College and Research Libraries 56 f College & Research Libraries • January 1974 four earlier editions published over the course of a decade. About one third of the book is made up of charts comparing selected features of ninety-two pieces of equipment. These charts are sometimes incomplete; for in- stance in eighteen cases the type of con- struction employed for the equipment is ei- ther not stated or is "not known." The text erroneously states that Library Resources, Inc. is the manufacturer of a high magnification lap reader. Library Re- sources, Inc., does market such a viewer, but it is manufactured by Technicolor. One wonders how valid can be the pub- lisher's claim that "the material in this vol- ume has been updated prior to publication and is as current as possible." Despite the fact that Library Resources, Inc. has mounted a very substantial and heavily publicized development and marketing pro- gram for its Microbook® ultrafiche (En- cyclopedia Britannica's Library of Civiliza- tion) , nowhere in the book is this contribu- tion to ultrafiche technology even men- tioned. The editors lead the readers to be- lieve that NCR's PCMI system is virtually the sole representative of the ultrafiche technique. Auerbach on Microfilm Readers/Printers contains numerous schematic and photo- graphic illustrations, but, relative to equip- ment, is almost completely lacking in eval- uative comments on ease of use, durability of construction or simplicity of servicing. As for user requirements, little is said about the suitability of equipment for a given ap- plication. There is no bibliography and no mention of the NMA' s Guide to M icroreproduction Equipment. A weak conclusion summarizes the usual "advantages" of microform-com- pactness, lightness, and cheapness-without renewing and reemphasizing microform's stated dependence upon adequate indexing or bibliographic control systems. As for 35mm roll microforms likely to be found in libraries, no viewers suitable for this type of material are described in signifi- cant detail. Conspicuously absent is the dis- continued-but widely installed-Recordak MPE. Information Design's library viewer, the Model 16/35, appears only in the com- parative charts. Auerbach could have performed a real service for readers (human, that is) by put- ting together a chapter summarizing the human and design problems associated with building microform viewers. At least in this way, the lay reader could have come to ap- preciate the optical and mechanical limita- tions which have thus far prevented the de- sign, construction and marketing of greatly improved viewers. Auerbach on Microform Readers/Printers may be readable and un- derstandable by the microform systems en- gineers, the systems analyst, or the man- ager of a data processing installation. The book may be suitable for technical libraries of micrographic equipment manufacturers, but its general utility is doubtful. Not rec- ommended for the college or university li- brary.-Allen B. Veaner, Assistant Director for Bibliographic Operations, Stanford Uni- versity Libraries. Stueart, Robert D. The Area Specialist Bib- liographer: An Inquiry into His Role. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1972. 152p. The development of the area specialist bibliographer since World War II repre- sents a major new direction for academic librarianship in this country, and in this study Mr. Stueart attempts to learn some- thing about this phenomenon. Bibliogra- phers, their backgrounds and their roles, are examined, as they are perceived by themselves and by others. The study is based largely on responses to 362 questionnaires which were sent to area specialist bibliographers, library ad- ministrators, and faculty members who are teaching in area study programs in ARL institutions. The questions relate to the bib- liographers' preparation for their assign- ments and the respondents' notions of pre- cisely what their functions should include. In the matter of preparation, nothing significant is learned, except that the back- grounds and training of the bibliographers who responded vary greatly, and they seem to bear no relationship whatever to what faculty and library administrators feel is necessary in the way of background. Respondents were given a list of tasks which were assumed to be associated with bibliographers' responsibilities and were asked to agree, be neutral, or disagree as to their being appropriate to their function. The responses present a picture of confu- sion and disagreement as to the bibliogra- " pher' s role which is disquieting at best. While there was substantial agreement that they should keep abreast of what is being published in their areas, and communicate this information to the faculty, there was a strong feeling on the part of many faculty members that bibliographers should not be involved in actual book selection, evaluat- ing the collection as it relates to the cur- riculum, weeding the collection, coordinat- ing book selection practices, or participat- ing in faculty meetings. Also, library ad- ministrators were noticeably less enthusias- tic than the bibliographers about their at- tending national area studies meetings or going on buying trips to their areas. No one seems to know just what bibliog- raphers should be doing, or even who should decide what they should be doing, and the recommendations at the end can hardly be said to constitute new or original approaches to this long-standing problem. ("The bibliographer must articulate his own identity . . ." "Libraries should begin to recognize the importance of area bibli- ographers . . ." "The library administration and the area faculty . . . must make serious attempts to reach an understanding as to the role of the area bibliographer in the university .... ") This is one of those stud- ies, complete with all the academic para- phernalia of footnotes, bibliographies, and behavioral science jargon, which tells us al- most nothing that is useful. It is a fuzzy picture of a fuzzy situation, one which bad- ly needs some careful thought and serious study given to it.-N orman Dudley, As- sistant University Librarian, University of California at Los Angeles. Rawski, Conrad, ed. Toward a Theory of Librarianship: Papers in Honor of - Jesse Hauk Shera. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1973. 564 p. $15.00. Forethought: Surely it must be at least slightly embarrassing to have a festschrift in your honor published by a press founded and run for so many years by your arch- rival and severest critic! This festschrift in honor of the sometime Recent Publications I 57 dean of Western Reserve was designed by its editor to ''bring together original papers on theoretic concerns attendant upon li- brarianship." (p.42) Mter a refreshingly honest introduction by Verner Clapp, the standard laudatory introduction by the edi- tor, and a bibliography by Gretchen Isard of Shera's 381 articles, books, columns, edi- torials, reports, and reviews, there are some 24 papers covering the Pertinence of His- tory, Basic Issues, Information Retrieval, Catalog Topics, Contexts, Forecast, and Li- brary Education by the usual clutch of dis- tinguished scholars and librarians including Sidney Ditzion, Paul Dunkin, Robert Fair- thorne, Douglas Foskett, Eugene Garfield, Neal Harlow, Patricia Knapp, John Met- calfe, Ranganathan, Maurice Tauber, and Robert Taylor. Despite Mr. Rawski's claims and despite his best efforts to produce a unified vol- ume, this book remains, like nearly all fest- schriften, primarily a miscellaneous collec- tion, of uneven quality and originality, of papers on a somewhat related topic. One cannot really "ponder the state of things documented here and the generic problems which, in various ways and to various ex- tent, these papers address." (p.49) If these papers do share anything in common, it is the effort to foster the notion, nurtured and advocated by Shera among others, that li- brarianship can be given the aura of science and the trappings of academic respectabili- ty by the use of the signs, symbols, and jargon of logic, mathematics, and philoso- phy to interpret and explain the concepts of librarianship. Unfortunately the net re- sult is to make at least a quarter of these papers incomprehensible to me and I sus- pect to most other librarians without ex- tensive scientific background and training. This approach to librarianship is increasing- ly common and I, for one, would like to see a careful evaluation of it by a competent nonlibrarian. Perhaps such papers are lead- ing us forward into a new age of librarian- ship and are expanding our scope. Surely, however, it might be possible to express this in words and concepts more intelligible to the average librarian than: "Documents exist in terms of object, content, and (in- tended and not intended) use potentials: they all exhibit certain physical characteris-