College and Research Libraries


Review Articles 
Public Opinion 
Public Opinion 1935-1946. Prepared by 

M i l d r e d Strunk under the editorial direc-
tion of Hadley Cantril. Princeton, N e w 
Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1951, 
I 2 5 0 p . $25. 

H e r e is a new, basic w o r k of reference 
for leaders of governmental and voluntary 
enterprises, historians, social scientists and 
other students of public affairs and social 
customs. T h e Office of Public Opinion Re-
search under the editorial supervision of H a d -
ley Cantril, its director, aided by a Rocke-
feller Foundation grant, has assembled in this 
1200 page (Si" x n i " ) volume the reported 
results of the first 12 years of the G a l l u p , 
Roper and other polling activities. T o be 
more precise, the book under review sum-
marized the published reports, from 1935 
through 1946, of those national surveys of 
opinion by means of interviewing cross sec-
tion samples of populations conducted by 
reputable polling organizations in the United 
States, the British Commonwealth of N a -
tions and most of the European countries 
outside the Iron C u r t a i n ( B r a z i l is also rep-
resented, as w e l l as parts of Czechoslovakia 
and H u n g a r y before the Iron C u r t a i n 
dropped completely). 

T h e editors have made no claims to com-
pleteness. L o c a l poll results, except for a 
f e w special instances, w e r e excluded, as w e r e 
the numerous surveys of opinion, preferences 
or tastes carried on as market research, al-
most none of which are available for publi-
cation. But the approximately 12,000 
separate survey results contained in the 
volume probably come near to being 100 per 
cent of the nationwide opinion polls made 
and published during these 12 years. 

T h e editors w e r e soundly equipped by ex-
perience and training to select and evaluate 
the poll results for inclusion. In the plan-
ning of their undertaking they had the expert 
guidance of Julian Boyd, Princeton's librar-
ian, and D a t u s Smith, editor of the Princeton 
University Press. T h e resulting organiza-
tion, arrangement and presentation of the 
survey results are simple, sensible and ad-
mirably suited to reference use. Each survey 

report is organized under its m a j o r subject 
heading. T h e 300 or more m a j o r headings 
are arranged alphabetically to form the body 
of the text. Since many of the surveys cover 
more than one subject, secondary subjects are 
also identified by a very extensive use of 
cross references appearing in the table of 
contents. F o r all headings the L i b r a r y of 
Congress subject headings have been em-
ployed. 

T h e table of contents is 44 pages in length, 
follows the alphabetical arrangement of the 
text, and with its voluminous cross refer-
ences to m a j o r headings serves the purposes 
of an index as w e l l as an outline of contents. 
In only one respect does it fail to serve this 
double purpose: i.e., in its reference of all 
personal names to the m a j o r subject heading, 
Persons. T h i s subject in the text includes 
90 separate polls, many of which contain a 
dozen or more names. T h u s whereas the 
analytical table of contents enables the reader 
to locate quickly all the surveys of opinion 
on any subject, whether it be thrift, poll tax, 
or football, the task of finding the polls which 
include the names of particular personalities 
such as Elmer Davis, C l a r e Boothe Luce or 
Babe Ruth, requires quite a f e w pages of 
thumbing. T h i s , however, is a very minor 
defect in w h a t otherwise is a logical, practical 
organization for ready use of a huge mass of 
material. 

T h e editors indicate that the present 
volume w i l l be the first of a series covering 
the survey results of successive five-year 
periods. Students of opinion may devoutly 
hope that the reception and widespread use 
of this first compilation w i l l lead to its con-
tinuance. In the meantime there is now 
available for use during intervening years be-
fore publication of the periodic collections the 
section called " T h e Q u a r t e r ' s P o l l s " appear-
ing in each issue of the Public Opinion Quar-
terly. T h i s section is under the editorship of 
M r s . M i l d r e d Strunk w h o w a s in direct 
charge of the 1935-46 compilation; the 
same L i b r a r y of Congress subject matter 
headings are used in both; and the form of 
presentation is identical. W i t h the five-year 
compilations and these Public Opinion 
Quarterly reports of current surveys for 

294 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



each four-month's period, the student will 
have quick, convenient access to the published 
surveys of opinion on any subject from the 
beginning of systematic sample surveys of 
citizens down to the present. A s the span 
of years lengthens during which surveys are 
reported, the historian or social analyst will 
have for his use an increasingly reliable in-
dex of the complexion, direction, ebb and flow 
of conscious, expressed opinion on public is-
sues and social interests. 

T h e reliability of the results of the polls 
themselves is a matter of continued, intensive 
study by experts in the field as w e l l as by in-
formed and uninformed critics from the out-
side. T h e editors of Public Opinion 1935-
1946 do not discuss the methodology employed 
in the surveys they report, except to indicate 
the usual sample size employed by each of the 
polling organizations represented in the 
volume. F o r the rest, w e are obliged to take 
on faith the zeal of the pollsters in perfect-
ing their techniques for drawing representa-
tive samples of the population, in designing 
their questions and in their skill and objectiv-
ity in conducting their interviews. W h a t e v e r 
may be lacking in the techniques of the poll 
results reported, the volume contains, as the 
editors state, "more reliable data than is else-
where available" for public opinion research. 
It is truly "an indispensable storehouse of 
information" on opinion. Every social sci-
ence reference collection should include a 
copy.—Robert D. Leigh, Columbia Univer-
sity. 

Unusual Reference Manual 
General Reference Department Staff Manual. 

Prepared by M a r y N . Barton and Ellen F. 
W a t s o n . Baltimore, M d . , Enoch P r a t t 
Free Library, 1950, 230p. $1.75. 

A library's staff manual ordinarily makes 
rather dull reading for an outsider. D e -
sirable as such a tool always is for the 
orientation of the new staff member in a 
particular library, and beneficial as may be 
the results of the necessarily careful re-
examination (and often revision!),, of pro-
cedures and routines that are called for in 
order to get them down in black and white, 
the ordinary manual of another library is 
likely to be riffled through casually and then 
filed and forgotten in the box marked: 

" M a n u a l s of other libraries—to be examined 
for ideas when making our own." 

T h e present staff manual, however, can 
hardly be called an "ordinary" manual, and 
there seem to be reasons for supposing that 
it may not share the fate of those that are. 
Certainly no harm would result if parts of 
this document came to be considered as " r e -
quired reading" for reference assistants in 
any library. It would be nice to think that 
in the preparation of reference manuals for 
other libraries this one w i l l be less "examined 
for ideas," than deliberately "used as a 
model." 

Its unusualness lies not primarily in its 
size, even though (to the best of this review-
er's knowledge) no other library has come 
near to equalling the more than 200 offset-
printed ( 8 i " x 1 1 " ) pages in a manual for 
the Reference Department alone. T h e more 
usual thing is to find the department's pro-
cedures and routines presented on a half-
dozen pages in a manual, much smaller than 
this, covering the w o r k of all departments. 

O f much more importance than mere size 
is the careful thought that quite obviously 
has been given to this w o r k during its dozen 
years of preparation—thought that has re-
sulted in a manual not only admirably ful-
filling its chief purpose of helpfulness within 
a single institution, but also one that has led 
to the inclusion of much material that will 
be of interest to reference workers anywhere. 
Some of the book, it is true, is concerned 
with such characteristically "staff manual" 
kinds of information as the fact that the 
revolving date stamp is kept in the drawer 
below the telephone. Still more of the man-
ual necessarily describes procedures, arrange-
ments, practices and rules which would apply 
is their entirety to no other library. B u t 
along with these things there are sections 
such as " A t t i t u d e toward the reader" (p. 
36-38), and the whole of P a r t V I "Reference 
w o r k : Techniques and Procedures" (p.63-
86), which are not only so applicable to 
reference w o r k in general, but also which are 
so well done that these parts alone might 
easily justify shelving this manual on the 
"Professional Shelf" of almost any reference 
department. Beyond this, it is possible that 
some of the nearly 40 clearly-reproduced 
" f o r m s , " and some of the w e l l thought-out 
and fully described routines may suggest to 

JULY, 1951 295