College and Research Libraries


library development as a necessary ele-
ment in nation-building; and it illustrates 
needed use of professional guidance in 
shaping this aspect of national policy.-
Carl M. White, University of California, 
San Diego. 

Roads to Research: Distinguished Library 
Collections of the S outheast. By Thom-
as H. English. Athens: University of 
Georgia Press, 1968. xiii, 116p. $1.95, 
paper ( 68-54088) . 

Early in 1967 officers of the Association 
of Southeastern Research Libraries decided 
to sponsor publication of a guide to re-
search collections in the libraries holding 
membership in their organization, and Pro-
fessor Thomas H. English, scholarly chair-
man emeritus of Emory University's De-
partment of English, was selected as com-
piler and editor. Professor English pro-
ceeded with dispatch and good judgment 
to produce within slightly more than a 
year's time this useful, small volume. 

Roads to Research is a collection of 
fifty-one brief sketches each of which de-
scribes a special collection that can be re-
garded as of value to serious scholars. The 
collections are listed in the table of con-
tents and by each title is the name of the 
library of which it is a part. The range is 
surprisingly broad; included, of course, are 
the regional collections-Georgiana, South 
Caroliniana, Virginiana, etc.-but in addi-
tion one finds such diverse topics as em-
blem books, detective stories, ornithology, 
children's poetry, Irish literature, and New 
Orleans jazz. Twenty-eight libraries are 
members of ASERL and sixteen of them 
reported collections which the librarians 
and Professor English judged worthy of 
inclusion. Those reporting the largest num-
ber of research collections were Duke and 
the University of North Carolina at Chap-
el Hill with eight apiece; they were fol-
lowed by Louisiana State University with 
six. 

The descriptive notes were prepared in 
collaboration with the holding libraries, 
and the editor visited the libraries to gain 
firsthand knowledge of the collections and 
to bring a measure of uniformity to the 
whole. In spite of this the reports vary in 
quality and usefulness, but perhaps this is 

Recent Publications I 171 

only natural since the collections them-
selves vary so widely. However, by bring-
ing this information together in one pub-
lished work ASERL has performed a serv-
ice that will be appreciated by librarians. 
With the collections identified and the 
general facts made available, scholars who 
need detailed information can inquire di-
rectly and more intelligently. 

In general the format of the volume is 
good. There is a bibliography which is 
probably too general to be of much help, 
and there is a well-prepared, selective in-
dex. It is to be regretted that at least three 
of the more important libraries in the As-
sociation are conspicuously absent. Also, 
this reviewer wishes that the essays had 
been arranged by some plan or classifica-
tion; an alphabetical arrangement might 
have served nicely .-]. Isaac Copeland, 
University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill. 

Encyclopedia of Library and Information 
Science. Ed. by Allen Kent and Harold 
Lancour. 18 vols. Vol. 1: A-Associac. 
676p. illus. Marcel Dekker. 1968. $45. 
per vol. (nonsubscribers); $35. per vol. 
(subscription). ( 68-31232). 

Publication of the first of the projected 
eighteen volumes of this work has partially 
satisfied the curiosity and expectation of 
many librarians, information specialists, 
and possibly others. Although a studied 
and just review of the encyclopedia should 
await completion of the set with its index, 
a preliminary estimate may now be based 
on Volume 1, A to Associac. This review-
er's evaluation is mixed, but with the bal-
ance on the plus side. The work establishes 
two major firsts: it is the first encyclopedia 
published anywhere covering the two re-
lated fields of library and information sci-
ence, and it is the first American encyclo-
pedia on the former discipline. Informa-
tion science is well represented, filling 
about 40 per cent of the first volume, but 
in terms of articles it is outnumbered by 
library science by about three to one. 
There has been a recognized effort to be 
international, both in choice of articles and 
in the information included in the articles, 
rather than limiting the scope to topics 
and practices applying only in the United