reviews 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 Book Reviews 199 statement of all is a prediction that Homo sapiens will metamorphose into Homo electronicus. In an isolated ges- ture toward the world of literature, he mentions H. G. Wells, but Wells at least restricted his fantasies of dehumaniza- tion in the “One World State” to fiction. Occasionally, Targowski stumbles over some of his confident propositions and a chink of uncertainty opens up. He admits that technology is not neutral and that the Electronic State could pro- duce Big Brother just as readily as the Electronic Republic, but fails to develop either of these vital questions. Nor does he expand on the tentative admission “if the virtual library becomes a real- ity.” Such, apparently, are the certain- ties of those at the cutting edge of infor- mation technology that fundamental issues and the questions they raise can be awarded a mere mention in passing. For librarians, the most interesting chapter is that on electronic knowledge. Like many technocrats, Targowski praises the concept of the digital library and its ability to allow users to identify and locate relevant information re- sources in a logical fashion, blissfully unaware that libraries and librarians have been successfully doing just this for centuries. Ignorance then gives way to condescension: “The eclectic influx of automated and electronic systems causes some confusion among library management. . . .” The conclusion that “this needs to be replaced with a vision of ultimate solutions . . .” begs the ques- tion of exactly where the confusion lies; and whether such finality can ever be part of the human condition. In this chap- ter of seventeen pages, Targowski makes reference to a mere six sources, two of them his own writing. The index has three separate references to “li- brary,” which all refer to the same page number; and it is so crude it could only have been produced by a computer. In Targowski’s world, technology is not at the service of society but, rather, drives it. This in turn leads to the pre- dictable assumptions of the Information Age—that the ready availability of elec- tronic information is going to promote peace, prosperity, and democracy; and overcome environmental degradation and poverty. An avalanche of informa- tion delivered electronically is Targowski’s answer to the world’s prob- lems. He dismisses Arab countries, China, and North Korea as areas suf- fering from “informational slavery” and fails to consider the possibility that fun- damentalism and reactionary behavior in those societies may well be aggra- vated by his NIC, its globalization, and consequent cultural imperialism. Not everyone, and for good reason, wishes to have their national identity destroyed by an electronically disseminated ho- mogeneous culture. Targowski’s work would be all the more convincing if he could explain exactly how the people of Ogoniland, East Timor, and Chiapas, who all live in robust free market econo- mies, are going to achieve liberation through the availability of information technology. The overall impression given by the book is that the NIC is a neutral agency that will reach “the smallest village in Index to advertisers Academic Press 156 Archival Products 114 Assoc. of Christian Librarians 188, 197 ACRL 201, 202 Assoc. of Research Libraries 188 BIOSIS 111 Blackwell’s 107 EBSCO cover 2 Elsevier Science cover 3 Greenwood Publishing 172 Library Technologies 127 Primary Source Media 108 Readmore 143 Springer-Verlag 144 Todd Enterprises cover 4 University of Illinois 188 200 College & Research Libraries March 1997 every part of the world,” benefiting all of humanity. This wears rather thin af- ter the admission that America is the major supplier to the telematic indus- try and that the NIC will promote eco- nomic development and job creation in the United States as well as its cul- tural exports. Targowski’s assumption that this economic activity will “trickle down” to the periphery has long ago been challenged by economists and ge- ographers. Some people it seems, in true Orwellian fashion, are to be more equal than others. This book should be consulted widely by librarians but for wholly nega- tive reasons. In one volume, they can find virtually every cliche of the Infor- mation Age and be forewarned of ma- jor threats to so many of the values at the heart of their profession. It should challenge us all to double our efforts as guardians of the collective memory and promoters of civil rights.—Christo- pher Merrett, University of Natal Library, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa << /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. 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