College and Research Libraries 184 College & Research Libraries pioneer in the new genre of electronic serials. By now, as directories of e-serials quickly show, librarians have more elec- tronic communication forums than any other profession. The lesson to be learned is that electronic serials, even when physically unprepossessing and produced on shoestring budgets, can be highly visible and powerful. Almost anyone with an idea, commit- ment, and spare time, at an institution with network connections and a half- friendly computer center, can start an e-list or newsletter or even a journal, and possibly should. The networks so far are subsidized. It is an excellent time to ex- periment, to find out what the commu- nity needs and wants, to learn what the community supports over time and in what form. Eventually, all these publica- tions will be more sophisticated, more commonplace, less of a novelty. While they will undoubtedly be "better," it will be hard to match the early days' excite- ment we still feel as we log on to our e-mail and LISTSERV, or the Mailer Dae- mon bring us the next issue of our cur- rent favorites, of which NSPI is most certainly one.-Ann Okerson, Association of Research Libraries, Washington, D.C. DePew, John N. A Library, Media and Preservation Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1991. 441 p. (ISBN 0-87436-543-0). LC 91-16501. The national concern for preserving the intellectual content of great research collections impinges increasingly on the jobs, time, and attention of librarians who are not preservation specialists. For these professionals, as well as for those in smaller institutions, this is a useful and interesting book. It is generally successful in terms of its stated aims of bringing together a por- tion of the vast literature of the past two decades on the conservation and preser- vation of library materials and of making it available to those who have little knowledge of preservation. It is, then, designed as an introduction "to the basic environmental controls, materials, processes and techniques ... required to house and preserve library materials." March 1992 The organization and range of topics treated make it clear that DePew under- stands preservation in the broadest possible sense, that preventive measures from climate control to disaster pre- paredness are as important as salvage activities, and that non print media merit the same consideration as paper. The handbook is divided into nine sections covering paper and papermaking; the environment; care and handling of li- brary materials; binding and in-house repair; acid paper and brittle books; pho- tographic, audio, and magnetic media; surveys of buildings and collections; dis- aster preparedness and recovery; and preservation services, suppliers, and ed- ucational opportunities. Ten appendices supply further details, specifications, sample forms and surveys, and tech- niques. Because the language of preserva- tion is complex and technical, a short glossary is provided, and a more complete glossary is planned as a companion volume. The reference bibliography at the end of each section is a useful tool. The handbook falls short, however, of being a definitive, all-purpose summary of the state of preservation knowledge. For example, because of limitations on space, DePew deliberately excludes dis- cussion of the administration and or- ganization of preservation activities, referring readers to the Association of Research Libraries' Preservation Organi- zation and Staffing, SPEC Kit 160 (Wash- ington, D.C., 1990) and works by noted librarians in the field. In addition, other omissions and a troubling lack of balance among the is- sues considered and the level of detail in their treatment detract from the book's value. The author's criteria for treating certain topics at length, while only sum- marizing others, are not articulated. The book begins, for instance, with a very, perhaps unnecessarily, detailed section (forty pages) on paper and papermak- ing. Highly interesting for the nonspe- cialist, it leads one to expect a similar level of attention to the treatment of paper. Several aspects of this treatment are discussed, with more attention given to deacidification (fifteen pages), a tech- nology neither fully evolved nor widely used, at least on a large scale, than to preservation microfilming (eleven pages), photocopying (three pages), and digital techniques (two pages). In the case of microfilming, this brev- ity seems problematic for a major preser- vation tool that is widely used in research libraries. The section on preser- vation microfilming concentrates on the selection of materials suitable for film- ing, bibliographic control, and the place of microfilm in the array of preservation options. These considerations are drawn from Nancy Gwinn's Preservation Micro- filming: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists (1987) and various RLG publications. The section on types of film is very brief, and given the level of technical detail else- where, one would expect a fuller discus- sion about the nature of silver halide, diazo, and vesicular film, and the rea- sons why the latter two are unsuitable for archival film copies. Nor is the glos- sary helpful here in noting the expected longevity of these types of film, and no- where does the caveat appear that the different sorts of film should never be stored together. A more serious shortcoming is the author's failure to convey the urgency of the brittle book problem. Likewise, he ignores the efforts of such entities as the Commission on Preservation and Access and the Council on Library Resources to craft a national agenda for preserving the intellectual content of an estimated twelve million unique titles in the na- tion's research collections. The Commis- sion is mentioned, but nowhere are its activities summarized. DePew mentions the Library of Congress's goal of deacid- ifying one million books annually over twenty years but not the National En- dowment for the Humanities's Brittle Book Program, a twenty-year plan pro- jecting the preservation microfilming of three million brittle books and serials. There is no discussion of the resulting large-scale, federally funded preserva- tion microfilming projects that are in- creasingly a feature of research libraries' preservation activities. A look at the range of individual projects and efforts Book Reviews 185 by various consortia with their various administrative possibilities might have provided a useful backdrop to De Pew's detailed discussion of numerous preser- vation techniques. As it develops, the field of preservation is moving beyond a concern for techniques alone to a con- scious focus on strategy, and this shift should receive some attention in a hand- book that claims to survey the literature. The omission of this aspect of the national perspective is mirrored in a ser- ies of omissions in detail. The list of preser- vation services neglects some major funding agencies like the National Li- brary of Medicine, and prominent mi- crofilmers like Research Publications and Micrographic Systems of Connec- ticut, both of which do contract work for major preservation projects. In spite of detailed treatment of the deacidification process, the book does not include Akzo Chemicals, the firm that holds the patent on the DEZ process favored by the Li- brary of Congress. In sum, the handbook is a highly detailed discussion of certain preserva- tion techniques without serious considera- tion of the institutional and national context in which those techniques are de- ployed. This flaw makes this work, while generally informative, less than a fully satisfying overview for college and research librarians.-Susanne F. Roberts, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Desktop Publishing in the University. Ed. by JoanN. Burstyn. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse Univ. Pr., 1991. 137p. paper, $12.95 (ISBN 0-8156-8116-X). LC 91- 8759. Two and a half years ago, Syracuse University and the Association of Uni- versity Presses sponsored a conference on ''The Impact of Desktop Publishing on University Life." At the time, this was a topic fraught with exciting possibilities and hopes, but also questions, doubts, and even fears. The same atmosphere of uncertainty surrounds the topic today. Only the terminology has changed: the almost quaint-sounding phrase desktop publishing has been replaced by terms