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Agricultural libraries and information
400
Book
Reviews
would like to learn about various aspects of business information systems. It offers details on building and managing business information systems, on working in commerce and industry, and on supplying the business information. It also provides a broad spectrum of topics from which to select. However, the book does not appear to be intended for classroom use, as it contains no problems for the reader to work.
Department of Business Information Louisiana State Universit_v Shreveport, LA
Systems
BlNSHAN
LIN
The Role of the Academic Reference Librarian. J.B. WHITLATCH. (Directions in Information Management, Number 22). Greenwood Press, New York and Westport, CT (1990). x + 129 pp. $32.95. ISBNO-313-26634-4, ISSN0887-3844. The reference process in academic libraries and its effectiveness concern librarians, administrators, and library users. The reference environment, the role of the reference librarian, and reference service itself have been the subjects of a vast amount of literature in recent years. The present work is primarily a review of a part of this literature. Chapters cover reference service environment, reference librarians as gatekeepers, reference service effectiveness, the service orientation of reference librarians, the expertise of reference librarians, reference librarians as communicators, and future directions. In 64 pages of text, excluding appendix and bibliography, the author comments briefly on some 125 references from library and information science, business, psychology, and sociology. This interdisciplinary approach provides references to material that most library and information science professionals would not have occasion to see. Unfortunately, the author’s writing style results in text that is frequently disjoint and fragmented, lacking integration and clarity. In addition to a review of the literature, the author describes a research study conducted in five academic libraries in northern California in which she tested a model of the reference service process. The appendix elaborates on details of the study, which focused on three issues: the librarian’s perception of the quality of the service; the library user’s perception of the quality of the service; and whether or not the information sought was located. Based on the analysis of 257 reference transactions, the study examined the effects on these issues of such variables as subject knowledge of both librarian and user, user socialization (knowledge of library policy and procedures), time spent in the encounter, service orientation of the librarian, user time available, feedback as reported by both librarian and user, and type of assistance provided. Results of the investigation offered few surprises. For example, factors that positively affected reference service included greater subject expertise of both librarian and user, adequate time to answer the query, mutual feedback, and increased service orientation of the librarian. One might well question whether the data deserve the lengthy statistical analyses presented in detail in the appendix. The author suggests that the book should serve as a guide to professionals for designing studies of reference service and as a handbook for graduate students in library and information science for successful practice of reference service. In this reviewer’s opinion, both groups could find better sources.
Graduate School of Library & Information University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX
Science
JULIE H.
BICHTELER
Agricultural Libraries and Information. K.W. RUSSELL AND M.G. PISA (Eds.). (Library Trends, v. 35, no. 3 Winter, 1990). University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Champaign, IL (1990). 311 pp., $15. ISSN 0024-2594.
Agriculture Libraries and Information edited by Keith Russell and Maria Pisa takes a complex subject and gives an excellent overview of it in 311 pages. While the volume is lengthy, it covers many aspects of agricultural information management. The intent of the volume, according to the introduction, is to provide a handbook for agricultural and science librarians, researchers, and administrators, and covers the infrastructure of agricultural information worldwide. The preface lists six objectives: provide an overview; establish emerging trends; highlight some of the basics; elucidate possible solutions; and review some of the useful literature. All six objectives are adequately met.
401
Book Reviews
The articles are written by well-known experts in agricultural information and range from where agricultural libraries have been to what issues they will face. Beth Paskoff’s article provides an excellent history, while Jan Kennedy-Olsen’s article provides an overview of the management issues facing the profession today. Ms. Kennedy-Olsen concludes that a new paradigm is necessary if we are to move forward, and Lefevre and Ditzler reaffirm this conclusion by presenting a case for information access rather than information ownership. The book emphasized the basics that are important to the field, including reference services and user needs, along with developing a collection. The collection development article by Elder, Hobock, Madsen and Wiese provides excellent tips for collecting the gray literature of agriculture and a helpful appendix of supplier and approval vendors. The article by Frierson and Lindsey gives an excellent overview of optical storage for the layman, while Jones chronicles how to find and acquire international agricultural information. Thomas’s paper on bibliographic control gives the reader a good comparison and an understanding of the scope of AGRICOLA, CAB Abstracts, and AGRIS, and an annotated bibliography by Bird and Smiths provides additional reading. The last two papers in the volume touch on the global infrastructure of agricultural information. Stone discusses the information networks out there and the problems of the three major data bases and the article by Harris presents a clear picture of the problems facing developing countries for which there are no easy solutions or answers. All of the articles are well documented and provide excellent bibliographies on the topic being discussed. The Harris paper is documented with both print and personal sources (librarians in developing countries or who have worked extensively in developing countries), and she thoughtfully provides a list of names and addresses of her contributors along with an extensive print bibliography. This volume is an excellent overview of agricultural libraries and information and is well worth the 15 dollars. I do not see this volume as a handbook but as background reading to give anyone interested in scientific information a good understanding of what the information process is all about. Some of the articles tend to be repetitive, indicative of the complicated infrastructure. The book tends to dwell on problems facing U.S. libraries, and while articles about international problems are present, there is nothing about European agricultural libraries and information centers (of which there are many). An article by one of our European colleagues would have balanced the volume and provided the views from a truly international agricultural information community. I highly recommend this volume to anyone interested in scientific information or just the information technologies. The problems in agricultural information transcend the subject, and many of the problems and solutions outlined here are applicable in other disciplines. Russell and Pisa met their six objectives and provided us with an excellent compendium of what has happened and is happening in agricultural information. Agriculture Library University of Kentucky Lexington, KY
Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship. Binghampton, NY (1990). 88 pp., Subscription: 0896-3568.
ANTOINETTE PARIS POWELL
W. FISCHER (Ed.) (Vol. 1, No. 1). Haworth $24 (Individual) $40 (Library/Institutional).
Press, ISSN
The proliferation, I should say more descriptively “explosion,” of business/economic information sources is one reason why the business information field is both such an exciting and challenging, yet frustrating area in which to work. Curiously enough, there is a distinct void in the professional literature specifically directed to the business librarian; hence, my interest in reviewing the first issue of Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, a new offering from Haworth Press, Inc. According to the editor, the goal of JBFL is “to provide its readers with interesting and informative articles concerning the creation, organization, retrieval, dissemination and use of business information.” This first issue gets mixed reviews in its efforts for meeting this ambitious goal. There is an extremely interesting article by Littlejohn and Benson-Talley which reports on the use of academic libraries by business students. This thought-provoking piece reaffirms what we have long suspected: business students have little actual working knowledge about business/economic information sources. Three other articles included basically what 1 would describe as resource-use contributions. James E. Samels details his experience at building an undergraduate business law library; it would have been more useful for us if the author had expanded upon his reasoning and considerations for selecting
Book
Reviews
would like to learn about various aspects of business information systems. It offers details on building and managing business information systems, on working in commerce and industry, and on supplying the business information. It also provides a broad spectrum of topics from which to select. However, the book does not appear to be intended for classroom use, as it contains no problems for the reader to work.
Department of Business Information Louisiana State Universit_v Shreveport, LA
Systems
BlNSHAN
LIN
The Role of the Academic Reference Librarian. J.B. WHITLATCH. (Directions in Information Management, Number 22). Greenwood Press, New York and Westport, CT (1990). x + 129 pp. $32.95. ISBNO-313-26634-4, ISSN0887-3844. The reference process in academic libraries and its effectiveness concern librarians, administrators, and library users. The reference environment, the role of the reference librarian, and reference service itself have been the subjects of a vast amount of literature in recent years. The present work is primarily a review of a part of this literature. Chapters cover reference service environment, reference librarians as gatekeepers, reference service effectiveness, the service orientation of reference librarians, the expertise of reference librarians, reference librarians as communicators, and future directions. In 64 pages of text, excluding appendix and bibliography, the author comments briefly on some 125 references from library and information science, business, psychology, and sociology. This interdisciplinary approach provides references to material that most library and information science professionals would not have occasion to see. Unfortunately, the author’s writing style results in text that is frequently disjoint and fragmented, lacking integration and clarity. In addition to a review of the literature, the author describes a research study conducted in five academic libraries in northern California in which she tested a model of the reference service process. The appendix elaborates on details of the study, which focused on three issues: the librarian’s perception of the quality of the service; the library user’s perception of the quality of the service; and whether or not the information sought was located. Based on the analysis of 257 reference transactions, the study examined the effects on these issues of such variables as subject knowledge of both librarian and user, user socialization (knowledge of library policy and procedures), time spent in the encounter, service orientation of the librarian, user time available, feedback as reported by both librarian and user, and type of assistance provided. Results of the investigation offered few surprises. For example, factors that positively affected reference service included greater subject expertise of both librarian and user, adequate time to answer the query, mutual feedback, and increased service orientation of the librarian. One might well question whether the data deserve the lengthy statistical analyses presented in detail in the appendix. The author suggests that the book should serve as a guide to professionals for designing studies of reference service and as a handbook for graduate students in library and information science for successful practice of reference service. In this reviewer’s opinion, both groups could find better sources.
Graduate School of Library & Information University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX
Science
JULIE H.
BICHTELER
Agricultural Libraries and Information. K.W. RUSSELL AND M.G. PISA (Eds.). (Library Trends, v. 35, no. 3 Winter, 1990). University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Champaign, IL (1990). 311 pp., $15. ISSN 0024-2594.
Agriculture Libraries and Information edited by Keith Russell and Maria Pisa takes a complex subject and gives an excellent overview of it in 311 pages. While the volume is lengthy, it covers many aspects of agricultural information management. The intent of the volume, according to the introduction, is to provide a handbook for agricultural and science librarians, researchers, and administrators, and covers the infrastructure of agricultural information worldwide. The preface lists six objectives: provide an overview; establish emerging trends; highlight some of the basics; elucidate possible solutions; and review some of the useful literature. All six objectives are adequately met.
401
Book Reviews
The articles are written by well-known experts in agricultural information and range from where agricultural libraries have been to what issues they will face. Beth Paskoff’s article provides an excellent history, while Jan Kennedy-Olsen’s article provides an overview of the management issues facing the profession today. Ms. Kennedy-Olsen concludes that a new paradigm is necessary if we are to move forward, and Lefevre and Ditzler reaffirm this conclusion by presenting a case for information access rather than information ownership. The book emphasized the basics that are important to the field, including reference services and user needs, along with developing a collection. The collection development article by Elder, Hobock, Madsen and Wiese provides excellent tips for collecting the gray literature of agriculture and a helpful appendix of supplier and approval vendors. The article by Frierson and Lindsey gives an excellent overview of optical storage for the layman, while Jones chronicles how to find and acquire international agricultural information. Thomas’s paper on bibliographic control gives the reader a good comparison and an understanding of the scope of AGRICOLA, CAB Abstracts, and AGRIS, and an annotated bibliography by Bird and Smiths provides additional reading. The last two papers in the volume touch on the global infrastructure of agricultural information. Stone discusses the information networks out there and the problems of the three major data bases and the article by Harris presents a clear picture of the problems facing developing countries for which there are no easy solutions or answers. All of the articles are well documented and provide excellent bibliographies on the topic being discussed. The Harris paper is documented with both print and personal sources (librarians in developing countries or who have worked extensively in developing countries), and she thoughtfully provides a list of names and addresses of her contributors along with an extensive print bibliography. This volume is an excellent overview of agricultural libraries and information and is well worth the 15 dollars. I do not see this volume as a handbook but as background reading to give anyone interested in scientific information a good understanding of what the information process is all about. Some of the articles tend to be repetitive, indicative of the complicated infrastructure. The book tends to dwell on problems facing U.S. libraries, and while articles about international problems are present, there is nothing about European agricultural libraries and information centers (of which there are many). An article by one of our European colleagues would have balanced the volume and provided the views from a truly international agricultural information community. I highly recommend this volume to anyone interested in scientific information or just the information technologies. The problems in agricultural information transcend the subject, and many of the problems and solutions outlined here are applicable in other disciplines. Russell and Pisa met their six objectives and provided us with an excellent compendium of what has happened and is happening in agricultural information. Agriculture Library University of Kentucky Lexington, KY
Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship. Binghampton, NY (1990). 88 pp., Subscription: 0896-3568.
ANTOINETTE PARIS POWELL
W. FISCHER (Ed.) (Vol. 1, No. 1). Haworth $24 (Individual) $40 (Library/Institutional).
Press, ISSN
The proliferation, I should say more descriptively “explosion,” of business/economic information sources is one reason why the business information field is both such an exciting and challenging, yet frustrating area in which to work. Curiously enough, there is a distinct void in the professional literature specifically directed to the business librarian; hence, my interest in reviewing the first issue of Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship, a new offering from Haworth Press, Inc. According to the editor, the goal of JBFL is “to provide its readers with interesting and informative articles concerning the creation, organization, retrieval, dissemination and use of business information.” This first issue gets mixed reviews in its efforts for meeting this ambitious goal. There is an extremely interesting article by Littlejohn and Benson-Talley which reports on the use of academic libraries by business students. This thought-provoking piece reaffirms what we have long suspected: business students have little actual working knowledge about business/economic information sources. Three other articles included basically what 1 would describe as resource-use contributions. James E. Samels details his experience at building an undergraduate business law library; it would have been more useful for us if the author had expanded upon his reasoning and considerations for selecting