College and Research Libraries newspaper files and public documents are included, but this is not a piece of research — i t is a survey of the Philadelphia book stock, and as such an interesting and provocative work for non-Philadelphians. —John VanMahj A.L.A. Fellow, Gradu- ate Library School, University of Chicago. Review Index; a Quarterly Guide to Pro- fessional Reviews for College and Reference Libraries. Edited by Louis Kaplan and Clarence S. Paine. Chicago, Follett Book Co., December 1940 to date. $3.50 per annum. I F , AS P O P E P U T S I T , "Index learning turns no student pale, yet holds the eel of science by the tail" the editors of the Review Index have done their profession a service in providing another grip on those elusive appraisals of current books which librarians seek for their own ad- vantage and that of their patrons. I t is no substitute for the Book Review Digest because it gives no excerpts from reviews nor does it offer any symbols to indicate merit or the lack of it. F u r t h e r - more, it is a straight author list with no entries under subject or title and a mini- mum number of cross references. I t gives the author's name in secondary fullness, a brief title, publisher, date, price, and, as a rule, a reference to one book review, al- though occasionally a second or even a third is cited. W h i l e the Book Review Digest selects reviews of books more or less in the pub- lic eye from approximately 80 periodicals and newspapers, the Review Index lists all of the reviews, with a very few excep- tions, in about 60 journals of a scholarly kind, and covers nearly 400 more titles than the other index in a three months period. As might be expected, there is some overlapping. Of the items in a single column of the new index, 11 out of 31 titles were covered in the Book Review Digest, while of the 19 reviews of books in the September, 1940, issue of the Geographical Journal, 8 were included in both places. I t seems fair to conclude that the Review Index will provide each year critical information on about 1500 more books than has been available in the past. O n e is struck by the absence of the foreign reviews which are so greatly de- sired by research workers in certain fields. T h e Bibliographie der Rezenzionen, which will continue to appear, one hopes, covers the foreign field quite comprehensively but scholars and library staff shy away from it. W e like our information to come more easily. In any case, it is non- existent for the period covered by the Review Index. Foreign reviews are needed now as never before since personal communications with Europe have almost ceased. D u r i n g the latter part of 1940 few periodicals were received from con- tinental Europe. T h e y have begun to come again. Among important reviewing media seen during the past month have been: Beiblatt zur Anglia, Deutsche Rundschau, Zeitschrift fur Franzosische Sprache und Literatur and Nordisk Tid- skrift, to mention but a few of many. Incidentally, an important foreign lan- guage journal published in this hemisphere but omitted from the Review Index is Revista Iberoamericana which contains valuable signed reviews. Among English language periodicals there are several im- portant ones which are missing but they will most probably be added as a demand for them arises. W h i l e one misses any subject approach to material it is undoubtedly true, as the editors explain in the preface to the first 254 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES issue, that it would add greatly to the cost of the undertaking. W h a t one misses even more is a guide to the length of the reviews which ought not to be pro- hibitively expensive either from the edi- torial standpoint or production costs. I n spite of its modest format and the brevity of its entries, the Review Index should prove to be a useful and inexpen- sive addition to the bibliographical ap- paratus of college, university, and the larger public libraries.—Harold Russell, University of Minnesota Library. Guide to Bibliographies of Theses, United States and Canada. T h o m a s R. Pal- frey and H e n r y E. Coleman. A.L.A., Chicago, 1940. 54p. $1.25, paper. T H E S E C O N D E D I T I O N to the Guide to Bibliographies follows closely in scope and arrangement the first edition of 1936. P a r t I is again a short list of those Ameri- can bibliographies which are not restricted to one institution or field of interest (7 titles) ; P a r t I I is a very brief list (65 entries) arranged by subject or "field." I t is hard to understand the erratic choice of subject headings, the termination of the list with "Speech," and the uneven inclu- sion of titles found later in P a r t I I I , but for practical purposes the last part is the more important section, and we proceed to that. In the division called "Institutional Lists" there are approximately 330 entries. Twenty-five per cent, which consist of references to college catalogs and presi- dents' reports, have not been investigated. A n additional 12 per cent refer to manu- script lists which must also be passed over. An inconsistency in the form of entry used for supplements, and a confusion be- tween checklisting technique and catalog- ing practice result in the cumbersome inclusion of another 8 per cent of entries. Of the remaining 150 titles, 11 were out of date last August. These a r e : Clark University, George Washington Univer- sity, University of Florida, Louisiana State University, Ohio State University, Penn- sylvania State College, Southern Metho- dist University, Stanford University, University of Southern California, T u l a n e University, and Vanderbilt University. A few omissions of old titles were noted. In the series called " M a s t e r s Essays" for Columbia University, 1934, 1937, and 1938 are strangely missing. T h e Wiscon- sin Abstracts of Theses, v. 1, 1917, is omitted. A consistent practice for the arrangement of series notes and for the use of brackets would have been helpful since most of the outright errors were apparent in that connection. Obviously, the Guide is useful, but it is a great pity that such a compilation was not made to conform to the professional standards for either order, cataloging, or reference de- partments.—Isabel Howell, Vanderbilt University Library. Geschichte der Bibliotheken in Grossbri- tannien und in den Vereinigten Staaten von N ordamerika. Albert Predeek. O t t o Harrassowitz, 1940. From the Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft, I I I , pp. 855-975. T H E M O N U M E N T A L Milkau-Leyh Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft was completed last year with the publica- tion of the third volume, which is devoted to library history. T h e consummation of this invaluable work represents the crown- ing effort of continental librarians to en- dow their profession with the status of a science standardized by its indispensable Handbuch. Petzholdt, Graesel, and Dahl had attempted the task with a degree of JUNE, 1941 255