College and Research Libraries computer science areas.-Audrey N. Grosch, University of Minnesota, Min- neapolis. Current Research on Scientific and Techni- cal Information Transfer. Abstracts and Full Text of Papers Delivered at Three 1976 Seminars Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Division of Science Information. A Micropapers Edition. New York, Jeffrey Norton Publishers, 1977. 24p. + 7 microfiche in pocket. $12.95. LC 77-9216. ISBN 0-88432-007-3. This publication contains the proceedings of three seminars organized toward the end of 1976 by the Division of Science Informa- tion of the National Science Foundation. The seminars were intended to make known the results of twenty-one research projects on scientific and technical information and to provide a forum for an exchange of ideas between the original investigators and the seminars' participants. · The first one, "Alternatives to Traditional Information Transfer Mechanisms," re- ported results from nine projects that "in- vestigated ways of improving electronic storage, publication formats, and dissemina- tion methods." Included are reports relating to SCATT, IEEE publishing experiments, the northern California public library DIALOG use project, and various other studies of modes of information dissemina- tion. The second seminar, "The Use of Scien- tific and Technical Information among Scientists and Engineers," included seven presentations on formal and informal com- munication patterns among scientists and engineers. The third seminar, "Planning Data for STI Managers," provided findings from five projects and analyzed the impacts of selected trends in U.S. scientific and tech- nical communication activities, including a forecast of the scientific journal in the year 2000. While a number of the studies have important implications for academic librar- ians, not least because scientific and techni- cal acquisitions are swallowing an increasing portion of the materials budget, the em- phasis is on improved productivity and efficiency of industrial information systems. The format is also worthy of comment; a Recent Publications I 411 "Micropapers Edition," it consists of ten pages of introduction and contents, fourteen pages of abstracts, and seven microfiche (in a back pocket and of good quality) contain- ing the full text of twenty of the reports (one being unavailable for inclusion). Of the abstracts, seven are reasonably informative ·of the results, while thirteen are descriptive only; perhaps predictably, there is uneven- ness in content and length of these author- produced abstracts. The presswork is un- even; the hard binding is sturdy and attrac- tive. The running title on the fiche headers omits the first word of the actual title, which may cause some cataloging and pub- lic service furor should the fiche get sepa- rated from the book. Each fiche header gives the titles of its respective papers and the row on the fiche where each begins; but browsing among the papers takes a bit of do- ing, since no identifying headings appeared on the typed manuscript pages. And the price: Is $12.95 right for twenty- four pages plus seven fiche where the con- tent is a gift of and paid for by a govern- ment agency? Perhaps allocation toward publishing costs of a small part of the origi- nal twenty-one-project research investment would have really borne out NSF's an- nounced "policy to facilitate timely and broad dissemination · of research results."- Irma Y. johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Houghton, Bernard, and Convey, John. On-Line Information Retrieval Systems: An Introductory Manual to Principles and Practice. London: Clive Bingley; Hamden, Conn.: Linnet Books, 1977. 160p. $10. LC 77-21858. ISBN ·0-208- 01660-0. As in North America, library schools in Britain are now developing courses in on- line bibliographic searching, and also as in North America, some of the first generation of pedagogical material is finding its way rapidly into print. The present work is de- rived from courses taught· by the authors at the Liverpool Polytechnic library school and is essentially aimed at the British market. Part I (about forty pages) has four chap- ters sketching in the background and de- velopment of on-line systems, the funda- mental techniques of automated searching, 412 I College & Research Libraries • September 1978 and some present and projected impacts upon librarianship of on-line methods of reference service. Part II (the remaining hundred pages of text) reproduces the laboratory exercises used in teaching practical search skills. A feature of particular interest to the teacher or librarian specializing in this area is that five systems are covered: As long as this re- flects classroom exposure to multiple sys- tems (as it apparently does here) and not the substitution of comparative-theoretic study .for actual hands-on training, it is to be welcomed, for it both widens the knowl- edge and sharpens the discrimination of the student. · The systems are discussed in two groups: first, Lockheed's DIALOG and the Euro- pean Space Agency's RECON-these are similar in being direct descendants of the original Lockheed RECON system; and, second, SDC's ORBIT, NLM's ELHILL, and the British Library's recent crucial ef- fort, BLAISE (British Library Automated Information Service). However, all the BLAISE examples are drawn from its first on-line operation, i.e., MEDLINE using ELHILL III C and, apart from the log-on Some Things You Can Count On ..... • Inadequate book budget • Priority orders • Books wanted "Yesterday" • THE BOOK HOUSE Call 517-849-2117 Collect the BOOK H01JSE SINCE 1912 JOBBERS SERVING LIBRARIES WITH ANY BOOK IN PAINT 208 WEST CHICAGO STREET JONESVILLE . MICHIGAN 49250 procedures, are combined with the NLM MEDLINE examples. The book contains a fair number of in- complete or misleading statements, espe- cially in Part I. "Display terminals normally operate at 30 cps" (p.16). "The costs in- volved in on-line access to bibliographical data-bases can be divided into the capital expenditure of acquiring the terminal, and the actual costs of searching" (p.30). There are also frequent careless errors with refer- ence to U.S. agency, place, and personal names, and the authors overindulge that fatal tendency to present sample searches on the topic of computerized information retrieval systems. Somehow, the points al- ways come across more clearly when they use examples like "Shrimp Fishing" or "Hypoglycemia" or "Disadvantaged Youth." I doubt that this work could serve its primary purpose, i.e., as a textbook, in the U.S., but it may be of interest to specialists in, and teachers of, on-line systems for its comparative approach.-Peter G. Watson, California State University, Chico. Running Out of Space-What Are the Al- ternatives? Gloria Novak, editor. Pro- ceedings of the Preconference, June 1975, San Francisco. Sponsored by the Buildings for College and University Li- braries Committee, Buildings and Equipment Section of the Library Admin- istration Division. Chicago: American Li- brary Assn., 1978. 160p. $14. LC 78- 1796. ISBN 0-8389-3215-0. Conference proceedings, unless they are drastiaally edited for publication in book form, usually come out something like min- utes of a meeting-not very good reading. This volume is no exception, especially in records of discussion at the end of each series of speakers. Although the presenta- tions by the speakers are reasonably well organized, discussions are often recorded as disjointed comments made by a mixture of program speakers and conference attendees. The latter are sometimes identified only by surname. Looking at the substance rather than the form of this volume, the following alterna- tives to running out of space are examined: (1) Book storage (at Harvard and University of Washington); (2) microforms; (3) compact