414
Boon
INFORMATION
REVIEWS
STORAGE
BOOK
AND
RETRIEVAL
REVIEWS
A NOTE FROMTHE EDITOR FROM time to time the book review that are likely to be of interest to only to review all books. Yet, it would be worked out, and so periodically-in and their content.
Analyse
Automatique
Du Discours.
editor of this journal receives books that are somewhat specialized or a limited number of readers. Since space is at a premium, it is impossible a disservice to ignore them completely. A compromise solution has been this issue for example-we will briefly call your attention to these works
M. PECHEUX. Dunod,
Paris,
France,
1969. pp. 137 (paperback).
THE BOOK is written in French. The author is head of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research. The English title would be “Automatic Discourse Analysis”. It is mentioned mostly for those graduate students who must pass their French language examination and need a suitable book. HAROLD BORKO
The Psychology of Communication: 1969. pp. 197. $1.25 (paperback).
Seven Essays. GEORGE A. MILLER. Penguin
Books,
Baltimore,
Maryland.
GEORGE MILLER is a well-known psychologist who has had “a persistent concern with problems located at the interaction of scientific psychology and communication theory, . . . with an attempt to formulate a psychological conception of man as an information-gathering, information-processing system”. The relevance of this book can be shown by mentioning a few of the essay titles: (1) Information and Memory; (2) The Magic Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two, Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information; (3) The Human Link in Communication Systems, etc. All but one essay are reprints, but this book brings them all together and provides stimulating reading. It is highly recommended. HAROLD BORKO
Mind and Brain: A Philosophy 1970. pp. 128. $5.95.
of Science.
ARTURO ROSENBLUETH. MIT
Press,
Cambridge,
Massachusetts.
As INFORMATION science developes into a true scientific discipline some of the more theoretically oriented members will begin to wonder about the place of information science in the philosophy of science. How does one get information? How does one determine the relevancy of information? How does the human mind process information and associate relationship? Can a machine do the same? Well, this book does not answer these questions directly, but it documents Rosenblueth’s search for scientific universals and presents his view of the relationship between mental experiences and physical events, between information and the thing itself. HAROLD BORKO
Technological Change: Its Impact on Man and Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1970. pp. 127. $4.95.
EMMANUAL G. MESTHENE. Harvard
University
Press,
A MAJOR theme of this book is that if one wishes to understand the impact of technology upon society, one cannot study technology alone but must deal with the interaction between the growth of technology and the population growth. The author describes how technological change interacts with social change, with the values of society and with its economic and political organizations. It is a stimulating book, well worth reading. HAROLD BORKO