Reviews: Thompson, James, ed., University library history: an international review, London, Clive Bingley; New York, K.G. Saur, 1980. vi, 330pp. £14.75. ISBN (UK) 0 85157 304 5; (USA) 0 89664 439 1

In his introduction to this volume James Thompson characterizes the blossoming of university libraries during the last forty or fifty years as ’the true phenomenon of twentieth-century higher education’. With the promise in the United Kingdom of general university contraction from which libraries will certainly not be exempt and the prospect in the USA of a nationwide application of ’Proposition 13’, not to mention the challenges presented by the enormous growth of nonbook media in the last five years, this may be an appropriate time to stop and take stock to take a cool, historical look at university libraries, while the phenomenon still has blossom to show. Mr Thompson’s book does not quite do this, though his 15 chapters provide a good deal of food for thought. Despite the title, it cannot really be considered an international review of the history of university libraries in general; the 15 contributors have interpreted their task in different ways, so that a systematically comprehensive picture is lacking. Nevertheless, a thorough reading of the book would leave a newcomer with a very fair impression of British university libraries in the first three quarters of this century, with several sidelights from America as well as a few from Canada and Australia. Certainly something of the familiar weariness of the librarian’s defensive battles comes through, with repeated references to the lack of adequate finance and support from the university at large. Achievements and progress are by no means ignored, however, and one of the