Electronic Publishing and Libraries: Planning for the Impact and Growth to 2003 by David J.BrownReview by: Thomas B. HickeyThe Library Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 508-509Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4309260 .

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508 THE LIBRARY QUARTERLY

Electronic Publishing and Libraries: Planningfor the Impact and Growth to 2003. By DAVID J. BROWN. London: Bowker-Saur, 1996. Pp. 200. ISBN 1-85739-166-7.

This book grew out of a project by the British Library to consider its acquisition policy for digital materials. The emphasis is on scholarly information, especially as it relates to Britain, although data for the United States and the rest of the world are shown in many of the charts.

The book tries to project current trends from 1995, when it was written, eight years into the future to 2003. Since it is now 1998, nearly halfway to 2003, it can be expected that much of the information is starting to become dated, and this is certainly the case. For example, the discussion of "dual published journals," those available both in paper and electronic form, is a good summary of early 1990s proj- ects, but virtually all of them have now either ceased entirely or changed so much as to be nearly unrecognizable. In fact, how useful is a two-hundred-page book on electronic publishing that devotes only about six or seven pages to electronic jour- nals? Actually, fairly useful. It is still a good compilation of charts, tables, and discus- sion of some of the basic information needed to think clearly about libraries. Inter- ested in ARL budgets in constant dollars from 1976 to 1990 compared to U.S. academic research and development spending? The chart is here, and shows that budgets were up substantially compared to the general rate of inflation during the period, although a few pages earlier the text states that "research libraries have had their budgets cut," something not supported at all in the figures except when comparing their budgets to more rapidly growing trends, such as R & D spending, or costs of journals.

The emphasis throughout is on British figures and trends, although the United States and the rest of the world are shown in many of the charts. There is an execu- tive summary that makes the following points: electronic information will remain in a constant state of flux over this time period; libraries are under severe budget constraints relative to the amount of conventionally published material available; supply of materials is driven by national and international pressures, demand at the local or institutional level; new forms of media exacerbate these problems; large numbers of scientific journals are approaching the point of insolvency; all of the new forms of media cannot grow at their projected rates; and conventional publish- ing may shift to a more networked system with moderators undertaking many of the duties of traditional editors.

As new forms of publication whose value lies in organizing information rather than providing original information, the amount of publications possible seems limitless. This will further stress library budgets. Paper subscriptions may collapse before electronic ones can replace the revenues, threatening existing book and journal publishers. A new methodology for integrating the type of material pre- sented in this book is needed but not available. It is probably fair to say that the impending collapse suggested in the book for the late 1990s has not come to pass, although the recent consolidations in journal-and especially in electronic-ser- vices may be very similar to that predicted, just that change has been slightly slower than expected.

In summary, this book is a valiant effort to bring together the data relevant to British libraries' relationship with electronic media. It would have been difficult to do a better job of this in 1995, but the field changes so rapidly that the most impor- tant information is more about libraries and publishing in general than about the electronic media treated in depth in this book. Use it as a good compilation of charts, pointers to where it might be possible to find updated information, and an

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SHORTER NOTICES 509

interesting perspective on electronic media's effect on publishing and libraries.- Thomas B. Hickey, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.

Elsevier's Dictionary of Information Technology in English, German and French. By JAAP P. HOEPELMAN, RENATE MAYER, and JURGEN WAGNER. New York: Elsevier, 1997. Pp. xiii+406. $172.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-444-88410-6.

Bilingual dictionaries are absolutely foundational for cross-cultural communica- tion. Furthermore, the field of information technology has changed rapidly, justi- fying new editions of earlier works. This title, however, is a new offering in the field. In order to assess this fresh linguistic endeavor, allow me to address seriatim: (1) the need and audience; (2) authority of the compilers and publisher; (3) aim, objective, scope; (4) word treatment; and (5) a comparison to similar offerings.

There are several primary audiences for this work-technical translators in Euro- pean and global markets, organizations and research groups, and computer scien- tists as well as beginners (see introduction and intended readership, pp. v and vi, respectively). As stated at the outset, the dictionary's aim is "to simplify the ex- change of knowledge and to provide a basis for beginners in fields of Information Technology" (introduction, p. v). This work draws upon a database created as part of the European Economic Community's ESPRIT HUFIT project in Stuttgart at the Fraunhofer-Institut where two of the authors are located; the first named author however, is associated with IBM Deutschland. Unfortunately, no other information is provided about their lexicographical backgrounds. Elsevier, on the other hand, has a solid history of publishing technical dictionaries.

The stated scope is information technology, a field that lies at the intersection of several specialized subject areas. Although this phrase is not explicitly defined in the prefatory pages, the entry for this phrase says "A broad term embracing computer science and all fields of other science that are related to information processing, including both theory and engineering" (p. 133). An examination of the text suggests that the authors do include computer science, documentation, information science, and telecommunications terms but not archival terminology such as "appraisal" or "provenance," bibliographical terminology such as "for- mat," book collecting terms such as "foxed," graphic arts terms such as "rotogra- vure," printing terms such as "intaglio," or publishing terms such as "pH-neutral paper" or "edition statement." The dictionary does seem strong on expert systems terminology, reflecting perhaps the work background of the lead author. Of course, one might also ask on what basis the two languages other than English were se- lected. Obviously, German and French are common languages for scholarly com- munication, and because the authors are German it is no surprise they included this language in their first edition.

Typical entries in the English section begin with an English term followed by a one- or two-sentence definition. The German and French terms follow that entry. If there is a synonym, a related term, or additional information at another term, these are listed. Interested users can consult a three-page section titled "Structure of the Dictionary." I should point out that the title of this volume might be some- what inaccurate. While it is a dictionary of information technology terms in English, the separate German and French sections are actually glossaries because no defini- tions, illustrations, quotations, or illustrative uses of the word appear.

A February 1998 search of OCLC's WorldCat reveals nearly one hundred diction- aries of information technology, perhaps the earliest by Random House in 1983 or Nichols in 1982. Two other publishers, Collin (in a French-English, English-French

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