College and Research Libraries 84 College & Research Libraries January 1983 it does not address either set of questions well. It scrupulously avoids tackling the ques- tion of copyright by stating that this was to be omitted by direction of the commis- sion. This issue is, of course, central to any discussion of electronic document deliv- ery. However, there is a fair amount of cost detail, which is stated in terms of Eu- ropean currency units, which allows for recalculation into U.S. dollars. By carrying through their figures, I was able to deter- mine that the ARTEMIS system might be operated for roughly the same cost as to- day's document delivery, but with a sub- stantial reduction in the average delivery time. In summary, the book has its useful points and it does do what the dust-cover blurb says, "It takes us one step closer to the ultimate goal of information on demand." -Donald B. Simpson, Director and Chief Executive Officer, The Center for Re- search Libraries, Chicago, Illinois. Heritage on Microfilnt Rare and out-of-print titles and documents on 35mm silver halide microfilm. • French Books before 1601 • Scandinavian Culture • 18th Century English Literature • Victorian Fiction • Literature of Folklore • Hispanic Culture Send for catalog and title information today. , .. 1~~ 70 Coolidge Hill Road Watertown, MA 02172 (617) 926-5557 11 Popular Culture and Libraries." Wayne A. Wiegand, issue editor. Drexel Library Quarterly, V.16, no.3 (July 1980). Phila- delphia, Pa.: Drexel University, 1980. 99p. $6. ISSN 0012-6160. During the past century there has been a continual increase in the quantity and di- versity of popular culture produced for mass distribution. Every new communica- tions technology has been used for the manufacture and distribution of yet more artifacts designed to distract, amuse, de- light, or otherwise engage the attention of the consumer. People of all ages and from all walks of life-be they rich or poor, young or old-have displayed before them the glittering, glamorous, exciting, seductive possibilities of modern media. There is no indication that this is going to change in the near future. One area of popular culture production may decline (e.g., the current decline in the production · of popular music recordings), but the gap is quickly filled by some new diversion. Do any of these artifacts have any re- deeming features? Do they enhance life or degrade it? Do any of them belong in the library? These are interesting questions, and they are important. But the fact is that the culture of the United States is predom- inantly a popular culture, and this is something that no librarian is ever going to change. For those librarians who re- main unconvinced of this, the work in hand provides cogent arguments for tak- ing popular culture very, very seriously. Throughout, there is a pervasive assump- tion th~t we are dealing with materials and services that are not just important to li- braries, but are central to the function of the library in the modern world. Because of its nature and its role in life, popular culture is, ipso facto, a necessary part of the library's programs. In his introduction, the editor rational- izes the need for the library's involvement with popular culture on the basis of some of his own experiences and on the works of Brenda Dervin and Herbert Cans. The core of the argument is that popular- culture artifacts acquire meaning only within the lives of the people who experi- ence them. The point is this: any evalua- tive criteria that do not take into account the phenomena as experienced by those who have the experience is not valid. Beauty is in the mind of the beholder, and the mind of the beholder is the product of a life-style and a cultural milieu; popular culture is used to structure an ordered re- ality; it is essentially an experience. The opening essay by Ray B. Browne provides the conceptual framework for what is to follow. His is as eloquent a ra- tionale for the central role of the library as one will find anywhere. Although others have written of the ''appalling'' extent to which libraries have ignored popular cul- ture, Browne is not so pessimistic. We then get to practical issues in a series of six essays on collections, collection building, services, and programs. William L. Schtirk provides practical perspectives from his point of view in aca- demia (he is in charge of the Popular Cul- ture Library at Bowling Green State Uni- versity, Ohio). Jannette Fiore describes the Russel B. Nye Collection at Michigan State University. B. Lee Cooper is interested, as he has been for a long time, in the educational uses of popular culture: What does it tell us about ourselves and our society? He also outlines his idea for a comprehensive popular-culture information system. A public library perspective is provided by Janet K. Schroeder, who makes some im- portant points on how the public library's approach to popular culture is quite differ- ent from that of the academic library. Fred E. H. Schroeder's "Collecting and Using Popular Photographs" (p.73-88) is suc- cinct and thorough; in fact, it is the finest piece now available on the theoretical and practical issues related to the much- neglected area of still photographs. The is- sue closes with a discussion, by John M. Forbes, of the role of the library in dealing with materials of American popular dance. All of this is very convincing, and after reading it, one is inclined to conjecture that the issues, insofar as they are of inter- est to academic librarians, are not so much those of the ''elite versus popular culture'' genre as of the efficient and equitable allo- cation of limited economic resources in the face of demands from many disciplines. Recent Publications ·ss Librarians who do commit resources to popular-culture collections will find this work a valuable guide.-Gordon Stevenson, State University of New York, Albany; Fling, Robert Michael. Shelving Capacity in the Music Library. (MLA Technical Re- ports, no.7) Philadelphia: Music Library Association, 1981. 36p. $7.25. ISBN 0-914-95420-2. The planning of library stack areas for books is a topic that has been studied with increasingly serious attention, but never before has there been published a techni- cal report devoted to the planning of new or expanded music library stacks. This ground-breaking study reveals newly de- veloped formulas for calculating shelving capacities for music scores and sound re- cordings, the storage of which usually poses special problems because of the multiplicity of their sizes, shapes, and for- mats. The basic methodology is straightfor- ward: calculate the average number of scores or recordings that would occupy any twelve inches of shelf, determine the thickness of the average item, and project shelving capacity based on existing linear feet of shelf. Finally, convert these linear feet into square feet, in terms of hypotheti- cal stack areas. Beyond the usual planning factors of shelving materials, shelf depth, aisle width, and density of reader population, the author takes into account a number of other significant variables. For example, the chapter on scores provides separate measurements for collections in which miniature scores might be either inte- grated or segregated, for specific classifi- cations within the Library of Congress Class M for music, and for collections that need to have stack ranges spaced closer than usual. The chapter on recordings considers shelf arrangement by accession number and by classification schemes, and shelving capacities for disc recordings are presented according to various ratios of single LPs to boxed sets. For tape re- co~dings, distinct capacity measurements are provided for steel shelving and wooden shelving. The book also includes a summary of