College and Research Libraries BOOK REVIEWS / Conant, Ralph W. and Molz, Kathleen, eds. The Metropolitan Library. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1972. $10.00. That "no library is an island" is force- ably brought to everyone's attention by The Metropolitan Library. While the emphasis of this publication is on the social, political, and economic problems of the large library located in the major urban centers of the United States, the effect of the suburban library, school libraries, community college libraries, and college and university librar- ies on the urban library make this volume broader in scope than the title would indi- cate. The volume is divided into four parts: !-Introduction, li-The Function of the Public Library, III-The Public Library in the Metropolis, and IV -Critical Issues. The eighteen chapters are authored by five librarians and twelve specialists in other disciplines. (Ms. Molz presents two chap- ters.) In addition to Ms. Molz, such stal- warts in the library field as Dr. Jesse Shera, Dr. Lowell Martin, Mr. Lester L. Stoffel and the British librarian D. J. Foskett pre- sent challenging documents. Contributors of other chapters include urban planners, publishers, and professors in sociology, jour- nalism, speech communications, political science and an administrator in the U.S. Department of Labor. Eight of the chap- ters have appeared in other versions in oth- er publications. Included in the eight, five appeared in The Public Library and the City (ed. R. W. Conant, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1965) . Parts of one chapter-that written by Dr. Conant-have appeared in at least five other publications. In spite of the reprinting of updated ar- ticles, the volume is a valuable contribu- tion not only to librarians but also to all those people-legislators, library board members, and state, county, and municipal officials-who must make decisions con- cerning the future of the large library in a Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area. Par- ticularly significant are the chapters by Dr. 486 I Recent Publications Shera ("The Public Library in Perspec- tive"), Dr. Martin ("The Role and Structure of the Metropolitan Library") , Dan Lacy ("The Dissemination of Print"), and Claire K. Lipsman ("Public Library Service to the Urban Disadvantaged"). Ms. Lipsman re- ports a study of more than 3,000 individu- als in fifteen cities, all residents of low-in- come urban areas living within half a mile of a branch library. The findings of this study are highly significant to any librarian planning or operating a program for disad- vantaged users or nonusers. Of particular importance is the model presented for eval- uating the cost-effectiveness of such pro- grams. This article is a summary of the book, The Disadvantaged and Library Ef- fectiveness by Claire K. Lipsman (Chicago: ALA, 1972). To have authorities from other disciplines examine the large public library brings in- sight and suggestions vital to the advance- ment of the urban library. Robert H. Salis- bury focuses attention on "Trends in Urban Politics and Government" while William H. Hellmuth examines "Trends in Urban Fis- cal Policies." Both chapters show the polit- ical and financial changes which have oc- curred in the last two decades, their effect on urban libraries, and identified future problems. One cannot help wondering how this book would have been written in late 1973. Almost every author not only recognizes the importance of federal funding but also anticipates an increase in federal as well as state financial support. With the change of federal funding from categorical appropria- tions to revenue sharing, and with most states refusing to pick up the cost of fed .. erally funded programs, the conclusions and recommendations of most of the authors would have had to. be different. The possi- bility of such a shift in federal funding was not even identified as a "critical issue." The major thrust, however, of this vol- ume is that public libraries are part of the social and political structure of society. They cannot exist in a vacuum. The metro- politan library must move into the main- stream of the information and communica- tion network locally, regionally, and nation- ally. If it fails to overcome its isolation and provincialism, it will disappear and will be replaced by more viable and dynamic insti- tutions. That thrust is achieved.-John T. Eastlick, Graduate School of Librarianship, University of Denver, Colorado. / Wynkoop, Sally. Subject Guide to Gov- ernment Reference Books. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1972. $11.50. vWynkoop, Sally. Government Reference Books, 70/71. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1972. $8.50. The introduction states that Subject Guide to Government Reference Books is essentially a general orientation guide to the most important reference books pub- lished by the Government Printing Office and government agencies. Ms. Wynkoop has done an admirable job in choosing, list- ing, and annotating some 1,016 books and serials with reference value. The resulting compilation is a good introduction for the occasional user and provides an insight into the variety and scope of subjects covered in official publications. The very qualities which go into making a good orientation guide limit the useful- ness of such a guide for reference and re- search purposes. Obviously, the high degree of selectivity necessary to provide coverage for many subjects prevents comprehensive coverage of any particular subject. In or- der to list the most important government reference books, many of the most common also had to be included. The practicing ref- erence or document librarian hardly needs another description of the Statistical Ab- stract or the Year book of Agriculture. Each entry gives all essential biblio- graphic information and a descriptive anno- tation. The annotations are well done, par- ticularly in giving data about previous edi- tions, related volumes, etc·. On the whole, the information is accurate, with a few mi- nor errors which really do not affect the usability of the information. The index in the back of the book is also geared for general purposes. It is made up of the subjects which appear in the table of contents, a title entry for each book or series included, and personal authors when Recent Publications I 487 mentioned. The use of several descriptors for each entry would have done much to increase the value of the guide for refer- ence purposes. Government Reference Books 70/ 71 is the second in a biennial series which forms a record of the most important reference books published by the government during 1970 and 1971. Unlike the Subject Guide this listing is intended to be comprehensive. The format is essentially the same as in the Subject Guide and the 68/ 69 edition with the books arranged by subject. The ar- rangement of the subject headings has been somewhat changed, and while the new ar- rangement is useful in this volume, it is dis- concerting if the three publications are being used as a set. A great deal of repetition of titles is in- cluded in the one thousand-plus entries in this edition. In my opinion this is detrimen- tal rather than helpful. In a biennial survey it is wasteful at best to include two entries for books published annually, four entries for books published semiannually, and in some cases five and six entries for the same title. There are also forty separate entries and annotations for Army Area Handbooks, each entry repeating essentially the same information with slight variations from country to country. One entry describing the series, plus a list of those handbooks pub- lished in 1970 and 1971 would have been sufficient. For people having limited contact with documents, these biennial compilations will be a reminder of the on-going and tremen- dously worthwhile contribution of the gov- ernment in the field of reference materials. For purposes of research, or as a helpful aid to documents librarians, this series has the same drawbacks as does the Subject Guide -an unsophisticated index, general rather than in-depth coverage, and a great deal of space devoted to what every documents librarian should know already or be able to find easily.-]oyce Ball, Head, Refer- ence Department, University of Nevada, Reno. v\Veihs, Jean Riddle; Lewis, Shirley; and Macdonald, Janet. Nonbook Materials, the Organization of Integrated Collec- tions. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Library Association, 1973. 107 p. $6.50.