An Ergonomics Guide to VDT Workstations by Christin Grant & Mary Brophy: 1994, 37 pages, $16.00 Fairfax, VA: American Industrial Hygiene Assn. ISBN 0-932627-55-2

THE TITLEof this book can be misleading. It does not deal with the capacity of people to perform tasks or be productive, which depends on basic human abilities, enhanced by education, training, selection, and direction. Instead, it concentrates solely on demonstrating how the task, including the workplace, tools, and equipment, should be changed to fit the worker. This emphasis is no doubt attributable to the authors' being specialists in the areas of occupational medicine, engineering, ergonomics, and occupational hygiene. Fraser and Pityn introduce their case studies by defining well the disciplines of ergonomics, human factors, and human engineering, but they opt to present cases that deal predominantly with anthropometry, biomechanics, and occupational health rather than other factors that shape human performance, such as those involving human capabilities and sociotechnical variables (that is, human factors). Given this caveat, the book can be a helpful adjunct to teaching ergonomics principles in the classroom and in industry. It presents 12 case studies that vary in length from 6 to 34 pages. An appendix contains a description of anthropometry, anthropometric estimates for U.S. adults, and NIOSH and Snook and Ciriello lifting guidelines. Each case study presents the details of the case, poses an assignment, and provides the authors' recommended solution. With titles such as "The Frustrated Firefighter," and "The Litigious Lab Tech," cases offer the fun of detecting clues and integrating evidence to solve the problem. Cases deal with worker compensation issues, workstation design, lifting and materials handling, work shifts, standing versus sitting, and environmental stressors. The longest cases involve complex lifting and carrying operations. The cases are somewhat inconsistent; some are superficial, commonsensical, and/or simplistic, and others (such as the lifting cases) are laboriously complex and rest on assumptions that may lead to idiosyncratic solutions (although the rationale and ergonomics principle is often discussed in the solution). It should be kept in mind that case studies are a unique and valuable form of presentation, but they suffer the pitfalls of other anecdotal materials: little attention to theory or alternative explanations for behavioral phenomena and restricted generalizability of solutions. However, these cases can provide a stimulating chance for students to apply ergonomics to real-life problems.