College and Research Libraries 166 I College & Research Libraries • March 1981 the information is introductory in nature. Those elements that make it valuable as a text tend to erode its value to the experi- enced librarian or researcher . The com- munication of useful information is further hindered by an obvious lack of good edito- rial work. Sentences are at times awkward and often overly long; the use of qualifiers is distracting to the reader who seeks at least a tone of authority in a guide to sources of information. Anyone wishing to use this as a text should examine it carefully prior to a pur- chase commitment. For others it is neither a substitute for nor a supplement to the more standard Hoselitz and White.-Joyce Ball , California State University, Sac- ramento. Hall, J. L. , and Dewe, A. Online Informa- tion Retrieval, 1976-1979: An Interna- tional Bibliography. Aslib Bibliography 10. London: Aslib, 1980. 230p. £16 members ; £19.50 nonmembers. ISBN 0-85142-127-X. This bibliography covers mainly "subject- oriented information retrieval from biblio- graphic files " and the authors make no claim to coverage of either computerized catalogs or numerical data bases. It spans the period 1976--79, which saw a burgeoning of literature in this field. Much of the increase in the literature is accounted for by articles written by or for practitioners as contrasted with an emphasis on research in earlier years. Although even the begin- ning date of this bibliography is quite re- cent, the field has changed so rapidly that already some of the material listed is only of historical interest. Because a number of rel- evant items were reported to the authors af- ter their cutoff date of June 1979, a sup- plement of more than 160 additional items was added without annotations and with only partial indexing. Adding the supple- ment brings the total to more than one thousand entries for the period beginning with mid-1976 and continuing through mid- 1979. Coverage is truly international. There are Publications from the United Nations The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook-Volume 4:1979 Reviews the deliberations , negotiations and actions during 1979 in the Unit~ Nations bodies, or under the auspices of the Organization, and in the Co~ttee ~n Disarmament. Among the current questions in the disarmament field are: non-prohferation ~f nucl~ar weapons and cessation of tests; prohibitio~ of nC?W weapons