College and Research Libraries 154 I College & Research Libraries • March 1978 embodies an unresolvable contradiction. Thus, this is and must be very mathemati- cal. True, each section starts out by intro- ducing the purpose of the quantitative method under consideration in very simple , discursive, readable prose, usually employ- ing library-derived examples (sometimes hypothetical, sometimes real). Then sud- denly all becomes highly abstract, con- densed, and symbolic. The text promptly drops the library-related examples and deals in data sets, rather than books and readers. It is difficult for one who has been over the ground many times before to estimate the effect this sharp acceleration of abstrac- tion would have on beginners . Perhaps the authors of the text are able to carry their students over this threshold by means auxil- iary to the text. However, the typical librar- ianship student is typically long on verbal aptitude but very short on mathematical perception as measured by the Graduate Record Examination. For this reason the wary instructor anticipates an onslaught of statistically induced terror on the part of most beginning students confronted with a condensed text such as this. It is true that those who follow the path set by Herbert Goldhor' s An Introduction to Scientific Research in Librarianship (1972) do not really try to surmount this barrier but rather content themselves with verbal indications of the purposes and limi- tations of each process. They do not force the student to compute any but the most elementary of descriptive measures. This is also a highly questionable expedient in a field where a little knowledge can be dangerou~. Thus, one hopes that subsequent editions of Srikantaiah and Hoffman's brief text will provide a means of introducing the average student to essential comprehension of statis- tical description, inference, hypothesis test- ing, and theory building without the side ef- fects anticipated from the present edition's uneven treatment. What this and other privately published books often lack are the services of an in- form~d but neutral editor, Such an editor would ask whether on p. 71 the authors did not mean to say "hypothesis" rather than "theory." The editor might also ask for some help for the student who is told at the end of chapter 13 (p. 141) that "clearly, neither chi square nor the z test can be recom- mended for studies of differences in categories when large samples are involved" -and left hanging there! Such an editor might notice the omission from the appendix on computers of any ref~ erence to that godsend to library research- ers , the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), recently treated in a short volume by Marchant, Smith, and Stirling (see "Other Publications of Interest"). Again , someone from outside might notice that on p.154 the authors casually introduce the idea of matched pairs as a research method without warning the reader that the device is as perilous as it is seductive. Examples of sacrifice of full, precise ex- planation in the interest of simplification are too numerous in this edition of the text to warrant its use by other than experienced library researchers or advanced students. However, in saying this , one hastens to en- courage Srikantaiah and Hoffman to con- tinue their work. At this stage it shows great promise of becoming a text that is badly needed. Meanwhile, the beginner is better served by established works on elementary statistics at the cost of forgoing the rather superficial library examples of- fered (in the preface) as a principal reason for the existence of this text in its present state.-Perry D. Morrison, Professor of Li- brarianship , University of Oregon, Eugene. Busha, Charles H., ed . An Intellectual Freedom Primer. Littleton, Colorado: Li- braries Unlimited, Inc. , 1977. 221p. $17.50 U.S. and Canada ; $21.00 elsewhere. LC 77-7887. ISBN 0-87287- 172-X. Covering the topics of intellectual free- dom and censorship, the seven articles in this volume constitute more than a "primer," as the title would seem to indi- cate. The editor, Charles H. Busha, says the purpose of the book is to present infor- mation about events in the twentieth cen- tury that have contributed to the erosions of First Amendment rights. The titles and authors of the articles are: "Freedom in the United States in the Twentieth Century," by Busha; "Privacy and Security in Automated Personal Data Systems," by Stephen P. Harter; "Freedom of the Visual Arts: The Role of Govern- ments," by Yvonne Linsert Morse; "Biblio- graphical Control of Erotica," by Rebecca Dixon; "Censorship and the Performing Arts: A Review of Issues," by Barbara Con- nally Kaplan; "Censorship and the Contem- porary Cinema," by Gail Linda Robinson; and, "Censorship Research: Its Strengths, Weaknesses, Uses, and Misuses," by Richard E. McKee. As is indicated in these titles, the major portion of the hook is concerned with free- dom in the various arts. The editor's intro- duction is well worth a careful reading as is his introductory article, which provides a valuable discussion of the development of freedoms in the United States. Stephen Harter's discussion of the preservation of the privacy of the individual citizen in a world of automated data systems is a co- gent, well-written, and important chapter. The chapter on "Censorship Research" points out that insufficient scientific re- search has been done in this area. The au- thors says, "Anyone interested in under- standing the complex issue of censorship should rely only upon facts derived from careful studies. While reliance upon per- sonal convictions or opinions may he more self-satisfying, in the long run the only per- son deceived will he the one who has not closely examined the conclusions of carefully conducted studies." There is variation in the writing style in the various ,chapters, as one would expect from the different authors. However, all chapters indicate that the authors have done considerable reading and studying before they began to write. Each has given numer- ous examples and illustmtions as well as quotations from court decisions, and each has provided extensive footnotes and cita- tions from the literature. As the editor says in his introduction, the "contributors make no claims of presenting unbiased views of disputes between censors and anti-censors or between the forces of in- tolerance and the forces of freedom. The writers who have contributed to this book are resolute in their commitment to princi- ples of intellectual freedom and offer no apologies for their partiality." In the opinion of the reviewer, the book is a valuable and Recent Publications I 155 informative collection of articles. It should he helpful to librarians, to library educators, and to students who are interested in intel- lectual freedom.-Martha Boaz, Dean, School of Library Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Studies in Micropublishing, 1853-1976. Documentary Sources. Edited by Allen B. Veaner. Microform Review Series in Library Micrographics Management, no. 2. Westport, Conn.: Microform Review, Inc., 1977. 489p. $22.50. LC 77-6720. ISBN 0-913672-07-6. The aim of this anthology, as stated in the preface, is to trace the evolution of the in- tellectual aspects of micropublishing while the scope of the collection is defined by its title. In it the word "micropublishing" is used by the editor as a generic term cover- ing both original and retrospective mi- cropublishing activities, sometimes also re- ferred to as "micropublishing" and "mi- crorepublishing." Studies in Micropublishing contains fifty- one essays grouped in ten chapters, to- gether covering a time span of 123 years. Four of the articles were published origi- nally in the nineteenth century (three of them in 1850); the others, with the excep- tion of two papers published in the early 1900s, have originally appeared in print he- tween 1930 and 1970. The largest cluster of reprints was published in the 1950s (four- teen articles). The most often reprinted au- thors are Herman H. Fussier and Allen B. Veaner, each having four articles in the col- lection, and Eugene Power with three re- prints. By editorial flat, excluded from compila- tions are annual reviews of the state of the art in the micropublishing world, technical articles, reports, evaluations of equipment, and essays already included in Albert Died compilation, Microforms in Libraries: A Reader (1975). The volume is not conceived as an exclu- sive bibliography, nor is it "expected that this work will be read as a continuous chronicle; it is ,therefore hoped that repetition" -a frequent phenomenon in a collection of this kind-"will serve to rein- force" major themes developed in the vol- ume (p.xiv-xv).