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Preparation of bibliographic data for the production of CD‐ROM public access catalogs (PACs) requires several services: merging records from various vendors or libraries, the elimination of duplicate records, the identification and decoding of holdings information, updating the database (often in an offline mode), and authority control. The nature of specific CD‐ROM catalogs affects the priorities for processing the database. For example, some systems exploit controlled vocabulary and cross references, making subject authority critical. Others provide powerful Boolean searching on key words derived from all parts of the bibliographic record; as a result, the need for quality control checks beyond those typically provided by library vendors is increased. This article identifies the services and processes offered by seven vendors that provide CD‐PACs and one vendor that processes MARC bibliographic databases.

The user interface, in broad terms, is the medium through which the user and the information come together. The types of searches a public access catalog (PAC) can perform are defined by the indexing strategy and retrieval software. The way the user's interest is communicated to the retrieval software and the way the results are communicated to the user is, by a more narrow definition, the interface software. Both the kinds of searches that can be performed by a variety of CD‐ROM PACs and how their workstations are used to accomplish the searches are considered.

Provides a bibliography of CD‐ROM for librarians, covering case studies, costs, product evaluation guidelines, databases, CDI, downloading/copyright and CD vs. online, for use when making decisions about the adoption of CD‐ROM.

The majority of the articles reviewed this time deal with ILL and public libraries in one way or another. The review begins by looking at school libraries and their ability to handle ILL requests satisfactorily amongst themselves and then examines several papers critical of networking in public libraries. There is an argument that public libraries hardly need ILL at all because of the nature of their users and their needs. ILL is an expensive operation and the issue of fees and charges is much debated; the discussion examined here includes the suggestion that users can travel to consult materials and public libraries might ration ILL requests per user including children. The idea of using ILL as a revenue earner, or at least paying for itself, is questioned and a study of commercial document supply services is examined which pays special attention to the performance of the many sources available. A paper on ILL costing almost nothing is criticized as not taking account of all factors. Time, as well as money, is important and a study of supply time to the user shows that more could be done by requesting libraries to speed supply to the end‐user. The impact of network membership on ILL is considered and shows that net borrowers can soon become net lenders and vice‐versa. The reorganization of document supply from the US National Library of Medicine had considerable impact on the use of NLM which is analysed. Finally a note on the political aspects of ILL in southern Africa is noticed as dealing with an issue of potential significance.

The review begins with a study of several analyses of statistics relating to interlibrary loan. The subjective nature of some of these is stressed and the danger of using statistical data in isolation is highlighted. Statistical evidence is also brought into the discussion about the conflict between interlending and preservation which centres on the difference between the book and the text. Whilst two authors take a rather conservative approach, the third looks on the problem with a more liberal attitude. Although the intrinsic safety of the materials involved is a partial barrier to interlending in developing countries, writers from both Africa and Latin America emphasize the major obstacles to advancing ILL are professional attitudes and jealousies. The proceedings of a seminar in India are reported in which a number of participants put forward possible interlending models for their country. The deliberations in Australia also centre round the alternative models available, and arguments over the costs involved persist leading to some novel arguments about making ILL a free service. The development of interlending in Illinois is examined in some detail. The impact of interlending on acquisitions policies is discussed in two papers which show that interlending is still a backup for low use material when viewed in this context. The review closes with a discussion of the future particularly in terms of money and resources which are likely to become more and more limited. The demise of the US plan for a National Periodicals Center is used to show that money and power are major elements in deciding the fate of interlending schemes.

This article reviews areas of common concern between librarians on the one hand and scholars on the other as they each attempt to pursue their work in an era of electronic information. The issues require the attention of both librarians and scholars, and it is argued that both communities need now to talk more extensively with one another in an effort to re‐think the fundamental role of the university library in the coming years. The function and importance of Integrated Scholarly Information Systems (ISIS) are discussed with examples to illustrate the ways in which scholars are likely to acquire and integrate electronic information in the future. The article concludes with reflections on two contradictory trends that are emerging in scholarly research with the expansion of electronic research systems.

Small libraries can take advantage of alternative funding sources to address their automation needs and thus make available to their patrons the advantages of an “information rich” society. However, careful planning, research to identify receptive funding sources, and consistent, confident, knowledgeable communication of needs and objectives are requisite to the successful solicitation of funds. Burlingame, a university vice‐president who is responsible for fund‐raising at his institution, provides advice on the principles of successful fund‐raising. A sidebar discusses the Foundation Center.

President Bill Clinton has had many opponents and enemies, most of whom come from the political right wing. Clinton supporters contend that these opponents, throughout the Clinton presidency, systematically have sought to undermine this president with the goal of bringing down his presidency and running him out of office; and that they have sought non‐electoral means to remove him from office, including Travelgate, the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, the Filegate controversy, and the Monica Lewinsky matter. This bibliography identifies these and other means by presenting citations about these individuals and organizations that have opposed Clinton. The bibliography is divided into five sections: General; “The conspiracy stream of conspiracy commerce”, a White House‐produced “report” presenting its view of a right‐wing conspiracy against the Clinton presidency; Funding; Conservative organizations; and Publishing/media. Many of the annotations note the links among these key players.

Stuart Scheingold's path-breaking The Politics of Rights ignited scholarly interest in the political mobilization of rights. The book was a challenge to the reigning popular and scholarly common sense regarding the supposedly self-executing nature of rights (what Scheingold called the “myth of rights”). Rights, Scheingold argued, could be resources for the pursuit of social change; but their realization in court doctrine and legislative output was not itself tantamount to meaningful social change. Thus embedded in The Politics of Rights is skepticism (or at least ambivalence) about the utility of rights politics for social movements. Scheingold was not ambivalent about the moral or normative value of rights themselves, although he did argue that the realization of rights was not by itself enough to overcome the manifold inequalities that structure modern life. The Politics of Rights, accordingly, is clear-eyed, but not cynical about rights advocacy. It is thus surprising, and keenly revealing, that Scheingold's final work – The Political Novel, which is ostensibly not about rights at all – points to mass cynicism, alienation, and the collapse of faith in governing institutions and logics as the animating elements of modern liberal democracies, including especially the United States. That rights are a vital part of the civic mythology whose collapse defines modern times suggests that the civil rights context of aspiration and struggle in which Scheingold, and nearly all of his followers (this author included), have conceived rights may be unnecessarily narrow. Rights may also be embedded, that is, in the modern condition of alienation, despair, and felt powerlessness. Inspired by Scheingold's investigation of how literature points to this modern condition of political estrangement, I offer an alternative backdrop for The Politics of Rights that is rooted in the bleak renderings of the American character found in much 1970's American popular and intellectual culture. Such a contextualization, I will argue, suggests that we envision The Political Novel as a companion piece to The Politics of Rights; together they illuminate both the mobilizing and demobilizing potential of the myth of rights.