The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 80, July 1976 - April, 1977 Page: 126

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

from one author to another but could not find the second name anywhere.
A few titles are listed in the title indexes for which the books are not to be
found in the main text of the Index. Conversely, a few books listed in the
main text were omitted from the title index. Throughout all of the I974
volume, where there is more than one review of a book, the reviews are
listed alphabetically by the abbreviation for the journals. This is not the
case in the I973 volume. Sometimes they are in alphabetical order while at
other times they are in no recognizable order. There are a number of errors
and inconsistencies in abbreviations for the journals between the lists in
the front and the abbreviations used in the text. Several times the volume
of the journal in which a review is found was given incorrectly. For journals
which have all issues in a given volume published in the same year, I fail
to see the reason for giving the year for every entry.
All of the above can be corrected simply by exercising greater care in
transcribing the information from the journals, by keeping better records
of which journals are actually used, and by a more thorough proofreading
of the final copy of future volumes before they are published. What I con-
sider the greatest shortcoming of the whole project, however, will take
considerably more effort to correct. The only index included is a listing of
titles with author's names. I believe that a name, place, and subject index
would be far more useful in leading subject specialists to books of interest
to them. An index to book reviewers would be a welcome addition but is
probably not as important as the name, place, and subject index.
Thus, if future volumes are to be more useful than the present ones, the
compilers must strive for greater accuracy, thoroughness, and consistency.
If they continue to claim concentration on United States history, they
should discontinue using the numerous European, Asian, and Latin Ameri-
can journals (not simply omit them from the list at the front of the book)
and they should add a few state and subject matter journals oriented
toward United States history which are absent from the two lists published
to date. The compilers should make every effort to include all the reviews
from journals they list, and should not include reviews from journals not on
their list. It would be helpful if they would go back through the two
volumes already published and record the several journals omitted from
the lists, especially since many users will not know the meanings of ab-
breviations-such as E-I, IQ, MH, NO, OQ, and RR-without some
type of key, and consequently will not be able to locate reviews of many
books. Finally, a name, place, and subject index to replace the title index
would be a tremendous improvement.

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Texas A&M University

CHARLES R. SCHULTZ