College and Research Libraries 140 I College & Research Libraries • March 197 4 O'Hara, Frederic J., ed. Reader in Gov- ernment Documents. Washington, D.C.: Microcard Editions, 1973. 420 p. $12.95. Taking time off from his regular column, "Selected Government Publications," which appears in Wilson Library Bulletin, Profes- sor O'Hara of the Graduate Library School at Long Island University has assembled twenty-five articles and excerpts introduc- ing government documents. O'Hara's pur- pose was to collect literature that explains to the reader how to use documents, what documents currently exist or are still need- ed in certain fields, and what federal li- braries have done, are doing, or plan to do in the future. This reader is the ninth vol- ume to appear within the Reader Series in Library and Information Science, under the general editorship of Paul Wasserman. Reader in Government Documents contin- ues with the series' goal of synthesizing the most essential contributions within given areas of librarianship and making the in- formation easily accessible to all concerned. In reality, this volume might be more precisely titled Handbook in Government Documents, for most of the articles are ori- ented within a practical 'now-to" frame- work. O'Hara opens with a general discus- sion of depository libraries with current de- pository regulations, instructions to deposi- tory libraries, and an explanation of the Superintendent of Documents classification system. The second section concerns laws regulations, Congress, and the courts. Her~ the reader finds a guide to Federal Register finding aids and how to locate U.S. statutes and U.S. code citations in addition to ex- plaining the process of how bills become laws and the structure of the U.S. court system. Next are articles that describe the services of the national library, the Nation- al Archives, and the publications of the United Nations. O'Hara then presents arti- cles about the National Advisory Commis- sion on Libraries, the Federal Library Com- mittee, and An Act to Establish a National Commission on Libraries & Information Sci- ence (Public Law 91-345). Extremely use- ful is the section on information-handling systems, reprinted from a handbook for government employees describing informa- tion storage and retrieval systems currently in use. The article provides summaries of each system-including MARC DDC ERIC, and SDI, to name a few__.:.and als~ provides operational flowcharts of the sys- tem. Other sections that O'Hara presents are discussions about social measurement and statistics; copyrights, patents, and trademarks; amending the Library Services and Construction Act; and careers in fed- eral libraries. The editor has assembled excellent au- thorities-including David Palmer, Douglas Knight, Dorothy Muse, and Norman Bar- bee-in this fine collection of articles. O'Hara is to be further congratulated for including articles that will enable more common folk to understand the workings of the federal government concerning its publications. Regarding O'Hara's specific selection of articles, this reviewer wishes only to quibble with the presence of two articles (Riddick and Fischer) discussing legislative procedures when one would have easily sufficed. It is also regrettable that al- though O'Hara saw fit to include an article about United Nations' documents he failed to include a discussion about the publica- tions from the Organization of American States. Most apparent, however, is the brev- ity of O'Hara's introduction to the volume and his brief introductions to the individual articles. O'Hara's personal knowledge about government documents in the form of ei- ther an introductory essay or an annotated bibliography would have added much to this volume. These points aside, the volume is an excellent contribution and should be widely read and referred to by those re- searching in government publications, those enrolled in a government documents library science course, and those document librari- ans wishing to improve both their personal knowledge and their department's general reference service.-Charles R. McClure, History-Government Librarian, University of Texas at El Paso. OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST TO ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS American University Pre~s Services, Inc. Ad Guide, 1973-1974, An Advertiser's Guide to Scholarly Periodicals. New York: AUPS Inc., 1973. 304p. $35.00. ' Angoff, Allan, ed. Public Relations for Li-