College and Research Libraries 84 College & Research Libraries Recognizing the importance of these efforts to the scholarly community, Ann Okerson, director of the Association of Research Libraries' Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing, edited these two contributions into a low-cost direc- tory. (Kovacs and Stangelove' s directories are also available as free files on the Net.) The Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists is currently the best source of informa- tion about network-based e-serials and lists. But it has some minor flaws. E-seri- als could be classified into more mean- ingful and discrete categories (e.g., scholarly journals could be separated from special interest magazines). Lists that are not "open" for user-initiated subscription could be identified as such. The list direc- tory does not include a number of com- puter-oriented lists. Nevertheless, the compilers should be commended for cre- ating this directory, and ARL should be commended for publishing it. It most use- fully simplifies the process of identifying and accessing appropriate e-serials and lists, thereby helping to open the frontiers of electronic information.-Charles W. Bai- ley, Jr., University of Houston, Texas. LOGOS: The Professional Journal for the Book World. London: Whurr Publica- tions, 1990- . Individuals: $52/year; Institutions: $80/year (ISSN 0957-9656). The contents page of each LOGOS quarterly issue carries a message from the publisher that begins: "LOGOS is written and read by book people in twenty-nine countries. It offers to the world book community a forum in which it can debate the issues which con- cern it and which both unite and divide it. LOGOS subscribers include librari- ans, booksellers, publishers, literary agents, authors, printers, designers and bibliophiles-all who are in some way involved in the writing, production, dis- tribution and reading of books." Certainly the journal's geographic cov- erage is impressive. Of the thirty-six ar- ticles published in the initial volume, for example, only one-third focus on spe- cific aspects of Anglo-American publish- ing; another third cover developments in January 1992 non-European countries; and the re- maining articles feature topics such as the effects of technology, the author I ed- itor interview, and preservation. Contribu- tions range from Hans Zell's explanation of the crisis in book publishing in Africa to John Sumsion's analysis of Public Lending Right, with views from publishers regu- larly included (e.g., Frances Pinter's ''The Independent Publisher" and Christopher Hurst's "On Being Small, Commercial, and Scholarly"). In his column, publisher Colin Whurr describes accurately the ele- ments he seeks for articles in the journal: "A typical LOGOS contribution mingles history, personal experience, contempo- rary analysis and a view of the future on its chosen topic. The focus is on meanings, not views. Experiences are interpreted, not merely reported." Carrying no news or advertising, this journal also avoids footnotes, academic jargon, book reviews, and single-theme issues, although contrasting views on a subject are occasionally juxtaposed in one issue (the second issue for 1991 in- cludes two articles on the Net Book Agreement, for example). Readers thus are free to concentrate on the eight or nine contributions in each issue, as well as an occasional editorial and an opinion column, including Martyn Goff's per- spective on the Nobel Prize for Litera- ture and Piers Paul Read's definition of the enemies of literature. More eclectic in content than Publish- ing Research Quarterly, LOGOS is also less academic; most articles are rooted in the contributors' experience, rather than in statistics or documented research. Yet the result is definitely not the typical "how we do it good" potpourri found in too many specialist periodicals. The au- thors try to place their views in the con- text of the universe of contemporary publishing and more often than not suc- ceed in tying a specific issue to a wider problem. Vic Gray's "Preservation vs. Use: The Archivist's Dilemma," for ex- ample, manages to tie local problems in Essex County, England, to the global scene with authority, clarity, and humor. If LOGOS is not a vital purchase for academic libraries-it is not scholarly, is not indexed in standard sources, and some articles are of current interest only-it can be recommended as a very useful addition to bibliography collec- tions. Any reader, and certainly any li- brarian, with an interest in the future of the book should welcome LOGOS as a unique source of information about the publishing world and its relationship to libraries, technologies, and developing economies. As a bonus, the articles are readable. Editor Gordon Graham writes that "if any LOGOS reader reads an arti- cle from a sense of duty, we have failed." He need not worry.-Marcia Jebb, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. Atkins, Stephen E. The Academic Library in the American University. Chicago: American Library Assn., 1991. 240p. $35 (ISBN 0-8389-0567-6). At the 1974 ALA conference in New York City, Dwight R. Ladd, a professor in the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire, spoke about the political en- vironment and organization of the Amer- ican university. He identified and described the various power bases on campus, commented on the focus of sig- nificant decision making, and explored the elements of community and consen- sus within the academy. He described the academy as a collection of diverse groups with separate and distinct goals. In such an environment, he said, conflict, not consensus, is the campus reality. Ladd identified the myths on which many li- brarians have based their views of how campuses work. His paper, published in College & Research Libraries in March 1975, remains an excellent introduction to the political structure of the campus. In his book, The Academic Library in the American University, Stephen E. Atkins ignores the politics of American aca- demic life, and assumes that librarians are ignorant of the political process in the academic environment, that they do not operate in such an environment, and that, if they try to do so, they do it rather badly. The assumption guides Atkins's review of the development of higher ed- ucation in the United States and deter- Book Reviews 85 LOGOS The Professional Journal for the Book World Edited by Gordon Graham LOGOS is a quarterly professional journal serving the international book community. It has a distinguished Advisory Board of publishers, booksellers, librarians, literary agents and scholars in the principal publishing countries. LOGOS aims to deal in depth with issues which unite, divide, excite and concern the world of books. For further details or a free sample copy please contact: Whurr Publishers Ltd 19B Compton Terrace, London N1 2UN England Tel: 44 71 359 5979 Fax: 44 71 226 5290 mines the selection of the sources he uses in offering support for his thesis. He is convinced that participation by librari- ans, as full members of the faculty, in the shared governance of the campus is the· only road to success for academic librar- ies in the future. His book is an effort to convince others. The book grew out of a paper Atkins presented at the ACRL national confer- ence in Baltimore in 1986. In that paper, subsequently published in Energies for Transition (1986), Atkins opined, "Librar- ians must realize that decisions concern- ing the library will continue to be made without their input unless they start par- ticipating in university governance." Atkins has embraced the myth, as Ladd would call it, that the faculty govern the university. That the development of col- lege and university libraries in the United States, one of higher education's success stories, was accomplished with- out faculty status for librarians on many campuses is not addressed. In the book's first chapter, Atkins· sketches the history of the university and