College and Research Libraries


4061 College & Research Libraries • September 1965 

interviews and process charts. These · rep-
resent the best guesses to date, not to be 
used slavishly, but with some confidence 
and a willingness to refine them in the light 
of future experience, just as the other cost 
elements must be kept current. 

The study has widely refrained from 
identifying the libraries which use these 
processes. Librarians will continue their 
search for improvement in a dynamic tech-
nology. They well may wonder if any meth-
od will endure through the five to ten years 
it takes to amortize purchased equipment. 
Use of rental, leasing, trade-in, processing 
center, and service bureau arrangements re-
flect this growing desire for flexibility. The 
study does not mention the changing role 
for catalogs in card form in the face of im-
pending shifts to book catalogs or eventual 
console conversion. Nor does it look with 
any prophetic vision at the greater depth of 
control achievable over small units of in-
formation, even the individual character or 
its component bits, when using a digitized 
system such as the automatic tape type-
writer. The power to select and re-order in-
formation stored in paper tape for multiple 
purposes which is afforded by the Friden 
Selectadata unit, the special-purpose au-
tomation of the Crossfiler, or the general 
capability of any computer, all introduce 
valid considerations outside the apparent 
scope of the study. The report is basically 
a search for lowest isolated cost among 
those methods presently available to li-
braries for accomplishing a very prescribed 
task. By subtracting least cost from another, 
it is possible to obtain a fair measure of 
how much annual cost is attributable to in-
tentional choice of a system over the min-
imum that would have to be paid in any 
case to get the job done the cheapest way. 
Librarians should be aware that they now 
have some useful comparative data where 
before there was none, but they should not 
feel hindered from going against or beyond 
its advice for good reason.-Earl Farley, 
University of Kansas. 

Moving Library Materials. By Peter Spy-
ers-Duran. Rev. ed. Chicago: Library 
Technology Project, ALA, 1965. 63p. 
$2.50 (65-23947). 

This study is based on a bibliography of 
the subject which covers the years 1930 to 

1961, and on a questionnaire which includ-
ed thirty-one library moves in the range of 
8,000 to 700,000 volumes. As the author 
points out, it is difficult to find a single com-
prehensive analysis of the techniques of 
moving library materials. The present work 
is designed to outline the theoretical and 
practical requirements for moving books 
and library materials in libraries of every 
type and size. 

The arrangement of the study falls into 
three broad topics. The first section deals 
with the major steps involved in planning 
and scheduling the move. This analysis in-
cludes a time and motion study. In the sec-
ond section, the author discusses critically 
four types of moving methods. The last 
section is a collection of model specifications 
and contract forms. The use of such forms 
is necessary when a library move is being 
offered to professionals on a competitive 
basis. 

The text is clear, concise, and thorough in 
treatment, and is supplemented by a large 
number of tables and illustrations. Table I 
is particularly useful in that it presents an 
analysis of the questionnaires returned by 
the libraries. The bibliography emphasizes 
articles that have appeared since 1950. Un-
fortunately, several of the citations in the 
text are not entered in the bibliography. 

This study is deceptive in its simplicity. 
It should prove to be a valuable handbook 
to all librarians contemplating a move, espe-
cially those who wish to compare several 
possible methods, or those who have had no 
experience with operations of this kind.-
Michael Bruer, University of Notre Dame. 

Libraries of the Future. By J. C. R. Lick-
lider. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 
1965, xvii, 219p. $6. (65-13831). 

It can be an illuminating exercise in 
imaginative fantasy to extrapolate from 
present technology in order to describe the 
library of the future. This book is one of the 
best of these exercises. Author Licklider de-
scribes the "procognitive" system (the suc-
cessor to the library?) of the year 2000. Al-
though explicitly stated as not the objective 
of this book, the question is apparent on 
every page: how do we get from here to 
there? This is a problem that every librarian 
must face in the next decade, for technology 

. .. 



is forcing decisions on the profession that 
it may not yet be prepared to consider, let 
alone resolve. 

This rather slight volume is the result of a 
two-year inquiry by Bolt, Beranek and 
Newman, Inc. , sponsored by the Council on 
Library Resources. The project director, Dr. 
Licklider, is a psychologist and is extreme-
ly well qualified to undertake such a study. 
During the period of the study, he was suc-
cessively at BB & N, the Advanced Re-
search Projects Agency of the Defense De-
partment, and IBM (an excellent example 
of today's high-level commuting scientist). 

The text is divided into two parts: ( 1) 
Concepts and Problems of Man's Interaction 
with the Body of Recorded Knowledge; and 
( 2) Explorations in the Use of Computers 
in Information Storage, Organization, and 
Retrieval. One of the more important con-
cepts is the procognitive system, which 
"substitutes for the book a device that 
will make it easy to transmit information 
without transporting material" (p. 6). Such 
systems "will not only present information 
to people but also process it for them, fol-
lowing procedures they specify, apply, mon-
itor, and, if necessary, revise and reapply" 
(p. 6). To provide these services "a meld of 
library and computer is evidently required" 
(p. 6). The objectives of such systems "are 
to promote and facilitate the acquisition, 
organization, and use of knowledge" (p. 
21). If we substitute "book" for "knowl-
edge" here, we have a definition of li-
braries . The substitution, however, is sig-
nificant. The development of these systems, 
by the way, will not only affect libraries 
serving sophisticated users, but will also 
have a tremendous impact on the whole 
educational process, particularly . the rela-
tionship between libraries and the learning 
process. 

The first half of the book (Man's Inter-
action with Recorded Knowledge), despite 
shortcomings, is well worth reading. The 
important chapter on "Aims, Requirements, 
Plans, and Criteria" is a tour de force that 
does not quite come off. It is lucid, stimulat-
ing, and a brilliant monologue, but too 
much is assumed or left unsaid. There are 
literally hundreds of ideas here that need 
closer examination and detailed analysis. 
This reviewer cannot escape the feeling 
that it is a hasty generalization "off the top 

Book Reviews I 407 

of the head," skimming glibly over critical 
problems. 

Licklider has fortunately left himself and 
the reader a necessary, if not graceful, exit. 
If the user of the procognitive system finds 
himself at a total loss and loses track of 
what he is doing, he can always press but-
tons which ask "Where am I?" or "What 
should I do next?" "Through either of these 
programs," the author explains, "the user 
can reach a human librarian" (p. 127). Yes, 
Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. 

The second part of the book (Explora-
tions in the Use of Computers) is a brief 
summary of investigations made during the 
inquiry. They range from a survey of syn-
tactic analysis by computer to methods of 
evaluating retrieval systems. This part, 
more than the first, suffers from lack of 
pattern: a string of isolated studies which 
pick at a whole bagful of problems without 
thorough analysis of any one. Many funda-
mental problems concerning the learning 
process, cognition, and semantics must be 
answered before such studies can be inte-
grated into even small operational systems. 

Despite its short-comings, this book is at 
present the best and most lucid statement 
of what the library may look like by the 
end of the century.-Robert S. Taylor, Le-
high University. 

Specialized Information Centers. By Allen 
Kent with the assistance of John Canter. 
Washington, D.C.: Spartan Books, 1965. 
296p. $9. (65-16172). 

It is difficult for this reviewer to say just 
what this book is all about, or rather what 
it was put together from. Some of the "case 
studies" in it are taken from a 1962 National 
Science Foundation publication; the bulk of 
it consists of "case histories" taken from an-
swers to a questionnaire sent out (prob-
ably in September of 1963, although the au-
thors don't say) to "500 specialized informa-
tion centers ... spread throughout North 
America." Information centers, and presum-
ably the recipients of the questionnaire, are 
defined, for the purposes of this book as 
"any library or collection of documents 
which serves more than one or a few peo-
ple ." 

This is one of the standard ways of manu-
facturing a nonbook-great gobbets of un-