College and Research Libraries


508 I College & Research Libraries • September 1981 

still be researching, analyzing, and writing. 
In this book the author "stops time" in mid­
1978. OCLC has changed considerably since 
that time; some of the significant events oc­
curring after the covering of this book include 
the Industrial Revenue Bond sale for over $32 
million, the design and building of new facil­
ities, a new president, and a new name: 
OCLC Online Computer Library Center. 
Basically this book covers the period of 
OCLC's existence from its beginning as the 
Ohio College Library Center to its change to 
a national utility: OCLC, Inc. 

The author attempts to place the develop­
ment of OCLC in the context of the history of 
library cooperation and resource sharing. 
Therefore a significant portion of the work 
deals with the history of library cooperation, 
beginning with the sharing of resources be­
tween the great library at Alexandria and the 
library at Pergamum in the second century 
B.C. and continuing to current times. Thus, 
he sets the stage for the creation of OCLC as a 
new and powerful tool to facilitate resource 
sharing and library cooperation. 

The primary objective of the author is to 
bring together the mass of material about 
OCLC and to organize it in a logical order, 
showing the evolution of this American li­
brary institution since its inception in Ohio in 
1967. Using both primary and secondary 
source material, the author succeeds in bring­
ing together in one relatively short work an 
abundant supply of information regarding 
OCLC. He is not as successful in organizing 
the material. All too frequently information 
is repeated or related information is sepa­
rated; for example, the composition of the 
Board of Trustees after the transition to 
OCLC, Inc., is repeated on two successive 
pages while discussion of the Ohio College 
Association's role is split between chapters. 

Although the author attempts to set OCLC 
in the context of the total networking envi­
ronment, he includes relatively little infor­
mation concerning state and multistate net­
works, which have been very much a part of 
OCLC's history and success. He basically re­
stricts his comments on that aspect of OCLC 
to his own network, PRLC. 

Because the book is very detailed and some 
parts are elementary, it is a good work for 
both library science students and practicing 
librarians with little knowledge of OCLC 

and resource sharing. For those who are more 
knowledgeable of the current networking 
scene, the book provides a concise historical 
perspective of OCLC.-]oseph F. Boykin, 
]r., Clemson University, Clemson, South 
Carolina. 

Cheney, Frances Neel and Williams, Wiley 
J. Fundamental Reference Sources. 2d ed. 
Chicago: American Library Assn., 1980. 
351p. $12.50. LC 80-21617. ISBN 0-8389­
0308-8. 

ReferenceSourcesl980 (V.4). Comp. anded. 
by S. Balachandran and M. Balachan­
dran. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Pr., 
1980. 364p. $65.00. LC 77-79318. ISBN 
0-87 650-127-7. 
In scope the second edition of Fundamen­

tal Reference Sources does not differ signifi­
cantly from the first: selected sources of 
bibliographical, biographical, linguistic, sta­
tistical, and geographic information, pre­
sented in that order, with an introductory 
chapter on the nature of reference and infor­
mation service, a unified index to authors, 
titles, and subjects, and appended guidelines 
for evaluating atlases, bibliographic refer­
ence sources, English-language dictionaries, 
and general English-language encyclope­
dias. The content has been updated by the 
addition of new titles that appeared (with 
few exceptions) before June 1979, and the 
text throughout shows careful revisions rang­
ing from restructured overviews of the major 
categories to such details as the substitution of 
"our" for "man's" in many phrases and the 
elimination of the title "Dr." from the names 
of persons who are not Samuel Johnson. 
These revisions contribute to a smoother text 
without altering the work's emphasis (more 
evident now than in 1971) on traditional 
forms of reference tools. Databases are cov­
ered rather briskly in just over two pages of 
the section introducing periodical indexing 
and abstracting services and are scarcely 
mentioned thereafter; online availability is 
noted in annotations for PAIS and Index Me­
dicus but not for other titles cited earlier as 
examples. Similarly, although the chapter on 
sources of statistics includes a new and re­
markably technical passage on statistical 
methods and terminology, it barely alludes to 
any but conventionally published materials. 
In short, this book does not and is clearly not 



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510 I College & Research Libraries • September 1981 

intended to bridge the gulf between librar­
ians who keep forgetting that Social Sciences 
Citation Index is available online and those 
who have never thought of it any other way. 
It is instead a rigorously updated version of a 
reliable selective guide to printed sources, 
with useful annotations. 

Reference Sources 1980 is the opposite of 
selective in its listing of reference works on a 
full array of subjects and levels of importance 
or triviality, identified through reviews or 
"books noted" columns in nearly 600 periodi­
cals (a substantial increase over the 270 
sources indexed by the 1979 volume). The 
first three annual volumes of this title listed 
works by main entry with editor and title 
cross-references and several subject indexes, 
and brief descriptive annotations were in­
cluded. The 1980 volume is arranged by Li­
brary of Congress subject headings with au­
thor and title indexes and the annotations 
have been abandoned, though review cita­
tions are appended as usual.-]ean Aroeste, 
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. 

On-line Public Access to Library Bibliographic 
Data Bases: Developments, Issues and Prior­
ities. Final Report to the Council on Li­
brary Resources. OCLC, Inc., and theRe­
search Libraries Group , Inc., September 
1980. 62p. 
The opening summary statement of this 

document is straightforward: "This report 
describes several activities to assess the criti­
cal issues and problems in designing and de­
veloping library bibliographic retrieval sys­
tems for direct patron use." We are several 
times reminded that no issues are resolved 
here, nor is any attempt at resolution made. 
The intention and the accomplishment was 
to draw together information and opinion as 
well as organizations and individuals in ad­
dressing this vital topic. 

The report describes a survey of thirty­
seven libraries, utilities, and consortia oper­

ating or developing public access systems. It 
describes (and includes the text in an appen­
dix) an "issues statement" prepared for dis­
cussion by a "working session." The partici­
pants in these working sessions are identified 
in an appendix; the "consensus of their con­
cerns" is summarized in the most interesting 
section of the document. The language of the 
report neutralizes what must have been lively 
and fascinating conversations. Consider, for 
example: "Although there were differing 
points of view on the readiness of the profes­
sion to formulate a whole range of standards, 
there was general agreement that the stan­
dard setting process should begin now." 

The working group defined (made notes 
towards a definition is again closer to the 
spirit, I expect) a public access online catalog. 
At one point this process of definition does 
move perilously close to saying something de­
finitive, however, given the groups involved; 
we are told that "locating all works by a spe­
cific author or on a specific subject implies 
authority control with an adequate reference 
structure." The working group identified 
four areas as having the highest priority for 
immediate study and action: "1) Analyzing 
user requirements and behavior 2) Monitor­
ing existing public access systems 3) Develop­
ing methods for cost management and 4) De­
veloping distributed computing and system 
links." The priorities are hard to quarrel with 
and their order correct and laudable. 

If this report is written and presented in a 
manner not unlike most reports to sponsoring 
agencies, that fact should not discourage one 
from reading it with interest as well as grati­
tude. It would be hard to overstate the debt 

·the profession and the public owes to the 
Council on Library Resources for taking up 
this vital question in this manner, for bring­
ing together OCLC and RLG as coauthors of 
this report and the activities it describes.­
Ann Bristow Beltran, Indiana University, 
Bloomington.