College and Research Libraries 232 College & Research Libraries Witp the exception of Paulsen's German Universities and University Study (1906), the second chapter of J. Periam Danton's clas- sic Book Selection and Collections: A Compari- son of German and American University Li- braries (New York: Columbia Univ. Pr., 1963), p.12-33 (which is not mentioned by Kunoff, but from which his readers would benefit), Kunoff' s topic is not well covered in English. Thus, Kunoff' s close following of the more significant German authori- ties, and of other documents such as uni- versity statutes, regulations, and personal correspondence, allows English readers an often fascinating view of the major Ger- man universities of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.-Paul H. Mosher, Stanford University. Fiction, 1876-1983: A Bibliography of United States Editions. New York: Bowker, 1983. 2,328p . $99.50, cloth, 2v. set. LC 83-21376. ISBN 0-8352-1726-4. The idea behind Fiction, 1876-1983 is a highly promising one. Derived from the databases of Books in Print (800,000 titles) May 1984 and American Book Publishing Record (al- most 2 million titles), the 170,000 entries (not titles, as Bowker erroneously claims) of Fiction list-in theory and in the promo- tion, at least-''virtually every fiction title that appeared in the U.S. in the period covered.'' The format is that of a sort of cu- mulative Books in Print for fiction. There is an author index, a title index, a directory of publishers and distributors, and an au- thor classification index, which groups au- thors by nationality and literary period where such information was available. Based upon the questions given in the foreword as examples of the types of que- ries that Fiction is capable of answering, Bowker apparently expects this book to be a kind of one-stop authority for reference questions dealing with the U.S. publica- tion of fiction editions . With Fiction, they say, one can date the first U .S. translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude, identify the first edition of A Farewell to Arms, find the title of John Cheever's last anthology of short stories, and learn the kind of fan- tasy novels published between the wars . Were it all that Bowker claims it to be, Fiction would be an essential addition to almost every public and academic library and to the reference shelf of many book- sellers and researchers. Unfortunately, Bowker has greatly overstated the book's comprehensiveness and accuracy and greatly understated its deficiencies. To be- gin with, what is perhaps the most ludi- crous example of the book's shortcom- ings: of the six sample questions in the foreword, two cannot be answered at all, two can be answered (at best) partially, and only two can be answered accurately by Fiction. Not one of the four authors mentioned in the six questions has a com- plete, accurate entry. It took some time, in fact, to find any author whose entry ap- peared to be complete. The only omission acknowledged by Bowker is the absence of most out-of-print mass market paperback editions, though no reason for their exclusion is given . Since there have been thousands of fiction titles published only in a mass market pa- perback form and since they are often the Recent Publications 233 - ~ NCGR,EGOR ~~~ "PERSONALIZED" SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE McGregor can simplify complex and time consuming problems of periodi- cal procurement involving research , ordering, payments, renewals and record keeping. Prompt courteous service has been a tradition with McGregor since 1933. Call or write for catalog today 8151734-4183 MCGREGOR MAGAZINE AGENCY Midwest Library Service You won't find more specialized service .. . anywhere College and university librarians: If there are gaps in services being rendered by your current library jobber, then Midwest Library Service may be what you're look- ing for . Midwest has specialized in service to college and university libraries for 24 years-so long that pro- viding books from even the most obscure publisher is standard practice. For prompt, efficient service on all orders, contact Midwest Library Service . Midwest Library Service 11443 St . Charles Rock Road Bridgeton , MO 63044 Call toll-free (800) 325-8833 Missouri librarians call toll-free (800) 392-5024 Canadian librarians call ·collect (314) 739-3100 234 College & Research Libraries least documented titles by what might otherwise be better-known writers, their absence creates a real loss. While these omissions are perhaps explicable if the editions were also missing from the origi- nal databases, other deficiencies in Fiction are not easily explained or excused. The mistakes have no discernible boundaries: famous and obscure authors, cloth and paper editions, major and minor publishers alike are all mistreated. Titles are omitted; editions are omitted or incor- rectly priced; entries are unnecessarily in- complete; nonfiction titles are listed as fic- tion; some entries are not even correctly alphabetized. Many editions published in the fifties, sixties, and seventies by major firms such as Knopf, Pantheon, Harper, Viking, and Little, Brown, and which have appeared in Books in Print, are not to be found in Fiction. For example, only one of the three hardcover editions of Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti' s only novel is listed; the revised edition of Gore Vidal's May 1984 City and the Pillar is listed, but not the origi- nal; the hardcover editions of John Cheever's Wapshot Chronicle and Scandal are both omitted; numerous editions of Jack Kerouac are missing; at least one of Malcolm Bradbury's novels is absent. The errors are really so pervasive that the book must be considered profoundly unreli- able. Fiction finally strikes this reviewer as a kind of first draft, an exploratory mapping of a territory to be covered later in detail. Despite all its faults, Fiction is useful, and perhaps even without real competition as a single-source reference work. But be- cause of its extensive deficiencies, no au- thor entry can be assumed to be complete and accurate without some additional out- side confirmation. A new and thoroughly revised and corrected edition is called for; it's a shame that the work couldn't have been compiled and edited a little more carefully the first time.-Tom Haydon, Wes- sex Books. ABSTRACTS The following abstracts are based on those prepared by the ERIC Clearinghouse of Infor- mation Resources, School of Education, Syra- cuse University. · Documents with an ED number here may be ordered in either microfiche (MF) or paper copy (PC) from the ERIC Document Reproduction Service, P.O. Box 190, Arlington, VA 22210. Orders should include ED number, specify for- mat desired, and include payment for docu- ment and postage. Further information on ordering documents and on current postage charges may be obtained from a recent issue of Resources in Educa- tion. Public Online Catalogs and Research Li- braries. Final Report. By Douglas Ferguson and others. Research Li- braries Group, Stanford, Calif. Council on Library Resources, Washington, D.C. 1982. 195p. ED 229 014. MF- $0.83; PC-$12.32. In 1981 and 1982, the Research Libraries Group (RLG) and four other organizations par- ticipated in a coordinated study of public online catalog users and nonusers . Standard, self- administered questionnaires were used to gather data from 8,094 users and 3,981 nonus- . ers in thirty-one research, academic, commu- nity college, public, and governmental libraries with seventeen different online catalogs. This final report presents findings and implications of data collected at three institutions: Dart- mouth College, Northwestern University, and Stanford University, all members of the Associ- ation of Research Libraries (ARL). The data from th~se institutions are contrasted with those collected from twelve other ARL libraries. These data include uses of the public online cat- alogs, perceived problems, preferences for im- provement, and user and nonuser characteris- tics. The report also presents the results of a related special study that gathered qualitative evidence in structured interviews with library staff at Dartmouth, Northwestern, and Stan- ford. A final chapter discusses implications of the study and notes a general patron accep- tance of public online access catalogs . Appen- dixes include a list of participating libraries and computer systems, statistical analyses of data collected, sample questionnaires, and other documents. An executive summary and forty- seven tables are also provided .