College and Research Libraries


82 College & Research Libraries 

in The Collection Building Reader is a serious 
flaw. Although timeliness is extremely im-
portant in collection development, Zielinska 
and Bell's article on the selection of foreign-
language materials for public libraries, for 
example, was originally published in 1980 
and is updated only by a sh<?rt addendum. 
Furthermore, neither the original article 
nor the addendum was dated. 

The Collection Building Reader is a 
marginal contribution to the literature 
on collection development. Its publica-
tion will probably benefit the publisher 
more than the profession.-Eric Carpenter, 
Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. 

Origins, Content, and Future of AACR2 
Revised. Ed. by Richard P. Smiraglia. 
Chicago: ALA, 1992. 139p. $20; $18 for 
ALA members (ISBN 0-8389-3405-6). 
LC 91-39734. 
Origins, Content, and Future of AACR2 

Revised consists of papers by an impres-
sive group of individuals known for 
their contributions in the area of catalog-
ing, including Ben Tucker, Richard Smira-
glia, Ed Swanson, Barbara Tillett, Michael 
Gorman, and Sheila Intner. The book is 
divided into three parts: Origins of the 
1988 Revision, Contents of the 1988 Re-
vision, and A Symposium on the Future. 
Parts 1 and 2 provide a historical back-
ground on the development and evolu-
tion of the Anglo-American Cataloguing 
Rules. Part 3 consists of papers from a 
symposium on the future of cataloging, 
and discusses topics such as MARC, 
OPACs, and AACR2R. Part 3 opens with 
a paper by Michael Gorman on the fu-
ture of cataloging. The remainder of Part 
3 consists of papers in which the authors 
react to Gorman's vision of the future, 
and also describe their own version of 
what the future of cataloging might (and 
should) have to offer. 

The book examines the Anglo-Ameri-
can Cataloguing Rules as an evolving, con-
stantly developing piece of work. New 
formats, changing needs of patrons, and 
electronic technology (cataloguing utili-

January 1993 

ties and OPACs, for example) have led to 
revisions of the rules. Part 1 offers an 
important historical perspective that will 
be valuable to new and relatively inex-
perienced catalogers. It will be especially 
important to those who have only known 
AACR2R or AACR2, giving them a 
broader sense of what the rules represent. 
Parts 1 and 2 detail the difficulties en-
countered in writing and revising the 
.rules, and demonstrate the great effort 
undertaken to make the rules uniform 
for the United States, Canada, Great Bri-
tain, and Australia. 

Part 3 is by far the most interesting 
part of the book. It begins with Michael 
Gorman's essay on the future of catalog-
ing. Others respond to Gorman's essay 
and also offer their personal vis.ion of what 
changes should be made to the rules, 
MARC, OPACs, etc., to improve access 
and efficiency. Gorman responds in tum to 
each essay. Contributors offer a variety of 
suggestions for change. Sheila Itner, for 
example, asks, "Can't catalogers be trusted 
to name physical media appropriately? 
How earth-shattering would it be if they 
differed on some terms?" Barbara Tillett 
suggests developing a MARC III format 
that "could be used for hierarchically 
related bibliographic · records, such as 
those for different physical forms of 
items deemed to be copies of the same 
manifestation of a work. In this configura-
tion, interrelated bibliographic records ... 
would be linked for display capabilities." 

Origins, Content, and Future of AACR2 
Revised is recommended for cataloging 
students, as well as for professional 
librarians. It will give librarians and fu-
ture librarians a sense of how and why 
AACR2R has evolved, detailing how the 
rules arose from the need for a unified 
system of cataloging rules. It also dem-
onstrates how the rules, along with bib-
liographic control systems, will have to 
change to adapt to the increasingly 
sophisticated needs of an electronic en-
vironment.-Mary Beth Fecko, Rutgers 
University, Piscataway, New Jersey.