College and Research Libraries


computer science areas.-Audrey N. 
Grosch, University of Minnesota, Min-
neapolis. 

Current Research on Scientific and Techni-
cal Information Transfer. Abstracts and 
Full Text of Papers Delivered at Three 
1976 Seminars Sponsored by the National 
Science Foundation, Division of Science 
Information. A Micropapers Edition. New 
York, Jeffrey Norton Publishers, 1977. 
24p. + 7 microfiche in pocket. $12.95. 
LC 77-9216. ISBN 0-88432-007-3. 
This publication contains the proceedings 

of three seminars organized toward the end 
of 1976 by the Division of Science Informa-
tion of the National Science Foundation. 
The seminars were intended to make known 
the results of twenty-one research projects 
on scientific and technical information and 
to provide a forum for an exchange of ideas 
between the original investigators and the 
seminars' participants. · 

The first one, "Alternatives to Traditional 
Information Transfer Mechanisms," re-
ported results from nine projects that "in-
vestigated ways of improving electronic 
storage, publication formats, and dissemina-
tion methods." Included are reports relating 
to SCATT, IEEE publishing experiments, 
the northern California public library 
DIALOG use project, and various other 
studies of modes of information dissemina-
tion. 

The second seminar, "The Use of Scien-
tific and Technical Information among 
Scientists and Engineers," included seven 
presentations on formal and informal com-
munication patterns among scientists and 
engineers. 

The third seminar, "Planning Data for 
STI Managers," provided findings from five 
projects and analyzed the impacts of 
selected trends in U.S. scientific and tech-
nical communication activities, including a 
forecast of the scientific journal in the year 
2000. While a number of the studies have 
important implications for academic librar-
ians, not least because scientific and techni-
cal acquisitions are swallowing an increasing 
portion of the materials budget, the em-
phasis is on improved productivity and 
efficiency of industrial information systems. 

The format is also worthy of comment; a 

Recent Publications I 411 

"Micropapers Edition," it consists of ten 
pages of introduction and contents, fourteen 
pages of abstracts, and seven microfiche (in 
a back pocket and of good quality) contain-
ing the full text of twenty of the reports 
(one being unavailable for inclusion). Of the 
abstracts, seven are reasonably informative 

·of the results, while thirteen are descriptive 
only; perhaps predictably, there is uneven-
ness in content and length of these author-
produced abstracts. The presswork is un-
even; the hard binding is sturdy and attrac-
tive. The running title on the fiche headers 
omits the first word of the actual title, 
which may cause some cataloging and pub-
lic service furor should the fiche get sepa-
rated from the book. Each fiche header 
gives the titles of its respective papers and 
the row on the fiche where each begins; but 
browsing among the papers takes a bit of do-
ing, since no identifying headings appeared 
on the typed manuscript pages. 

And the price: Is $12.95 right for twenty-
four pages plus seven fiche where the con-
tent is a gift of and paid for by a govern-
ment agency? Perhaps allocation toward 
publishing costs of a small part of the origi-
nal twenty-one-project research investment 
would have really borne out NSF's an-
nounced "policy to facilitate timely and 
broad dissemination · of research results."-
Irma Y. johnson, Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology, Cambridge. 

Houghton, Bernard, and Convey, John. 
On-Line Information Retrieval Systems: 
An Introductory Manual to Principles 
and Practice. London: Clive Bingley; 
Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1977. 
160p. $10. LC 77-21858. ISBN ·0-208-
01660-0. 
As in North America, library schools in 

Britain are now developing courses in on-
line bibliographic searching, and also as in 
North America, some of the first generation 
of pedagogical material is finding its way 
rapidly into print. The present work is de-
rived from courses taught· by the authors at 
the Liverpool Polytechnic library school and 
is essentially aimed at the British market. 

Part I (about forty pages) has four chap-
ters sketching in the background and de-
velopment of on-line systems, the funda-
mental techniques of automated searching,