College and Research Libraries 460 I College & Research Libraries • September 1980 A(ACfACGIH ACGIH Is an International organization consisting of professional personnel In governmental or educational Institu- tions active day-to-day In occupational safety 1 health programs. The American COnference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH> has made substantial contributions to the development and upgrading of official health services, bOth to Industry and to labor. Its com- mittees, particularly those on Industrial ventilation and Threshold Limit Values, are recognized and respected world- wide for their expertise and continuing contributions to the practice of Indus- trial hygiene. No technical library, public or private, Is complete without these publications ... Threshold Limit Values for Chemical Sub- stances and Physical Agents in the Work- room Environment Documentation of the Threshold Limit Values Industrial Ventilation-A Manual of Recom- mended Practice Air Sampling Instruments Manual Identify and Measure Airborne Asbestos Workplace Control of Carcinogens Labeling and Warning Systems Guide for Control of Lazer Hazards Industrial Hygiene for Mining and Tunneling Non-Ionizing Radiation Process Flow Diagrams and Air Pollution Emission Estimates Herbert E. Stokinger Lectures History of Respiratory Protective Devices in the u.s. History of the Development of Industrial Hygiene Sampling Instruments & Techniques The First Forty Years 1938-1978 The Federal Industrial Hygiene Agency Transactions of ACGIH Annual Meetings write or can today ... p u B L I c A T I 0 N s For a complete information packet and order· ing information, direct your inquiry to: A Publications section, ACGIH, ~lJ:UnB'ii Dept. K, WI P.O. Box 1937, ~ Cincinnati, OH 45201 (513) 941-0179 and time will make the information society possible. The real question is whether France, with the constraints to which it is subject, will be permitted the time for this vital learning process. In this reviewer's opinion , this volume is well worth the asking price for any collec- tion , institutional or private, that reflects the social aspects of technology. Moreover, its narrow column typeset text will be appreciated by speed reading fans every- where.-Audrey N. Grosch, University of Minnesota , Minneapolis . The Role of the Library in an Electronic Society. Edited by F. Wilfrid Lancaster. Proceedings of the 1979 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing. Papers presented at the 1979 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing April 22- 25, 1979. Urbana-Champaign, Ill.: Uni- versity of Illinois, Graduate School of Library Science, 1980. 200p. $9. LC 79- 19449. ISBN 0-87845-053-X. (Available from : Publications Office , Graduate School of Library Science , 249 Armory Building, Champaign, IL 61820. ) The papers in this volume record the pro- ceedings of the sixteenth annual clinic, a clinic that differs rather sharply from its predecessors. First, instead of library auto- . mation , various aspects of electronic com- munication were examined, usually by lead- ers from fields utside of librarianship . Second, the clini was designed as an inte- gral part of F. . Lancaster's research on the impact of a 'paperless society" on the research librar of the future . Not sur- prisingly, the p pers are both descriptive and speculative Particular applications of information technology are described , and several speculative articles assess implica- tions of -new developments on society in general and libraries in particular. Among the most interesting of the descriptive arti- cles is a forecast of the technology of the fu- ture by William J. Kubitz. Kubitz provides a remarkably succinct summary of the tech- nological trends in computer technology development , which seem almost to have reversed a law of nature , as each year com- puters are built that do more and more at less and less cost. Not only will this trend continue but also it will accelerate at an ex- ponential rate to the point that within twen- ty years low-cost computing and storage will be economically available to everyone. It will be possible to store the contents of a library the size of the University of Illinois on 563 disks at a cost of $10 per disk. Such enormous potential for change pro- vides ample material for speculation, in which many of the other authors of these papers indulge, often in arresting and thought-provoking ways. Lancaster and his two research associates, Laura Drasgow and Ellen Marks, close the proceedings with an article that attempts to divine the future of libraries and librarians. The future they foresee for libraries is bleak. Libraries will decline as the development of computers and telecommunications makes them obsolescent. Librarians may fare somewhat more happily, if they are prepared by abil- ity and training to function as independent information specialists. One does not have to agree with the spe- cific scenarios the authors of these papers foresee to understand that change in in- formation technology is rapid and accelerat- ing. Librarians will not have the opportu- nity to adjust to it in the leisurely way. that past trends have permitted. Tomorrow is almost here and few, if any, of us are pre- pared for it.-Richard]. Talbot, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Current Concepts in Library Management. Martha Boaz, editor. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1979. 289p. $18.50 U.S. and Canada; $22 elsewhere. LC 79- 20734. ISBN 0-87287-204-1. Editor Martha Boaz states that this work is "intended as a primer in the field, it attempts to assist library school students to become familiar with the purposes, princi- ples, and techniques of administration and to provide them with an understanding of the objectives, functions, and organization of libraries." Students of library science and day-to-day practitioners seeking insights into current concepts of library management from these eleven articles and four appen- dixes generally will be disappointed . Martha Boaz, who contributed more than 50 percent of the material in this collection, leads off with "The Library Administrator's Commitment to the Profession and the Recent Publications I 461 Community." This article, which in tone and content is reminiscent of a lecture in an "Intro to Library Science" class, rides for considerable length the old hobbyhorse of professionalism. A better beginning would have been Neely Gardner's "Current Con- cepts in Management," which does manage to provide a brief overview of general man- agement theory. Peggy Sullivan's "Managing the Public Library" is an excellent article. Although organized around the concerns and prob- lems of the public library manager, Sulli- van's practical observations are useful to all library managers. Duane Webster's "Man- aging the College and University Library" reflects the philosophy of the ARL' s Office of Management Studies and concentrates on what Webster views as the "major concepts and trends influencing library managers to- day." Chase Dane observes at the beginning of his article on managing the school media library that "the school library and the spe- cial library are alike in that they both must serve the larger organization of which they are a part." Such a view should not be unique to the school library, though it often is overlooked by librarians. With the aid of 113 footnotes, Jerry Cao manages to "define and delimit the technical library" in nine- teen pages. Editor Boaz' s "Managing the Library School" and "Managing the Planning of Facilities for Library and Information Sci- ence Education Programs" are entirely out of place in a work intended as a primer on current management concepts. This review- er also questions the inclusion of Ellsworth Mason's " Managing the Planning of Library Buildings" in this collection. Considering the growing importance of computerization in modern libraries, it is surprising this collection contains only one article on computers. Yet Hillis Griffin's "The Application of Computers to Library Tasks" does provide a good general over- view of the steps involved in implementing automated functions in a library. The last article in the collection, "Extra-Institutional Funding" by Martha Boaz, is a brief how-to approach to grantsmanship. It does not re- lay current concepts in grantsmanship, but it does suggest old lecture notes.