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U.S. federal government publications: A foreign viewpoint
228
Book Reviews
U.S. Federal Government Publications: A Foreign Viewpoint. Brighton, England. University of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies. Library. 1975. (Occasional Guides, No. 9) £3. 275p. The Institute of Development Studies was founded in early 1966 at the University of Sussex on the initiative of the Ministry of Overseas Development, with the purpose of identifying and studying developmental problems of foreign countries particularly the Third World. Their Library collects extensively documents of international organizations and national governments and is a depository for UN, UNESCO, FAO, and GATT documents; it also acquires US government publications. As a result of its difficulties in obtaining foreign publications and in an effort to publicize its resources, the Library publishes a series of occasional guides. U.S. Federal Government Publications, a revision and expansion of Library Occasional Guide No. 2, surveys through mid-1975 recent federal publishing in the social sciences which would be of interest to foreign users. Divided into two parts, the first, "General Discussion" covering 75 pages, is a bibliographic essay on the ordering the acquisition of GPO and non-GPO material from a foreign viewpoint, including the use of the Monthly Catalog; microforms; sales, unprices and free material; out-of-print and reprint material; and book dealers and jobbers; while the second, "Publications of the Various Agencies", is arranged by issuing agency within the three branches of government. It provides background information and a selected bibliography of titles. The guide is predicated upon the assumption that the foreign user has access to the United States Government Manual for addresses of the various agencies. The first part is an extensively footnoted state-of-the-art review drawing heavily on the literature of the 1970's. In particular it encompasses trends and projects; recent writings such as Drexel Library Quarterly (January/April 1974); and forthcoming publications such as LC's
United States and Africa: A Guide to US Official Documents and Government Sponsored Publications. The guide is not limited to factual information but incorporates personal observations as well. For example, the discussion of Government Reports Announcements and Index and the Monthly Catalog recommends minimizing duplication between them: "better to have only two journals, whose coverage is quite well defined - the GRA for research and development reports, the Monthly Catalog for legal and administrative material - and make sure that what they contain is all that is being published and that their contents are well set out and indexed. (p.2)" The Monthly Catalog could be improved upon by expanding its scope to include all government publishing, contract publishing, and commercial reprints. It should include any material drawn from government records. "Enter the material in the Monthly Catalog and if the agency can not donate it make the user pay. If the American Government believes both in a free and a market economy then open information paid for by the user would be an admirable way of operating it. (p. 49)" Because there are no depository libraries outside the US, foreign users may want to establish deposit accounts with the Superintendent of Documents or use their coupons, which brings up an interesting irritant. If the desired order is incorrect, then one must return the order and ask for a correction. " I f the order is not returned the Superintendent will debit your account for books supplied in answer to the query itself. Thus you may pay twice, once for the original order, once for the query, and though the Superintendent will refund the second payment a good deal of clerical work is involved in recovering it. (p. 12) .... Always be prepared for surprises concerning US Government publications. (p. 275)"
Book Reviews
229
Two points of criticism regarding the lack of index and poor quality reproduction and binding need mentioning. The detailed table of contents based on the U.S. Government Manual compensates in part for the lack of index but assumes that the user knows the government organization and the issuing agency. Perhaps it is overly harsh to apply the quotation which appears on page 70, but '"information without indexing is hardly information at all." And since so much of this guide is valuable, it would justify spending more money on reproduction (pages 73, 109, 204 are very poor in our copy) and a sturdier binding other than punch and spiral (where the holes cut into the text) is needed to withstand the use this guide will receive. Many of us working in the US with federal publications approach the subject from the perspective of their usefulness in our local environment which leads to an ethnocentric view. This guide is refreshing for its penetrating insights from a foreign vantage point. It shows the value of federal publishing regarding Third World countries and should be read for its analysis of the present situation. Peter Hernon and John Richardson Doctoral Students Graduate Library School Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana Dedassified Documents Quarterly Catalog, I, nos 1 & 2, Carrollton Press. Carrollton Press, Washington, DC, 1975. $285/year ($560 with the corresponding collection of microfiche), $1575 for the Retrospective Collection, including its catalog and subject index; $285, Catalog and index of the retrospective collection & 1975 titles; $1935, Declassified Documents reference system, including all fiche and catalogs/indexes through 1975. Through the bibliographical entry would indicate two volumes, actually three and a newsletter are available here. This is because No. 2 is divided into Part One: Abstracts and Part Two: Cumulative Subject Index. The Editor, Mrs. Annadel Wile, was for 20 years the indexer for the Central Intelligence Agency. Thus she has brought to the task a vast understanding of the problem of indexing materials which did not appear in the GPO's Monthly Catalog. And it certainly has been worth whatever Carrollton Press has been paying her to have a wellthought-out system started from the first for the newly declassified documents. The Declassified Documents News is much less well done and the second quarterly edition we have seen describes NSC-68 without ever giving its number, by which most scholars know it. But this and the occasional typographical error as in 75-88-B where the problem of the "evaluation" rather than the "evacuation" of Americans from China is discussed are but minor matters. The number just cited is part of an eminently sensible indexing system which is applicable to both the abstracts and indices on the one hand and to the microfiche of the documents themselves on the other. By looking in the Cumulative Subject Index, the librarian or scholar can see whether or not a document on the subject (and at least three subject entries are given for each declassified document) exists. He or she can then turn to either the abstracts for a summary of the contents or go directly to the fiche as the same reference works for both. The great advantage of what Carrollton Press is doing is that it provides the researcher and the librarian with one compact set of declassified documents complete with finding aids and the sooner the system is brought to the attention of scholars the better. What we have in the first materials to be declassified are primarily CIA, State and Defense
Book Reviews
U.S. Federal Government Publications: A Foreign Viewpoint. Brighton, England. University of Sussex, Institute of Development Studies. Library. 1975. (Occasional Guides, No. 9) £3. 275p. The Institute of Development Studies was founded in early 1966 at the University of Sussex on the initiative of the Ministry of Overseas Development, with the purpose of identifying and studying developmental problems of foreign countries particularly the Third World. Their Library collects extensively documents of international organizations and national governments and is a depository for UN, UNESCO, FAO, and GATT documents; it also acquires US government publications. As a result of its difficulties in obtaining foreign publications and in an effort to publicize its resources, the Library publishes a series of occasional guides. U.S. Federal Government Publications, a revision and expansion of Library Occasional Guide No. 2, surveys through mid-1975 recent federal publishing in the social sciences which would be of interest to foreign users. Divided into two parts, the first, "General Discussion" covering 75 pages, is a bibliographic essay on the ordering the acquisition of GPO and non-GPO material from a foreign viewpoint, including the use of the Monthly Catalog; microforms; sales, unprices and free material; out-of-print and reprint material; and book dealers and jobbers; while the second, "Publications of the Various Agencies", is arranged by issuing agency within the three branches of government. It provides background information and a selected bibliography of titles. The guide is predicated upon the assumption that the foreign user has access to the United States Government Manual for addresses of the various agencies. The first part is an extensively footnoted state-of-the-art review drawing heavily on the literature of the 1970's. In particular it encompasses trends and projects; recent writings such as Drexel Library Quarterly (January/April 1974); and forthcoming publications such as LC's
United States and Africa: A Guide to US Official Documents and Government Sponsored Publications. The guide is not limited to factual information but incorporates personal observations as well. For example, the discussion of Government Reports Announcements and Index and the Monthly Catalog recommends minimizing duplication between them: "better to have only two journals, whose coverage is quite well defined - the GRA for research and development reports, the Monthly Catalog for legal and administrative material - and make sure that what they contain is all that is being published and that their contents are well set out and indexed. (p.2)" The Monthly Catalog could be improved upon by expanding its scope to include all government publishing, contract publishing, and commercial reprints. It should include any material drawn from government records. "Enter the material in the Monthly Catalog and if the agency can not donate it make the user pay. If the American Government believes both in a free and a market economy then open information paid for by the user would be an admirable way of operating it. (p. 49)" Because there are no depository libraries outside the US, foreign users may want to establish deposit accounts with the Superintendent of Documents or use their coupons, which brings up an interesting irritant. If the desired order is incorrect, then one must return the order and ask for a correction. " I f the order is not returned the Superintendent will debit your account for books supplied in answer to the query itself. Thus you may pay twice, once for the original order, once for the query, and though the Superintendent will refund the second payment a good deal of clerical work is involved in recovering it. (p. 12) .... Always be prepared for surprises concerning US Government publications. (p. 275)"
Book Reviews
229
Two points of criticism regarding the lack of index and poor quality reproduction and binding need mentioning. The detailed table of contents based on the U.S. Government Manual compensates in part for the lack of index but assumes that the user knows the government organization and the issuing agency. Perhaps it is overly harsh to apply the quotation which appears on page 70, but '"information without indexing is hardly information at all." And since so much of this guide is valuable, it would justify spending more money on reproduction (pages 73, 109, 204 are very poor in our copy) and a sturdier binding other than punch and spiral (where the holes cut into the text) is needed to withstand the use this guide will receive. Many of us working in the US with federal publications approach the subject from the perspective of their usefulness in our local environment which leads to an ethnocentric view. This guide is refreshing for its penetrating insights from a foreign vantage point. It shows the value of federal publishing regarding Third World countries and should be read for its analysis of the present situation. Peter Hernon and John Richardson Doctoral Students Graduate Library School Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana Dedassified Documents Quarterly Catalog, I, nos 1 & 2, Carrollton Press. Carrollton Press, Washington, DC, 1975. $285/year ($560 with the corresponding collection of microfiche), $1575 for the Retrospective Collection, including its catalog and subject index; $285, Catalog and index of the retrospective collection & 1975 titles; $1935, Declassified Documents reference system, including all fiche and catalogs/indexes through 1975. Through the bibliographical entry would indicate two volumes, actually three and a newsletter are available here. This is because No. 2 is divided into Part One: Abstracts and Part Two: Cumulative Subject Index. The Editor, Mrs. Annadel Wile, was for 20 years the indexer for the Central Intelligence Agency. Thus she has brought to the task a vast understanding of the problem of indexing materials which did not appear in the GPO's Monthly Catalog. And it certainly has been worth whatever Carrollton Press has been paying her to have a wellthought-out system started from the first for the newly declassified documents. The Declassified Documents News is much less well done and the second quarterly edition we have seen describes NSC-68 without ever giving its number, by which most scholars know it. But this and the occasional typographical error as in 75-88-B where the problem of the "evaluation" rather than the "evacuation" of Americans from China is discussed are but minor matters. The number just cited is part of an eminently sensible indexing system which is applicable to both the abstracts and indices on the one hand and to the microfiche of the documents themselves on the other. By looking in the Cumulative Subject Index, the librarian or scholar can see whether or not a document on the subject (and at least three subject entries are given for each declassified document) exists. He or she can then turn to either the abstracts for a summary of the contents or go directly to the fiche as the same reference works for both. The great advantage of what Carrollton Press is doing is that it provides the researcher and the librarian with one compact set of declassified documents complete with finding aids and the sooner the system is brought to the attention of scholars the better. What we have in the first materials to be declassified are primarily CIA, State and Defense