Osburn, Charles B.

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Book Reviews Anthony M. Cummings and others. University Libraries and Scholarly Com-munication: A Study Prepared for the An-drew W. Mellon Foundation. Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Librar-ies, 1992. 205p. $8 (ISBN 9-918006-22-8). LC 92-44941. This timely report on the present sta-tus of scholarly communication is a joint effort of the Mellon Foundation, which has demonstrated considerable interest in academic libraries for at least the past five years, and the Association of Re-search Libraries (ARL). The report is timely because, as any reader of this journal knows well, scholarly com-munication is now poised on the thresh-old of a new era. As a comprehensive yet succinct statement of the conditions sur-rounding scholarly communication and the evolving role of the academic re-search.library, the Mellon study offers a welcome opportunity to take stock, re-flect, and place very rapidly moving developments in a useful perspective. The stated purpose of the book is to "describe the library landscape as it ap-pears today, in its collecting, operating, financial, and electronic dimensions." The report addresses concepts such as those aptly labeled "ownership versus access" and "just in time versus just in case," and gives much space to publish-ing industry production and costs during the past few years. Clearly in-tended not for librarians, but rather for other parties with a stake in scholarly communication, it is nevertheless im-portant for those of us within the profes-sion to note the perception expressed by those outside the profession that "[t]he opportunity exists to rethink an entire set of relationships that, if reconstituted appropriately, can give libraries both new dimensions and an even more cen-tral role in the educational process than they have enjoyed in the past." The report is divided into two distinct parts, each with several chapters. The first, "Historical Trends: Collections, Ex-penditures, Publications," is illustrated with forty-one charts and graphs and nineteen tables. The second part, entitled "Information Needs and New Technolo-gies," synthesizes models of scholarly communication and describes their principal elements. The authors do a clear, thorough, and thoughtful job here, also acknowledging that changes are coming about so rapidly that this mate-rial is likely to date quickly. They are correct to offer this caveat, of course, but this section is a fine contribution toward the clarification of a set of situations that is unusually complex. Documentation is heavy throughout the book, with much reliance on the cur-rent literature and on the files of the ARL. Data about libraries are taken from twenty-four ARL member institutions, half public, half private. It is the second part of this study that will be of particu-lar interest to academic librarians be-cause of its perceptive synthesis of trends, issues, and opportunities related to information technology, and also be-cause of the tentative conclusions prof-fered in answer to questions fundamental to the future of scholarly communication. The report is sometimes bold in that re-gard. For example, it is a premise of the second section "that printed scholarly literature will continue to exist for a long time and that adequate bibliographic control is essential to scholarship." Another informed assumption is that peer review will continue to be central to the scholarly process, but that it may be expedited and expanded. Readers of this journal will be gratified to know that the 357 358 College & Research Libraries book's authors are highly sensitive to the use of the word information throughout the text. Not surprisingly, the foundation has praise and great expectations for the value of the RLG Conspectus for the sharing of resources nationally; the foundation also considers the recent ef-forts of the Colorado Alliance of Re-search Libraries as a useful prototype for cooperation. So, what, in the final analysis, will be the model for scholarly communication in the future? The authors word the an-swer to this question with such great care that it is worth citing verbatim: "It is extremely unlikely-we would say al-most inconceivable-that any alterna-tive model will completely supplant the existing one at any point in the foresee-able future. Rather, we envision a situa-tion where incremental modifications to the current model will be made. We would also argue, however, that it ·is equally inconceivable that there will not eventually be a more-or-less complete transformation of scholarly communica-tion." We were right all along. This excellent study is accompanied by more than the usual scholarly apparatus, with foreword, introduction, bibliogra-phy, three appendixes, a glossary, and even a fifteen-page synopsis, con-tributed by Ann Okerson, director of the ARL Office of Scientific and Academic Publishing. Unfortunately, it has no index. It is quite evident that the Mellon Foundation has a genuine desire to help the scholarly communication system grow stronger, healthier, more effective. It has distributed many copies of its study to university presidents, academic vice presidents, and library directors free of charge and is making other copies available for wide distribution at nomi-nal cost. The foundation sees that the future of scholarly communication is not a library issue, but an institutional issue; that it is not just an institutional issue, but a national issue. The Mellon Founda-tion has done much to advance scholarly communication and the cause of aca-demic libraries by producing and dis-seminating this study.-Charles B. Osburn, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. July1993 Glazier, Loss Pequeno. Small Press: An Annotated Guide. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1992. 123p. $49.95 (ISBN 0-313-28310-9). LC 92-15482. Bibliographies are not usually recom-mended as entertainment. But then can there be any more charming annotator than Loss Glazier? As incisive and infor-mative as one might wish, he never re-sists an opportunity to gloss, adding a bit of background or a reference, a passing opinion or an illuminating quote. The result is that this shortish list (174 items) may well be the elegy of the Mimeo Rev-olution, that Indian summer of literary Modernism. Glazier likes his subject too well ever to be dry, and has shown clev-erness at a postmodern way of writing history. Self-confident, limited, not total-izing, not transcendental, thoroughly entertaining. This is not a comprehensive book. It is restricted to the period since 1960, and to American materials only. It concerns it-self not with single authors or presses, nor regional publishing, nor reviews, how-to-books, vanity or subsidy publish-ing, or fine presses. It is strictly literary-a significant limitation-and includes cur-rent information, coresources, and sup-plementary materials (catalogs, lists, bibliographies). The standard histories and other sources covering the period up to 1960 are concisely dealt with in the preface. While I can't think of anything missing, Glazier's purpose is not to be the last word, and he has not dug out obscure material (except for one master's thesis, and some letters to editors). Though not exhaustive, this is a well-done list. Its glory is all in the annotations. Glazier begins with an introduction mostly devoted to characterizing the small press, where we learn that the "mimeo revolution" was actually made more on offset presses. I suspect Glazier would like to believe that the "spirit of mimeography, that of the small pub-lisher, has produced an important leg-acy; it enters the nineties not only with a proven record of the production of liter-ary texts but with an increasingly visible presence in the publishing industry." Yet, as with the term hacker, there has 

University Libraries and Scholarly Communication (Book Review)

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University Libraries and Scholarly Communication (Book Review)

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