College and Research Libraries


provement. The study of readers' services, 
extent of use of the library, and efficiency of 
the services are also strong parts of the survey 
which can and undoubtedly will yield immedi-
ate dividends to the University. The analysis 
of the inadequacies of the present library build-
ing is also direct and practical and suggests 
several alternatives through which improve-
ments · can be made. 

Another strong feature of the survey is the 
analysis and study of the place of the Library 
in its state, its relationship with the libraries 
of other state higher educational institutions 
and the part it takes in regional and national 
library affairs. Analyses of this kind, increas-
ingly used and stressed in library surveys, re-
flect the growing realization of librarians that 
no library is a complete and sharply separate 
entity and that all are a part of the warp 
and woof of the national library fabric. 

The nub of every survey lies in the analysis 
of financial support since, other things being 
equal, the excellence or lack of excellence of 
a library rests on the financial support it 
receives. As in earlier surveys many of the 
recommendations made by the surveyors will 
require additional funds if they are to be car-
ried out. This being so this reviewer believes 
that the Chapter dealing with financial re-
quirements of the Library could have been 
more explicit and detailed than it is. Data 
regarding the financial status of the five de-
partmental libraries are not tabulated in a 
single place and it is not entirely clear, from 
the survey, exactly how much the university 
is now spending, from all sources, for the 
maintenance of its libraries. The financial 
implications of having in these departmental 
libraries (with the exception of Law, and pos-
sibly Music), only materials duplicated in the 
Main Library, as the surveyors recommend in 
the chapter on Organization would have had 
more weight had the costs of centralization 
versus departmentation, to the extent it now 
exists, been projected in terms of dollars. 

This survey will make worth while reading 
for library administrators generally. It is 
to be hoped that it will be read and pondered 
carefully by the administrators and librarians 
of all the smaller western universities and 
colleges. A few of these institutions have 
never recovered from pre-war depression 
levels of operation and are lagging woefully 
far behind Montana State University in the 
upbuilding and support of their libraries. For 

APR!Lj 1952 

these institutions this survey, if they will but 
use it, will be of as great or greater value 
than it will be to Montana State University. 
-William H. Carlsonj directo'r of librariesj 
Oregon State System of Higher Education. 

Technical Libraries; Their Or--
ganization and Management 
Technical Librariesj· Their Organization and 

Management. Science-Technology Division, 
Special Libraries Association, Lucille Jack-
son, editor. New York, Special Libraries 
Association, c1951. 202 p. $6.oo. 

This manual of practice for science-tech-
nology librarians is intended also to be used 
to acquaint executives of organizations with 
the nature and requirements of special library 
service and to serve as a text for library 
school students interested in special librarian-
ship in these fields. About half of the text is 
a brief, comprehensive overview of library 
operations, including discussions of the na-
ture of technical libraries, requirements for 
and qualifications of the staff, budget planning, 
physical layout a'nd equipment, and the selec-
tion, acquisition and organization for use of 
library materials. Additional chapters deal 
with indexing and filing of special types of 
material such as patents, microcopies, slides, 
etc., methods of abstracting and publicizing 
current materials, reference procedures and 
literature searching in scientific literature, 
and ways and means of interpreting library 
service to users. 

While most of the book summarizes in 
capsule form the fundamentals of library 
management discussed more fully in standard 
works like those of Drury, Mann, Lyle, Akers 
and others, references at the end of most 
chapters call attention to significant addi-
tional material in both library and non-
library literature. An appendix (p. 155-95) 
lists basic reference publications for the tech-
nical library and representative reference 
sources, bibliographies and important periodi-
cals in eighteen theoretical and applied science 
fields. While disagreement over the items 
included or excluded from these lists is to be 
expected, their value as guides seems lowered 
to this reviewer by their uneven quality and 
variable coverage. For example, theoretical 
physics is omitted, and there appears to be 
little coverage of electrical engineering, man-

181 



agement engineering and mechanical engi-
neering, all significant fields for a technologi-
cal library. 

The editing of the volume is uneven, and 
among the errors noted are a citation to the 
United States Catalog published in 1938 (p. 
41), a suggestion that the Monthly Checklist 
of State Publications (whose ti~le is inexactly 
cited) includes listings for significant munici-
pal publications (p.5 I), reference (p.45) to 
a list of dealers on page I5 when that list 
occupies pages 46-47, and omission of the 
Union List of Serials in "Inclusive Listings of 
Periodicals" (p.58). Though many periodi-
cal abbreviations are used in the supple-
mentary references at the end of chapters, no 
key to these abbreviations is included in the 
manual. 

The book includes many lists of dealers and 
library supply houses and a number of descrip-
tions for currently available library equipment 
and forms, which enhance the value of the 
book as a manual of practice. They also 
contribute to its early obsolescence. 

Despite its faults, however, the book should 
be a useful manual in the smaller technical 
library where standard works on library ad-
mmtstration are not readily available. 
Whether so long and so specific a how-to-do-it 
text is the most practical orientation for the 
busy executive is perhaps debatable. And it 
is hard to conceive that this manual can have 
much usefulness for the library school student 
whose needs extend considerably beyond the 
rather limited discussions of management and 
organization problems included here. For 
this last group of users, the chapter on ref-
erence techniques will probably offer the most 
useful information.-Carlyle f. Frarey, Co-
lumbia University. 

The Subject Catalog 
The Use of the Subject Catalog in the Univer-

sity of California Library. By Leroy C. 
Merritt. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 
University of California Press, I95I. (Uni-
versity of California Publications in Li-
brarianship, v. I, no. I) I8p. 35¢. 
With this publication the University of 

California inaugurates a new series of studies 
in professional librarianship under the editor-
ship of ]. Periam Danton, Donald Coney, 
Robert Vosper, and Mr. Mer_ritt. In an area 
where relatively few such series exist, the 
appearance of another is an event to be cele-

brated with appropriate commendation, en-
couragement and praise, particularly when 
the first number is so prophetic of the probable 
significance and excellence of others to follow. 
The study is well-designed and attractively 
printed, and the University of California de-
serves high praise for so auspicious a begin-
ning. It would be encouraging to observe 
the development of similar series at other 
major library schools so that fuller reporting 
of the results of significant studies than is now 
feasible in existing professional journals might 
be realized. 

Most, if not all of the previous studies 
of use of the subject catalog suggest that this 
approach to library materials is less-used 
than tradition maintains. Some studies have 
apprised us of the need for greater integration 
of printed bibliographies with the card catalog 
since bibliographies will give better access to 
a larger bulk of material and will be used 
more widely. In some other studies there is 
even a subtle implication that the relatively 
slight use of the subject catalog by scholars 
and specialists may justify its eventual aban-
donment, or at least its drastic reduction in 
size and scope. As Merritt points out, how-
ever, these studies have been limited largely 
to the use of the subject catalog by compara-
tively advanced students; "none ... is con-
cerned with the more casual use ... by the 
average college undergraduate." This study 
reports an attempt to measure this casual use 
which seems to have resulted in important 
findings. 

California, like other libraries faced with 
rising costs and static or declining budgets, was 
interested in reducing its cataloging costs. 
Careful analysis of contributing factors led 
to the conclusion that a truly meaningful re-
duction could result only from · economies in 
subject cataloging. In this study Merritt 
reports the results of a year-long investigation 
to determine whether any curtailment of 
subject cataloging might be attempted without 
impairing service to catalog users too much. 
At California, such a study was made feasible 
by the existence of a divided catalog and by 
the . installation of the IBM book charging 
system. In a series of samplings, each of 
which showed a high positive correlation with 
the others and with the total sample, I2.6 per 
cent of the total circulation of monographs 
"with catalog assistance" was analyzed. 
Although the resulting figures do not take 

182 r:OLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES