College and Research Libraries


views with little reference to other writers; 
those views partake heavily of a British per-
suasion. The result is not a textbook, nor 
yet a scholarly treatise. For libraries that 
want this kind of book, this is the kind they 
will want.-Guy A. Marco, Library De-
velopment Consultants, Washington, D.C . 

Conroy, Barbara. Library Staff Develop-
ment Profile Pages: A Guick and Work-
book for Library S,elf Assessment and 
Planning. Tabernash, Colo.: The Author, 
1979. 50p. $12. (Available from: Barbara 
Conroy, Box 502, Tabernash, CO 80478.) 
This recent work is intended to be used 

in conjunction with the author's Library 
Staff Development and Continuing Educa-
tion: Principles and Practices. Retentive 
readers will recall that this earlier work was 
reviewed by Sheila Creth at the dawn of 
1979 (C&RL 40:73-75). The previous work 
provided the principles and practices; this 
one, the profile pages which serve as a 
guide and workbook and which grew out of 
the author's 1979 evaluative study of the 
Cooperative Information Network's staff de-
velopment program in California (ERIC ED 
172 828). The two clearly complement each 
other. 

The present work is divided into two sec-
tions. Part I gives a "Profile for Assessing 
Library Staff Development-A Guide," 
while Part II is a "Profile for Planning Li-
brary Staff Development-A Workbook." 
Part I gives worksheets to hel~t define the 
profiles of responsibilities and policies, of 
planning the program, of implementation, 
and for evaluating the result. Part II ad-
dresses itself to staff development needs, 
program goals and objectives, roles and re-
sponsibilities, policies, resources, the needs 
assessment process, the planning process, 
and the evaluation process. A selected bib-
liography completes the work. 

I was prompted, . in thinking about the 
administrative aspects of staff development, 
to recall the distinction between the art and 
science of a martini. The person who has 
never made one requires instructions in the 
science while the devotee, requiring no 
assistance, practices the art. At the risk of 
oversimplifying and appearing blase, the 
distinction is useful. Those already much in-
volved in staff development will wonder 

Recent Publications I 381 

why they need these profile pages and will, 
at a possible risk, choose to ignore them. 
Those who have never been engaged in staff 
development will, to their lasting credit, 
tum to these most useful pages. As to those 
in the middle somewhere, well--check 
them anyhow. No harm will be done and 
perhaps a lot of good realized.-Leslie W. 
Sheridan, University of Toledo, Toledo, 
Ohio. 

Videotext: The Coming Revolution in Home/ 
Office Information Retrieval. By Efrem 
Sigel with Joseph Roizen, Colin Mcin-
tyre, Max Wilkinson. White Plains, N.Y. : 
Knowledge Industry Publications, 1980. 
154p . $24.95. LC 79-18935. ISBN 
0-914236-41-5. 
Videotext has been defined as a two-way 

(interactive) communication system that 
links computer data bases to television by 
telephone or by cable television lines. Tele-
text, on the other hand, is a one-way 
(noninteractive) communication system that 
transmits information via television through 
regular or cable television broadcast signals. 
Videotext and teletext are considered to be 
the newest and most revolutionary develop-
ments in information retrieval. 

With videotext one may use a hand-held 
calculator type key-pad and have a wide 
variety of information appear on a television 
screen, such as classified ads in the daily 
newspaper, travel and weather information, 
encyclopedia articles, and even holdings of 
the local library. Bills can be paid, bank 
accounts examined, and theater tickets re-
served by this new home information 
service system. 

A variety of videotext/teletext systems as 
they exist in their present stage of develop-
ment are described in this work by Sigel 
and others. A brief chapter outlines the 
technology of videotext/teletext in relatively 
simple terms. Nearly half the book is de-
voted to a description of the two major Brit-
ish systems: CEEF AX (seeing facts) and 
Prestel. (The authors consider Britain to be 
a good two years ahead of the rest of the 
world in introducing home information 
services.) 

CEEF AX, a teletext type service of the 
British Broadcasting Corporation, provides a 
broad range of information but features