College and Research Libraries 76 I College & Research Libraries • January 1975 one of those paperback books doctored to have the appearance of a regular hardbound trade edition-presumably to help keep buyers from screaming at the outrageous $12.95 price. An acquaintance of mine, an anthropolo- gist, once said of a horrible book about the American Indian that, "In every library there should be a place for at least one truly bad book." I leave you with that thought.-W. David Laird, University Li- brarian, University of Arizona, Tucson. Irvine, Betty Jo. Slide Libraries: A Guide for Academic Institutions and Museums. Littleton, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1974. 219p. $12.50. Slide Libraries is an ambitious under- taking. There has been no attempt before in the literature to create a complete guide to the establishment and management of slide libraries; this is a commendable first effort by Betty J o Irvine. It covers the breadth of the field-the historical devel- opment of photography and slidemaking, professional qualifications for slide library staffing, classification and cataloging of slides, use of standard "book library" tech- niques, acquisition and production meth- ods, storage systems, layout and planning of physical facilities, projection systems, equipment and supplies-but in 157 pages of text it cannot deal with most of these topics in enough depth to make it a defini- tive manual. The chapter on classification and cataloging, for instance, describes in only 20 pages the diverse classification sys- tems of seven different institutions. Such brief descriptions may confuse more than they enlighten unless the reader under- stands them as introductions to alternative solutions and follows up the leads to pri- mary sources for more detailed information. The book does present a broad overview and identifies the major organizational wa- tershed decisions that must be made in es- tablishing a new collection-what catalog- ing strategy to follow, whether to organize and file in fixed sets or by individual image, whether to store for maximum interfiling expandability or for maximum visual dis- play, etc. To these questions Ms. Irvine . does not offer dogmatic solutions, but sug- gests a variety of options as they might ap- ply in a variety of situations. Answers to the tough questions are, therefore, indecisive and may leave some readers dissatisfied. Part of the problem is that an all-encom- passing book on slide libraries must speak to museums, instructional media centers, and teaching departments in art and other academic subjects, as well as to libraries in the traditional mold. Perhaps the strongest feature of the book is the fifty-plus pages of source material following the text: a directory of distribu- tors and manufacturers of equipment and supplies, a directory of commercial slide sources, a directory of over 200 slide li- braries, and an extensive bibliography of books and articles dating for the most part from the 1960s and 1970s. The book will be generally useful to anyone in the throes of organization; the source features may prove useful to an established slide library. -Wendell W. Simons, Associate University Librarian, University of California, Santa Cruz. Downs, Robert Bingham, ed. Guide to n- linois Library Resources. Chicago: pub- lished in cooperation with the Illinois State Library by the American Library Assn., 1974. 565p. $10.00. Downs' Guide to Illinois Library Re- sources is a potpourri of information en- compassing a broad spectrum of subjects, types of materials, and individuals both local and historical, as well as an extensive bibliography of references to books, pamph- lets, etc., which list or describe library col- lections in Illinois. The impetus for this sur- vey of Illinois resources came from the Illi- nois Board of Higher Education but was es- sentially financed by the Illinois State Li- brary. The remaining forty-nine states would do well to follow the example set by the state of Illinois. The information for this guide was ob- tained by means of a questionnaire in which librarians were asked to provide de- tailed information about their collections. Four subject fields-American literature, medicine, law, and music-were surveyed by specialists. According to the introduction, the Guide has the broadest possible scope and is un- restricted as far as library collections are concerned. It is arranged in alphabetical or- der and is divided into three divisions: ( 1) descriptions of collections of subject areas and types of materials; ( 2) descriptions of collections of biography, bibliography, and criticism relating to individuals; and ( 3) the bibliography of references to the col- lections in Illinois as well as an extensive alphabetical index. Major weaknesses the reviewer noticed in this volume are its general unevenness in style, sparse cross-referencing, and in- consistencies in the subject terminology. The introduction itself indicates that, since no such comprehensive survey had previ- ously been attempted for the state of Illi- nois, information gaps were inevitable. However, the advantages of this guide far outweigh its stylistic faults and possible in- formation gaps. Here in one volume we find all kinds of subject resources for one state which would otherwise be sought out in many other tools such as the National Un- ion Catalog, the National Union Catalog of Manuscripts, plus other bibliographies of individual special collections. As a Yorker, I envy the ability of Illinois librarians to lo- cate so many diverse subjects within their state using one tool. The special sections on American literature, medicine, music, and law are especially well done; and these es- says in themselves are certainly recom- mended for short-term reading as one might do during a slow day at the reference desk. But one word of warning in this connec- tion-the book is a real mantrap, and it is all too easy to get carried away from sub- ject to subject, name to name .... The subjects and biographies are rich in Illinois references which alone would make this work a necessity for every public, aca- demic, and research library in Illinois. The breadth of subjects covered and the wealth of materials available to researchers should make this work a national favorite among interlibrary borrowing librarians. Should future editions of this work be published, a useful appendix might be a list of the libraries surveyed including not only their addresses but also restrictions concerning lending, photoduplication, and in-person borrowing. The reviewer recog- nizes that such information is available in other tools, but such an addition would be a real convenience for users of the Guide.- Recent Publications I 77 Margaret ]. Oaksford, Interlibrary Lending and Cooperative Reference Services, Cor- neU University Libraries, Ithaca, New York. Anderson, A. J. Problems in Intellectual Freedom and Censorship. (Bowker Series in Problem-Centered Approaches to Li- brarianship) New York: Bowker, 1974. 195p. $10.95. Although only six of the thirty "cases" described in this volume are directly con- cerned with intellectual freedom and cen- sorship relating to academic libraries and librarians, all are well worth the attention of readers of C&RL, whether experienced or neophyte. Anderson, a Simmons College library science professor, is, of course, deal- ing herein with perhaps that area of librari- anship least susceptible to textbook inter- pretation and teaching-but he does very well at it. Dr. Thomas Galvin, editor of the very successful series Problem-Centered Ap- proaches to Librarianship, of which this is the eighth volume, points out in his fore- word that there is bound to be a wider gulf between theory and practice in this particu- lar area than in almost any other in our pro- fession. It is one thing to paste up a framed Library Bill of Rights in one's office and quite another to face such a situation as is posited in the case titled "Calories Don't Count." What would you do if the head of your home economics department ques- tioned your library's owning and circulat- ing books by Adelle Davis-described by the home economist as "a dangerous fad- dist"? And "The Trial of Richard Wetzel," an assistant director of an academic library who admits he hopes "to slant the collec- tion'' to suit his own previous position as an admitted member of a Communist party, is certainly not a simple "case" either. In- deed, all six academic-library-related cases which are included are thought-provoking and certainly permit no clear, words-out- of-a-book answer. As with all of these case-study books, this one provides sample analyses for several of the cases. · The ones in this volume seem ponderous and overdetailed. One wonders what kind of models these wordy, almost pompous statements of the obvious will be for the library science students who pre-