College and Research Libraries


1977-78 and schools have undoubtedly made 
changes since then. Also, the study seems to 
be based on some assumptions that may not 
be valid: that all interns are working in li-
braries (many are in other types of informa-
tion agencies); that interns generally follow a 
pattern of varied experiences such as rotation 
among departments (a fair number now in-
tern only in government documents, special 
collections, or some other specialized area), 
and finally that information gleaned from 
questionnaires and bulletins reflects an accu-
rate picture (bulletins are often out-of-date as 
soon as they are published because of the va-
garies of the printing process in many institu-
tions, and questionnaires are sometimes an-
swered by harried library school admin-
istrators who answer the questions the way 
they believe things to be without checking 
with the people involved). For these reasons 
and because of the many variables inherent 
in any internship program, a series of case 
studies such as the one presented on the 
Queens College program might be more 
helpful than an overview of all the programs. 

Recent Publications I 581 

Nonetheless, the present study is worth read-
ing, especially for those newly involved in 
internship programs.-Lucille Whalen, 
State University of New York at Albany. 

Essays from the New England Academic Li-
brarians' Writing Seminar. Edited by Nor-
man D. Stevens. Metuchen, N.J.: Scare-
crow, 1980. 230p. $12.50. LC 80-21502. 
ISBN 0-8108-1365-3. 
Why don't librarians write well? How can 

they improve their writing skills? These ques-
tions intrigued University of Connecticut li-
brarian Norman D. Stevens. Stevens, himself 
a writer with numerous publications to his 
credit, reasoned that a setting promoting pro-
fessional growth and interchange would 
prove ideal for a writing seminar. He had 
known such an environment while serving on 
the executive committee of the New England 
library cooperative (NELINET), and he felt 
that in a similar setting a small group of li-
brarians could work together to improve 
their writing. 

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588 I College & Research Libraries • November 1981 

sources made Stevens' idea a reality, and he 
gathered a group of ten other librarians who 
met twenty-three times over a two-and-a-
half-year period, 1977 to 1979. This volume 
includes eleven short essays and eight longer 
articles written by the participants of the 
seminar. 

The first section presents the eleven short 
essays (average length 1,500words) prepared 
for and subsequently published in the "On 
Our Minds" section of the ] ournal of Aca-
demic Librarianship. The essays sound the 
academic librarian's traditional litany-
ranging from the poor methods used in select-
ing a library director to the need for aca-
demic librarians to "become active and 
visible members of the community in which 
they work" (p.52). One refreshing piece is 
Elisabeth S. Burns' article on how a nonde-
pository library can still build an adequate 
and useful collection of government docu-
ments. 

The second section includes eight longer 
articles (4,000 to 10,000 words) on a variety 
of subjects: management information sys-
tems in academic libraries, the bibliographic 
instruction course given for academic credit, 
computerized legal search services, informa-
tion resources (other than the library) in an 
academic institution, development of an au-
tomated acquisitions system, participation of 
corporate libraries in cooperative programs, 
peer evaluation for academic librarians, and 
sharing of staff among libraries. Although 
the articles are of uneven quality, one hopes 
indexing and abstracting services will include 
these individuals' articles so that they are not 
lost in this composite volume. 

The volume ends with a bibliography of 
writings from the seminar (principally those 
in this volume), brief biographies of the par-
ticipants, and, finally, the proposal to the 
Council on Library Resources and the six 
progress reports. Although the reports may 
seem just so much padding, they add a criti-
cal note of self-evaluation to the project. 

If, as Stevens hopes, this seminar can serve 
as a model for future endeavors, he could 
have strengthened the present volume with 
more details on the actual workings of the 
seminar: What bibliographies on writing did 
the participants receive? What were the ma-
jor weaknesses in writing encountered? What 
were the strengths? How did seminar mem-

hers change and improve the writing of one 
another? What techniques did they employ 
in their discussions? 

If the seminar were to fulfill its mission, 
one might also suggest that there should have 
been no guaranteed publication of the result-
ing essays and articles either in a journal or in 
this volume. Rather the authors should have 
submitted their contributions to a variety of 
journals and permitted them to benefit from 
regular editorial procedures.-Richard D. 
Johnson, State University of New York, Col-
lege at Oneonta. 

O'Reilly, Robert C. and O'Reilly, Marjorie I. 
Librarians and Labor Relations: Employ-
ment Under Union Contracts. Contribu-
tions in Librarianship and Information 
Science, no.35 Westport Conn.: Green-
wood, 1981. $25. LC 80-1049: ISBN 0-
313-22485-4. 
Predilections should be disposed of post-

haste. The reviewer served for several years 
in the 1970s as an officer of the New York 
Public Library with responsibilities for labor 
relations. In the jargon of labor relations, he 
could be described as management. Looking 
forward to reading and reviewing a scholarly 
survey of labor relations in American li-
braries, or in 'the words of the authors "a com-
bination of economics, politics, history, and 
the current scene of labor relations for librar-
ians" (p.xi), he also wished to round out his 
practical experience with some theory and 
acquire the benefit of someone's reflection 
and study. Perhaps this was too much to ex-
pect. 

Upon reading the preface, the note he had 
written in the margin was "One of the worst 
prefaces I ever remember reading." After 
chapter 1: "One of the worst first chapters I 
ever tried to read." In the first twenty-three 
pages, this reviewer had an urge to write 
"What does this mean?" next to numerous 
paragraphs. Reading on, chapter 2 was the 
point where three letter words (e.g., "bad") 
were written in the margin. By page forty-
one and the completion of two chapters enti-
tled "A Survey of Labor Unions and Librar-
ians" and "Library Services, Revenue, and 
Politics," there was a brief moment when the 
reviewer thought that the main problem was 
the authors' inabilities to present the big pic-
ture, the overview. After all, that's asking a