88 The Review Section

Libraries Group study to emphasize the concept that future progress in cooperation for col- lection development can gain much from personal communication among subject specialists. Hyman provides an historical look at collection evaluation methodologies suitable to the re- search environment. Byrnes ably summarizes the important events and issues arising from na- tional recognition of preservation’s prominent role in research collection management. Hietshu and Leach rehearse the challenges of “Developing Serials Collections in the 1990s” and offer some practical suggestions.

The most inspiring essays of this slim volume are Super’s “Museum of the Book,” the user’s view of research library issues, and Dowd’s “Alexandria Revisited: Another Look at Space and Growth,” which responds to Super’s concerns. These two appreciations of the uses of printed coliections remind us that collection management problems and the wonders of elec- tronic publishing must not be allowed to obscure the needs of the print user for whom the li- brary is truly his laboratory. They are balanced by Branin’s reminder that we must develop “Information Policies for Collection Development Librarians” who are confronted by the need to provide information beyond the confines of their libraries in a highly technological envi- ronment that sometimes seems to offer too much to cope with and by Reed-Scott’s assessment of “Information Technologies and Collection Development” from the online catalog’s man- agement reports to new formats’ claims on the acquisitions budget-blessings and curses at the same time.

Assistant Director for Confection envelopment University Libraries

State University of New York at Albany 1400 Washington Avenue

Albany, NY 12222

BestandsauJbau an wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken. By Kurt Dorfmtiller. Das Bibliothek- swesen in Einzeldarstellungen. Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1989. 293 pp. DM48.00. ISBN 3-465-01858-3.

The author, longtime head of acquisitions at Germany’s largest library, offers a comprehen- sive treatment of the building of collections in scholarly libraries in this latest addition to Klostermann’s series on the different aspects of librarianship. Dorfmiiller discusses the selec- tion and acquisition of serials and non-print materials and also gifts, exchange, and other al- ternative methods of acquisition, but his focus is primarily on the purchased monograph.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Dorfm~ller’s book is its holistic approach. He char- acterizes the cohection development process as “mediation between supply and demand,” be- tween the producers of books and other media and the demands of readers. For him, the process of collection building begins outside the library with the publisher, and particularly with the economic reasons why a publisher chooses to issue a particular title, and continues both inside and outside as titles pass through the selection unit, the bookseller, and the ac- quisitions department. At each stage Dorfm~ller describes the tools and the organizational structure and suggests what each organization can expect and should demand of the others. This stress on the economic factors determining what we are offered and the description of the collection building process as a chain including publisher, selector, vendor, and acquisi-

The Review Section 89

tions librarian offers a useful corrective to those articles where books seem to go straight from author to selector to reader as if by magic. Unfortunately, the first link in that chain, the au- thor, gets little attention here.

Although Dorfmuller knows and often refers to Anglo-American and other theory and practice in acquisitions and collection development, his non-German readers will be interested chiefly in the different perspective he can bring to their problems. German coordination of and national support for special subject collections has been described many times, but Dorf- miiller’s extensive experience with local and national cooperative efforts makes his account of their workings and of the issues libraries must consider in establishing such arrangements particularly interesting as North American libraries also move into the age of access.

In describing the relationship between library and vendor, Dorfmiiller notes “there is no such thing as ‘the’ research library or ‘the’ bookseller. In each case, finding or approximat- ing the ideal partnership is a matter of practice.” Similarly, his own method is to avoid the prescriptive. He identifies the issues, with some indication of priorities, and then lays out the possibilities, indicating potential advantages and disadvantages of each, but stops short of pro- viding “the” solution, saying rather that libraries must always attempt to make the best use of local finances, personnel, and facilities. This approach will disappoint some, but it is very effective in Dorfmtiller’s treatment of the structure of acquisitions and collection development. Libraries seeking new patterns for an increasingly automated acquisitions process or a new structure for collection development at a time of changing priorities will find many models here from which to choose.

The chapter on library structure for collection building is followed by a section on budgeting and budget models and a lengthy discussion of useful statistics, particularly price data. Dorf- miiller notes that inflation in serials prices has been high at other times in recent history, but that the present combination of rapid price increases and proliferation of titles makes serials the problem for collection development, threatening to leave little or no money for mono- graphs. An extensive, multilingual bibliography and a useful selection of forms, flow charts, and documents (including the text of the German bookselling agreement on fixed prices and library discounts) conclude the book.

The task of this series is to present syntheses of current research and practice in selected ar- eas of library work. True to this goal, Dorfmuller presents little information that cannot be found elsewhere, but his German readers will be grateful to have so much information packed into such a small space. All his readers are in his debt for the judgment he shows in select- ing among the many issues and for the evenhandedness of his presentations. The emphasis on economic motives and on structure can sometimes seem a bit dry, but it gives the book a great clarity, and again and again is relieved by comments that obviously draw from extensive ex- perience with personnel matters and library politics. Readers outside Germany will probably not want to sit down and read this book from cover to cover, but those with a basic under- standing of the language will profit by looking up Dorfmuller’s discussion of any problem they may be confronting.

James Campbell North Europe Bibliographer, Alderman Library

University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903-2498