College and Research Libraries


tions of the network paradigm," the 
"myth of electronic democracy," and the 
"supposed role of 'shared spaces' ... in 
the development of electronic altruism" 
that sounds cautionary notes especially 
close to home as librarians prepare 
despatialized collections for decor-
porealized constituencies in times when 
the new communities thus created will 
increasingly have to pay the Internet 
piper. 

Mantovani's tone is not so energeti-
cally critical as is, for example, Neil 
Postman's in Technology or Gorman and 
Crawford's in Future Libraries. His argu-
ment, however, reminds readers of what 
we already know so well, namely, that 
the technologies we make, make us in 
turn; that what we make has unpredict-
able consequences; that no tool is inher-
ently purposeful but, rather, takes its pur-
poses from the field of social values; and 
that technologies are social and therefore 
political projects. Technological tools, 
such as personal identity, develop in en-
gagement with an environment already 
conditioned by the political and social 
projects of people. Thus, as knowledge 
for Mantovani is not simply processed 
information, so, too, are technologies not 
neutral forces for progress; rather, their 
"cultural dimensions" require that we 
ask the political questions about who 
uses them and to what ends. 

The cover blurb promises a "startling" 
book. To those, however, who have fol-
lowed, especially through the cultural 
studies movement, the post-sixties devel-
opment of (Continental) social/ cultural 
theory on problems of agency, structure, 
subjectivity, discourse, language, power, 
ideology, and the every day or, for that 
matter, those who attend to the world 
around them, none of this will come as 
anything new, let alone startling. Read-
ers will find the summaries in the short 
introduction and conclusion useful, as 
they will the discussion of the sociopo-
litical imbrications of technology; but 
gaining instruction from the whole may 

Book Reviews 585 

depend not only on their reading or pow-
ers of observation but also on how they 
like their (virtual?) reality-in the form 
of the novel or social psychology, or in 
the imitation of fiction or description of 
science. That the author's most vivid evi-
dence in part one derives from works of 
literature or anecdotes of student life and 
that he proposes to ontologize virtual re-
ality as fiction remind me of Aristotle's 
assertion that poetry (roughly, literature) 
is more philosophical and serious than 
history because it is more universal. I 
might venture the corollary that litera-
ture, on these counts, shows itself supe-
rior to social psychology as welL-Rob-
ert Kieft, Haverford College, Haverford, 
Pennsylania . 

Miller, Steven E. Civilizing Cyberspace: 
Policy, Power, and the Information Su-
perhighway. New York: ACM Pr., 1996. 
413p. $24.95. (ISBN 0-201-84760-4.) LC 
95-7270. 

This has been a good year for public de-
bate about the information superhigh-
way. Dullish topics such as telecommu-
nications technology, regulation and 
licensing of public utilities, antitrust, 
copyright, and patent law have pen-
etrated the consciousness of the average 
person, the media, and possibly even 
some legislators. Along with perennially 
exciting problems of censorship and pri-
vacy and the politics of the Supreme 
Court and the 104th Congress, they make 
an exciting agenda for democratic discus-
sion. Steven E. Miller is one of those rare 
people who combine detailed knowledge 
of both the technical and the political 
sides of these issues. He has been a com-
munity organizer, editor of Lotus Maga-
zine, science commentator for the TV 
show One Norway Street, and member of 
the national board of Computer Profes-
sionals for Social Responsibility. In Civi-
lizing Cyberspace, Miller offers a valuable 
overview aimed at knowledgeable citi-
zens and policymakers. "Question and 
Answer" sessions with experts (scien-



586 College & Research Libraries 

tists, librarians, journalists, etc.) conclude 
each chapter, creating a chorus of voices. 

The book's title evokes the currently 
popular notion of "civic space," a realm 
of public activity apart from church, state, 
and commerce that is indispensable to 
flourishing democratic communities. 
Miller hopes that the information super-
highway can sustain and even enhance 
this "civility." Because it originated in 
government-sponsored research and uni-
versity settings, the Internet developed 
as a "self-governing voluntary associa-
tion that creates its own rules through an 
evolutionary consensus-building pro-
cess." But "now the organization paying 
the piper is calling for a change of tune." 
To achieve deficit reduction, the Clinton 
administration has decided that its much-
touted National Information Infrastruc-
ture (Nil) will be built by the private sec-
tor in a market context. Miller fears that 
undiluted market forces will turn the in-
formation superhighway into a commer-
cial wasteland-and a dangerous one at 
that. He takes the reader on a tour of al-
ternative po!)sibilities in chapters devoted 
to network infrastructure and organiza-
tion, communications policy, industry 
patterns and strategies, funding, free 
speech, privacy and security, and eco-
nomic development. 

Index to advertisers 
Ablex 
ACRL 
Archival Products 
Biosciences Information 
Blackwell 
Chadwyck-Healey 
EU Info 
Greenwood Publishing 
Library Technologies 
OCLC Online Computer 
PAIS 
Readmore 
Todd Enterprises 
H. W. Wilson 

566 
497 
512 
cover 2 
cover 3 
513 
588 
524 
554 
494 
578 
500 
cover 4 
493 

November 1996 

For example, Miller supports univer-
sal access to the information superhigh-
way via a "broadband telecommunica-
tions platform that supports two-way 
multimedia applications." But commer-
cial suppliers may settle for one-way or 
only minimally two-way communication 
channels, which would be cheaper to 
build and adequate for profitable enter-
tainment and shopping services. Capsule 
histories of the rail, television, telephone, 
and cable industries provide a number 
of cautionary tales and lessons. Miller 
convincingly argues that the information 
superhighway must be a common car-
rier (like telephone and postal service and 
unlike broadcasting) in order to ensure 
that all voices and points of view can be 
heard. But the market encourages verti-
cal integration, with joint ownership of 
both communication channels and pro-
gramming. Space for noncommercial, 
public-access channels has been shrinking. 

Another strong section deals with pri-
vacy issues, including data security, ac-
curacy, and encryption. Here, Miller, with 
his unusually broad knowledge of policy 
trends, is able to compare weak U.S. poli-
cies with the much more stringent safe-
guards in force in European countries. 
Also useful are his clear discussions of 
the privatization of government informa-
tion and of intellectual property rights in 
an electronic environment. Sections on 
"Community, Diversity, and Citizenship" 
and "Citizen Action" are less incisive. 

Civilizing Cyberspace is a good book 
that all libraries should have in their col-
lections, but it could have been better. 
Herbert Hoover was not president in 
1924, and the inventor of the panopticon 
was Jeremy Bentham, not Benthan. But 
these are minor errors. More serious is 
that incomplete source documentation 
prevents the reader from evaluating in-
ferences drawn from research studies and 
reports. I also find that the attempt to al-
low readers to either read each chapter 
in order or "jump around among topics 
that sound interesting" (Miller calls it 



"random access") produces a weak, re-
petitive organizational structure that 
works against the narrative, analytic, and 
polemical thrust of Miller's work. Per-
haps his background as a columnist and 
broadcaster has conditioned him to break 
his material down into small chunks. 
And although Miller's sweetly reason-
able voice contributes to the civilized tone 
of his book, it may not inspire the vocif-
erous public response that he recom-
mends. Strange as it may sound, Civiliz-
ing Cyberspace could have used a little 
more rhetoric.-Jean Alexander, North-
western University, Evanston, Illinois. 

The Unpredictable Certainty: Information 
Infrastructure through 2000. Prepared 
by the Nil 2000 Steering Committee; 
the Computer Science and Telecom-
munications Board; the Commission 
on Physical Sciences, Mathematics 
and Applications; and the National 
Research Council. Washington, D.C.: 
National Academy Pr., 1996. 281p. 
$24.95. (ISBN 0-309-05432-X.) LC 96-
67383. 

This report represents the thinking of 
members of business, industry, acade-
mia, and government. It synthesizes the 
discussion and papers produced at a 
workshop in January 1995 and a forum 
in the spring of 1995 in Washington, D.C. 
These meetings were organized by a 
steering committee of the Information In-
frastructure Task Force, acting under the 
direction of the Computer Science and 
Telecommunications Board of the Na-
tional Research Council. 

The mandate for the steering commit-
tee was "to access medium-term deploy-
ment of facilities and services to advance 
the nation's information infrastructure." 
The project Nil 2000 sought the perspec-
tives of providers of information and pro-
ducers of facilities as well as the views 
of user groups. 

At the beginning of the report, there 
is a poem by Antonio Machado, which 
reads: 

Book Reviews 587 

"wanderers, your footsteps are 
the road, and nothing more; 
wanderer, there is no road, 
the road is made by walking." 

Appropriately, these lines sum up the 
general outlook of those engaged in the 
project. In the report, there is no vision, 
no road, only the rarely questioned 
premise that private decision-making-
markets-will somehow or other, some-
time or other, lead to satisfactory out-
comes. Desirable social outcomes hardly 
come into it. Technology is endorsed, not 
scrutinized. Its adoption is the report's 
"certainty." The unpredictability arises 
because potential individual users of the 
technology may be unwilling to assume 
their assigned roles. 

And well they might, given that there 
is no good reason offered to indicate that 
people want some, or any, of the services 
being thrown at them. "What will the 
consumer really want to do with the in-
teractive services, and how much is he 
willing to pay?" asks one participant. 

But this uncertainty is not determin-
ing because, as the report makes clear, 
''business users will drive the develop-
ment of information infrastructure." Yet, 
herein lies the contradiction that haunts 
the entire project. What disturbingly (to 
the report's authors) cannot be exorcised 
are the origins of what currently under-
pins the information infrastructure-the 
Internet. In the report's careful words, "It 
[the Internet] was built to one set of eco-
nomic principles and is in transition to an-
other set of economic principles ... " [review-
er's emphasis]. 

Again, quoting the report, the Inter-
net was constructed "according to a so-
cial benefit model." Now it is in transi-
tion to a commercial standard. Unsur-
prisingly, "financing for Internet access 
in research, education, and libraries con-
tinues to be a source of uncertainty and 
concern .... " 

Project 2000's participants, working 
with a market frame for analysis, reject