Book selection represents the sphere of librarianship which distinguishes the profession from many other occupations. There has been a controversy in the past whether the process of book selection is an ‘art’ or ‘science’. Should librarians be administrators or bookmen? Whatever may be the answer to this, there is no denying the fact that book selection requires a high degree of organization. Book selection is based on procedures which in turn rely on the adequate provision of information designed to guide the selection decision. It is the job of the librarian to keep his academics well informed about materials appearing in their subject areas. Over the past 30 years, the number of books published each year has risen by 250 percent. In these circumstances there is an obvious need for a library’s book selection policy to be clearly stand to the members of the staff.
The author of the book under review very rightly believes that growth of libraries and limited finance available for this purpose, have created problems of book selection. Therefore, considerable difficulties are encountered by the librarians in the course of their fundamental task of building up a balanced book stock.