College and Research Libraries 408 I College & Research Libraries • September 1982 ity of the scholar, is a hard thing to admit. Shiflett has more than adequate documenta- tion for this finding. It is also somewhat painful to have so clearly documented the fact that the kind of education that librarians and their academic institutions accepted" ... differed radically from that expected of faculty members. In- deed, the form of library education as it was begun by Dewey and promoted by his disci- ples was, in essence, a manifestation of the spirit of the public library movement." So much for the strength of the historical influ- ence as regards academic status for librari- ans. In Shiflett's words: "As a profession distin- guishable from that of members of the fac- ulty and from other types of librarians, it ( ac- ademic librarianship) has failed to become fully defined." Rather, I would say that, af- ter reading Shiflett, the definition might well be before us. Now all we have to do is admit it-academic librarians warrant status on their own account. Shiflett has provided us with plenty of food for thought.-Russell Shank, University of California at Los An- geles. College Librarianship. Ed. by William ·C. Miller and C. Stephen Rockwood. Metu- chen, N.J., and London: Scarecrow, 1981. 284p. $15. LC 80-25546 ISBN 0-8108- 1383-1. One of the many undercurrents of aca- demic librarianship is the persistent notion that small-college libraries have special problems which cannot be treated easily. Somehow the environment and limited re- sources of the typical host institution seem to impose peculiar restraints on the library's po- tential for achieving success. This perception is especially evident among those librarians who view the difference between college and university settings as basically a matter of scale. Fortunately, most of the people who contributed essays and studies to the publica- tion reviewed here recognize the unique and exciting challenges afforded by a venture into college librarianship. This is a modest book which offers the reader an opportunity to reflect on such vex- ing issues as "Collection Development from a College Perspective," "The Challenge of Cataloging in the College Environment," and "Equal Employment Opportunity and the College Library Administrator." Two of the eighteen articles were published earlier in C&RL, but the rest of them are fresh con- tributions to the relatively sparse literature on the subject. In all, they serve as a good in- troduction to a variety of topics handled by college librarians on a daily basis. The most refreshing articles are those that attempt to come to terms with the special characteristics of the subject in a general manner. Peter Dollard's overview, entitled "A Paradigm for College Libraries," is are- markably thoughtful attempt to delineate the special role of the college library. Susan Lee offers a superb planning strategy in "A Modest Management Approach," while Charles Maurer describes the underlying paradox of mixed responsibility for line and staff functions with "Close Encounters of Di- verse Kinds: A Management Panorama for the Director of the Smaller College Library." Other articles focus on topics such as faculty status, acquisitions, personnel, media re- sources, user instruction, government docu- ments, archives, and planning a library building. In all, the editors have assembled a serviceable treatment of the subject. This volume should be useful to library school students and others who may wish to obtain greater knowledge of the real issues faced by college librarians. It may also serve to identify some topics for research in an area of librarianship which some people feel has not received enough attention.-Richard A. Olsen, Rhode Island College, Providence. Slater, Margaret. Ratios of Staff to Users: Im- plications for Library-Information Work and the Potential for Automation. (Aslib Occasional Publication no.24.) London: Aslib, 1981. 123p. $17, U.K. ($14, Aslib members), $21.25, U.S. ($17.50, Aslib members). This report is the result of a study con- ducted by the Aslib Research and Consul- tancy Division and funded by the British Library Research and Development Depart- ment. The aim of the study was to provide ratios of library-information staff to users in the special sector (excluding public library and educational sectors). These ratios are in- tended to be of use in forecasting and plan- ning at both the national and organjzational