College and Research Libraries 138 I College & Research Libraries • March 1978 ity for Systems and Services, 1415 Koll Circle, Suite 101, San Jose, CA 95112.) The title of this book is somewhat mis- leading. No real discussion of resource shar- ing is attempted; nor is much specific guid- ance offered in making a decision about joining either of the two on-line biblio- graphic networks described: Stanford Uni- versity's program, Bibliographic Automation of Large Library Operations Using Time Sharing (BALLOTS), and the Ohio College Library Center (OCLC). As the authors are careful to point out in their introduction, the book is primarily a comparison between BALLOTS and OCLC, which gives the library administrator a start- ing point to begin an analysis . This the book does very well. It is written in a clear, con- cise style. No extensive knowledge of data processing is needed to understand it. Yet, the issues treated are certainly relevant to many automation decisions and even extend to financial and administrative considera- tions. The organization of the book is well thought out and makes the book valuable as a primer for those unfamiliar with either or both BALLOTS and OCLC, as a review for those with some familiarity, or as a refer- ence book for almost any interested reader. Most of the text is devoted to making spe- cific comparisons between these two sys- tems on a topic-by-topic basis. The rele- vance of the topics chosen is insured by the fact that most of them stem from actual questions that were posed to the staff of the California Library Authority for Systems and Services (CLASS). Thus, the book has a freshness of direct response, which is sel- dom experiences in reading similar publica- tions. To contrast the comparisons more sharp- ly, for most of the book, characteristics of BALLOTS appear on left-hand pages and characteristics of OCLC appear on right- hand pages. The reader can easily concen- trate on. one or the other system or consider both together. A detailed table of contents aids the user in selecting specific topics of interest. Those who wish to pursue the sub- ject further are aided by brief bibliog- raphies. In addition to the comparisons, a series of appendixes presents card formats, simulated display of screen formats, and simulated e~amples of the most common products. These are of considerable help to the reader in visualizing different aspects of either system. The authors ought to be congratulated for producing a readable, easy-to-use manual that can be read on many levels and serve the purposes of many different kinds of us- ers. Unfortunately, information of this kind ages rapidly and needs to be updated fre- quently. Therefore, the value of the book will decline as time passes beyond its publi- cation date of June 1977. Nevertheless, it ought to be well worth the price of $5 to those readers who will use it over the next year or two.-Richard]. Talbot , Director of Libraries , University of Massachusetts , Amherst. User Studies: An Introductory Guide and Select Bibliography. Edited by Geoffrey Ford. Occasional Paper No.1. Sheffield: University of Sheffield, Centre for Re- search on User Studies. 1977. 92p. ISBN 0-906088-00-3. In January 1976 the Centre for Research on User Studies at the University of Sheffield was set up with funds from the British Library Research and Development Department. The Centre set as its first task the investigation of work previously under- taken and the publication of a state-of-the- art report. It is not claimed as an exhaustive bibliography but rather a guide to the litera- ture that the project team considered useful in defining the scope of user studies, in suggesting hypotheses about the behavior of information consumers, in illustrating tech- niques of study, and in presenting findings about information consumers. A number of the references are drawn from the American Psychological Association Project on Scientific Information Exchange in Psychology, published in three volumes over the years 1963-69, and from the An- nual Review of Information Science and Technology, published since 1966. Despite these strong American underpinnings, the rest of the 236 references have an under- standably British flavor. While the tabular data in this stencil- reproduced report are largely drawn from other publications and the reports on re- search already conducted are rather per- functory, this document is nevertheless use- ful in bringing together in one publication references to the growing body of literature on library use studies and user behavior in- vestigations. It will be particularly helpful as a source document for other researchers be- ginning work in this area. Since this state- of-the-art review at the University of Sheffield necessarily precedes the Centre's own research and testing, further reports in this series of Occasional Papers promise a useful contribution in an area in which ·we still know far too little. ·In a further attempt to disseminate the progress and results of its work, the Centre has begun, as of June 1977, distribution of a newsletter entitled CRUS News. While this first four-page issue concentrates on news of the Centre and its own projects, future is- sues (no frequency prediction is offered) promise to serve as a clearinghouse for other activities as well as its own. Individu- als interested in being placed on the dis- tribution list for the newsletter or in receiv- ing a copy of Occasional Paper No. 1 should contact the Centre at the University of Sheffield.-Herbert S. White, Professor and Director of the Research Center, Graduate Library School, Indiana University, Bloomington. Allen, Thomas J. Managing the Flow of Technology: Technology Transfer and the Dissemination of Technological Informa- tion Within the R&D Organization. Cam- bridge: MIT Press, 1977. 320p. $20. LC 76-57670. ISBN 0-262-01048-8. This work consists of a series of reports on data collected and conclusions drawn by the author from 1963 to 1973. Much of its content has already appeared in journal arti- cles. It is thus not surprising that most of it will already be known by anyone who has been following the literature on the trans- mission of information over the past decade. On the other hand, it does provide a con- venient compendium, a state-of-the-art re- view on the subject for newcomers and those who wish to refresh their memory on the work reported here. From his position at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Allen was able to investigate parallel groups of scientists and engineers Recent Publications I 139 who were working on certain problems under government research and develop- ment projects. At first the information- gathering processes of those in these proj- ects were measured and compared to the quality of their work. Later, the emphasis shifted to determining how information enters and flows through a research and de- velopment organization. As might be ex- pected, a number of conclusions could be drawn from the data-some of them agree- ing with commonly held views and some newer and more startling in their implica- tions. Among them are: 1. Engineers think differently from scien- tists. Scientists are especially interested in choosing their own problems and look to the community of other scientists for evalua- tion, therefore, the results of their research are fully communicated to the entire re- search community. Engineers, on the other hand, choose to work in situations where someone else selects the problems on which they will work. Nor is prestige and status dependent upon other engineers, but upon company officials to whom publication means giving secrets to competitors. 2. In science all work up to a point in time is recorded in the literature; in technology the literature is less cumulative, not built on previous literature, and not meant to document the end product or es- tablish priority. 3. Whereas information in science is transferred via the written record, in technology it is more often transferred through personal contacts. Other sources of information in descending order of impor- tance to technologists are: customers, the company's previous research, consultants, and vendors. 4. At different stages in their work, engi- neers use the published literature dif- ferently, spending more time with it at the beginning of a problem and tapering off markedly about one-third of the way through a project. In contrast, internal con- sulting with colleagues in the company has the same initial peak of use but then adds another surge two-thirds through the proj- ect. 5. In order of importance, engineers use textbooks, trade journals, privately spon- sored engineering journals, professional en-