College and Research Libraries 464 I College & Research Libraries • September 1980 nothing had previously been written. The audience could be almost anyone, and vir- tually any reader will learn something about library networks from her perceptive de- scription of what is going on now. The best essays in this collection are those by James Henderson ("Consulting in Union-Management Relations") and Lee Ash ("Consulting in Collection Develop- ment''). Both authors give careful attention to the practical aspects of the problems they consider. Both are careful to avoid "putting down" the reader, or librarians in general. Both concentrate on how-to-do-it and assume that the reader may need a great deal of concrete information on the subject but not a lecture on the failures of the pro- fession. Other topics include: "Effective Use of Library Consultants" by Duane E. Webster and John G. Lorenz, "Consulting in Com- puter Applications for Libraries" by Robert M. Hayes, "Consulting in Staff Develop- ment" by Milton S. Byam, "Role of Man- agement Consultants in the 1980's" by Richard M. Dougherty, and "Consulting for Large Geographic Areas" by Robert ·B. Downs. Which essay is the worst? I am tempted to award a booby prize, but will resist. At least two and possibly three authors would share the position at the bottom of my list. The only thing to be gained by naming them would be enemies-for me.-W. David Laird, University of Arizona, Tuc- son. Pierce, William S. Furnishing the Library Interior. Books in Library and Informa- tion Science, v.29. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1980. 288p. $39.75. LC 79- 25569. ISBN 0-8247-6900-7. As a change from an earlier paucity of books on facilities planning, librarians now have a choice of several recent volumes: Lushington and Mills' Libraries Designed for Users (C&RL, May 1980), Draper and Brooks' Interior Design for Libraries (C&RL, May 1980), Cohen and Cohen's De- signing and Space Planning for Libraries (C&RL, March 1980), and now Pierce's Fur- nishing the Library Interior. The latter is a IF YOU'VE GOT A PROBLEM WE'RE JUST A (FREE) PHONE C~L AWAY! Shelley and Linda are just two of Midwest Library Service's Personal Customer Ser- vice Representatives who are specially trained to solve any book ordering problem your library may encounter. Linda and Shelley are thoroughly knowledgeable in all facets of the library jobber business, and if r.-;rn:rn~;w~ ........ ~~--- you are ever in need of their servicef:J!_l'_ou s1 MARKET can reach them by using our TOLL-FREE WA TS Line, 1-800-325-8833 (Missouri customers please call COLLECT: 0-314-739-3100) for help in solving any problem. Your Customer Service Repre- sentative will follow the problem through to a satisfactory conclusion-without delay. Remember, Linda and Shelle~ are "working" for you and your library. It's all part of Midwest Library Services tradition of excellence. "20 Years Of Service To College and University Libraries" MIDWEST LffiRARY SERVICE 11443 St. Charles Rock Road . BRIDGETON. Mo. 63044 compilation of nearly twenty years of visit- ing libraries and being involved in library planning. Although it has information useful for all types of libraries, it is written pri- marily from the academic library stand- point. A beginning chapter gives a brief over- view of information every planner needs to know about building shape, number of floors, entrances, interior walls, security, use of glass, conduit systems, etc. The next three chapters deal with housing problems of the user. Furniture and space needs are discussed for each area. The use of the phrase "keys areas" for the more usual "key areas" is upsetting semantically, but is a small price to pay for a considerable amount of useful information. Separate chapters deal with housing print and nonprint collections. There is consider- able detail about various types of shelving, including compact shelvin_g. The author briefly discusses IMCs and LRCs, but directs his comments on nonprint media to the librarian with little training in this area. Appendixes include sample specifications (useful) and a list of buildings the author visited (unnecessary). There are many photographs that illustrate points in the text, but they are not well designed and the reproduction quality is poor. It seems as if the photographs were simply culled from quick shots taken over many years of travel, rather than being taken especially for this book. That, and the poor-quality binding, do not make this volume worth $39.75, no matter how useful the information.-D. ]oleen Bock, University of Guam, Agana. Managing Costs and Services in College Libraries: A Users Manual. Field review ed. CASC Planning and Data System. Washington, D.C.: Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges, 1979. 44p. $5. .One simple but limited way to answer the question "How good is my library?" is to compare it to others in colleges of similar type and size. By using this manual in con- junction with the workshop and consultation services (optional) of the Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges and its data collection and reporting services (required), a library in a small · liberal arts college could Recent Publications I 465 compare itself to similar libraries in terms of staff size, book budget, and total budget; circulation, interlibrary loan, and hours; dis- tribution of expenditures between clerical and professional staff, among administrative, technical, and public services, and among types of materials. Other comparisons can be made on the library budget as a percentage of total in- structional expenditures and of total educa- tional and general expenditures; volumes and expenditures per FTE (full time equiva- lent) student; service months of library faculty per FTE teaching faculty and FTE student, etc. The council's data base comprises the Higher Education General Information Sur- vey/Library General Information Survey (HEGIS/LIBGIS) data and other derived measures of library expenditures and opera- tions supplied by participating libraries . For an unspecified fee the council runs a partici- pating library's data against those of the li- braries already in the data base and pro- duces several data reports which are used in making comparisons. In the tables the li- braries are arranged by FTE student count of their parent colleges and the above mea- sures and ratios are displayed for each li- brary. Institutional identities are kept anonymous. Several sample reports using hypothetical data are presented along with a helpful case study. There is a discussion of how this li- brary costs module can be integrated with one or more of the council's ten other mod- ules, covering such areas as student recruit- ment and attrition, fund raising, college goals and climate, instructional program, and so on . Caveats: In interpreting the results of the comparisons one must consider " ... pro- grams and service emphases, goals and objectives, and resources of the college" (p.33). Also, one has the insecure feeling that there is nothing inherently normative about the individual and collective data against which one's own is being compared. Sometimes, however, comparative data may be just what is needed to pry some funds from a reluctant president or chief academic officer who is embarrassed by or jealous of what the competition is doing. Beware: This tactic could backfire if the