reviews 196 College & Research Libraries March 1997 peal to the discourses of everyday life their scholarship often creates the im- pression of a world drifted away from that life into a never-never land where only words/texts exist, where a simply inexorable discursive power emanates from nowhere to compose the every day of decision and behavior into a nar- rative rich in events but with no author, no characters, and no plot other than the repeated implosions of Derridean aporias. In short, it leaves the reader with the sense that the world it de- scribes could only exist in the mind of a theorist who lives by reading. With the likes of Habermas, there- fore, one wonders whether the only conclusion to be drawn from the evi- dence of history is that modernity and its University are finished, the Enlight- enment project dead, and our world re- duced to postmodern ruination. In spite of Readings’s disclaimers about his study’s scope and emphases, one won- ders whether he posits a unity, “the Uni- versity,” that does not tend danger- ously to conflate “the University” with the myriad particularities of “higher education,” particularities of purpose, founding auspices, and history that in their variety potentiate possibilities for resistance to the deadening discourse of “excellence.” One also wonders whether his reliance on the discourses of bottom-line sloganeering, official pro- nouncements, management tracts, and magazine reports does not, likewise dangerously, ignore the motives, prac- tices, and histories that inform student and faculty life. For all his small hopes and apoca- lyptic exhaustion, Readings is never less than stimulating. His critique of, and program for, the University are not only vastly superior to the diatribes of the raucously nostalgic Right, with whose position his postmodernist, Leftist stance so vividly contrasts, but are more challenging than those of liberal reformists, whose thinking fails to en- gage the radically altered circum- stances of the (post)modern world. Those unfamiliar with the arguments of and around postmodernism, especially as they inform the recent trajectory of Marxism, may find Readings tough go- ing; but the clarity, energy, and wit of the writing will reward effort with pass- ing observations on the academic world, a penetrating critique of cultural studies, an analysis of ambitious scope, and a jolt of strangeness as he dissects the corporatist discourse of excellence, which so many of us administrators take to be the way the world works.—Robert Kieft, Haverford College, Haverford, Penn- sylvania Soley, Lawrence C. Leasing the Ivory Tower: The Corporate Takeover of Academia. Boston: South End Pr., 1995. 204p. $40 cloth. ISBN 0-89608-504-X. $13 paper. ISBN 0-89608-503-1. LC 94-39872. Librarians have lately begun to debate the merits of corporate funding of librar- ies—witness the brouhaha two years back over materials developed in a joint ALA-McDonalds venture to promote family reading that were imprinted with the “golden arches.” Many librarians opposed having this sort of “indirect” advertising for the fast-food giant im- posed on their libraries and literacy pro- grams. Recently, public protests caused a stir over San Francisco Public Library’s decision to name library departments in its new facility after corporate donors, and a growing focus of concern within the profession is ALA’s willingness to tack Ameritech’s name to convention programs (the joke going around now is that ALA might soon be regarded as the acronym for the Ameritech Library Association). Lawrence Soley’s book, Leasing the Ivory Tower, provides ample evidence from the world of academia that corporate funding seldom, if ever, comes with “no strings attached.” The book lends strong support to those li- brarians who urge us to take a critical Book Reviews 197 look at the ways in which corporate fund- ing might influence library decision-making processes. Soley begins with a brief examina- tion of the “political correctness” de- bates of the early 1990s and argues that: [r]ather than shedding light on what has happened to universities, the PC debate has succeeded in hiding what has happened . . . [E]xamination . . . reveals that t h e i v o r y t o w e r s o f A m e r i c a h a v e b e e n l e a s e d b y c o r p o r a - t i o n s , w e a l t h y p a t r o n s , a n d right-wing foundations. Being “politically correct” in academia t o d a y m e a n s h a v i n g a n e n - dowed chair or a lucrative con- sulting contract. It has nothing to do with being a left-wing zealot. In the chapters following, Soley sup- plies numerous examples of the ways in which corporate money influences re- search priorities, resource allocations, and teaching loads at medical schools, business colleges, social science de- partments, university-based research centers, and “independent” think tanks; and in establishing special fee-based services for members of the corporate community. He writes of the “culture of greed” taking root in our nation’s col- leges and universities as they become more dependent on corporate funding: huge salaries and luxurious “perks” for university CEOs; “savings” realized through cuts in payrolls from the re- placement of full-time faculty with tem- porary, part-time adjuncts; the hiring of ever greater numbers of administrators who have little or no direct contact with students; hefty increases in tuition with- out decreases in faculty/student ratios. Soley describes a win-lose relationship in which students, faculty, and the pub- lic lose high-quality educational ser- vices, while corporations win with tax breaks, public relations bonanzas, cheap research, patent ownership, large profits, and easy access to aca- demic journals. Soley provides several examples of how corporations have taken advantage of changes made in tax and patent laws in the early 1980s which allow companies to reap the benefits of research done at universities. The company makes a rela- tively small (tax-deductible) contribution to a university supported primarily by public funds. Because of that contribu- tion, however, the company gets propri- etary claims to patents on products re- sulting from research funded in part by the company. One such case involved the University of Florida, whose re- searchers developed the athletes’ drink Gatorade, which was patented to a pri- vate company. The university gets $2 million in royalties every year from sales of the product it developed, whereas the company makes $500 to $600 million ev- ery year in Gatorade sales. In another example, a pharmaceuti- cal company funded a University of California study into the benefits of a particular drug. Within one year of pub- lication of an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, in which UC researchers reported positive test results, stock shares in the company soared from a low of $12 per share to a high of $60. Authors of the NEJM article made no mention of the fact that their article was based on work funded by the company that planned to manufac- ture and market the drug. Soley’s prose is clear, and his views are supported by succinct, appropriate, and fascinating examples. He names names, and provides dates and dollar figures, all of which are documented in twenty-six pages of notes at the end of the book. The index is good, but (of course) not as good as it should be. One real weakness in the book is the chap- ter titled “The Unsocial Sciences,” which is not as well documented or argued as the other chapters. Previous works by the author have been well received, and 198 College & Research Libraries March 1997 he has been the recipient of at least two awards for investigative journalism. In a review of Soley’s “Radio Warfare: OSS and CIA Subversive Propaganda” in the September 1990 issue of Annals of the American Academy, the reviewer con- cludes that the work is “a solid well-documented book that makes good and interesting reading.” Ditto from this reviewer for Leasing the Ivory Tower. Rec- ommended for all academic libraries and all public libraries serving college communities. This is one to read and discuss with colleagues.—Elaine Harger, New Jersey Historical Society, Newark Targowski, Andrew S. Global Information Infrastructure: The Birth, Vision, and Ar- chitecture. Harrisburg, Penn.: Idea Group, 1996. 383p. $59.95. ISBN 1-878289-32-2. LC 96-13580. Andrew Targowski is a refugee from Communist Poland now attached to Western Michigan University. The aim of his book is to describe the future of the information superhighway and the development of what he terms the New Information Civilization (NIC) in light of his experience as director of the Greater Kalamazoo Telecity. This is tack- led in an ordered fashion by describing types of network and telematic services, and the concepts of electronic money, knowledge, business, government, and education. Much of this information is imparted in the fashion of a catalog, with widespread use of bullets and many dia- grams. The book concludes with a vi- sion of the TeleCity, or electronic town. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Targowski’s work is why, given the existing scope and potential of informa- tion technology, it is published as a book at all. His publishers have done him a grave disservice by their neglect of the editorial process. Some of his prose is gruesome: “An user not only will look for a bigger choice of information . . .” is typical. But more significant than this contempt for grammar is the ideology revealed by the sentence construction and writing style. Take this example, for instance: “The information utility will [sic] applied at home, in the office, the library, classroom, and many public lo- cations. People will act and think differ- ently. The information utility will inter- act directly with human memory and mental processes. It will be an exten- sion of a brain/mind. . . . This telepower . . . will improve the learning, storing and thinking capabilities of mankind.” The method is stark and simple; link to- gether a number of staccato and un- qualified statements and arrive at the desired conclusion. Its combination of the imperative and a reverence for technology reminds one of interwar fascism while Targowski’s writing is all the more alarming for its palpable ig- norance of history and its lack of hu- man agency. Humankind is reduced to units reacting predictably and grate- fully to the beneficence of technology. Technocrats and politicians share a common characteristic. They believe that however bizarre their claims, if they are made often enough and with enough conviction, people will begin to accept them and their inevitability. It is thus entirely appropriate that the first sec- tion of this book consists of excerpts from a 1995 speech by Al Gore. A seam- less string of political rhetoric—“a new reality,” “benefit all humankind,” “facili- tate solutions to global environmental challenges,” “bridging differences be- tween nations and people” are repre- sentative samples—aptly sets the un- academic tone of this volume which is immediately reinforced by obeisance to the work of Toffler. There is a fervor and dogma about this book that is almost religious. Targowski tells us that the NIC “will in- tegrate us commercially and culturally” and goes on to explore such concepts as “One Human Family in One Elec- tronic Global Village” and the “Global Brain.” Perhaps the most alarming << /ASCII85EncodePages false /AllowTransparency false /AutoPositionEPSFiles true /AutoRotatePages /All /Binding /Left /CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 20%) /CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CalCMYKProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Warning /CompatibilityLevel 1.3 /CompressObjects /Tags /CompressPages true /ConvertImagesToIndexed true /PassThroughJPEGImages true /CreateJobTicket false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /DetectBlends true /DetectCurves 0.0000 /ColorConversionStrategy /CMYK /DoThumbnails false /EmbedAllFonts true /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /EmbedJobOptions true /DSCReportingLevel 0 /EmitDSCWarnings false /EndPage -1 /ImageMemory 1048576 /LockDistillerParams false /MaxSubsetPct 1 /Optimize true /OPM 1 /ParseDSCComments true /ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true /PreserveCopyPage true /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveEPSInfo true /PreserveFlatness false /PreserveHalftoneInfo true /PreserveOPIComments false /PreserveOverprintSettings true /StartPage 1 /SubsetFonts false /TransferFunctionInfo /Apply /UCRandBGInfo /Preserve /UsePrologue false /ColorSettingsFile () /AlwaysEmbed [ true ] /NeverEmbed [ true ] /AntiAliasColorImages false /CropColorImages false /ColorImageMinResolution 151 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleColorImages true /ColorImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDepth -1 /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeColorImages true /ColorImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterColorImages true /ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /ColorACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /ColorImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000ColorImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages false /GrayImageMinResolution 151 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /GrayImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000GrayImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages false /MonoImageMinResolution 600 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.16667 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict << /K -1 >> /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile () /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False /CreateJDFFile false /Description << /ENU (IPC Print Services, Inc. Please use these settings with InDesign CS4 \(6.x\). These settings should work well for every type of job; B/W, Color or Spot Color. Contact Pre-press Helpdesk at prepress_helpdesk@ipcprintservices.com if you have questions or need customized settings.) >> /Namespace [ (Adobe) (Common) (1.0) ] /OtherNamespaces [ << /AsReaderSpreads false /CropImagesToFrames true /ErrorControl /WarnAndContinue /FlattenerIgnoreSpreadOverrides false /IncludeGuidesGrids false /IncludeNonPrinting false /IncludeSlug false /Namespace [ (Adobe) (InDesign) (4.0) ] /OmitPlacedBitmaps false /OmitPlacedEPS false /OmitPlacedPDF false /SimulateOverprint /Legacy >> << /AddBleedMarks true /AddColorBars false /AddCropMarks true /AddPageInfo true /AddRegMarks false /BleedOffset [ 9 9 9 9 ] /ConvertColors /ConvertToCMYK /DestinationProfileName (U.S. Web Coated \(SWOP\) v2) /DestinationProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK /Downsample16BitImages true /FlattenerPreset << /ClipComplexRegions true /ConvertStrokesToOutlines true /ConvertTextToOutlines true /GradientResolution 300 /LineArtTextResolution 1200 /PresetName ([High Resolution]) /PresetSelector /HighResolution /RasterVectorBalance 1 >> /FormElements false /GenerateStructure false /IncludeBookmarks false /IncludeHyperlinks false /IncludeInteractive false /IncludeLayers false /IncludeProfiles true /MarksOffset 9 /MarksWeight 0.250000 /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings /Namespace [ (Adobe) (CreativeSuite) (3.0) ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /NA /PageMarksFile /RomanDefault /PreserveEditing true /UntaggedCMYKHandling /LeaveUntagged /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UseDocumentBleed false >> << /AllowImageBreaks true /AllowTableBreaks true /ExpandPage false /HonorBaseURL true /HonorRolloverEffect false /IgnoreHTMLPageBreaks false /IncludeHeaderFooter false /MarginOffset [ 0 0 0 0 ] /MetadataAuthor () /MetadataKeywords () /MetadataSubject () /MetadataTitle () /MetricPageSize [ 0 0 ] /MetricUnit /inch /MobileCompatible 0 /Namespace [ (Adobe) (GoLive) (8.0) ] /OpenZoomToHTMLFontSize false /PageOrientation /Portrait /RemoveBackground false /ShrinkContent true /TreatColorsAs /MainMonitorColors /UseEmbeddedProfiles false /UseHTMLTitleAsMetadata true >> ] >> setdistillerparams << /HWResolution [2400 2400] /PageSize [612.000 792.000] >> setpagedevice