slides cataloged under three separate systems (AACR 2, the 1976 edition of AECT's Stan- dards for Cataloging Nonbook Materials, and the 1973 Canadian Library Association Nonbook Materials, edited by Weihs). There is also a brief consideration of ISBD as it relates to nonprint materials. As in the first edition, the remainder of the chapter contains outlines and descriptions of slide classification systems used by a variety of institutional slide collections. The one change here is in the inclusion of additional institutional examples. Chapter 5 (on acquisition, production methods, and equipment) also exhibits some Recent Publications I 359 alterations. The material on criteria for eval- uating the quality of commercial slides is expanded, the discussion of copyright now includes reference to the 1978 Copyright Law, and a new (but regrettably brief) sec- tion on the use of microfiche (color as well as black and white) in slide collections has been added. One last change might be mentioned that is both logical and disconcerting. In the first edition, the directory of slide libraries listed 240 collections in the United States, Can- ada, and several miscellaneous foreign coun- tries. In the new edition, only those 83 U.S. slide collections that are actually cited in the text are named. This reduction is a result of the 1978 publication of the Direc- tory of Art Libraries and Visual Resource Collections in North America, compiled by the Art Libraries Society/North America. As directories usually expand in size with sub- sequent editions, this example of a declin- ing one is sensible but a bit startling. The primary function of Slide Libraries seems to be to serve as a manual for the op- eration of a slide library, whether new or long established. The book fulfills this pur- pose admirably, and the revisions outlined above should make it even more useful in this regard than before.-Cathleen Flana- gan, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Marulli, Luciana. Documentation of the United Nations System: Co-ordination in its Bibliographic Control. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1979. 225p. $15. LC 79- 17510. ISBN 0-8108-1233-9. Luciana Marulli is currently documents reference librarian at the Dag Hammar- skjold Library. Despite its title, her book is not a reference tool, nor is it easy reading. Rather, it is her doctoral dissertation (Col- umbia University) and reads like one, run- ning from hypotheses and data collection procedures through analysis to conclupons and suggestions for further research. In addition to the dissertation style, the writ- ing is not always polished and is occasion- ally difficult to follow. The volume is un- necessarily oversize, printed in double- spaced typescript. This is a detailed and comprehensive study of the bibliographic tools produced by fifteen organizations in the United Nations