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Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.

It all began a very long time ago, sometime before 1876, that annus mirabilis of librarianship during which the American Library Association was founded, Library Journal debuted, and Samuel Green published in its pages the first article about reference librarianship. And it continues today. In April 1994, an unidentified library school student from the State University of New York at Buffalo queried the participants of the LIBREFL listserv, asking them, “Can you give a summary of the ‘hot’ library reference issues of the week? I'm working on a project for my Reference course, and would like to find out what is REALLY vital to refernce (sic) librarians out there today.” I was tempted to reply that all of that week's “hot” issues were identified in Green's 1876 article. In that article describing the phenomenon we today call reference service, Green touched on issues such as the librarian's obligation to provide information without injecting personal values, the inability of any librarian to know everything, the need sometimes to refer a patron to another information agency, SDI services, the value of proactive rather than passive service, the challenges of the reference interview, and, of course, what has come to be called the “information versus instruction debate.”

This paper is an exploratory study of one approach to incorporating situational information into information retrieval systems, drawing on principles and methods of discourse linguistics. A tenet of discourse linguistics is that texts of a specific type possess a structure above the syntactic level, which follows conventions known to the people using such texts to communicate. In some cases, such as literature describing work done, the structure is closely related to situations, and may therefore be a useful representational vehicle for the present purpose. Abstracts of empirical research papers exhibit a well‐defined discourse‐level structure, which is revealed by lexical clues. Two methods of detecting the structure automatically are presented: (i) a Bayesian probabilistic analysis; and (ii) a neural network model. Both methods show promise in preliminary implementations. A study of users' oral problem statements indicates that they are not amenable to the same kind of processing. However, from in‐depth interviews with users and search intermediaries, the following conclusions are drawn: (i) the notion of a generic research script is meaningful to both users and intermediaries as a high‐level description of situation; (ii) a researcher's position in the script is a predictor of the relevance of documents; and (iii) currently, intermediaries can make very little use of situational information. The implications of these findings for system design are discussed, and a system structure presented to serve as a framework for future experimental work on the factors identified in this paper. The design calls for a dialogue with the user on his or her position in a research script and incorporates features permitting discourse‐level components of abstracts to be specified in search strategies.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

THE following abstract in tabular form has been prepared by some junior members of the Islington Public Libraries staff for the use of candidates in Section V. of the Library Association Examination. It does not pretend to do more than set out the chief provisions of the various Public Libraries Acts in a clear manner, as an aid to the memorization of the principal powers and duties conferred upon library authorities. The whole of the Acts can be purchased through any bookseller for 1s. 4½d., and every student of librarianship is advised to procure them.

LIBRARIES, in common with all other public institutions, must be faced with the uncertainty that arises from the inconclusive results of the recent General Election. We are not intimately concerned with parties and it is held that librarians should eschew them altogether as they have duties to, are the servants of, all. This consideration applies more to the public librarian than to the special one. Be that as it may, the change must postpone, we imagine, our chances of the new Public Libraries Act, because a new general election is probable in a very short time. Meanwhile, there is always uncertainty as to public expenditure and, although we do not expect anything drastic, it is hardly likely that our centenary year will see the beginnings of the library progress for which some had hoped. Most local rate‐budgets have, fortunately, been fixed by now.

This paper illustrates the resistance of environmentally concerned groups and citizens against the establishment and growth of corporate-operated confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in the Panhandle region of Texas. We contend that local resistance was partially successful as locally based groups were able to create a contested terrain of political discourse and defend pro-quality of the environment, pro-quality of life and pro-personal property stands against corporate actions. Additionally, we maintain that this success is limited as corporations are powerful. This power is expressed through strategies which present a pro-environment and pro-community based corporate image and are complemented by the corporate capacity to control political processes and economically affect the actions of local communities. The paper concludes with some brief reflections on the primary analytical aspects of the case and avenues which would engender improved social relations in the region.