College and Research Libraries edition, plus 14 new items (notably rem-· edying the earlier . omission of works by Shores, • Lowell, and others) that fall within the scope of the 1968 volume. In contrast with the ·first edition, sections within the classified arrangement have been more clearly set apart so that subject or geo- graphical headings do not begin near the bottom of the page, and . phrase headings have been included at the top of each page. The introduction to part II indicates that the author, title, school, date; pages, and bibliography (if any) have been included for each entry. Yet, the reader finds that pagination has been omitted for some eighty entries-most notably printed works. The annotations are generally good, al- though length and quality vary greatly. A published doctoral disse1tation on the . New York Public Library, for instance, is de- scribed in eight lines whereas the following entry for a seventy-six-page master's thesis on the Chemung County Library receives fifteen lines. J. ·P. Danton used to · tell his graduate students in preparing works for publication that historical materials should be scruti- nized and proofread at least twice, and bibliographies no fewer than three times. Unfortunately, the number of misspelled names, incorrect dates, and errors involving typography, pagination, reversed order, and incorrect words is high. Thurber's work on libraries in the land-grant colleges (entry number 242 in the first edition) has been dropped. In the annotations for three en- tries concerned with Ainsworth Rand Spof- ford, it is variously reported that Spofford " . ... served as Librarian of Congress for nearly half a century, 1864-1897" (actually 33 years), that Spofford had a "40 year reign at the Library of Congress," and that Spofford " ... served the Library of Con- gress for 4 7 years ( 1861-1908) , 33 of them as Director." Both author and subject indexes have been included. Again, unfortunately, errors of omission, misspelling, incorrect order, etc., may be found in the former. In the subject index one is puzzled why the author has omitted entries for Alabama, Denver, Galveston, Hartford, Houston, ·etc., in the geographical names category; for the Forbes · Library, the University of Minne- Recent Publications I 331 · sota Library, the Newberry Library, ._ and the Redwood Libniry; and for William · L Fletcher and Margaret Mann in the person- al names category. Likewise, subject · head- ings for book catalogs, certification of li- brarians, legislation for libraries, and philos- ophy of librarianship, whiCh appeared in the first edition, have not been retained. This volume will prove helpful for quick references to theses and dissertations ia American library history. It is .disappoint- ing, however, as a guide to research . in the field.-Kenneth · G. Peterson, Associate Li- brarian, Univ.ersity · of Virginia, ·Charlottes- ville. Morehead, Joe. Introduction to United States Public Documents. (Library Sci- ence Text Series) Littleton, Colo.: Li- braries Unlimited, 1975. 289p. $10.00. (LG74-23628) (ISBN 0-87287-106-1) Morehead's introductory text to 'United States government p1,1blications has chap- ters on the Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, depository library system, and the administration of documents collections; brief treatment of some general guides and indexes; and a list and discussion of selected publications of the presidency, Congress, and various de- partments, agencies, and commissions. In- cluded is a name/ subject and title/ series index. The first four chapters provide a good overview of the production, organization, and dissemination of public documents, the role of the depository system, and general guidelines for processing depository and nondepository materials. However, only one short chapter is given to the important general bibliographic tools used in working with documents. For example, Morehead allots a scant eleven lines to the 1909 Checklist whereas Schmeckebier and Eastin (Government Publications and Their Use, 1969) have four pages on this important reference work. The author devotes approx- imately two-thirds of the book to selected publications issued by the executive, legis- lative, and judicial branches of government. Why there is a need to enumerate the seemingly infinite number of issuing offices and their publications is unclear and the in- evitable result is the inclusion of some tela- 332 I College & Research Libraries • July 1975 tively unimportant series (Driver, All Hands, BNDD Bulletin) and the exclusion of important publications (American State Papers, publications of the Joint Publica- tions Research Service, annual report of the Congressional Research Service) . The authoritative monograph on govern- ment publications is Schmeckebier and Eastin, and for a detailed account of the daily operations of a documents collection Harleston and Stoffie, Administration of Government Document Collections ( 1974), is a good source. Introduction to United States Public Documents is a current, well- written volume which should prove useful as an elementary manual in graduate li- brary programs and for those unfamiliar with the complex world of federal publica- tions.-Alan Edward Schorr, Government Publications and Af ap Librarian, Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Vesenyi, Paul E. An Introduction to Peri- odical Bibliography. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Pr., 1974. 382p. $12.95. (LC 74- 19777) (ISBN 0-87650-045-9) The title aptly describes the contents of this reference book, for it is solely an intro- duction to bibliographies devoted to peri- odical literature throughout the world in all subject fields from their inception to the present. The coverage includes indexes, ab- stracts, union lists, directories, and transla- tion services. The book is divided into two parts, one-third of which is text, while the remainder is an annotated list of periodical bibliographies. An index is provided for the first part and a subject guide for the sec- ond. Before launching into a history of peri- odical bibliographies, the author defines a periodical, outlines its origins, and describes variations in citations and the types of bib- liographies, along with their organization. The historical part of the text covers seven- ty-four pages in which indexes, abstracts, union lists, and directories are cited. It is divided into four chapters: from the begin- ning to the eighteenth century, nineteenth century, pre- World War II, and post- World War II. The separation of the twentieth century into two chapters has resulted in fragmenting the bibliographical history. Many of the periodical bibliographies inter- rupted during the war years were resumed later, some in a slightly modified format. Yet they were still basically the same work, so the author, unable to make a clean divi- sion, has duplicated portions of the history in the later chapter. The final two chapters are devoted to standardization of periodi- cals and to translation centers. A brief foreword introduces the alpha- betically arranged bibliography section, which the author has deliberately weighted in favor of the social sciences and humani- ties. This arrangement has obvious advan- tages for the compiler, because the subject guide provided at the end of the volume requires no page references since the cited titles are in alphabetical sequence. A high percentage, if not all, of the European peri- odical bibliographies in this section ap- peared in an earlier work by Paul Vesenyi entitled European Periodical Literature in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow, 1969). The citations have been modified and the ar- rangement altered. No global guidelines are provided with regard to selection policy; therefore, the omission of important periodical bibliogra- phies, such as the Index to New Zealand Periodicals, and Serials in Australian Li- braries: Social Sciences and Humanities; A Union List, must be regarded as an over- sight. Western European and North Ameri- can reference tools have received the great- est attention. Throughout the text the author has indi- cated gaps in the bibliographical coverage of periodical literature that require filling. If he had concentrated on one of these areas or had devoted himself to the compre- hensive coverage of a single type of periodi- cal bibliography, such as indexes, the end product would have been a valuable ref- erence tool. As it is, the work is far too sketchy to be of any real value in a refer- ence collection. The author describes it as "a complementary tool in the study of ref- erence services ," but even in this role its merit is questionable since there are already several good introductions to reference sources that cover periodical as well as monograph bibliographies.-Judith Can- nan, Associate Librarian, Serials Depart-