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Union List of African censuses, development plans and statistical abstracts
414
GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION
QUARTERLY
Vol. it/No. 4/l 987
Because this meeting was held in the midst of the discussion of A-l 30, many of the comments were related to the circular. However, this volume adds another statement from an organization, the university and research libraries, to those concerned with restrictive government information policies. As John Shattuck pointed out, “the restrictions on information flow hurt the process of discovery, invention, initiative, all the basic elements of free enterprise.”
Union List of African Censuses, Development Plans and Statistical Abstracts Compiled by Victoria K. Evalds Oxford/Zell/Munich/New York/London/Paris: Saur, 1985.232 pages, $30.00. ISBN 3-598- 10576-2 (Saur). ISBN o-905450-20-5 (Zell). LC 86- 197049. Reviewed by Gloria D. Westfall Gloria D. Westfall is Foreign Documents Librarian, Government partment, Indiana University Library, Bloomington, Indiana 47405.
Publications De-
This union list of three major statistical resources for African countries was undertaken as a cooperative project of the Bibliography Sub-Committee of the Archives and Libraries Committee of the African Studies Association in the fall of 1984. It was completed with remarkable speed and efficiency under the direction of Victoria Evalds, Documents Librarian of the African Studies Library at Boston University, who provided librarians from the 13 cooperating institutions with a list of these materials in the Boston University African Studies Library against which to check their holdings, Ms. Evalds’ earlier list was published in 1982 as Working Paper #63 of the African Studies Center of Boston University. The list covers all countries on the African continent and concentrates on post- 1945 titles. Earlier holdings are also included for statistical abstracts in cases where a library has continuous holdings extending to the period before 1945. Demographic surveys are included only in cases where no, or only a very few, national censuses have been conducted. The volume is divided into three sections, with the first devoted to censuses, the second to development plans, and the third to statistical abstracts. Arrangement within a section is alphabetical by country and then chronological by date. The current name of the country is used, with cross-references from earlier names. Bibliographical information, which is kept to the minimum required to identify documents, includes the agency responsible (this is frequently omitted for statistical abstracts), the title, and the date, if not included in the title. There is no attempt to report title or agency name changes or to indicate contents of volumes. Holdings information includes the ~u~~nuL ~~~n Cutalug symbol for libraries and specifies volume holdings for censuses and development plans and serials holdings for statistical abstracts. Whether the titles held are in paper, microfilm or microfiche is also indicated, Participating libraries are: Boston University, Harvard University, Howard
415
Reviews
University, Indiana University, Michigan State University, McGill University, New York Public Library, Northwestern University, Yale University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the universities of Illinois, Virginia, and Wisconsin. It is unfortunate that the list does not include the holdings of other major Africana collections in the United States, in particular, those of Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the Library of Congress, and Syracuse University. This is undoubtedly not the fault of the compiler, who was dependent upon the willingness of libraries to participate in the project. The list will be very useful in enabling researchers to plan their visits to libraries efficiently, but it will not do away with the necessity for on-site visits. Some travel might have been eliminated if information as to whether any of these materials are available on interlibrary loan had been included. Two further additions that would have enabled users to utilize their time during research trips to maximum advantage are the inclusion of call numbers (or other shelf retrieval information), and descriptions of the contents of individual volumes of censuses. As it is, other census guides, such as the Texas International Population Census Bibliography or Doreen Goyer’s 1980 update of it, must be used to pinpoint the location of various types of information within censuses. One odd bit of information that came to light in checking some of the census holdings was that reel guides to filmed collections of these materials cannot always be trusted. Many libraries reported that they held final results of a general 1956 census in microfilm for a number of former French colonies in Subsaharan Africa, including Chad, Gabon, and Congo (Brazzaville). The census filmed for these territories, however, turned out to be a census of French Polynesia in every case. LIST OF TITLES
RECEIVED
Because the number of titles published each year of potential value to our readers is quite large, only a few can be formally reviewed. Our practice is to list works upon receipt and to include a few of them later in our “Reviews” column. By consulting the list of works, readers may be able to identify current titles having possible interest to them. Allen, David, and Jyoti Pandit, eds. Long Island Government Publications: A Bibliography. Stony Brook, New York: The University Libraries, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1986. Distributed by Long Island Library Resources Council, Melville Library Building, Suite E5310, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3399. Lists and indexes documents issued by Nassau and Suffolk Counties (New York), the towns and villages within them, and the Long Island Regional Planning Board. Jacob, Kathryn Allamong, ed. Guide to the Research Collections of Former United States Senators, 1789-2982. (Originally published by the Historical Office, U.S. Senate, 1983 and 1985) Reprint edition; Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co., 1986. Reprint of the original guide, issued in 1983, with 1985 supplement. McClure, Charles R., Peter Hernon, and Gary Purcell. Linking the U.S. National Technical Information Service with Academic and Public Libraries. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1986.
GOVERNMENT
INFORMATION
QUARTERLY
Vol. it/No. 4/l 987
Because this meeting was held in the midst of the discussion of A-l 30, many of the comments were related to the circular. However, this volume adds another statement from an organization, the university and research libraries, to those concerned with restrictive government information policies. As John Shattuck pointed out, “the restrictions on information flow hurt the process of discovery, invention, initiative, all the basic elements of free enterprise.”
Union List of African Censuses, Development Plans and Statistical Abstracts Compiled by Victoria K. Evalds Oxford/Zell/Munich/New York/London/Paris: Saur, 1985.232 pages, $30.00. ISBN 3-598- 10576-2 (Saur). ISBN o-905450-20-5 (Zell). LC 86- 197049. Reviewed by Gloria D. Westfall Gloria D. Westfall is Foreign Documents Librarian, Government partment, Indiana University Library, Bloomington, Indiana 47405.
Publications De-
This union list of three major statistical resources for African countries was undertaken as a cooperative project of the Bibliography Sub-Committee of the Archives and Libraries Committee of the African Studies Association in the fall of 1984. It was completed with remarkable speed and efficiency under the direction of Victoria Evalds, Documents Librarian of the African Studies Library at Boston University, who provided librarians from the 13 cooperating institutions with a list of these materials in the Boston University African Studies Library against which to check their holdings, Ms. Evalds’ earlier list was published in 1982 as Working Paper #63 of the African Studies Center of Boston University. The list covers all countries on the African continent and concentrates on post- 1945 titles. Earlier holdings are also included for statistical abstracts in cases where a library has continuous holdings extending to the period before 1945. Demographic surveys are included only in cases where no, or only a very few, national censuses have been conducted. The volume is divided into three sections, with the first devoted to censuses, the second to development plans, and the third to statistical abstracts. Arrangement within a section is alphabetical by country and then chronological by date. The current name of the country is used, with cross-references from earlier names. Bibliographical information, which is kept to the minimum required to identify documents, includes the agency responsible (this is frequently omitted for statistical abstracts), the title, and the date, if not included in the title. There is no attempt to report title or agency name changes or to indicate contents of volumes. Holdings information includes the ~u~~nuL ~~~n Cutalug symbol for libraries and specifies volume holdings for censuses and development plans and serials holdings for statistical abstracts. Whether the titles held are in paper, microfilm or microfiche is also indicated, Participating libraries are: Boston University, Harvard University, Howard
415
Reviews
University, Indiana University, Michigan State University, McGill University, New York Public Library, Northwestern University, Yale University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the universities of Illinois, Virginia, and Wisconsin. It is unfortunate that the list does not include the holdings of other major Africana collections in the United States, in particular, those of Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the Library of Congress, and Syracuse University. This is undoubtedly not the fault of the compiler, who was dependent upon the willingness of libraries to participate in the project. The list will be very useful in enabling researchers to plan their visits to libraries efficiently, but it will not do away with the necessity for on-site visits. Some travel might have been eliminated if information as to whether any of these materials are available on interlibrary loan had been included. Two further additions that would have enabled users to utilize their time during research trips to maximum advantage are the inclusion of call numbers (or other shelf retrieval information), and descriptions of the contents of individual volumes of censuses. As it is, other census guides, such as the Texas International Population Census Bibliography or Doreen Goyer’s 1980 update of it, must be used to pinpoint the location of various types of information within censuses. One odd bit of information that came to light in checking some of the census holdings was that reel guides to filmed collections of these materials cannot always be trusted. Many libraries reported that they held final results of a general 1956 census in microfilm for a number of former French colonies in Subsaharan Africa, including Chad, Gabon, and Congo (Brazzaville). The census filmed for these territories, however, turned out to be a census of French Polynesia in every case. LIST OF TITLES
RECEIVED
Because the number of titles published each year of potential value to our readers is quite large, only a few can be formally reviewed. Our practice is to list works upon receipt and to include a few of them later in our “Reviews” column. By consulting the list of works, readers may be able to identify current titles having possible interest to them. Allen, David, and Jyoti Pandit, eds. Long Island Government Publications: A Bibliography. Stony Brook, New York: The University Libraries, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1986. Distributed by Long Island Library Resources Council, Melville Library Building, Suite E5310, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3399. Lists and indexes documents issued by Nassau and Suffolk Counties (New York), the towns and villages within them, and the Long Island Regional Planning Board. Jacob, Kathryn Allamong, ed. Guide to the Research Collections of Former United States Senators, 1789-2982. (Originally published by the Historical Office, U.S. Senate, 1983 and 1985) Reprint edition; Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co., 1986. Reprint of the original guide, issued in 1983, with 1985 supplement. McClure, Charles R., Peter Hernon, and Gary Purcell. Linking the U.S. National Technical Information Service with Academic and Public Libraries. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1986.