College and Research Libraries Recent Publications COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe , reviewed by Howard W . Winger . .. . . : . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356 Irvine, Betty J. Slide Libraries: A Guide for Academic Institutions, Museums, and Special Collections, 2d ed., reviewed by Cathleen Flanagan ............. ·. . . . . . . 358 Marulli , Luciana. Documentation of the United Nations System: Co-ordination in Its Bibliographic Control, reviewed by Carolyn W. Kohler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359 Recurring Library Issues: A Reader, reviewed by Jeanne Osborn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360 Ehresmann, Donald L. Fine Arts: A Bibliographic Guide to Basic Works, Histories , and Handbooks , 2d ed ., reviewed by Lamia Doumato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 Lutz, Cora E . The Oldest Library Motto , and Other Library Essays, reviewed by Gertrude Reed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362 " Knowledge , How It Gets Around, What Happens to It in the Process," reviewed by Joe W. Kraus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 Davis , Charles H ., and Rush, James E. Guide to Information Science , reviewed by Audrey N. Grosch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 Brown , Eleanor Frances. Cutting Library Costs: Increasing Productivity and Raising Revenues , reviewed by J. Wayne Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 DeHart, Florence E. The Librarian's Psychological Commitments : Human Relations in Librarianship , reviewed by Sheila Creth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366 Bloss , Meredith. Conversations on Libraries , reviewed by Jovian P. Lang . . . . . . . . . . 367 Bahr, Alice Harrison. Video in Libraries: A Status Report , 1979-80, reviewed by William A. Mcintyre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368 Matthews , Joseph R. "The Four Online Bibliographic Utilities ," reviewed by Richard W. Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 Jacobs , Mary Ellen; Woods , Richard ; and Yarborough , Judith . Online Resource Sharing II , reviewed by Richard W. Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369 New, Peter G. Book Production , reviewed by Budd L. Gambee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 Developing Library Effectiveness for the Next Decade , reviewed by Rosemary Ruhig DuMont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371 Boss , Richard W . The Library Manager's Guide to Automation , reviewed by Eleanor Montague . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372 The Nature and "Future of the Catalog , reviewed by Lucy T. Heckman . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 Malinconico , S. Michael , and Fasana, Paul J. The Future of the Catalog , reviewed by Lucy· T. Heckman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 Saffady, William . "The Economics of Online Bibliographic Searching: Costs and Cost Justifications ," reviewed by Peter G. Watson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376 Morrow, Carolyn Clark, and Schoenly, Steven B. A Conservation Bibliography for Librarians, Archivists, and Administrators , reviewed by Susan G. Swartzburg . . . . 377 Cammack, Floyd M.; DeCosin , Marri; and Roberts, Norman . Community College Library Instruction , reviewed by Leonard Grundt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378 Hoffmann , Frank W. The Development of Library Collections of Sound Recordings , reviewed by Gordon Stevenson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Music Library Association. Subcommittee on Basic Music Collection. A Basic Music Library: Essential Scores and Books, reviewed by Guy A. Marco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379 Redfern, Brian . Organising Music in Libraries , 2d ed ., reviewed by Guy A. Marco . . 379 Conroy , Barbara. Library Staff Development Profile Pages: A Guide and Workbook for Library Self Assessment and Planning, reviewed by Leslie W. Sheridan . . . . . . . 381 Videotext : The Coming Revolution in Home/Office Information Retrieval, reviewed by David B. Walch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381 Woodbury, Marda. Selecting Materials for Instruction : Issues and Policies, reviewed by George Charles Newman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382 Robinson , A. M. Lewin. Systematic Bibliography: A Practical Guide to the Work of Compilation , 4th ed. , reviewed by Douglas Birdsall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 I 355 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------~ 356 I College & Research Libraries • july 1980 Warren , G. Garry . The Handicapped Librarian: A Study in Barriers, reviewed by Sara D. Knapp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383 Hunter, Eric J. , and Bakewell, K.G. B. Cataloguing, reviewed by Paul Schuchman . . 384 Women's History Sources: A Guide to Archives and Manuscript Collections in the United States , reviewed by Janet L. Ashley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385 Radke , Barbara, and Berger, Mike. Analysis of the 1977 University of California Union List of Serials , reviewed by Neal L. Edgar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3!6 Gabriel, Michael R. , and Ladd , Dorothy P. The Microform Revolution in Libraries , reviewed by Helen R. Citron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 Maltby, Arthur, and Gill, Lindy. The Case for Bliss: Modern Classification Practice and Principles in the Context of the Bibliographic Classification, reviewed by Elaine Svenonius . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387 Whitehall , T. Personal Current Awareness Service : A Handbook of Techniques for Manual SDI , reviewed by Priya Rai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 Grogan , Denis. Practical Reference Work , reviewed by James F . Parks . . . . . . . . . . . . 389 The Future of the National Library of Canada , reviewed by Dorothy F . Thomson . . . 390 Manheimer, Martha L. OCLC : An Introduction to Searching and Input , reviewed by Mary C . Hall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391 Abstracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392 Other Publications of Interest to Academic Librarians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395 BOOK REVIEWS Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early- Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ . Pr. , 1979. 2v . $49.50. LC 77- 91083. ISBN 0-521-22044-0 (set of 2 vols. ). This work is the product of fifteen years of thought and research and came eleven years after the author first published a long periodical article outlining her subject. Its major thesis is that the move of the repro- duction of written materials from the copyist's desk to the printer's workshop rev- olutionized all forms of learning, both spe- cial and popular. " Revolution" is a key word in this proposition. The author argues that the huge increase in the number of books and the improved accessibility to them brought about by the spread of printing in fifteenth-century Europe promoted changes in public knowledge that were more than evolutionary. Contrasting the state of learn- ing before print and after print, she focuses on the printing press and its organization for the production and distribution of books as an effective agent for change. Although the bibliography of the history of printing is lengthy indeed, few authors have attempted to synthesize the intellec- tual impact of the advent of printing tech- nology . Marshall McLuhan addressed the question in The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Pr. , 1962), but, as Eisen- stein charges, McLuhan "shirked the task of organizing his material coherently" (p.41). In contrast she is mindful of chronology and logic and is critical of her sources. Such a work of historical synthesis· neces- sarily draws from previously published his- tories. Among printing historians, Eisen- stein favors Rudolf Hirsch, Lucien Febvre and H.-J. Martin , and S. H. Steinberg for their useful syntheses of the book trade. Other printing historians are cited for spe- cial cases, and the author demonstrates good control of the facts of printing history that interest her. Printing as a graphic art is not in her scope of inquiry. While she is in- terested in comparing uses and popularity of gothic and roman type, she is not con- cerned with the refinements of type design; and she is interested in book illustration primarily as it contributes to substantive content. In keeping with her subject, intel- lectual histories and histories of scholarship predominate in the "Bibliographical Index" (p. 709-67), a valuable alphabetical-by- author list of references indexed for pages where they are cited. Emphasizing the literate populace and specialized learning, the author argues that changes in the public image of the world wrought by the printing press began among scholars. Books in far greater numbers were available to them than before. Ensuing edi- tions set forth in chronological array the state of current knowledge and in so doing contributed to new. Formats were orga- nized and texts were standardized. Scholars often transferred their critical and creative labors to the printers ' workshop, mingling with artisans and entrepreneurs who caught a whiff of scholarship (or at least the schol- arly market). Classical scholarship, the scriptural tradi- tion, and science receive detailed attention in this work, with an analysis of political movement_s promised for later publication. Some of the argument is taken up with the question of periodization , implicit in the thesis of revolutionary change. The analyses cannot be presented, much less criticized, in detail here , but an example from her treatment of the scriptural tradition will illustrate her approach. She argues that the scriptural tradition had already been recast in consequence of the printing of Latin , vernacular, and polyglot Bibles before the Reformation put massive editions of ver- nacular Bibles in the hands of the laity. As Recent Publications I 351 print spread the tradition to a popular audi- ence, it sometimes acquired anti-intellectual overtones and the extraneous policies of re- ligious and political jurisdictions affected the cultural unity and discord of Europe .' The book is well written and impressive, without being oppressive, in its erudition. The author is skillful at assembling relevant sources, and· she argues with them, some- times tartly, when their interpretations con- flict with her own. In the same tenor, be- cause this book covers so much ground, it is bound to attract its own critics in many spe- cialized parts . Her argument that the print- ing press introduced revolutionary rather than evolutionary change is an example. She makes a very convincing case for it, but one function of a historian is to find in- stances that may conflict with a generaliza- tion. Little really has been published about the manuscript book trade to which the printing trade is compared. Paul Saenger's article on Colard Mansion's commercial scriptorium (cited by Eisenstein on p.37) is an example of the search for conflicting in- stances. Such questioning over a period of IF YOU'VE GOT A PROBLEM WE'RE JUST A (FREE) PHONE C~LL AWAY! Shelley and Linda are just two of Midwest Library Service's Personal Customer Ser- vice Representatives who are specially trained to solve any book ordering problem your library may encounter. Linda and Shelley are thoroughly knowledgeable in all facets of the library jobber business, and if you are ever in need of their services, you SHELLEYHELLMANN ~LIN~DA·M~AR~K~ET~-.. can reach them by using our TOLL-FREE WATS Line, 1-800-325-8833 (Missouri customers please call COLLECT: 0-314-739-3100) for help in solving any problem. Your Customer Service Repre- sentative will follow the problem through to a satisfactory conclusion-without delay. Remember, Linda and Shelle;y are "working" for you and your library. It's all part of Midwest Library Services tradition of excellence. "20 Years Of Service To College and University Libraries" MIDWEST LIBRARY SERVICE 11443 St. Charles Rock Road BRIDGETON, Mo. 63044 358 I College & Research Libraries • july 1980 time will enhance our understanding of the subject. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change deserves to be studied by all who are con- cerned with the efficacy of print. It is a thoughtful and sophisticated approach to the kinds of effects that can be anticipated from communication and how they can be dis- cerned. Laid in the social and intellectual structures that facilitated or resisted the progress of print, the text observes the un- winding of human knowledge in the course of years. This is consistent with the author's choice of the printing press as an agent of change instead of the agent of change in her title. More recent developments in com- munication could benefit from similar study. The development of the power press and other advanced mechanization contributed to the speed and volume of the production and dissemination of print in the nineteenth century that may have been proportionate to the increase of the hand press over manuscripts. The electronic revolution of our own time-the media, the computer, the vision of a paperless society-has re- suited from technological advances far more radical than the recombination of traditional materials and processes involved in the in- vention of printing and the power press. It has resulted not only in the manifold mag- nification of the speed and volume with which communications are reproduced and disseminated but also in new ways for the generation of data. One should not look for too close a parallel in the effects of these la- ter revolutions with the effects Eisenstein infers from the early progress of printing, but she has pointed a way in which effects might be studied without waiting several centuries.-Howard W. Winger, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Irvine, Betty J. Slick Libraries: A Guide for Academic Institutions, Museums, and Special Collections. With the assistance of P. Eileen Fry. 2d. ed. Littleton, Colo: Libraries Unlimited, 1979. 321p. $19.50 U: S. & Canada, $23 elsewhere. LC 79- 17354. ISBN 0-87287-202-5. This new edition of a book, first pub- lished in 1974, follows exactly the same for- AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. ; AMBASSADOR BOOK SERVICE, INC. "serving academic and research libraries" 42 Chasner Street • Hempstead, NY 11550 Call us 516/489-4011 collect!