College and Research Libraries 50 I College & Research Libraries • January 1971 of Library Service, University of California, Los Angeles. Library Issues: The Sixties. Eric Moon and Karl Nyren, eds. New York: R. R. Bowker, 1970. 400p. $12.50. Eric Moon and Karl Nyren have assem- bled well over 200 articles, editorials, and reports which appeared originally in Li- brary Journal between 1960 and 1970. All of the items were authored by LJ staff members. The selection understandably re- flects the tastes and the judgments of Moon and his associates, who have consistently espoused social involvement by librarians. Their sense of mission and their sympa- thies for the human side of librarianship im- part a special flavor to their style and in- evitably to the things they choose to write about. Four articles appear under the head- ing "Data Processing, Automation, Informa- tion Science," twenty under "Book Selec- tion," and sixteen under "Discrimination." Clearly, the mechanics of library manage- ment do not stimulate Mr. Moon and his associates to creative effort, except possibly when opportunities for mockery arise. Computers and L] don't fit quite com- fortably into the same space. "Cataloging and Classification" are of the same ilk as computers and rate only two brief notices, one of which by Moon commences with the confession that "we find it difficult to get very passionate or excited about cataloging theory." I suppose that it is equally difficult to get passionate about Newton's law of gravitation or Einstein's theory of relativity. Moon, Nyren, Beny, Geller, and all those other wonderful L] people who keep kick- ing the straw out of our stuffed shirts are really incurable romantics. They believe that libraries are for people and that the fewer economic advantages citizens have, the more libraries can do for them. The predisposition to support the underdog tends to draw thes e authors toward politics and leads them to look at libraries continu- ally as social instrumentalities. I point this out not in a spirit of disagreement, but rather to emphasize that the articles in this anthology display a special bias which leads to a systematic exclusion of serious exam- ination of other things which may be hn- portant, if unexciting. The issues of the sixties discussed here were significant-federal aid, censorship, manpower, and all that. I submit only that other things were in the air also-including the growth of library systems, the decline of juvenile reading, and substantial innova- tions in building design. The prose is lively, the opinions provoca- tive, and the point of view leftish. But lhe anthology is only a sketch, possibly a car- icature of what librarianship is really all about, not only in the sixties, but all the time. Lib1·ary Issues: The Sixties is good fun , but I do not know what to do with it now that I've read it. I suspect that the editors looked upon it as a kind of Our Times jour- nalistic review, to be leafed through once and laid carefully away with our other trin- kets and memorabilia. One would hardly find a reason to return to it, except perhaps to enjoy the sprightly but really rather gen- tle iconoclasm.-Ervin ]. Gaines, Minne- apolis Public Library. The Economics of Book Storage in Col- lege and University Libraries. By Ralph E. Ellsworth. Metuchen, N.J.: Associa- tion of College and Research Libraries and The Scarecrow Press, 1969. 135p. $4.00. Most academic libraries find themselves caught in a three-way squeeze brought about b y rapidly increasing book collec- tions, escalating prices of libra1y construc- tion, and faculty demands for immediate access to "their" books. Librarians will not b e greatly surprised to learn that Ellsworth has discovered no universal solution to these problems. He has presented a sum- mary d escription of twelve systems for stor- ing books in academic libraries, analyzed the cost factors for each of the systems, and suggested a procedure for determining costs in a specific university. You pays your mon- ey and you takes your choice. But ~rem are not likely to be entirely happy with any system. With a grant from the Educational Fa- cilities Laboratory and the blessings of th e Association of Research Libraries, Ellsworth set out to answer two questions: Is it eco- nomical to select little-used books from the regular book stacks and store them else- where? Is the cost factor the only one a uni- versity need consider in adopting a storage program, and how is cost related to other factors? The answers are yes, but not as much as you might guess; and no, but the relation depends on local circumstances. The total cost of storing 500,000 volumes is estimated to range from $1.44 per vol- ume (expanding an existing book stack) to $1.135 (Yale system; arranging books by size with minimal aisle space) to $1.695 ( Randtriever). Total costs include esti- mates for selecting books and changing rec- ords, transferring books to storage, land costs, and shelving. One could quarrel with Ellsworth's unit costs, but they are applied consistently. Using manufacturers' statistics, Ellsworth finds a great range in space efficiency among the twelve systems, from 15 volumes per square foot in conventional shelving to 147 in the Randtriever. The cost per vol- ume (excluding recordkeeping, selecting, moving, and land costs this time) ranges from $1.42 per volume for the Randtriever adapted to standard book stacks to $.49 for the Yale system. Lee Ash reported a cost of $.42 in Yale's Selective Book Retirement Pmgram; the discrepancy is not explained. In any event, the Yale system also comes out well in space efficiency with 64 volumes per square foot. One might conclude at this point that the merits of sliding shelves, boxes that zip to and fro, and motor-pro- pelled ranges are illusory. Here one must study the descriptions of the systems and the application to the needs of a specific university in Chapters 4 and 5 to decide how much inconvenience members of the faculty will tolerate before thev revolt. Whether librarians like it or not: this factor is more important than space or cost data. If direct access is essen- tial, the only practical solution appears to be conventional shelving with reduced aisle space, and possibly an additional shelf at the top. If limited access is acceptable, the Yale system, sliding ranges ( Compactus, Elecompack, Fullspace) or moving shelves ( Conserv-a-file, Shelco, or Ames Stor-M or) Recent Publications I 51 will do. If no direct access but rapid me- chanical retrieval is tolerable, one of the versions of Randtriever will provide a noble experiment. If Ellsworth has given us more questions than answers, this regrettably is the nature of the problem. He has,. at least, asked the questions that may discourage hasty deci- sions. In a library that installed an early version of Shelco we would be grateful had these questions been considered previously. It has become obligatory to close a re- view with a comment on the typographic crudities of Scarecrow Press books. What do you want, economical book production or good taste? Perhaps some happy day we can have both.-]oe W. Kraus, Illinois State University. Alternative Press Index. Quarterly. North- field, Minn. : The Radical Research Cen- ter, Carleton College, July/Dec. 1969 (v.1, nos. 1-2), Jan./Mar. 1970 (v.2, no. 1). $30 per year to institutions; $10 per year to individuals. Dissident and offbeat journals are poorly served by existing periodical indexes. This fact is used by some librarians to excuse their refusal to subscribe to controversial or unusual periodicals: .. If such-and-such a magazine isn't indexed, how can our pa- trons retrieve the information in it?" The Radical Research Center is making a praise- worthy effort to provide indexing for at least some of the many journals in the range from center through left. Indexing is carried out by volunteers throughout the country. Entries are sent to the Center and keypunched, and the Index is printed out by computer. The second issue contains 150 columns of enb·ies in 50 pages. Seventy-two periodicals are analyzed. Some of the types covered are: under- ground (Fifth Estate), religious pacifist/ so- cialist (Catholic Worker), old-style liberal (Prog1·essive ), antiestablishment intellectual (N.Y. Review of Books), contemplative lib- eral intellectual (Center Magazine), utopian (Modern Utopian), Marxist (International Socialist, Monthly Review), nonviolent (Peace News), New Left (Old Mole, pub- lished by an SDS chapter), educational re-