College and Research Libraries 164 I College & Research Libraries • March 1981 difficult to obtain; others either were never published at all or were published under very changed circumstances. An example is Lawrence Martin's biographical study of John Mitchell, which includes a cartobib- liographical study of Mitchell's map of 1755. On page 215 of a piece first published in 1950, Ristow suggests the summer of 1952 as a probable date for the appearance of the Martin study. It was not published at that time , however. In Ristow's article "John Mitchell's Map ... " in A la Carte,* one discovers that Martin died before his manu- script could be edited and published, that the manuscript itself had disappeared, and that Ristow was obliged to compile the 1972 article on Mitchell using work previously published by Martin. Given the variety of data available in this volume it is unfortunate that editorial short- comings will reduce its usefulness. It is puz- zling that Shoe String Press, a publisher of library materials, has omitted an index. Ris- tow ' s articles were originally written to *A la Carte; Selected Papers on Maps and Atlases , compiled by Walter William Ristow (Washington, D .C.: Library of Congress , 1972). stand alone , and there is a wealth of in- formation included in each piece that is not reflected in its title. An index is always de- sirable, but in this case it is a necessity and the absence of even a simple guide is a se- rious oversight. These omissions are more arresting be- cause Shoe String Press went to the effort of resetting the texts of these thirty-five articles instead of publishing a facsimile re- print. There is no sign of any further input on their part , however . While the press' concern with form is appreciated, the lack of editorial concern with content is appar- ent.-Susan L. Danforth , Brown Univer- sity, Providence , Rhode Island. Clark, Brian, D. ; Bisset, Ronald; and Wath- ern, Peter. Environmental Impact Assess- ment: A Bibliography with Abstracts. New York: Bowker, 1980. 516p. $59.95. LC 79-67625. ISBN 0-8352-1255-6. ' The growth of environmental literature over the last decade has been little short of phenomenal. Librarians who deal with en- vironmental collections and the users ~ho need to access them are always glad to see a Midwest Library Service Announces Its Newly Expanded CONTINUATION AND STANDING ORDER SERVICE We invite you to submit your Continuations List to us for prompt, efficient processing. Our publisher base includes approximately 500 selected publishers . We are thoroughly knowledgeable in all aspects of Standing Order procedures. For a copy of our new brochure on '~CONTINUATION & STANDING ORDER SERVCE" please call us, using our TOLL-FREE WATS Line: 1-800-325-8833, or else write: Mr. Howard Lesser President Midwest Library Service 11443 St. Charles Rock Road Bridgeton, Mo. 63044 Once your order is received, a Personal Customer Service Representative will be assigned to your library to assist you. new work that holds promise of systematiz- ing at least a part of that burgeoning litera- ture . Environmental Impact Assessment: A Bib- liography with Abstracts is an ambitious attempt along these lines. Specifically, the book seeks to order and explicate recent publications that deal with environmental study and evaluation as a decision-making process. The work is divided into five prin- cipal classified sections. The largest of these deals with assessment in the U.S. , Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, continental Europe, and selected other countries. Although there is attention to methodology both as theory and practice, the thrust of the work pertains to the legal bases and administrative processes involved in assess- ment. Together with the introductory mate- rial accompanying each section , this em- phasis bespeaks an intended audience of assessment administrators who already have more than a passing knowledge of factors in- volved in the process. Unfortunately , even these users might need ample fortitude to grapple with the book: the prose is dense ; the seventeen subsections lack internal clas- sification ; and, while the author index·is ex- cellent, the subject index contains only 367 points of entry and no cross-references . Furthermore, although each citation bears a unique alphanumeric designation , the lack of an alphabetic arrangement to the subsec- tions , and the.refore the alphanumeric en- tries , makes quick referral from either index difficult . This volume also raises an unsettling question regarding sales promotion . As noted , the work's subtitle is A Bibliography with Abstracts. The publisher's announce- ment that recently came our way elaborated on this by describing the book as a "single, comprehensive, annotated bibliography" that covers, among other things , "informa- tion sources, abstracting all major refer- ences (over 1,000 of them!) with critical comment where appropriate. " Indeed , the book does offer more than one thousand citations, all with full, clear bibliographic in- formation . However, only 55 percent (595) of these are annotated, frequently to an ex- tent unusual in bibliographies. The remain- ing 493 citations are altogether bare of sum- mary or evaluation. Nor are these unanno- tated citations evenly distributed over sub- Recent Publications I 165 ject areas . In seven of the seventeen sub- sections more than 50 percent of the cita- tions are unannotated. Unfortunately , two of these subsections are expressly devoted to assessment in the U. S. Although there are substantial numbers of annotated U.S. entries elsewhere in the book, users focus- ing on the U.S. experience may find the going difficult. Conversely, users studying the assessment process as it functions in the United Kingdom or continental Europe may find it quite beneficial to their investigation. In short, unlike most bibliographies, this work, while having reference value, will not lend itself readily to typical reference ser- vice in the college library. Its greatest value will probably be to the serious user who is compelled by need and blessed with time.-Patricia B. Devlin , University of Michigan , Ann Arbor . Li, Tze-Chung. Social Science Reference Sources: A Practical Guide. Contributions in Librarianship and Information Science, no.30. Westport , Conn.: Greenwood , 1980. $25. LC 79-54052. ISBN 0-313- 21473-5. This book is the outgrowth of a course syllabus and is intended to be the text for a one-semester library science course. In part I the author discusses the social sciences in general. Part II is made up of eight chap- ters, each dealing with one of the social sci- ences. The arrangement for parts I and II is similar: an essay by the author on the na- ture of the science or sciences followed by sections on access to materials , sources of information, and major periodicals. Part I includes chapters on government publica- tions , unpublished materials and data ar- chives, and data bases. Source materials are discussed in biblio- graphic essays with the standard, more im- portant items separately listed. The author's own alphanumeric designation for each item would be helpful to students in compiling class notes and book cards. The author has included with the standard material descrip- tive information that is accurare, if some- times superficial. The arrangement of the text and the style of presentation reflect the author's prefer- ences rather than a design for general use. Since the author has prepared the text pri- marily for library science students, much of