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 

I 351 

L_ ________________ ___:__ _____________ ________ -



352 I College -& Research Libraries • September, 1967 

for Community and Junior Colleges estab-
lished March 4, 1960, at the Teachers Col-
lege, Columbia University, with the aid of 
a grant from theW. K. Kellogg Foundation. 

Three aims of the project were: ( 1) to 
prepare an increasing number of young ad-
ministrators for the community and junior 
colleges ; ( 2) to provide coordinated profes-
sional development (in-service and refresh-
er) opportunities for persons already in 
administrative positions; and ( 3) to provide 
a program of research and service. 

One of the first problems identified was 
the absence of an up-to-date selective bibli-
ography in the community junior college 
field. In order to solve the problem, students 
of two advanced seminars during the spring 
and autumn semesters of 1965 prepared an 
annotated bibliography. The editor, Emory 
W. Rarig, Jr. , administrative assistant in the 
Center for Community Colleges, Teachers 
College, refined the compilation which ap-
pears in this volume. In the foreword the 
director of the Center for Community Col-
leges, Walter E. Sindlinger, cautions that 
"this effort represents merely a beginning," 
and that it is hoped that future seminars 
will continue to update and expand the 
work into the "selective, annotated directory 
to the important community junior college 
literature and research works" originally 
planned. 

Bibliographies are presented for eight 
subjects: ( 1) history of the community jun-
ior college; ( 2) functions and purposes of 
the community junior college; ( 3) organiza-
tion and administration of community junior 
colleges; ( 4) community junior college stu-
dents ; ( 5) community junior college pro-
grams; ( 6) community junior college per-
sonnel; (7) community junior college facil-
ities; ( 8) research in the community junior 
college. 

For these topics there are 391 entries, 
some of which are duplicated within the 
eight sections. Two hundred eighty-seven 
authors (including associations) are listed 
in the author index. An annotated bibliog-
raphy of research tools precedes the main 
bibliography. 

Criteria for the selectivity within each of 
the eight subjects is not cited. This would 
have been helpful to the user in determin-
ing the time scope of selection. Journal arti-
cles and books are included. It is pointed 

out in the foreword that many of the major 
works in higher education have been ex-
cluded since the references chosen deal di-
rectly with the community junior college. 
Spot checks indicate that the annotations 
are well done. 

The organization of the entries into sub-
ject areas, although limited, is a contribu-
tion to bibliographic literature.-Harriett 
Genung, Mt. San Antonio College. 

The Brasenose Conference on the Auto-
mation of Libraries. Ed. by John Harri-
son, and Peter Laslett. London: Mansell, 
1967. 173 pp. $6.50 (66-30544). 

As explained in the preface, this volume 
contains the papers presented at the Anglo-
American Conference on the Mechanization 
of Libraries held in Oxford, England, June 
30 to July 3, 1966. More commonly referred 
to as the Brasenose Conference, it brought 
together some sixty-five British and Amer-
ican librarians and others concerned with 
the application of computers to libraries 
and library work. The three days at Erase-
nose College marked a historic venture in 
trans-Atlantic cooperation. The British also 
emphasized that the event was equally his-
toric in the resulting cooperation between 
the British Museum and the librarians at 
Oxford and Cambridge. An excellent sum-
mary of the conference from the American 
point of view appears in the Library of 
Congress Information Bulletin, July 14, 
1966, Appendix I. 

Ten papers, none previously published, 
are presented along with the four speeches 
at the opening dinner. The actual discussion 
following each paper has been partly repro-
duced, and the volume concludes with a 
discussion of future activities by the con-
ference participants. The editors plead that 
they have taken " ... drastic action with 
the verbatim transcript. Speeches have been 
compressed, sentences rearranged, grammar 
amended, and whole areas of discussion 
completely left out." 

It is true that often far more is spoken 
than goes well into print, and what is said 
often records badly. It is for these reasons 
and in order to publish as quickly as possi-
ble that the editors claim this approach. 

Unfortunately, under these circumstances 
there was no question of reproducing the 
slides which accompanied some of the pres-