College and Research Libraries 304 College & Research Libraries All of the papers are provocative and complex. They all require careful read- ing and presuppose some background in sociology and science. Academic and re- search librarians may be particularly in- terested in "Ingredients for a Theory of Science in Society: 0-rings, Ice Water, C-Clamp, Richard Feynman and the Press,"a paper by Gieryn and Anne E. Figert (Indiana University). This paper uses the 1986 Challenger disaster as its context. "Scientific Malpractice and the Contemporary Politics of Knowledge," by Daryl E. Chubin (Office of Technol- ogy Assessment, United States Con- gress), covers not only scientific fraud, but also "pork barreling" as a means of funding scientific research and capital construction. The essays are well written, and an excellent introduction ties them to- gether. The references that accompany each paper together serve as a thorough bibliography of current research in the sociology of science.-Jay K. Lucker, Mas- sachusetts Institute of Technology, Cam- bridge, Massachusetts. Smith, Eldred. The Librarian, the Scholar, and the Future of the Research Library. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, ยท 1990. 119p. $35 (ISBN 0-313-27210-7). LC 89-25665. This essay addresses a wide range of concerns of academic research librarians in its argument for "a complete, unified electronic record of scholarship." Smith contends that maintenance of such a re- cord and its means of access, which he calls bibliographic apparatus, will re- spond both to the scholar's requirements of convenience and reliability and to the librarian's need to preserve and control. He doubts the success of attempts to pro- mote self-sufficiency on the part of the scholar, essentially because those skills are not the natural province of scholars; he doubts the success of microform as a vehicle for preservation, essentially be- cause it constitutes a regression to a for- mat that is less controllable than the electronic format; and he doubts the suc- cess of library cooperation, understood in its traditional sense, essentially be- May 1991 cause it is almost antithetical to some of the librarian's driving principles. The author devotes several pages of this brief book to an interesting analysis of the debate about the once-proposed Na- tional Periodicals Center. Smith envisions the successful re- search library service of the future as functioning with a central, complete, electronic scholarly record as its nucleus. Its major activities will be "gathering, organizing, and maintaining the record as well as the bibliographic apparatus." The clientele of this center will be re- search librarians from other institutions, thereby ensuring a high quality of com- munication pertinent to maintenance of and access to the record and its biblio- graphic apparatus, while the role of these research librarians at local sites will be to mediate between local scholars and the information structure of the scholarly record. Smith's book presents a stimulating vi- sion of how things should and could be at some unspecified time in the future. He advances his argument with a rigid logic that is bolstered, however, by bold state- ments that are as debatable and unsup- ported as they are quotable. In discussing traditional media of scholarly communi- cation (books and journals), he claims that "electronic copy is now produced for all of this material, as part of the printing pro- cess." Surely, this is not true of Third World publication or even of some pockets of technologically more advanced nations. The book does not incorporate documen- tary notes, but includes, instead, a con- cluding "Bibliographic Essay." This un- conventional practice has the advantage of allowing the author to intermingle impres- sion and fact without notes that might dis- tract from the tight logic of his argument. This practice also has the disadvantage of leaving the reader a little insecure, a con- dition that is aggravated by the fact that the "Bibliographic Essay" is not a review of the literature on the book's topics in general, but, instead, an essay describing only sources that support aspects of the preceding arguments. These are not minor quibbles, for this unconventional style may mean that the fruits of Smith's excel- lent thinking are safely consumable by only more seasoned research librarians. Smith's thoughtful observations and analyses of academic research librarian- ship in a changing context are drawn from experience, knowledge, and reason in an effort to illuminate a successful likely fu- ture for research librarianship. Naive and overly optimistic in some instances, realis- tic and highly rational in most others, Smith's book offers critical insights into the current status of research librarianship and a carefully designed matrix through which to contemplate the future. -Charles B. Osburn, University of Alabama, Tusca- loosa, Alabama. Understanding the Business of Library Acquisitions. Ed. by Karen Schmidt. Chicago: American Library Assn., 1990. 332p. $29.95 paper. (ISBN 0- 8389-05636-6). LC 90-33772. Karen Schmidt's compilation of eigh- teen essays on the business aspects of acquisitions seems ideally suited for ac- ademic li.brarians with acquisitions re- sponsibilities for North American and Western European imprints in a large research collection. For one thing, all or all but one of the fourteen contributors who are librarians are in academic or research libraries, and the publishers and vendors who are represented sup- ply that market. There is consequently more here on different kinds of materials than on dif- ferent kinds of libraries: the focus is on materials and First-World sources for ac- ademic libraries. One does not find a discussion of lease/purchase as a means of acquiring bestsellers or an analysis of the cost effectiveness of library bindings for children's literature. The only treat- ment government publications receive is devoted to Western European documents. Acquisitions, as treated in this anthol- ogy, is narrowly conceived. The editor's introduction seems to exclude such al- legedly peripheral aspects as relations with collection development in budget formation. Nor is there extended discus- sion of relevant aspects of automated acquisitions systems (though there is more than the index would indicate). Book Reviews 305 Such a discussion would perhaps re- quire so much detail as to exceed the bounds of this or any monograph. What we do have is a division of the field into five parts: "The Publishing In- dustry, Domestic and Foreign" ("for- eign" here meaning Western Europe), "Vendors," "Out-of-Print and Second- hand Markets, Domestic and Foreign" (not only are exchanges sandwiched in here, but also current imprints from Aus- tralia, New Zealand and Oceania, per- haps because they stay in print so briefly), "Non print Publications," and fi- nally "Methods of Accounting and Busi- ness Practices." "Business," here, means first-and last-money. The initial con- tributions from publishers' and vendors' representatives start out defensively on the question of ever-rising costs, while the final part ends with a discussion of "Payment Ethics." The contributions are of several differ- ent types. The for-profit world of publish- ers and vendors contributes articles that are fairly free of any reference to the liter- ature. Some, such as ''The Business of Pub- lishing," by Kathy Flanagan (director of marketing and sales for what is now known as a publishing group), read like good textbooks. The article is complete with tables and charts (some unneces- sary), which, as she herself indicates, raise printing costs. A scientific publisher's li- brary sales manager supplies a general essay with the usual hopeful conclusion about "fostering better understanding" among the "triangle" of publishers, ven- dors, and libraries. But one feels one's teeth grind on reading her cheery affirma- tion that "when a direct mail piece or tele- phone sales call comes just at the right moment, that is, when the product offered and the price quoted are agreeable to the librarian, a sale can be made .... " Many of the pieces from librarians serve more as practical handbooks, usually with lists of basic references and sources at the end. Such are Joan Grant's contribution on approval plans; Joan Mancell Hayes' quick guide to acquiring special formats (though not CD-ROMs); the essay by William Schenck on accounting and auditing; Corrie Marsh's treatment of payment ethics; and