College and Research Libraries


Recent Publications 
BOOK REVIEWS 

Libraries and the Search for Academic Ex-
cellence. Ed. by Patricia Senn Breivik 
and Robert Wedgeworth. Papers from 
the National Symposium on Libraries 
and the Search for Academic Excellence 
held March 15-17, 1987, at Columbia 
University's Arden House. Metuchen, 
N.J.: Scarecrow, 1988. $25 (ISBN 0-
8108-2157-5). LC 88-15855. 
This collection documents the Sympo- _ 

sium on Libraries and the Search for Aca-
demic Excellence, sponsored by the Uni-
versity of Colorado and Columbia 
University in 1987. Ten papers commis-
sioned to provide background for the par-
ticipants as well as three speeches, two 
discussion summaries, and action recom-
mendations are included. Most of the cur-
rent cycle of educational reform reports 
beginning with A Nation at Risk have ig-
nored libraries even though the Informa-
tion Age permeates the reports and '' aca-
demic libraries constitute the point of 
access to most information on campuses.'' 
Undergraduate education is the focus of 
the reports and of the symposium, which 
sought to provide a catalyst "for libraries 
to be more active partners in the educa-
tional arenas both at the campus and the 
national levels." 

The symposium has been covered by 
both the higher education and library 
press. Furthermore, the descriptions of 
projects in most of the papers will be fa-
miliar to academic librarians who read 
journals or attend conferences, and at 
least two papers are available in other 
publications. Nevertheless, readers will 
probably find new ideas and insightful 
summaries. For me, the interdisciplinary 
centers at the Newberry Library are an ex-

ample of the former, and Colette 
Wagner's realistic analysis of the nontra-
ditional student and Ward Shaw's de-
scription of library computing are exam-
ples of the latter. 

Among these academic leaders "em-
power" has become a cliche and its repeti-
tion is irritatingly frequent. The word, 
however, does signal the pervasiveness of 
politics in educational reform. Irving J. 
Spitz berg's assessment of ''The Politics of 
the Curriculum in American Higher Edu-
cation'' is the best article in the collection. 
Academic administrators will read rue-
fully his description of University Stan-
dard Time. More importantly, he provides 
much of the answer to Gordon Gee's and 
Patricia Breivik' s questions about why li-
braries are not used more effectively and 
why reserves, lectures, and textbooks 
continue to dominate teaching. All accept 
that "the quality of the educational ven-
ture begins in the classroom but also de-
pends upon the whole campus environ-
ment." However, the campus political 
environment seldom recognizes cocurric-
ular life, "because the professionals en-
gaged in the correlative work are second-
class citizens in the campus political 
community. . . . They do not have the col-
lective authority of the faculty dealing 
with curriculum issues. They are not as 
well organized as a vocal student minor-
ity." This reality is implicitly recognized 
in the conclusion from the panel discus-
sions that the way to the institutional 
agenda may be indirect. A position on the 
national agenda for education with recog-
nition of the potential role of libraries in all 
levels of education may provide leverage 
locally. 

489 



. 490 

Interestingly, the topic of money was in-
troduced only in the discussions. The li-
brary administrators note that the identifi-
cation of new roles for libraries and 
librarians begs the question of where in-
creased resources to support innovation 
will be obtained. The only course of action 
recommended during the panel discus-
sions was to gain the support of the CEO 
and the trustees of the institution, and 
thus more politics. 

Sadly, the recommendations provide 
confirmation of the existence of University 
Standard Time. To make possible self-
directed, independent learners, "infor-
mation and evaluation skills need to be 
mastered at the undergraduate level, and 
learning opportunities should be inte-
grated within the existing departments, 
analogous to 'writing across the curricu-
lum,' rather than stand-alone biblio-
graphic instruction programs." In 1960, 
Patricia Knapp's Monteith Library Pro-
gram sought "to stimulate and guide stu-
dents in developing sophisticated under-
standing of the library and increasing 
competence in its use. To achieve this end, 
[the project] proposes to provide students 
with experiences which are functionally 
related to their course work.'' 

Obviously, our libraries and our cam-
puses have made frustratingly little prog-
ress toward the objective identified thirty 
years ago. Even in University Standard 
Time, this is exceedingly slow.-Ellen 
Hoffmann, York University, Ontario, Canada. 

Lancaster, F. Wilfrid. If You Want to 
Evaluate Your Library . . . Champaign, 
Ill.: University of Illinois Graduate 
School of Library and Information Sci-
ence, 1988. 193p. $34.50 (ISBN 0-87845-
078-5). LC 88-091-099. 
Unrelenting pressure on library budgets 

is forcing administrators to look not only 
at those programs that can be reduced or 
eliminated, but also at the efficiency and 
effectiveness of mainline services. Toward 
this end, If You Want to Evaluate Your Li-
brary . . . arrives at a most opportune 
time. 

Covering much of the same ground, al-
beit in a highly condensed manner as in 
his standard 1977 work Measurement and 

July 1989 

Evaluation of Library Services, Lancaster be-
gins with an excellent chapter that defines 
the evaluative process and then ties this 
definition to libraries via Ranganathan's 
Five Laws of Library Science. This is fol-
lowed by chapters on the evaluation of 
document delivery and reference services. 

Interestingly, the author prefaces this 
work by contending that the earlier Mea-
surement and Evaluation of Library Services 
was II never . . . completely satisfactory 
for use as a text .... It is a review and syn-
thesis of earlier literature rather than a 
practical guide to the conduct of evalua-
tions within libraries. 11 This clearly raises 
a classic "theory versus practice" issue, 
typically waged over the teaching of cata-
loging. Should courses stress the theory 
behind the process or practical technique? 
Ideally both. Evaluation without a theo-
retical base will leave the reviewer unable 
to utilize the results intelligently, while a 
theoretically sound review conducted in-
appropriately will render unreliable data 
from which to proceed. Fortunately, this 
volume exhibits a workable balance be-
tween theory and practice and should 
prove an excellent basic primer for stu-
dents and practitioners alike. 

Unfortunately, the mix of various types 
of libraries and areas within libraries is not 
so balanced. The overwhelming focus is 
on collection development and public ser-
vices, to the virtual exclusion of technical 
services, and on issues that relate primar-
ily to academic research libraries. If, for ex-
ample, "your library" is a small public li-
brary interested in evaluating its technical 
services department, this volume will be 
of scant utility. In short, the title suggests 
a general guide to evaluation, while the 
content is much more narrowly focused. 

Beyond the minor issue of the title, the 
volume should serve as a logical capstone 
to coursework in collection development 
and public services, and as a suitable 
guide for librarians contemplating their 
first evaluative process. The select bibliog-
raphy will serve to guide those desiring 
more than an introduction, although iden-
tification of desired citations would have 
been facilitated by bibliographic listings at 
the end of each chapter, as was the case in 
the earlier Measurement and Evaluation of Li-