College and Research Libraries War diaries, and plantation journals and ac- count books are collected throughout the Southeast, from major universities and state historical societies to the smallest public li- brary. The index contains 111 references to black collections, many with a special em- phasis, such as slavery, lynching, civil rights , Seventh-Day Adventists, folklore, literature, and the arts. Local industry , agencies, and organiza- tions have produced several important col- lections . Maxwell Air Force Base , in Alabama, has the country's largest collection of material relating to airpower and to the history of military aviation in the United States. There are collections on tobacco in Winston-Salem, hydraulics in Vicksburg, and golf in Lake Park, Florida, the head- quarters of the Professional Golfers Associa- tion of America, while the lumber industry can be studied in collections in Alabama, Mississippi , and North Carolina. The University of Miami and the Univer- sity of Florida , as we look even farther south , have established major collections re- lating to the Caribbean, especially Cuba, Haiti , and the Dominican Republic . Florida State University has about 10,000 items re- lating to Napoleon and the French Revolu- tion , and Duke University has more than 90,000 books and pamphlets of Italian litera- ture , including the library of Guido Maz- zoni , a Florentine scholar. In the Belknap Collection of the Performing Arts , the Uni- versity of Florida has half a million pieces including posters , programs, and photo- graphs concerning theater , dance , opera , and film performances. Is this a useful guide? Definitely , in my opinion . In addition to alerting local scholars to the resources of their own re- gion, in addition to the brief but helpful in- ventories of the major state and university libraries , it is one more index to put before scholars looking for information about Fred- erick Delius, Jean Giono, utopian com- munities , Judaica, Tibet, dime novels , the history of medicine , and Princess Augusta Sophia' s collection of English plays.- Marjorie G. Wynne , Yale University , New Haven , Connecticut. Taylor, Betty W ., e d. Audio Research in the Law. Series 1: Basic American Law. Recent Publications I 289 Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Condyne/Trans- Media Distributing Corp. , 1978. l v . (280p. ) + 4 cassettes. $65 . LC 78-66385. ISBN 0-91338-33-8 . It is no secret around law schools that , for the new law student, the legal literature might be likened to the Book of Seven Seals and that learning its particular and unique features, a necessity for every lawyer, pre- sents a formidable hurdle. It is also com- monly known that the successful teaching of legal research has confounded many a law teacher and law librarian. Therefore it is not surprising that many of them are engaged in a perpetual search for better methods to impart the lore of researching the law and to instruct students as successfully and pain- lessly as is possible in the " tools " of their trade-the law books . This publication is the result of such an effort. It has been styled on the museum- tour type of program , the editor informs us. It consists of a plastic three-ring binder con- taining a soft-cover booklet (offset printing) and four audio tapes . The tapes are stored inside the front cover where there are cavities for two more tape cassettes. One will be forthcoming from the publishers at an additional $15 and covers U.S. govern- ment documents; the other, it is suggested, could contain a cassette on the legal mate- rials on one's home state and would have to be homemade . The pamphlet contains , after a first chap- ter with an "Introduction to the American Legal System ," seven chapters on the basic, generally recognized units of the legal bibli- ography . They are (2) dictionaries , encyclo- pedias , periodicals ; (3) treatises , practice books, looseleafs , directories; (4) case law and digests ; (5) annotated reports; (6) statu- tory laws; (7) administrative law; and (8) citators . These chapters have been written by the set's editor and six other law librarians and vary, as is to be expected , greatly in qual- ity. The overly ambitious scope of the in- troductory chapter overcrowds the few pages to the point of incorrectness . At the end of each chapter the specific pertinent law books are listed , and the stu- dent is directed to bring them together and review them while following the instructions provided on the audiotape . For instance , 290 I College & Research Libraries • May 1979 after reading the chapter entitled "Statutory Law," where the various materials falling under this topic-federal, state, and other statutory law and their finding tools-are described and where statutory research methodology is outlined, the readers turn to the appropriate tape and, following the very detailed instructions, move from one book to the next and take the steps lawyers pre- sumably will take in the solution of an ac- tual problem. The purpose of this approach is to create a "similarity to an actual re- search endeavor" and thereby to augment the interest of the students. The problem selected for use throughout this publication is the question of liability of a credit card holder for purchases made by others with his or her lost or misplaced card. For this question, lawyers would nor- mally first consult one of the available looseleaf services, e.g. , Commerce Clearing House's Consumer Credit Guide or Prentice-Hall's Consumer and Commercial Credit-Installment Sale s Reporter, and might find that it is the only source needed. In other words, each legal problem calls for individually tailored research strategies for its most effective resolution . The strategies furthermore often have to be tailored not only to the legal problem involved but also to the range of legal research materials that are available, and they always are affected by the knowledge and experience of the person doing the research. The value of the audiotapes could have been enhanced substantially if thoughts along these lines had been included . Since such information is lacking, the tapes are mainly a reiteration of instructional mate- rials that are already available in the gener- ally excellent pamphlets that the publishers of the various units of the legal bibliography make freely available to law students. Whether novices fare better reading these instructions in those pamphlets or lis-" te ning to them through earphones (which would be an essential requirement in a _li- brary) is an open question and probably a matter of individual taste. For this re- viewer , the question is resolved in favor of the written instructions because they can be read much faster than they can be heard on the tapes. Even if the aural instruction offered by these tapes were favored, questions remain as to the utility of the written component of the publication. Both in content and in style, the booklet does not compare favor- ably to any of the books on legal bibliogra- phy that are currently available: viz., Co- hen, Hou; to Find the Late, 7th ed. (West Pub., 1976) and Legal Research (West Pub., 1978); Jacobstein and Mersky, Fundamen- tals of Legal Research (Foundation, 1977); Price and Bittner, Effectit:.e Legal Research, 4th ed. forthcoming (Little, Brown, 1979); etc. It is, of course, desirable that all general libraries contain basic information on the legal bibliography. Since they generally lack the law books that are required for studying the legal literature with the help of this publication , however , its utility anywhere but in a law library would be minimaL- Anita K. Head , Unir;ersity of Kansas, La terence. Saflady , William. "Facsimile Transmission for Libraries : Technology and Application Design. " LeClercq , Angie. "One-half- Inch Videocassette Equipment for Library Use." Library Technology Reports 14 :445-546 (Sept.-Oct. 1978 ). $48 for single issue. (Available from American Library Assn., 50 East Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. ) A new generation of facsimile-transfer equipment has recently appeared , reviving hopes that inexpensive systems that can rapidly transmit readable copy may soon be a practical library investment. William Saf- fady reviews the basic design of these image-transmission systems, explaining how facsimile -transfer occurs between locations. He also outlines decisions that must be made prior to acquisition of a system and suggests how alternative designs may re- duce costs or improve transmission quality. Further , Saffady discusses compatibility among competing producers and with more traditional information-transferral systems. Saffady' s analysis of the state of facsimile transfer concludes with specifications for nine different facsimile systems . While his argument that library administrators should take a fresh look at facsimile transfer is rea- sonable, his analysis of the state of the art seems to confirm that the transfer of quan-