bookreviews


Book Reviews 293 

the disinclination for action; the some­
times ephemeral effect of student activ­
ism, as the student body comes and goes; 
the power of top administration to sup­
port or stymie meaningful change. Such 
insights are inevitably accompanied by 
savvy suggestions for facilitating change. 
Subsequent action-oriented chapters, the 
heart of the book, deal with “Buildings & 
Grounds,” “Purchasing,” “Dining Ser­
vices,” “Labs,” and “Academic Depart­
ments.” These provide a veritable cornu­
copia of techniques for reducing con­
sumption and waste. The book’s detailed 
suggestions remind us that changing in­
stitutional behaviors may be difficult. The 
tone might be called “realistic optimism”: 
brisk and encouraging, neither whiny nor 
self-important, always hopeful that some­
thing out of the compendium will work 
for you. 

The closing chapter returns to the over­
all task of “Greening the Ivory Tower.” It 
offers a set of “lessons” learned in the Tufts 
experience. These lessons, like the sugges­
tions for technical change, seem level­
headed and practical. “Environmental 
Stewardship Almost Always Means Re­
ducing Waste” is a lesson that might well 
be posted near your and my department 
photocopier. “Take Action Where You Can 
Be Successful” rings true to anyone who 
has labored as an environmental advocate 
beyond a single issue. “Never Take No for 
an Answer ” indicates a resiliency evi­
denced in this handbook’s wealth of al­
ternatives. 

Despite its length (nearly 300 pages), 
Greening the Ivory Tower should prove ac­
cessible to its audience. It is well orga­
nized, richly documented with graphics 
illustrating its technical recommenda­
tions, charted by a good index, and 
supplemented by an extensive bibliogra­
phy. Most important, it is well written: 
clear and succinct, composed with strong 
topic sentences, clear headers, logical or­
ganization, and few digressions. Those ex­
perienced in environmental advocacy 
might anticipate long, sad, ironic anec­
dotes, but this practical book manages to 
slip them between the lines (the manager 

in charge of watering athletic fields, we 
are told, had perfected a “water cannon” 
technique over many years and was not 
about to change). 

The theme of student involvement is 
the focus of a chapter on “Student Activi­
ties” and, indeed, is interwoven through­
out the book, but the point of view is not 
primarily that of students. A brief, but use­
ful, discussion of curricula outlines the 
need for interdisciplinarity—successfully 
introduced into Tufts ES programs by 
Tony Cortese—and also discusses David 
Orr ’s more basic questions about the goals 
of education. Those interested in peda­
gogy should read Cortese and Orr; those 
interested in changing the institution’s 
business behaviors should order Greening 
the Ivory Tower, display it in the library, and 
recommend it to colleagues. 

When I recently commenced my 
course in environmental advocacy, I 
posed one of those first-day-of-class ques­
tions, one of the few I felt I could answer 
with certainty: “What is the most impor­
tant characteristic of the environmental 
advocate who succeeds over the long 
term?” My answer remains “the one with 
a good heart.” Sarah Hammond 
Creighton’s book has a good heart and 
might lend good heart to its readers.— 
Vernon Owen Grumbling, University of New 
England, Biddeford, Maine. 

The Eighth Off-Campus Library Services Con­
ference Proceedings: Providence, RI, April 
22–24, 1998. Comp. P. Steven Thomas 
and Maryhelen Jones. Mount Pleasant, 
Mich.: Central Michigan Univ., 1998. 
350p. $45. 

The Eighth Off-Campus Library Services Con­
ference Proceedings consists of papers pre­
sented at the conference held in April 
1998. Papers are arranged alphabetically 
by author name, and cover the gamut of 
topics and issues involved with provid­
ing library services to off-campus and dis­
tance-learning students. In addition, this 
volume of proceedings of the Off-Cam­
pus Library Services Conference includes 
the tables of contents for the previous 
seven proceedings. These tables of con­



294 College & Research Libraries May 1999 

tents provide background on, and a good 
overview of, the evolution of off-campus 
services since the first conference was 
held in 1982. 

Topics covered at the conference in­
clude design of Web-based tutorials; col­
laboration between universities, and be­
tween traditional and virtual universities, 
faculty and librarians, and main and sat­
ellite campuses; instruction on library re­
sources via a variety of methods, includ­
ing television, e-mail, and video, as well 
as other forms of computer-mediated 
communication; administration of dis­
tance-learning programs; enhancement 
of catalogs for remote access; promotion 
of off-campus services; consideration of 
collection development issues; evaluation 
and assessment of services; and provision 
of remote reference. Particularly interest­
ing are the numerous papers on collabo­
rations forged not only between tradi­
tional institutions, but also between vir­
tual universities and physical universities 
as demonstrated by the agreement be­
tween Walden and Indiana Universities. 

This collection of conference proceed­
ings is a valuable tool for anyone partici­
pating in the provision of off-campus ser­
vices. The papers on practices and proce­
dures will be especially valuable for any 
library initiating services of its own or en­
hancing current services. The discussion 
of the complexities involved in providing 
off-campus service should be especially 
useful in informing librarians and admin­
istrators for purposes of future planning. 
In addition, as the wealth of topics dis­
cussed in the collection demonstrates, off-
campus or distance learning affects all as­
pects of librarianship—from reference to 
instruction to collection development to 
cataloging to administration. As more stu­
dents enroll in distance education pro­
grams, expectations will increase for re­
mote access to the library and to all the 
resources it has traditionally provided. 

One minor complaint: organization of 
the proceedings by theme or subject or the 
inclusion of an index would make brows­
ing through them easier for those inter­
ested in particular topics within distance 

learning. Despite this minor complaint, 
the Off-Campus Library Services Confer­
ence continues to be a valuable forum for 
librarians active in distance learning. The 
examples provided by those who partici­
pated in this conference are exemplary in 
their initiative and leadership in this 
field.—Barbara J. D’Angelo, Southeastern 
Louisiana University, Hammond, LA. 

Grimes, Deborah J. Academic Library Cen­
trality: User Success through Service, Ac­
cess, and Tradition. Chicago: ACRL 
(ACRL Publications in Librarianship, 
no. 50), 1998. 154p. $30, alk. paper 
(ISBN 0838979505). LC 98-19628. 

Academic Library Centrality is based on a 
study aimed at identifying ways that aca­
demic libraries achieve centrality in the 
university’s mission. Grimes discusses old 
conceptions and misconceptions regard­
ing the status of academic libraries and 
seeks a new metaphor for libraries that is 
more appropriate at the turn of the cen­
tury. In doing so, she demonstrates the 
need for librarians to improve their un­
derstanding of the larger academic com­
munity. In addition, she provides evi­
dence of what leaders in academia expect 
of librarians and libraries. This study ar­
gues that librarians must move beyond 
the “heart of the university ” metaphor 
and should examine the library’s actual 
organizational relationships by using the 
concept of centrality. 

“The library is the heart of the univer­
sity.” This claim has been made in publi­
cations, conferences, and public discus­
sions for more than a hundred years. 
Grimes examines the use of this statement 
in historic accounts as well as in recent 
publications, and outlines discrepancies 
between what is implied by the metaphor 
and actual campus realities as demon­
strated by teaching faculty who do not in­
tegrate the library into their instruction, 
by students who use the library as a study 
hall, and by administrators who fail to see 
the potential of librarians as instructors. 

Both the status of library instruction 
programs and the authority granted li­
brary directors are central to Grimes’s ar­