College and Research Libraries BOOK REVIEWS Farber, Evan Ira. Classified List of Period- icals for the College Library. (Useful Reference Series, No. 99) 5th ed. West- wood, Massachusetts: F. W. Faxon Co., Inc. 1972. 17, 449p. $14.00. This is a completely revised and signifi- cantly expanded edition of a well estab- lished reference work. During the fifteen years since the appearance of the 4th edi- tion the periodical publishing business has boomed, and this fact is reflected as well as the changes which have transpired in the field of higher education. However, only titles with publication dates prior to 1969 have been included. This work, which first appeared in issues of the Wilso n L ibrary Bulletin from Oc- tober 1931 to June 1932 as "Periodicals for College Libraries, Grouped according to Classification," was first published in book form in 1934. Begun by Guy R. Lyle and Virginia Trumper, it has been amplified in a number of ways by Evan Ira Farber who has worked as chief of the Serials and Binding Division in the Emory University library; as a reference librarian; taught courses on periodicals; and is presently li- brarian, Earlham College, Lilly Library. The appearance of this new edition attests to the need for constant updating and ex- pansion of the information it provides. In his preface Mr. Farber writes ''The p urpose of the p resent edition, like the earlier ones, is to provide an effective aid in selecting journals for: ( 1) supplying reading collateral to student's courses; (2) keeping the faculty informed of develop- ments in their fields; ( 3) affording good general and recreational reading; ( 4) pro- viding in some measure for the research n eeds of advanced students and faculty." The range of titles covered extends from the official voice of academe, the AAUP 226 I ·Recent Publications Bulletin, to Zygon: Journal of Religion and Culture . The entries include brief title with the subtitle included in the annotation; the beginning date, frequency, place of publi- cation and price. In addition, there is indi- cated the services in which the journal is indexed and the Library of Congress card number. The usefulness of this listing would have been increased had the com- plete address of the magazine's publisher been cited. Annotations in this 5th edition have been broadened to include additional historical information about each periodical. The con- tent and special features of a publication are also described in more detail. Basically, · the annotations are clear and concise. The periodical is described and evaluated in terms of its importance to a four-year lib- eral arts college library serving a student enrollment under 2,000. An asterisk pre- cedes entries for 367 titles to indicate that they are recommended as "first purchases"; the previous edition recommended only 197. The compiler admits that personal taste and/ or prejudice sometimes becomes a factor in the selection or rejection of a title. Reference is made to 1,048 titles, of which 939 are annotated; the previous edi- tion carried 601 titles, of which 544 were annotated. To accommodate these addition- al titles, the 5th edition is three times as large as its predecessor. The author points out the difficulty of assigning absolute classification because of development and growth of interdiscipli- nary studies during the past decade or so. This has been handled in a practical man- ner by placing the periodical under the subject which the author feels is most im- portant and citing the title under other per- tinent subjects with a see reference to the main entry. The key to this compilation is the "Title Index to the Classified List" which provides easy access to the many titles listed under more than one subject classification. ' ' r ' A number of changes in classification have taken place in this edition, with heavy emphasis on a new listing, c'Area Studies." This classification includes 62 en- tries, which is exceeded only by 78 titles under "Education" and 108 under c'Gen- eral." "Area Studies" is subdivided into eight categories: General, Asia, East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Soviet Union and East Europe. Another revision in classification puts "German" and "Romance Languages" under the heading uModern Languages" to allow for the inclusion of uRussian." Re- flecting the greatly increased interest in films and film-making, journals on these subjects have been combined with other performing arts under the heading, "Music, Drama, Film, Dance." This is an improve- ment over lumping them into the uGeneral" category which was done previously. How- ever, the c'General" category includes "Journalism," and the expansion in the area of communications might well warrant a separate entry for this subject in future edi- tions. This volume is an important one in the field of periodical selection for small lib- eral arts college libraries. The recommen- dations and selection information it con- tains have been distilled from earlier edi- tions, the personal experience of the au- thor, examination of lists of periodicals of various college libraries, faculty recommen- dations, and bibliographical literature per- taining to periodical publications. The uBibliography" section in this compilation cites the major sources used including Bill Katz's Magazines for Libraries which with its cosmopolitan inclusion and candid cri- tiques can be used as an important comple- ment to Farber's work. The Classified List of Periodicals for the College Library is a useful reference work for selecting period- icals as long as the limits delineated in the preface are kept in mind.-William H. Huff, University of Illinois Library, Serials Librarian, Urbana, Illinois. Hickey, Doralyn J. Problems in Organiz- ing Library Collections. New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1972. 206p. $9.95. The current trend towards realism in Li- Recent Publications I 227 brary Science education, bridging the gap between the sterility of classroom theory and the fecundity of real-world situations, is skillfully illustrated in these case studies dealing with technical services. Each study presents a realistic and vivid focus on a dif- ferent aspect of library practice. The im- pact of technical services on reader's ser- vices, staff relationships, the patron, and in- ternal procedures are clearly defined by ac- tual example. Each case study is followed by a series of comprehensive questions de- signed to stimulate discussion. The cases span a range of topics, and are set in a variety of libraries: college, univer- sity, public, school, and special. Within each study, the author has included infor- mation about the library system in which the case is set. There is a recurrent empha- sis on the human element and the person- ality traits of the people involved, with deep implications for management. Wit, empathy, and human insights are reflected in each of the cases, as well as a profound knowledge of the subject matter. Many of the studies emphasize the value of preplan- ning and analysis of all aspects of a system before altering or adding techniques. The use of the case study as a teaching device continues to be debated. An obvious drawback is the inability of the inexperi- enced graduate student to discern the un- derlying issues in a problem such as a back- log in a cooperative processing center, in- accuracies surrounding implementation of a machine-readable serials catalog, or the complexities of relationships between inter- dependent library procedures. Nevertheless, these are matters of concern to the profes- sion, and are often not satisfactorily re- solved by the professionals involved. The student should be made aware of these complexities, and should begin to develop problem-solving techniques to test flexibil- ity of judgment and breadth of solutions. Some of the cases are of such a complex- ity as to presuppose a large body of tech- nical information. There is a fund of com- pressed knowledge in statements such as "a volume could be pulled from the current shelves, checked, shelf-listed, and proc- essed for shipment" and "subject cross-ref- erences can be reconstructed from the check marks we've put in the printed sub-