College and Research Libraries 270 College & Research Libraries The Expanding Role of Telecommunica- tions in Higher Education. Ed. by Pam- ela J. Tate and Marilyn Kresse!. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1983. 115p. $8.95. ISBN 0-87589-954-4. Like most books comprised of collected pieces by various authors from various disciplines, this one suffers from a lack of continuity and focus. The editors set out nobly enough by concluding in their opening notes: ''We believe that the driv- ing force behind the development of new programs and systems should not be sim- ply the allure of new technology. Rather institutions should continue to base their decisions about new ventures in telecom- munications on the educational and soci- etal problems that they wish to solve and on the learner needs that they wish to meet.'' However, the book fails to explore these problems and their possible solu- tions. Instead it takes you through some rather mundane discussions: why more educational television material isn't pro- duced, audiovisual media-use statistics, and Robert Gillespie's unexceptional ~ · ~}!;!! ''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 May 1985 views on computing in higher education, which have virtually no relevance to the issues at hand, at least as they are defined by the editors. Michael Goldstein writes about public policy, but this is not related back to learner needs. Glenn Watts' article about the changing workplace is better reading than the others, but most readers will find the veneer of the content awfully thin. The editors' concluding comments are the best part; they capsulize the few useful points made. But after reading the book, I did not feel I had gained any real insight into the telecommunications is- sues that confront our colleges and uni- versities today. The effectiveness of using telecommunications and computing in ed- ucation is assumed from the start. There is no consideration of where either might be inappropriate or ineffective. We are not provided a strategy for planning or a road map to guide us into the future of telecom- munications. We are not given new in- sights into the technology. The book is a disappointment, for tele- communications is a misunderstood and inadequately planned area on most cam- puses, and good guides on the subject are sorely needed. This book does not fill the vacuum. Most readers would get just as much insight into telecommunications is- sues for campus administrators and plan- ners by reading the New York Times educa- tion supplements or the Chronicle of Higher Education.- Thomas Hassler, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Radford, Neil A. The Carnegie Corporation and the Development of American Libraries, 1928-1941 . . Chicago: American Library Assn., 1984. 267p. (ACRL Publications in Librarianship, no. 44) $29.95. LC 83- 25710. ISBN 0-8389-3295-9. Frederick P. Keppel was already ac- quainted with a number of the nation's li- brary leaders when he became president of the Carnegie Corporation in 1922. Among them were Carl Milam, executive secretary of ALA, and William Warner Bishop, director of libraries at the Univer- sity of Michigan and past president of ALA. Throughout the thirteen-year pe- riod discussed in this book, these three men were fated to work closely together on several programs intended to increase the effectiveness of academic libraries. The author describes those programs and how they came about, discusses their role in contemporary academic librarianship, and assesses their effectiveness in meet- ing their implicit and explicit aims. Although most of the programs have been forgotten by all but the most senior of us today, they were viewed during the pe- riod as central to the most significant de- velopments in academic libraries. Princi- pal among these programs, in the minds of most academic librarians at the time, were a series of collection development grants made by the Carnegie Corporation to four-year, junior, teachers', black, and state colleges and to technical institutes . . In determining who should receive these grants, Keppel relied almost entirely upon several advisory groups of librarians and educators, all chaired by Bishop. In total these groups were instrumental in seeing that some $1,636,800 was granted to 248 institutions for strengthening their library book collections. In addition, the corpora- tion granted $1,824,500 to college libraries on its own initiative. Among other accomplishments within the academic library profession that re- sulted from Carnegie grants between 1928 and 1941 were the development of the first sets of four-year and junior college library standards, the preparation by Charles B. Shaw of the first list of books for four-year colleges and of Foster Mohrhardt' s list of books for junior college libraries, and B. Lamar Johnson's "library-college" exper- iment at Stephens College. Carnegie sup- port also led to the writing of William M. Randall's landmark monograph on The College Library, B. Harvie Branscomb's classic Teaching with Books, Erret McDiar- mid's treatise The Library Survey, and James T. Gerould's pioneering College Li- brary Building. In addition, the nation's first centralized library acquisition pro- gram was established and operated for thirteen years under Carnegie auspices at the University of Michigan. All of these activities are treated in this book. The author appears to acknowledge the importance to us of all of them save the program of book-fund grants. Here he Recent Publications 271 opines that perhaps fewer but larger grants would have done more good. He laments the absence of objective evalua- tive material in the Carnegie archives and, · finding no hard evidence of success, cau- tiously and somewhat dourly assumes no success. Although he may be right in his assumption, one feels constrained to re- call that this period spanned the years of the Great Depression when many Ameri- can colleges, as well as individuals, went bankrupt and when money was worth vastly more than it is today. Perhaps, at the time, simple survival itself, even cour- tesy of the Carnegie Corporation, was a form of success. Moreover, it may seem a bit inappropriate to fault the Carnegie for lacking sophisticated evaluative mecha- nisms a half-century ago when few if any grant-furnishing foundations, or govern- ment agencies for that matter, have them today. This is an excellent book, thoroughly re- searched, effectively presented, and well documented. It belongs alongside George Bobinski's Carnegie Libraries, which docu- ments the foundation's earlier role in the provision of library buildings, and John Richardson's Spirit of Inquiry, which re- counts its place in the evolution of library education and research. Taken together, this scholarly trilogy constitutes a massive and salutary reminder of the profession's great debt of gratitude to the remarkable Carnegie philanthropy, even if we assume that the program of grants for book-fund support was not a complete success.- David Kaser, Indiana University, Bloom- ington. Young, Kenneth E. et al. Understanding Accreditation: Contemporary Perspectives on Issues and Practices in Evaluating Edu- cational Quality. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass, 1983. 502p. (Jossey-Bass Higher Education Series) $27.95.ISBN 0-87589- 570-0. Another solid, useful reference tool has been born and added to the education li- brarian's shelf. A long time in coming, it will be worn and dog-eared before the next accreditation team has left the cam- pus. Indeed, if such an experience is im- minent on your campus, it is recom-