College and Research Libraries


The Computer and the Library. By N. S.M. 
Cox, J. D. Dews, and J. L. Dolby. Ham-
den, Conn.: Archon Books, 1967. 95 pp . 
$4.50. 

For a field which has been captivated by 
the promise and lure of automatic data 
processing, it is surprising how little librar-
ianship has to show for this preoccupation 
insofar as its own documentation is con-
cerned. The literature of particular practices 
in individual institutions goes on and on, 
seemingly in an endless stream, but the 
number of books, pamphlets, or other docu-
ments which generalize or genuinely assess 
or analyze the uses of the technology for 
library applications is very thin indeed. This 
slender little volume, first published at the 
University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne as their 
library publication No. 4 in September 
1966, comes therefore as a welcome addi-
tion. 

The book serves to introduce the library 
reader to the "role of the computer in the 
organization and handling of information in 
libraries." In this volume there is packed a 
great deal of good sense and enterprising 
thinking, beginning from the back of the 
title page, where the authors have quoted 
from W . T. Williams in Barbara Kyle's 
Focus on Information and Communication 
to good effect, upon central differences be-
tween the needs and uses of computers and 
of men. Those who spend some time with 
this volume, and any librarian committed to 
tomorrow rather than yesterday will want 
to do so, are encouraged not to miss the 
quotation from the Kyle volume. 

The introduction to the work sets the 
stage well for its content. It is written by 
Frederick G. Kilgour of Yale University li-
brary, who has himself contributed ap-
preciably to generalized understanding of 
applications and implications of computer 
uses in library for repetitive processing ac-
tivity. The volume grows out of the effort at 
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne where one of the 
authors is a computer expert, another a 
librarian, and the third a statistician con-
cerned with the problems of interrelating 
librarians and computers. The emphasis 
throughout the book is upon providing the 

Book Reviews 
detailed means whereby manual procedures 
may be converted to more automatic proc-
esses using contemporary technology. Un-
like many more extended treatments, this 
monograph is precise and always to the 
point. From this work the reader will better 
understand the background of libraries as 
they relate to utilization of machinery. 
There is a discussion of the limits and op-
portunities provided through the use of 
computers; their use in acquisitions and 
cataloging, and the printing of catalogs. The 
prospects for libraries of using machines for 
information and reference requirements are 
treated. Finally, the general dimensions of 
the library problem and the prospects for 
new developments in computer technology 
and their implications for librarianship are 
explored. 

Of course, the value of any such work is 
in some measure a function of the sophisti-
cation which the reader brings to the task. 
In the present volume, the requirements for 
sophistication are limited. The reading of 
this book will reward any librarian who 
takes the time to work his way through, 
since a good deal of sound and useful think-
ing is provided about the whys and where-
fores , the promise and the limits of the 
technology. 

In this book, several individuals who have 
worked together and accumulated experi-
ence in both computer applications and in 
librarianship, offer a clear and meaningful 
explanation of the potential role of the 
machinery in terms of library and librmy 
related activities. The work is a must for 
the bookshelf of the librarian who is con-
cerned about the ways in which computers 
can and will influence the performance of 
his tasks; it will be of special interest to aca-
demic librarians.-Paul Wasserman, Univer-
sity of Maryland. 

The Community Junior College; an an-
notated bibliography. Ed. by Emory W. 
Rarig. New York: Teachers College Press, 
Teachers College, Columbia University, 
1966. 114 pp. $4. (66-29990). 

This bibliography is the product of the 
Program for the Training of Administrators 

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