Special Libraries & Information Centers: An Introductory Text by Ellis Mount, Renee Massoud is an informative book that describes the realm of special libraries in terms that even the uninitiated person will understand, i.e., a person whom has not studied library science. The table of contents is well developed and at the end of the authors decided to include two indexes: one author index and a subject index. Even though, I think that the book is very informative and I did decide to give it five stars, it, i.e., Special Libraries & Information Centers: An Introductory Text by Ellis Mount, Renee Massoud, has some major flaws. First, the writing style (whilst it being very informative and thought provoking on many levels) it is at times very tedious and the font selected for the book is a bit stilted for my liking (which in itself makes the book an arduous task to finish). Overall, I would very much recommend this book, i.e., Special Libraries & Information Centers: An Introductory Text by Ellis Mount, Renee Massoud to an aspiring librarian or anyone whom is remotely interested in the field of library science.

This is a useful book for special librarians to learn about the operations of other special collections.

For $41 I expected a lot more than this. I expected a fat reference book packed with information about all sorts of inventions and technologies. After all, for about twice the price you can get the entire Encyclopedia Britannica on CD-ROM. Instead, I now have a slim volume which only skims the surface, with entries for only the most well-known of developments.

For example, there is an entry for nitroglycerine but none for ordinary glycerine. There is a general entry for aromatic hydrocarbons, but nothing for such important compounds as benzene, toluene, or phenol. There is no entry for the split trail, the interrupted screw, the recoil cylinder, the brass cartridge, the armor-piercing discarding-sabot round, or even the modern artillery piece itself. There is an entry for "cannon", but it mentions nothing more recent than 1350 A.D. There are no entries for shock absorbers, springs, pistons, rivets, or riveting machines. There is an entry for welding, but none for acetylene or welding flux.

The entries themselves are very skimpy, and often enough only the name of the device, its purpose, and the date of its invention are given. There are a fair number of cases where the authors appear not to have understood what they were writing about. For example, in one case the Russian word "kamera" is translated as "camera" when it is obvious that "chamber" or "room" was meant. For another, the entry for "Stellar Distance" states that trigonometry did not work, therefore they used parallax. But parallax is a type of trigonometry.

A fair list of references is provided, and perhaps they will make it a little easier to find the information you want to know, if you have access to a large library or a lot of money to spend.

A good explanation for the strengths and weaknesses of this book is easily found by searching the Amazon.com book list for other books by Ellis Mount. There are dozens of them, all about libraries.