Financing Information Services: Problems, Changing Approaches, and New Opportunities for Academic and Research Libraries (Book Review)

Abstract

College & Research Libraries benefits from others. The writing is clear, factual, grammati- cal, and words are used with care. The result is a style that conveys the message the author intended without any charm, interest, or enjoyment. Equally, the me- chanics necessary for classroom use of this book show through, like the bones of a skeleton in costume. Each chapter begins and ends with a summary, usually re- duced to a table with accompanying text. A full bibliography follows advice to the teacher under the heading Exercises. The book is interesting given the pa- tience and the time to read it and a willing- ness not to expect grace or provocation in its craftsmanship. The story progresses from the classical heritage and England to colonial America, exploding myths along the way, even to the point of quoting Whittier's poem on the expulsion of a Quaker from the Massachusetts colony and showing in a ruled box the main fea- tures of the Sedition Act of 1798. The five chapters of Part II deal with controls on the content of speech, it being assumed that printed messages are as much recorded speech as telegraphic codes and sound recordings . Freedom of speech means intellectual freedom, a term not used, evidently in communication courses. The chapter on political heresy, sedition since 1917, is especially interesting in de- scribing how the clear and present dan- ger rule was established and chewed into its present form in several cases. Each of the cases is summarized in a highly use- ful form, readily referred to, and capable of being expanded to the full case based on the bibliographic information provided. Those that establish or refine a rule of law are called Landmark Cases. Clearly, the book is an excellent reference source, and doubtlessly, a thorough textbook that would make a good teacher of an indiffer- ent one offering the course. The reviewer's interest in religio- moral heresy, to use the language of the book, perhaps colored his opinions, be- , cause while the information conveyed is highly appropriate for a classroom text, it leaves a specialist frustrated and at times annoyed. For instance, a discussion of why the various courts become dithery January 1986 over prurient interest is lacking. The term is not in the index. No one has ever thought to poke around in it and find out why it became a standard reason to forbid works on one side of the river and permit them on the other, as in the banning of works in St. Paul while wicked old Minne- apolis permitted them. Nevertheless, the book is an excellent summary, superior in all respects tooth- ers in the field. The landmark cases alone make it valuable. The indexes of cases and of subjects following highly useful and in- formative appendixes containing, among other things a description of legal citations and how they may be used and a glossary, tables depicting the court systems of the United States and the way decisions are reached in them, make this a valuable ref- erence book that will greatly aid any stu- dent pursuing a topic covered, from tech- nological controls to the concept of privacy. It would be useful in library school courses in communication as re- source material, and it is not so complex as it may appear. Bright students would find its neutrality appealing. The closest the book comes to taking sides is in the quota- tion of a seminal article by William E. Bai- ley. This is advanced communications re- search, which must be a dull subject indeed if the article is its brightest moment.-Jay E. Daily, School of Library and Information Science, University of Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania. Financing Information Services: Prob- lems, Changing Approaches, and New Opportunities for Academic and Re- search Libraries. Ed. by Peter Spyers- Duran and Thomas W. Mann. West- port, Conn.: Greenwood, 1985. 193p. (New Directions in Librarianship, No. 6) $29.95. LC 84-15729. ISBN 0-3313- This is one of two volumes of papers presented at an international conference entitled Contemporary Issues in Aca- demic and Research Libraries, held in Boulder, Colorado, on February 28-29 and March 1, 1984. According to the introduc- tion to this volume, the issues raised by the contributors can best be summarized by these two basic questions: Can aca- demic and research libraries cope with the