Letters to the Editor

Re: Peter Hirtle’s Note on Atherton Seidell Sir:

Editor:
Peter Hirtle’s valuable note on Atherton Seidell (JASIS, 40,
424-431, November, 1989) gives long overdue recognition to
Atherton Seidell’s role in the formation of ASIS’ predecessor, the
American Documentation Institute, and the fostering of inter-
library loan service in the precomputer era. However, in noting
that my book, Studies in Micropublishing, 1853-1976: Docu-
mentary Sources, includes no document by Seidell, Hirtle may
have misunderstood my purpose in compiling the articles and
providing extensive original interpretive material. I did not, as
Hirtle suggests, prepare a “documentary history of microfilming.”
The history of microfilming had already been done very com-
petently by Frederic Luther in his Microfilm: A History, 1839-
1900 (Annapolis MD: National Microfilm Association, 1959).
My book consolidated documents relating solely to micropublish-
ing, a very different kettle of fish, and a subject in which Seidell
apparently had little or no interest.
Both Seidell and Draeger, the camera designer, were con-
cerned almost exclusively with the role of microfilm as a medium
for assisting research. That Seidell was not involved in promoting
the publication of materials in microform is obvious from Hirtle’s
highly informative sketch.
Seidell was an idealistic dreamer whose concept of “free” micro-
film was to be echoed many years later by others who imagined
that computer time was another resource that could be disbursed
without a chargeback mechanism, and still later by successors
who continue to wish that online retrieval can be still another free
good. Seidell’s concept of free microfilm service failed, in part,
because he extrapolated the simplistic economies of low volume
work to quantity production. He also failed to understand that large
scale microfilming of scholarly materials is a labor-intensive,
strictly serial process with an inherently long turnaround time-
because each bibliographic item is sufficiently different to de-
mand relatively expensive, customized photographic treatment.
He also refused to acknowledge-or ignored-the extreme con-
servatism of researchers and scholars about their research habits
and their correct perception that for research purposes paper
copies were obviously superior to microforms. Yet Seidell’s con-
tributions to the communication of research information are semi-
nal and of very great importance to every student of scholarly
communication. It is good that Hirtle has consolidated so much
valuable information on this dedicated, energetic pioneer.
Allen B. Veaner
Allen B. Veaner Associates
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M4T IG9
Allen Veaner is quite right to point out that only early in his
information career was Seidell interested in micropublishing as
opposed to microfilm in general. The absence of any of his writ-
ings from Veaner’s valuable documentary history Studies in Mi-
cropublishing, 1853-1976: Documentary Sources, therefore, is
not surprising, and my comment should not be construed as criti-
cism of Veaner’s book. The fact remains, however, that Seidell,
for whatever reasons, has been overlooked by previous scholars
of information science, an omission I have attempted to correct in
my article.
Peter B. Hirtle
Curator, Modern Manuscripts
History of Medicine Division
National Library of Medicine
Bethesda, MD 20894
In Praise of Power
Sir:
Belated compliments on Mike Buckland’s (1989) article in the
September, 1989 issue (number 5) of JASIS. What a pleasure
to read an article in basic English, even colloquial English. It
should be a model for all writers in our field. The readers would be
eternally grateful if his example were followed by more authors.
Lea M. Bohnert
Adjunct Professor
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, R.I. 02881
Buckland, M. K. 1989. Information handling, organizational structure,
and power. Journal of the American Society for Information Science.
40, 329-333.
Sir:
In regard to the review of The Bibliometrics Toolbox in the
January 1990 issue, your readers will want to know that the Tool-
box is now in version 2.6, successfully addressing the concerns
expressed by the reviewer John P. McLain and adding many new
features.
Terrence A. Brooks
North City Bibliometrics
Seattle, WA 98155

0 1990by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE. 41(6):427-428, 1990 CCC 0002-8231/90/060427-02$04.00
Sir:
Professor Michael Buckland’s article in the September 1989
issue of JASIS (Buckland, 1989) is one of the most original and
interesting papers on the relationship between information and or-
ganizational structure that I have ever encountered.
1 find it reminiscent of a statement once made by Professor
Noam Chomsky: that very little social science research is inter-
esting because the results are not contrary to what one would
expect. For example, a large-scale study on why people work,
finding that they do so because they need money, would consti-
tute a social science study that did not have a surprising result.
To take an example from library literature, a study that showed
that college libraries are busiest at the end of a semester would
elicit the reaction that any librarian could have told you so with-
out conducting research.
Prof. Buckland’s article, in contrast, presents surprising evi-
dence that information processing capabilities determine the
structure of organizations, and that information technology affects
the delegation of decision-making.

Bella Hass Weinberg, D.L.S.

Division of Library and Information Science
St. John’s University
Jamaica, New York 11439
Buckland, M. K. (1989). Information handling, organizational structure,
and power. Journal of the American Society for Information Science
40: 329-333.

428 JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE-September 1990