College and Research Libraries


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Yale's Selective Book Retirement Pro-
gram. By Lee Ash. Hamden, Conn.: 
Archon Books, 1963. xii, 94p. $4. (63-
17389). 

This is the interesting report of a three-
year study that was financed by a grant of 
$150,000 from the Council on Library Re-
sources. There is a Preface by James T. 
Babb; a Foreword by John H. Ottemiller, 
who directed the project; and a Concluding 
Statement by Professor Raymond D. Mor-
ris. The working papers and the longer re-
port by Mr. Ash from which this printed 
volume was abstracted are available at Yale 
for consultation. 

The difficulties of selective retirement are 
not minimized, and the claims made for it 
are modest. Mr. Babb writes, "Although we 
believe that our Selective Book Retirement 
offers a palliative to the increasing space 
problem in research libraries, we recognize 
that it is not a solution." Professor Morris 
observes that the selection of books for 
retirement "is time-consuming, requiring the 
best judgment that we can muster, which 
means that it is an expensive program. It 
could very well turn out that it will prove 
so expensive in exec,ution that (as with 
microreproduction) there will be a point be-
yond which it will not be feasible in terms 
of economy." 

In view of this economic question, it 
might have been desirable to include a more 
rigorous analysis of costs. During the course 
of the project, 74,648 volumes were trans-
ferred from the main stacks to storage by 
size, 28,443 were discarded, 17,259 were 
transferred to other libraries (2,572 of these 
to libraries outside the university), and 
14,188 new acquisitions were sent directly 
to storage. Adding these, and dividing their 
total of 134,538 into the $81 ,936.60 spent 
for salaries of the processing staff for the 
project, the report concludes that processing 
cost 61¢ per volume. The 14,188 new acqui-
sitions, however (except for some of the 
new theses), were not handled by this staff, 
and the cost that is reported includes noth-
ing for materials, for 95,777 photoclerk ex-

MAY 1964 

Review Articles 
posures, for space occupied by the project 
staff, or, · apparently, for refiling cards. 

Space in the main stack is calculated to 
be worth $1.68 per volume; space in storage 
comes to 42¢ per volume. On this basis, the 
library saves $1.26 on space for each vol-
ume transferred to storage; but, if processing 
takes 61 ¢ or more, then selection, requiring 
consideration by faculty or high level pro-
fessional personnel, might indeed cut the 
total saving to a minute sum. The report 
notes that it is easy at the beginning of such 
a program to deal with subjects of little in-
terest to the university's teaching and re-
search, but, "As those subjects are complet-
ed, the selecting becomes more time consum-
ing and difficult; and, as the staff moves to 
subjects that are heavily used, hours of work 
produce but meager results." When one con-
siders what it costs to store a book by size 
(42¢ for space, plus 61¢ or more for process-
ing, plus high priced time for selection), 
one begins to wonder if a book worth that 
much is not worth the whole $1.68 that it 
is now taking on accessible and classified 
shelves. 

Obviously, then, this is a significant chap-
ter in the story of storage, but no means the 
last one.-Edwin E. Williams, Harvard Uni-
versity. 

Methods of Information Handling. By 
Charles P. Bourne. New York: John 
Wiley & Sons, 1963. xiv, 241p. $12.95. 
(63-20628). 

It is difficult for a textbook writer to re-
view the work of a colleague who has writ-
ten a text in the same field. If there is over-
lap, it can be said that the overlap is un-
necessary; if different material is presented, 
it can be said that there is unnecessary de-
tail; if material has been omitted, that can 
also be criticized. Obviously, the reviewer 
has used his best judgment in his own work, 
and therefore his review might tend to be 
overly critical. 

But try as I might, it was not possible to 
be anything but glowing 'about this excellent 
book. The Bourne book is a good one; it 

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