College and Research Libraries 502 I College & Research Libraries • September 1981 are given the option of choosing from three different types of class numbers for com- posers. For example, Beethoven's. class num- ber is created by adding one of the following to the base number 789: 15, .B33, or .BEE. Thus, Beethoven's class number could be one of these: 789.15; 789.B33; or 789.BEE. Ob- viously, a library has to choose one of these methods and use it consistently. The basic idea of the new 789 class is sound and it should be enormously useful, but there are some problems. How is it decided which composers get their own subclasses and how are the class numbers constructed? The edi- tors' solution has been to print a list of around 300 composers' names in the schedules, along with the appropriate class notation, and in- structions to "class a composer not named in this list in 789 without further subdivision" (p.58). One would assume that the decisions on inclusion and exclusion should be based on "literary warrant," which is to say that if a sufficient number of monographs have been published about a composer, then that com- poser is included in the list. Now this gets to be a very tricky business when we are dealing with a classification system that is interna- tional (for example, composers thought to be important in France may be hardly known in, say, the United States, Australia, India, or Iceland). In the end, the only generally ac- ceptable solution will be some sort of open system that will permit the addition of names at any time and be such that all composers in 789 are given a subclass. These problems related to class 789 should not obscure the fact that this is the best ver- sion of the 780s ever published. Within the limitations imposed by an international gen- eral system, there is not much more that could have been done to modernize the 780s. -Gordon Stevenson , State University of New York, Albany. Seminar on AACR2: Proceedings of a Seminar Organized by the Cataloguing and Indexing Group of the Library Association at the Uni- versity of Nottingham, 20-22 April 1979. Ed. by Graham Roe. London: The Li- brary Association, 1980. 92p. $17.50. ~ swets subscription service ~ A DIVISION OF SWETS & ZEITLINGER B.V SWetS P.O. Box 830, 2160 SZ Lisse-Holland Phone 02521-19113/ Telex41325 Swets North America lnc.-P.O. Box 517, Berwyn, Pa 19312, U.S.A.,Tel. 215/644-4944 ~r;~E QUESTIONED LIBRARIANS WORLD-WIDE. ~~~HERE'S WHAT THEY TOLD US: • "This is one of our most helpful bibliographic tools. It makes my job so much easier. ... Our patrons find it easy to use and containing adequate references to articles valuable in their research . I don't know how we managed without it." We've tried to make your job easier. Now the vast resources of govemment periodicals can readily be used by researchers and students, requiring less of your time helping them locate material. • "Index to U.S. Government Periodicals has significantly increased the use of our gov- ernment periodicals and is our most important reference tool for government documents." Without Index to U.S. Govemment Periodicals use of these materials would be expensive and time consuming. Using many separate indexes simply isn't cost effective. Without this tool much of the information in these periodicals would be lost. • "What you choose to index has a direct bearing on which government periodicals our library chooses." Source material is only as valuable as its accessi- bility. Add this index to your collection to provide answers to the entire range of reference questions. e "We have found the Index very useful in providing access to many periodicals not indexed elsewhere." Many titles are covered exclusively by Index to U.S. Govemment Periodicals. Plus coverage of titles included in over fifty other indexes. One standard for selection of new titles is lack of indexing by other services. e "Too often, it seems to me, is your Index to U.S. Government Periodicals sequestered away in the Documents Department. As a general periodical index, it merits a disposi- tion next to PAIS, Readers' Guide, etc. We are now locating it next to Monthly Catalog to facilitate greater use." Index to U.S. Govemment Periodicals certainly has value beyond the bounds of the Documents Department. Those in general research will find it a valuable source for material not found in other standard guides. If after reading these remarks from present subscribers you still need further evidence of the Index's usefulness, let us send the latest quarterly on approval. With Index to U.S. Govemment Period- icals in hand we know you'll put it on your order list. Ongoing annual service (3 paperbound quarterlies, plus hardbound annual cumulation): $275 per year. Volumes 1970-1980: $250 each. •v• INFORDATA INTERNATIONAL INC. 175 East Delaware Place, Suite 4602C • Chicago, Illinois 60611 504 I College & Research Libraries • September 1981 ISBN 0-85365-593-6. Available in U.S. from Oryx Press. In this very slim volume of proceedings, the Library Association's Cataloguing and Indexing Group attempts to cover a very broad topic, namely the principles and appli- cations of the second edition of the Anglo- American Cataloguing Rules. The group's Aprill979 seminar at the University of Not- tingham featured eight papers; in addition to opening and closing presentations, papers were read on the use of the new rules for cataloguing monographs, music, audiovisual materials, maps, and serials. There was also a report on the status of cataloguing codes in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland presented by Karen Lunde Christensen of the Bibliotekscentralen in Copenhagen. These published proceedings have been augmented by an appendix that contains two more pa- pers derived from a 1978 Library Association meeting, outlining the major ways in which AACR2 differs from AACR. Both opening and closing remarks labor hard to defend the cataloger and assert the importance of his or her role in contemporary library practice. As for AACR2, the opening paper (by Norman Roberts at the University of Sheffield) is quite positive and optimistic, praising the new code for its clear principles and international outlook and downplaying its economic side effects. The quality of the papers dealing with specific material types is generally good, but presumably because of the newness of the code at the time these pa- pers were written, they only skim the surface of the issues to be examined. While the paper on the Nordic countries' response to AACR2 provides interesting information, its inclu- sion in this volume does not help it maintain a sense of focus. The decision to add the two 1978 papers further detracts from the pub- lished work's focus, and the information con- tained in these two papers was widely avail- able elsewhere by 1980, this book's publication date. The value of Seminar on AACR2 doubtless lies in its ability to serve as a record of the initial reaction to the revised code in the United Kingdom. It is also a very readable book, and the style of the speakers is warm and sometimes pleasantly informal. For those who are trying to build collections re- flecting the history of cataloging or com para- tive librarianship, this is likely to be a sensible item to acquire. It will not, however, be of much practical use to the 1981 cataloger who already has a number of more up-to-date and thorough discussions of AACR2 on which to rely.-Karin A. Trainer, New York Univer- sity. Downing, Mildred Harlow. Introduction to Cataloging and Classification with 58 Ex- hibits. 5th ed. Revised and enlarged in ac- cordance with AACR2 and the 19th edi- tion of the Dewey Decimal Classification. Jefferson, N.C . : McFarland & Co., 1981. 320p. $14.95. LC 80-20299. ISBN 0- 89950-017-X. Slocum, Robert B. Sample Cataloguing Forms: Illustrations of Solutions to Problems of Description (with Particular Reference to Chapters 1-13 of the Anglo-American Cata- loguing Rules, Second Edition). 3d ed. Me- tuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1980. 12lp. $11.00. LC 80-21507. ISBN 0-8108-1364- 5. Mildred Harlow Downing's Introduction to Cataloging and Classification "is in- tended, as were previous editions, for stu- dents beginning the study of cataloging and classification" (p.iii). That any introductory survey of cataloging and classification should make generalizations is understandable; that this work contains many misleading state- ments is not. The most serious of these appears on pages 43-45 where the use of standardized punctu- ation as prescribed by the ISBD standards is discussed under the section on the ISBN. Question four (p.47), "How does ISBN punc- tuation clarify the content of the descriptive catalog record?" confirms the author's confu- sion on these points. Some of the other errors include: the ISBDs are referred to as manual (p. 6); the Statement of Responsibility Area in AACR2 is discussed as the "Statement of Au- thorship Area" (p.l6); a definition of a peri- odical is given as the definition of a serial (p.37); an example of a traced subject series (p.39) appears in the exhibits as an example of an untraced publisher's series (p.l93); the beginning cataloger is advised not to make a title-added entry when a subject heading and the title are the same (p.53), but there is no indication that this applies only to a dictio- nary card catalog; and two invalid Library of