- Email: [email protected]
office electronic information services
76
BOOK REVIEWS
The book also presents over 40 pages of sample questionnaires and logs, but two dangers argue against adopting them uncritically. In the first place, there are no accompanying guidelines for interpreting the results. What, for example, does it mean if managers spend 20~o of the work week in unscheduled meetings? Is this amount more or less than is desirable? How can office automation make that time more effective? Would the answers be different for 5 or 70~o? A second danger is that the questionnaires rely too heavily on respondants' memory and estimates to give reliable results. Many managers will read this book to learn what others have done. They will be sorely disappointed: there are no case histories, successful or unsuccessful. The growing number of office automation societies testifies to a widely felt need to learn from others' experience. It is an ironic waste that these founding numbers of the Office Automation Roundtable declined to address a need they must have known.
Commonwealth Edison Company Chicago, Ill 60690, U.S.A.
SHAUN FULLMER
Dictionary of Information Technology. DENNIS LONGLEY and MICHAEL SHAIN (Eds). Wiley, New York (1982), 381 pp., $34.95. ISBN 0-471-89574-1. Do we need another computer dictionary? Not likely. But as computer applications spill over from traditional data processing into office systems, education and entertainment, specialists in a variety of fields must learn each other's jargon. Communication between computer workers and users has never been smooth, even when only the computer vocabulary was an issue, but now the problem is compounded. This dictionary addresses the problem by bringing together definitions of terms from printing, computing, telecommunications, audio-visual technology and office systems. The definitions are brief, as one would expect from a work whose scope is 6000 entries in less than 400 pages, but such brevity is reasonable: the purpose here is to decode, not to dissect, and subject area encyclopedias are available for readers interested in prolonging their explorations. (References to such works would have been a helpful addition.) Most definitions are clear, although there are enough lapses of clarity to leave novices occasionally confused, as in the entries for "echoplex" and "microprocessor development system." Most of the obscure definitions found were in computing and telecommunications, while those from printing were the most consistently clear. There are cases where added illustations would help; for example, "transverse scan" is not easily visualized. Other illustrations are crudely done or of little value. In the "word processing" entry, for example, one finds poor likenesses of a cassette-driven typewriter and a daisy wheel printer. No obvious errors of fact were found, but the authors have an unduly enthusiastic bias in their treatment of videotext. Cross references to synonymous, contrasting and related entries abound. Some entries are of limited value, such as specific commercial data bases. The dictionary also provides eleven essays of 1500-1200 words on such topics as videotext, consumer electronics and word processing. The authors claim to have invited specialists to prepare the essays, but they are not signed, and they lack references for further reading. The essays are not well edited; they treat as primary topics such secondary issues as display protocols in videotext, while failing to give, for example, a reasoned assessment of videotext's commercial potential. In sum, while subject area encyclopedias can provide deeper, more carefully written entries, this dictionary is valuable for its recognition of technologies that are beginning to share vocabularies, and it is a useful early step in easing communication among them.
Commonwealth Edison Company Chicago, 1I-. 60690, U.S.A.
SHAUN FULLMER
The Future of Videotext: Worldwide Prospects for Home/Office Electronic Information Services. EFREM SIGEL with PEa'~ SOMMFm, Jr2rrmv SILVERSTEIN,COLIN MclNrY~E and BLAISE I)OWNEY. Knowledge Industry Publications, White Plains, New York (1983). viii + 197 pp., $34.95, ISBN 0-86729-025-0. A good overview of a relatively new and undeveloped industry, The Future of Videotext surveys the status of electronic information services worldwide. Included in the book is a chapter that considers
BOOK REVIEWS
77
the appropriate uses of videotext and the proper audience for the services provided. Some of the current or future uses suggested include (1) encyclopedia and guide book information for quick answers, (2) current news that runs on the screen below regular TV programming, (3) catalog shopping, (4) banking transactions, (5) electronic mail, (6) closed captions for the deaf below regular TV programming, (7) telephone directories, (8) other directory information such as the 0.Sicial Airline Guide. This is one of the most valuable chapters in the book since it includes research by Knowledge Industry Publications which describes how and why information is sought by the public, the variable costs involved, and what this means for the development of videotext and other kinds of information dissemination. The real plus of videotext is timely information. Even though the emphasis for videotext has been on consumer information, the business and professional investment in getting and using fast information is far greater than it wilt ever be for the consumer market. In the near future, this is likely to be the real market for videotext according to the authors of The Future of Videotext. To date, not one videotext service is a commercial success. Only a small number of terminals are in use throughout the world: one million teletext (non-interactive mode) at the end of 1981, and twenty-five thousand videotext (interactive mode) terminals. The book was written by five authors and includes small amounts of repetitive information in some of the chapters. One chapter describes the basic technology of teletext and videotext, some legal issues, and the problems--not the solutions--of standardization; it also compares some of the teletext and videotext systems. Other chapters include general and specific information on current videotext projects by country or government involved and corporate entity, if any. In general, the most important part of the book for the reader will be the descriptive information on what videotext services are currently available, and their problems and successes. A small glossary would have been useful since the book is not necessarily for the technically oriented reader. Included are many tables, figures, appendixes, a bibliography and a list of organizations involved with videotext.
Chicago Public Library Director, Business~Science~Technology Division
EM:ELIESHRODER
The Public Library in the 1980's: Problems of Choice. L. J. WroTE. DC Heath (Lexington Books); Lexington, Mass 0983). xiii + 208p., $22.95, ISBN ff-669-06342-8. Would you invest in response to this ad: "Golden opportunity. Sell library services to your community. Meet the information needs of adults and children by providing reading rooms, reference services and a circulating collection. Make good money and serve the people as well. Invest now!!" Of course not, because the public library gives those services away for nothing. But L. J. White's provocative examination of the economics and usage of public libraries invites us to consider this proposition. Specifically he asks, "How much good does the library do? . . . . For whom?" "Could/should it be supported by user fees, rather than by the present range of tax mechanisms?" The question of library studies and statistics is then thrust to the center of the arena, as the few hard facts we have on these questions come from such studies. White brings together statistics, a certain amount of folklore, and published goal statements, and finds disturbing inconsistencies. Particularly damaging is the "service to all" phrase from the 1966 Minimum standards for Public Library Systems. White assembles statistics showing that service is by no means equally distributed over various soci-economic groups, and that a major component of service to the adult community is recreational in nature. From this basis he attacks the notion that it is proper for communities to share the costs of the library through a taxing scheme. He also explores the broader notion of the productivity of the public library. It has been argued by some economists that productivity in library operations will never increase because of the labor intensive nature of library work. White demonstrates, through an analysis of statistics from the period 1950-1976, that productivity can increase. All of his analyses of productivity adopt circulation as the single measure of library output. It is by now generally accepted that other aspects of output are important, can be measured, and should be measured. However White was compelled to work with that miscellaneous rag tag of information which passes for library statistics and he has done the best he could under the circumstances. An index is calculated allowing for inflationary adjustment in the price of books and magazines, labor, and other things, used by a library.
BOOK REVIEWS
The book also presents over 40 pages of sample questionnaires and logs, but two dangers argue against adopting them uncritically. In the first place, there are no accompanying guidelines for interpreting the results. What, for example, does it mean if managers spend 20~o of the work week in unscheduled meetings? Is this amount more or less than is desirable? How can office automation make that time more effective? Would the answers be different for 5 or 70~o? A second danger is that the questionnaires rely too heavily on respondants' memory and estimates to give reliable results. Many managers will read this book to learn what others have done. They will be sorely disappointed: there are no case histories, successful or unsuccessful. The growing number of office automation societies testifies to a widely felt need to learn from others' experience. It is an ironic waste that these founding numbers of the Office Automation Roundtable declined to address a need they must have known.
Commonwealth Edison Company Chicago, Ill 60690, U.S.A.
SHAUN FULLMER
Dictionary of Information Technology. DENNIS LONGLEY and MICHAEL SHAIN (Eds). Wiley, New York (1982), 381 pp., $34.95. ISBN 0-471-89574-1. Do we need another computer dictionary? Not likely. But as computer applications spill over from traditional data processing into office systems, education and entertainment, specialists in a variety of fields must learn each other's jargon. Communication between computer workers and users has never been smooth, even when only the computer vocabulary was an issue, but now the problem is compounded. This dictionary addresses the problem by bringing together definitions of terms from printing, computing, telecommunications, audio-visual technology and office systems. The definitions are brief, as one would expect from a work whose scope is 6000 entries in less than 400 pages, but such brevity is reasonable: the purpose here is to decode, not to dissect, and subject area encyclopedias are available for readers interested in prolonging their explorations. (References to such works would have been a helpful addition.) Most definitions are clear, although there are enough lapses of clarity to leave novices occasionally confused, as in the entries for "echoplex" and "microprocessor development system." Most of the obscure definitions found were in computing and telecommunications, while those from printing were the most consistently clear. There are cases where added illustations would help; for example, "transverse scan" is not easily visualized. Other illustrations are crudely done or of little value. In the "word processing" entry, for example, one finds poor likenesses of a cassette-driven typewriter and a daisy wheel printer. No obvious errors of fact were found, but the authors have an unduly enthusiastic bias in their treatment of videotext. Cross references to synonymous, contrasting and related entries abound. Some entries are of limited value, such as specific commercial data bases. The dictionary also provides eleven essays of 1500-1200 words on such topics as videotext, consumer electronics and word processing. The authors claim to have invited specialists to prepare the essays, but they are not signed, and they lack references for further reading. The essays are not well edited; they treat as primary topics such secondary issues as display protocols in videotext, while failing to give, for example, a reasoned assessment of videotext's commercial potential. In sum, while subject area encyclopedias can provide deeper, more carefully written entries, this dictionary is valuable for its recognition of technologies that are beginning to share vocabularies, and it is a useful early step in easing communication among them.
Commonwealth Edison Company Chicago, 1I-. 60690, U.S.A.
SHAUN FULLMER
The Future of Videotext: Worldwide Prospects for Home/Office Electronic Information Services. EFREM SIGEL with PEa'~ SOMMFm, Jr2rrmv SILVERSTEIN,COLIN MclNrY~E and BLAISE I)OWNEY. Knowledge Industry Publications, White Plains, New York (1983). viii + 197 pp., $34.95, ISBN 0-86729-025-0. A good overview of a relatively new and undeveloped industry, The Future of Videotext surveys the status of electronic information services worldwide. Included in the book is a chapter that considers
BOOK REVIEWS
77
the appropriate uses of videotext and the proper audience for the services provided. Some of the current or future uses suggested include (1) encyclopedia and guide book information for quick answers, (2) current news that runs on the screen below regular TV programming, (3) catalog shopping, (4) banking transactions, (5) electronic mail, (6) closed captions for the deaf below regular TV programming, (7) telephone directories, (8) other directory information such as the 0.Sicial Airline Guide. This is one of the most valuable chapters in the book since it includes research by Knowledge Industry Publications which describes how and why information is sought by the public, the variable costs involved, and what this means for the development of videotext and other kinds of information dissemination. The real plus of videotext is timely information. Even though the emphasis for videotext has been on consumer information, the business and professional investment in getting and using fast information is far greater than it wilt ever be for the consumer market. In the near future, this is likely to be the real market for videotext according to the authors of The Future of Videotext. To date, not one videotext service is a commercial success. Only a small number of terminals are in use throughout the world: one million teletext (non-interactive mode) at the end of 1981, and twenty-five thousand videotext (interactive mode) terminals. The book was written by five authors and includes small amounts of repetitive information in some of the chapters. One chapter describes the basic technology of teletext and videotext, some legal issues, and the problems--not the solutions--of standardization; it also compares some of the teletext and videotext systems. Other chapters include general and specific information on current videotext projects by country or government involved and corporate entity, if any. In general, the most important part of the book for the reader will be the descriptive information on what videotext services are currently available, and their problems and successes. A small glossary would have been useful since the book is not necessarily for the technically oriented reader. Included are many tables, figures, appendixes, a bibliography and a list of organizations involved with videotext.
Chicago Public Library Director, Business~Science~Technology Division
EM:ELIESHRODER
The Public Library in the 1980's: Problems of Choice. L. J. WroTE. DC Heath (Lexington Books); Lexington, Mass 0983). xiii + 208p., $22.95, ISBN ff-669-06342-8. Would you invest in response to this ad: "Golden opportunity. Sell library services to your community. Meet the information needs of adults and children by providing reading rooms, reference services and a circulating collection. Make good money and serve the people as well. Invest now!!" Of course not, because the public library gives those services away for nothing. But L. J. White's provocative examination of the economics and usage of public libraries invites us to consider this proposition. Specifically he asks, "How much good does the library do? . . . . For whom?" "Could/should it be supported by user fees, rather than by the present range of tax mechanisms?" The question of library studies and statistics is then thrust to the center of the arena, as the few hard facts we have on these questions come from such studies. White brings together statistics, a certain amount of folklore, and published goal statements, and finds disturbing inconsistencies. Particularly damaging is the "service to all" phrase from the 1966 Minimum standards for Public Library Systems. White assembles statistics showing that service is by no means equally distributed over various soci-economic groups, and that a major component of service to the adult community is recreational in nature. From this basis he attacks the notion that it is proper for communities to share the costs of the library through a taxing scheme. He also explores the broader notion of the productivity of the public library. It has been argued by some economists that productivity in library operations will never increase because of the labor intensive nature of library work. White demonstrates, through an analysis of statistics from the period 1950-1976, that productivity can increase. All of his analyses of productivity adopt circulation as the single measure of library output. It is by now generally accepted that other aspects of output are important, can be measured, and should be measured. However White was compelled to work with that miscellaneous rag tag of information which passes for library statistics and he has done the best he could under the circumstances. An index is calculated allowing for inflationary adjustment in the price of books and magazines, labor, and other things, used by a library.