College and Research Libraries


600 I College & Research Libraries • November 1981 

ularly useful to anyone who operates or plans 
to operate a fee-based information service. It 
should also be read by public, academic, and 
special librarians, however, as it explains ex-
actly why people are willing to pay for some 
kinds of information even though others are 
available without charge. Furthermore, the 
book is delightfully calm in tone: unlike some 
of the literature in this field, it predicts the 
demise of no institution of any kind.-
Haynes McMullen, University of North Car-
olina at Chapel Hill. 

Research on the Impact of a Computerized Cir-
culation System on the Performance of a 
Large College Library. Part One: The Main 
Library. Report on National Science Foun-
dation Grant no. 1ST 78-10821 for the pe-
riod September 15, 1978-June 1, 1980. 
Prepared by Katherine A. Frohmberg and 
William A. Moffett. Order no. PB 81-
199549. Oberlin, OH; Oberlin College Li-
brary, 1981. 89p. $9.50 paper; $3.50 mi-
crofiche. 
This report, prepared to satisfy contrac-

tual requirements of the £under, theN ational 
Science Foundation, should not have been 
published in its present form. In terms of 
meaningful content there is only enough ma-
terial for a journal article. For eighty-nine 
pages printed only on one side, with large 
type, wide margins, and amateurishly drawn 
graphs, a price tag of $9.50 seems excessive. 

Oberlin College used "the occasion of the 
introduction of an automated circulation sys-
tem in 1978 to study certain measures of li-
brary performance." These measures include 
availability, building use, visits to the li-
brary, number of checkouts, required time to 
charge a book, and patron attitudes. These 
are not new measures, nor are the methods 
new. Paul Kantor, who served as a consul-
tant to the study' has already published much 
of this material. 

Treatment of the findings from the study is 
uneven. For example, chapter five includes a 
twenty-five-item questionnaire given to 
Oberlin students. The following chapter con-
tains a very technical discussion of modeling 
variables including those from the question-
naire. Yet the responses from the question-
naire are not discussed until chapter eight, 
and then, only four of the questions are ana-
lyzed. 

Basically the study found that availability 
and accessibility improved as a result of auto-
mation. Student's favorable attitudes toward 
the library declined with the introduction of 
the system but improved as checkout time 
decreased.- Ellen Altman, University of Ar-
izona, Tucson. 

Rink, Evald. Technical Americana: A Check-
list of Technical Publications Printed Before 
1831. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Interna-
tional Pubs., 1981. $60. LC 81-4036. ISBN 
0-527-75447-1. 
This is a pioneer treatment of the subject 

and as such is an important reference work 
for those concerned with the early history of 
technology and industrial development in the 
United States. The 6,065 titles and editions 
are grouped chronologically within seventy-
five subheadings. The subheadings are in 
turn gathered under twelve main headings: 
general works, technology, agriculture, 
crafts and trade, medical technology, mili-
tary technology, civil engineering, mechani-
cal engineering, manufacturing, mining and 
mineral production, sea transportation and 
inland transportation. The scope is restricted 
to books published in this country prior to 
1831, both original works and reprints of 
British or translations of continental writers. 
It is a record of the literature of technology 
produced by American publishers for the use 
of Americans. The largest portion (85 per-
cent) are nineteenth-century publications. 
The largest main heading is "Inland Trans-
portation," which occupies one third of the 
work. "Agriculture" is the next largest with 
14 percent. 

The author explicitly states that this is not a 
bibliographical study of individual items, 
but an ~ffort to make the publications listed 
"available to the users". Descriptions are 
therefore "limited to essential features suffi-
ciently complete for their identification." 
They consist of a main entry, the title short-
ened where appropriate, and an imprint in a 
standardized form which gives place, printer 
or publisher, and date. The collation is in a 
library format. In some cases there is an addi-
tional note when the title 'information is not 
complete. Although thirty-four bibliogra-
phies are listed as references, each entry has 
only one bibliographical citation, preferably 
to an imprint bibliography such as Evans,