College and Research Libraries not indexed in standard sources, and some articles are of current interest only-it can be recommended as a very useful addition to bibliography collec- tions. Any reader, and certainly any li- brarian, with an interest in the future of the book should welcome LOGOS as a unique source of information about the publishing world and its relationship to libraries, technologies, and developing economies. As a bonus, the articles are readable. Editor Gordon Graham writes that "if any LOGOS reader reads an arti- cle from a sense of duty, we have failed." He need not worry.-Marcia Jebb, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Atkins, Stephen E. The Academic Library in the American University. Chicago: American Library Assn., 1991. 240p. $35 (ISBN 0-8389-0567-6). At the 1974 ALA conference in New York City, Dwight R. Ladd, a professor in the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire, spoke about the political en- vironment and organization of the Amer- ican university. He identified and described the various power bases on campus, commented on the focus of sig- nificant decision making, and explored the elements of community and consen- sus within the academy. He described the academy as a collection of diverse groups with separate and distinct goals. In such an environment, he said, conflict, not consensus, is the campus reality. Ladd identified the myths on which many li- brarians have based their views of how campuses work. His paper, published in College & Research Libraries in March 1975, remains an excellent introduction to the political structure of the campus. In his book, The Academic Library in the American University, Stephen E. Atkins ignores the politics of American aca- demic life, and assumes that librarians are ignorant of the political process in the academic environment, that they do not operate in such an environment, and that, if they try to do so, they do it rather badly. The assumption guides Atkins's review of the development of higher ed- ucation in the United States and deter- Book Reviews 85 LOGOS The Professional Journal for the Book World Edited by Gordon Graham LOGOS is a quarterly professional journal serving the international book community. It has a distinguished Advisory Board of publishers, booksellers, librarians, literary agents and scholars in the principal publishing countries. LOGOS aims to deal in depth with issues which unite, divide, excite and concern the world of books. For further details or a free sample copy please contact: Whurr Publishers Ltd 19B Compton Terrace, London N1 2UN England Tel: 44 71 359 5979 Fax: 44 71 226 5290 mines the selection of the sources he uses in offering support for his thesis. He is convinced that participation by librari- ans, as full members of the faculty, in the shared governance of the campus is the· only road to success for academic librar- ies in the future. His book is an effort to convince others. The book grew out of a paper Atkins presented at the ACRL national confer- ence in Baltimore in 1986. In that paper, subsequently published in Energies for Transition (1986), Atkins opined, "Librar- ians must realize that decisions concern- ing the library will continue to be made without their input unless they start par- ticipating in university governance." Atkins has embraced the myth, as Ladd would call it, that the faculty govern the university. That the development of col- lege and university libraries in the United States, one of higher education's success stories, was accomplished with- out faculty status for librarians on many campuses is not addressed. In the book's first chapter, Atkins· sketches the history of the university and 86 College & Research Libraries the academic library from 1638 to 1945 and concludes that academic libraries expanded in those institutions in which there was strong presidential leadership and support. Although this fact has been acknowledged by library historians and other observers, they, however, also chron- icle the contributions of the great librari- ans appointed by these presidents and comment on the importance of profes- sional education to the quality of the staff who have worked in these libraries. Chap- ter two traces the history of the university and the academic library from 1945 to the present. In this chapter, Atkins outlines the emergence of technology in library opera- tions and expresses concern over the fu- ture of automation in the library. He believes that librarians will be required to convince the person in charge of campus computing, as well as the budget people and others, of the library's needs. As in the first chapter, Atkins does little to chron- icle the influence of individual librarians on the development of their operations. Chapter three considers the budget is- sues and outlines approaches to budget- ing used on various campuses. The discussion is not very illuminating. Atkins observes that the library must follow in- stitutional directives regarding the budget and goes on to write, ''The semiautonomous position of the academic library within the institution still allows the library ad- ministration considerable freedom to consider alternatives after the original allocation decision is made." This obser- vation is not developed, so the reader must speculate as to the prevalence and impact of this autonomy. In chapter four, "The University Ad- ministration and the Academic Library," Atkins tries to understand the structure of the university in the context of organiza- tional theory. He assumes, regrettably, that there is one best way to organize and misses the point that it is good manage- ment practice to allow units within the university to organize in ways that best suit them. Instead he observes that li- braries subscribe to a bureaucratic model or a political model, while in his view, a collegial model is most appropri- ate. A greater understanding of how or- January 1992 ganizations behave would have helped the author refine some of these opinions. Chapter five, "The Teaching Faculty and the Academic Library," and chapter six, "Academic Librarians and the Uni- versity," continue the author's effort to bolster the argument that faculty status for librarians is essential for the continu- ing success of the library in American higher education. One of the main points of this book is that librarians, not just the directors of libraries, must work to im- prove and to elevate the profession. Few would disagree with that statement. Many, however, would disagree with the means proposed by Atkins, that is, full faculty status for librarians. This book exhorts; it does not convince or offer evidence. The present environments and politi- cal realities on most college and univer- sity campuses are turbulent, complex, and filled with competition and conflict. Coalitions are formed, used, abandoned, and reshaped routinely. There are many players in this environment. The suc- cessful librarians will be those who can assess the environments, help form and shape the coalitions, and know how to operate within them. Ladd suggested that in 1974. Successful librarians have operated that way for years and have improved and enhanced the profession while doing so. Atkins has missed those successes and the reasons for them.- Beverly P. Lynch, University of California, Los Angeles. Hagler, Ronald. The Bibliographic Record and Information Technology. 2d. ed. Chi- cago: American Library Assn., 1991. 331 p. $37 (ISBN 0-8389-0554-4). LC 90- 45317. In the preface to this second edition of The Bibliographic Record, Ronald Hagler states that this is not a how-to book, but a "why" book. While he does not hesitate to explain the specifics of bibliographic records, his overall emphasis is on the bibliographic principles that have shaped the details of cataloging practice. Hagler has attempted a systematic arrangement of concepts that are "the common cur- rency of people professionally concerned with the many aspects of bibliographic