Public personnel administration : an annotated bibliography /

Like its companions in this valuable series, this compilation includes an introductory bibliographic essay and a classified list of carefully selected and informatively annotated materials, with only an author index. The series editors need to be convinced that a good subject index is a necessity. There are 684 items in 11 chapters. Resources listed are 55 periodicals, of which only about a fourth are devoted primarily to public affairs. The ambiguity in separating personnel matters of business management from those of public administration is addressed in this work by two distinct factors: the civil service system, and the general lack of discrete products. Chapter 1 is a history of the civil service; a chapter on productivity includes some of the most recent publications and significant annotations. A unique and useful chapter, the shortest, is on Constitutional issues, incorporating 7 readings and 26 legal cases. The preponderance of items included were published in the '70s, but current research topics are hard to locate, since they tend not to fit chapter divisions: e.g., the issues of comparable worth fall in Chapter 5, ``Position Classification and Pay,'' if at all. Comparability is used in reference to public versus private sectors rather than comparable worth issues. At least one major author, John M. Pfiffner, has no entries at all, though other classics are included. The bibliography is designed for and should be useful to academics and practitioners, as well as provide foundation knowledge for those engaged in research. University level collections.-D.H. Banks, Whitworth College