College and Research Libraries


servance at first hand of their processes, and 
Mr. Corson apparently read extensively in 
the literature of college and university ad-
ministration. T h e eight chapters cover the 
nature and significance of governing, the 
university as an administrative enterprise, 
the rofe of university-wide officers, academic 
officers, and facufties in governance, the uni-
versity as a contrast in administrative proc-
ess, the ecology of governance, and the effect 
of institutional character and leadership on 
governance. T w o appendices deal with the 
character of the institutions observed and the 
author's comments on his readings. 

In the opinion of Mr. Corson there is a 
"disturbing lack of sophisticated analysis of 
the functioning of our colleges and univer-
sities." H e attempts in the several chapters 
to "identify the distinctive nature of the 
problems of coffege and university govern-
ance that cry out for analysis." Most of the 
questions he suggests as being profitabfe 
areas for further study are not new. A ma-
jority of them, for example, were consid-
ered by Algo D. Henderson, an experienced 
academic administrator, in his book, "Poli-
cies and Practices in Higher Education," 
published at about the same time as the Cor-
son study. 

If Mr. Corson is correct in his finding of 
a lack of orderly and sophisticated analysis 
in this area, it is a challenge to academic 
administrators to go to work on these prob-
lems in the proper fashion. Perhaps they 
should seek foundation support for man-
agement consultants to attack what Mr. 
Corson considers to be major weaknesses in 
the governance of colleges and universities. 
There is the precedent of large sums of 
foundation money being made available to 
study internal and particularly business ad-
ministration of these institutions.—Eugene 
H. Wilson, University of Colorado. 

Developing a Specialist 
Science Information Personnel: The New 

Profession of Information Combining Sci-
ence, Librarianship and Foreign Language. 
By Leonard Cohan and Kenneth Craven. 
New York: Modern Language Association 
of America, 1961. 74p. $1.50. 

T h e Modern Language Association's im-

print on this report is quite incidental to its 
contents. T h e importance of languages in 
science information work has received only 
a minor emphasis as a part of the total ed-
ucational and training requirements of the 
profession. Undoubtedly the study will be 
of more interest to librarians that to lin-
guists. 

T h e authors first set out to describe this 
"new" professional, the science information 
specialist, and define the elements which 
comprise his work. Twelve of these elements 
represent current tasks; another five indicate 
recent trends in the profession. Although 
little criticism can be made of the enumera-
tion, it is difficuft to identify any unique ac-
tivities. All have in some degree been a part 
of special librarianship for a considerable 
period of time. Only when measured against 
a passive, archival brand of librarianship do 
the elements of science information work ap-
pear "new." T h e authors make this distinc-
tion: " T h e role of the librarian has been to 
keep a facility complete, up-to-date and ac-
cessible. T h e information specialist has been 
concerned more with promoting information, 
anticipating user requirements, and setting 
up special information services to meet 
them." 

Whether this distinction is altogether justi-
fiabte remains an academic question if the 
administrators of research organizations, in-
dustries, and government agencies, who are 
instrumentaf in staffing information centers, 
consider it valid. Even more important is its 
acceptance by the potential recruit, in this 
case the science major, who consequently 
turns to the laboratory, not the library, for 
a career. T h e increasing shortage of trained 
information specialists demands the services 
of those with science backgrounds. If this 
shortage is to be filled by design and not by 
improvisation, librarianship, so labeled or 
not, must appear as a challenging and at-
tractive career, and library training must 
seem pertinent and meaningful. T h e ques-
tion is whether there has been a failure in 
public relations or in education. 

Since the major portion of the report 
concerns itself with constructing a curriculum 
for the science information specialist, it is 
obvious that the authors consider present li-
brary education inadequate. In this cast the 
concept of librarianship held by the tech-
nically-oriented public is of more than 

404 C O L L E G E A N D R E S E A R C H L I B R A R I E S 



pragmatic interest since the training basic to 
the profession is called into question and 
sweeping revisions suggested. W e must now 
deal with the original implication that the 
traditional librarian is an inevitable product 
of his education and not in most situations 
merely a reflection of a more leisurely ap-
proach to information resources than science 
centers can afford. 

A technical librarian would be inclined to 
agree that adequate training in scientific 
literature is lacking in most library schools. 
A cataloger would just as quickly point out 
that library schools do not turn out a pol-
ished cataloger; and the same with the refer-
ence librarian, the curator of rare books, etc. 
In other words, two or three semesters of 
training do not turn out specialists. In most 
of the sciences more and more students are 
being encouraged to continue their educa-
tion through the doctorate in order to make 
a more significant contribution to their pro-
fession. It is doubtful that the library schools 
can accomplish on the master's level more 
than is expected of other disciplines. This 
is true of all professional schools whose 
courses of study have no essential continuity 
with the first four years of training. Although 
the framework of a doctoral program is out-
lined in the report, it is not developed in 
detail. 

Actually the courses described in the re-
port are quite interesting and pertinent to 
science information service. There is cer-
tainly room for an increasing elasticity in the 
library school curriculum, and many of these 
courses would be valuable electives. T h e 
most disappointing aspect of the study is 
that, after making a good case for the exact-
ing nature of science information work, too 
much of the final solution to the problems 
of recruiting, training, and advancing this 
specialization is based on the revision of the 
curriculum. 

An alternate inquiry might have been 
directed at the science and engineering cur-
ricula as well. Does the average physics stu-
dent, for example, receive any significant 
training in the use of the literature during 
his undergraduate training? Is there not a 
fertile area here for investigation? If science 
majors were convinced by example and dem-
onstration of the importance of sound li-
brary methods, they would in the future not 
only approach the information center with 

greater self-sufficiency, but would also be 
more likely prospects for the specialized 
training the authors prescribe for the science 
information specialist. 

T h e research was performed as a part of a 
contract with the U. S. Office of Education; 
the National Science Foundation supported 
the publication. Copies may be obtained 
from: Science Information, P. O. Box 624, 
Radio City Station, New York 19, N. Y . — 
James D. Ramer, Columbia University. 

An Artist's Life 
Arthur Rackham, His Life and Work. By 

Derek Hudson. New York: Charles Scrib-
ner's Sons (London: William Heinemann, 
Ltd.) [I960]. 181p. $20.00. 

Although Arthur Rackham seldom strayed 
far outside his native London from his birth 
until his death on September 6, 1939, his art 
and fame were universal. His productive 
life—some fifty years—spanned a varied era, 
and his genius and fertile versatility over-
rode all barriers of time and circumstance 
and nationality. Rackham's works have been 
published not only in England and America 
but in France and Germany as well, and 
recently some have been issued in Dutch and 
Spanish editions. He is especially revered in 
the United States. His definitive bibliography 
was compiled in 1936 by two Americans, 
Sarah Briggs Latimore and Grace Clark 
Haskell; and the United States is the 
home of at least two virtually com-
plete collections of Rackham's published 
work, those formed by the bibliographers. 
T h e Haskell collection is now in the Free 
Library of Philadelphia, and the Latimore 
collection is at Columbia University, where 
it has been notably enhanced by its donor 
with the addition of hundreds of originaal 
drawings—the largest corpus of Rackham 
originals on this side of the Atlantic and 
perhaps in die world. 

Rackham's biography, however, could only 
have been written in England, where there 
are so many who still hold treasured recol-
lections of this kindly, prim, sadonic man. 

S E P T E M B E R 1 9 6 1 405