College and Research Libraries


534 College & Research Libraries 

A final note: it is fortunate that this man-
ual is punched for a three-ring binder; the 
adhesive binding is so tight that in order to 
lay the book flat, its spine must be practi-
cally broken.-Don Etherington, Harry Ran-
som Humanities Research Center, The Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin. 

Kantor, Paul B. Objective Performance Mea-
sures for Academic and Research Libraries. 
Washington, D.C.: Association of Re-
search Libraries, 1984. 76 p. $25. ISBN 
0-918006-09-0. 
Dr. Paul Kantor, president of Tantalus, 

a library management consulting firm, has 
developed a set of library effectiveness 
measures which have been used in anum-
ber of ARL libraries and which ARL has 
asked him to present in this small volume 
for use in other libraries. Three measures 
are describ~d in detail. 

One measure is an estimate of the 
chances that a user coming to the library to 
obtain a particular title will be able to lay 
hands on the desired item (approximately 
48 percent chance in ARL libraries). By do-
ing this analysis, a library may learn how 
much of its performance failure is associ-
ated with (1) acquisitions, (2) user interac-
tion with the catalog, and (3) circulation. 
Those patrons who are searching for spe-
cific items in the catalog are asked by sur-
vey workers if they will record on a form 
titles being sought. Before leaving the li-
brary, the patron then notes on the form 
whether the desired items were found and 
deposits the form in a collection box. Staff 
then follow through to determine causes 
of failure. 

Other effectiveness measures described 
are (1) estimate of the time required to 
complete a particular process, such as ob-
taining and checking out a particular 
book; and (2) identification of bottlenecks 
in library processes by use of delay analy-
sis. 

These analyses are useful because they 
measure the performance of the library as 
a whole in a way that permits comparison 
with peer libraries. Some normative data 
for these measures are said to be available 
from Kantor. 

This book is intended to serve as a guide 
_ to enable other libraries to carry out these 

November 1985 

procedures. However, as Kantor notes, in 
order to do this successfully, a library 
must be committed to self-evaluation and 
must also have available persons to serve 
as coordinators who have some research 
experience, some background in statistics, 
and considerable diplomatic skills. 

Data carefully collected by use of these 
method~ should be of benefit to a library in 
improving its public services.-Marjorie E. 
Murfin, William Oxley Thompson Memorial 
Library, Ohio State University, Columbus. 

Kronick, David A. The Literature of the Life 
Sciences: Reading, Writing, Research. Phil-
adelphia: lSI Press, 1985. 219p. $35. LC 
85-4283. ISBN 0-89495-045-2. 
David A. Kronick's extensive and varied 

experience as a medical librarian is evident 
in this highly personal introduction to the 
literature of the life sciences. Intended for 
the user of the literature, the book empha-
sizes useful information rather than refer-
ence or bibliographic sources. Conse-
quently, Kronick's book complements 
standard sources such as Smith's Guide to 
the Literature of the Life Sciences (Burgess, 
1980). 

This work includes chapters on a wide 
variety of topics such as the historical de-
velopment of the literature, the primary 
and secondary literature, characteristics of 
the literature, writing and publishing, in-
dexing languages, citation indexing, 
searching, and personal information files. 
Kronick's interest in the history of science 
is evident in the abundance of information 
he provides on the development of scien-
tific communication. In fact, his knowl-
edge and fascination with the literature of 
science are present throughout the book. 
In a sense the book could as easily be enti-
tled The Literature of the Sciences. While 
Kronick uses examples from the biomedi-
cal literature (predominantly medical), the 
subject matter of the book has equal appli-
cability to other sciences as Kronick's ex-
tensive examples from physics and psy-
chology confirm. 

The book includes a list of 484 literature 
references. Both the references and exam-
ples in the text include works published as 
recently as 1983. Therefore, the contents