College and Research Libraries 518 College & Research Libraries cation relevant to academic and research librarianship, '' with a subgoal ''to encour- age and sponsor forums for the discussion of research.'' Are we going to promote re- search through the conferences or not? As with earlier conferences, the papers presented at this conference covered a wide range of information relevant to con- temporary academic librarianship. In fact, the reviewer is struck by the accelerated rate of change and the introduction of new technology (and terminology) into the profession. The academic library profes- sion may well be an example of C. P. Snow's "two cultures." Just by missing a conference or two, one can lose touch with current developments. The range of paper quality is partially understandable and to some degree un- avoidable. Unlike an editor of a journal, the contributed papers committee did not have the luxury of leisurely reading by a small group of experienced referees. With a conference, time is of the essence and to facilitate the process, selection of the pa- pers involved more than seventy referees. Obviously, with this number of individ- Heritage on Microfilnt Rare and out-of-print titles and documents on 35mm silver halide microfilm. • French Books before 1601 • Scandinavian Culture • 18th Century English Literature • Victorian Fiction • Literature of Folklore • Hispanic Culture Send for catalog and title information today. ~~c· ~~~~ ~ 0\APf.NY 70 Coolidge Hill Road Watertown, MA 02172 (617) 926-5557 September 1986 uals involved, there is ample opportunity for inconsistency in quality. The contrib- uted papers committee, however, further compounded the problem when it ''relied completely" on the referees' recommenda- tions. This committee should exercise some editorial review responsibility since they have a perspective on the papers not shared by any one individual referee. This reviewer has a few favorite papers and :will indulge in the privilege of identi- fying them. Kathleen Dunn presented an excellent research paper on the psycho- logical needs of undergraduate students in seeking information. She clearly ex- plained a sophisticated methodology and the importance of her findings. Gunnar Knutson provided us with a provocative research paper in which he concluded (contrary to common knowledge) that no relationship existed between number of access points and total circulation of a sample of books he studied. Elizabeth Hood's position paper on self-censorship should give librarians cause to reflect on our principles, and Douglas Hurd and Robert Molyneux did an interesting study on delivery times and costs of a nonlibrary document delivery service. In the final analysis, should the "stay- at-home" purchase this volume? Pur- chase of the proceedings, attendance at the conference, and presentation of pa- pers are all important to support the de- velopment of the profession, and the re- viewer is tempted to recommend purchase-if for no other reason. Many of the position papers and idea briefs are bet- ter heard and discussed than read, and the journals are more productive sources of research. The reader, however, can ac- quire a good cross-section in this one vol- ume of the current issues and new devel- opments related to academic librarian- ship. The Proceedings are worth the price.-Larry Hardesty, William Luther Cobb Library, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Flor- ida. Shailor, Barbara A. Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Li- brary, Yale University. V .1. Binghamp- ton, N.Y.: Renaissance Texts and Stud- ies, 1984. 420p. (Medieval & Renais- sance Texts & Studies, V.34) $26. LC 84- 667. ISBN 0-86698-065-2. Unfortunately, catalogs of manuscripts are often regarded as inventories of finite objects and reference tools that provide access to a series of elements, principally texts and miniatures that form the con- tents of ancient books. In fact the contents of a western medieval book are far less straightforward than is frequently thought. Indeed rather than an inventory, a catalog of manuscripts today is one trained observer's perception of objects that are inherently so complex that they may never be definitively described. Thus we read catalogs on two levels. First we seek information about a repository of books, and second, we seek a source of in- tellectual stimulation, a lesson as to what one should look at within a book. For the common supposition that catalogs, be- cause they are products of meticulous and well-ordered minds, are similar one to an- other is only partially correct. ·While all good catalogers are painstaking, their con- ceptions of what should be recorded are highly variable, and there exists an aston- ishing fluidity in the kinds of details re- corded by modern manuscript catalogers. Thus a distinguished catalog of medi- evalia not only tells us about a collection, it teaches us in a more general manner new concepts of how we should perceive simi- lar collections. Barbara Shailor' s catalog of the holdings of the Heinecke Library at Yale is worthy of our attention on both levels. The collec- tion is one of the most distinguished in America consisting of more than 650 items, with the oldest fragements dating from the seventh century. Specialists in virtually every field of medieval studies will encounter texts of importance. How- ever, the catalog reflects special strength in the areas in which American libraries generally excel, the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Manuscripts of these pe- riods include the works of numerous clas- sical and late scholastic authors, Italian humanists, and books of hours. Every vol- ume described in this first volume of the Heinecke catalog was previously recorded by De Ricci, Faye, and Bond, but this will Recent Publications 519 not be true of future volumes, which will contain more of Yale's recent acquisitions. Shailor has provided a brief introduction about the people who formed the Yale col- lection. It is a pity that this portion of the work is so cursory. It would be useful to know more about the collectors who se- lected the volumes for Yale and to have a consideration of their sources. An over- view of when and how these materials were acquired would place Yale in the larger context of the history of manuscript collections in America. From the point of view of manuscript methodology in the United States, the Heinecke catalog is also of great interest. While a century ago, manuscript cata- logers were content to identify texts, list miniatures, date codices, and list their support (paper or parchment), Shailor provides us with a wealth of information on the physical description of the manu- script. The complexity of Shailor' s para- digm for manuscript description com- bined with the variety of her materials, The Academic Librarians' Choice~~~~ with CLASS • Over 18 Million Records • Subject Access/Boolean Capabilities • Choice of Accounts: • Search Access • Online Cataloging • Acquisitions • Interlibrary Loan Contact: CLASS, Dept. AC, 1415 Koll Circle, Suite 101, San Jose, CA 95112 408/289-1756 520 College & Research Libraries ranging from Latin texts of the eighth cen- tury to vernacular texts of the seventeenth century, is not without its problems . In her introduction, she divides her notices into five parts: heading, content, physical description, provenance, and bibliogra- phy. In practice it is not always clear that the same kinds of details are pertinent to books confected under diverse circum- stances. While it seems appropriate to give a complete collation for manuscripts of the eleventh or twelfth century, for the information such data may ultimately yield for identifying the output of a partic- ular scriptorium, the potential use of such data taken from a Lutheran sacramentarium of the seventeenth century is far less clear . Similarly incipits are useful for confirming the identification of classical and medieval texts and Shailor usually has provided them, but incipits of documents and frag- ments really tell us very little. For exam- ple, to give the incipit of MS 193, a frage- ment of a Bible, said to be from Luxeuil, tells us information which is of no appar- ent use. On the question of second folios, Shailor herself seems to have silently ad- justed her format to the different kinds of materials that she has treated, and they are not given for the postmedieval items. Presumably, the second folio incipits are useful for identifying entries in medieval library catalogs citing books now at Yale, but out of hundreds of second folio inci- pits, including those of defective codices, what percentage will be of use to subse- quent scholars? Experience indicates that it will be very low . Indeed of four or five codices for which she has identified a spe- cific medieval provenance, for none did a correspondence in the second folio play a role in confirming the identification. If there are other good reasons for providing second folios, Shailor has not provided them. In examining the data provided by the Shailor catalog, we have not only the right to question the potential use of the data re- corded, but we may also ask whether data of equal or greater import has been ig- nored or suppressed. Thus while record- ing capitalization, the ulv distinction and the long j form in the incipits may be of some value to students of philology or the September 1986 history of reading (even where these dis- tinctions reflect rigid conventions, imper- fectly reflected in modern print) we may ponder the total absence of the cedilla for the ae and oe diphthongs, especially in hu- manistic texts, and the lack of consider- ation to accenting, essential for tracing the distinction between the accented i and the dotted i and the revival of tonic accents in the fifteenth century. These features are not recorded, and yet they, along with punctuation, may be of great significance. For the books of hours, the rubrics, which - are an important source for the documen- tation of reading habits, are frequently not transcribed. In summation the Shailor cat- alog reflects the interests that are fashion- able in the world of codicology, while rela- tively little attention is given to the evidence that medieval manuscripts con- tain for the study of philology and the manner in which medieval books were read. A third level on which a catalog may be read is that of accuracy. Although this reader did not have the opportunity to read the catalog against the manuscripts, the author's zeal is in itself an assurance that a very high degree of accuracy has been achieved. The catalog is enriched by very useful and economically prepared ta- bles and plates.-Paul Saenger, Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois. Roberts, Stephen A. Cost Management for Library and Information Services. London: Butterworth, 1985. 181p. $49.95. LC 84- 26339. ISBN 0-408-01376-1. Stephen A. Roberts notes that the prac- tice of costing library and information op- erations is a weak area in the repertoire of library management. Also lacking in many cases is economic management of li- braries and information services based on the application of accepted accounting and costing techniques. Why do libraries differ from conventional business enter- prises in these respects? The reasons given are familiar to most library man- agers: there is usually no requirement for public accountability; large portions of the actual accounting work are carried on out- side the library; there is no need to justify specific programs to funding agencies;