reviews 92 College & Research Libraries marily of “how we done it good” accounts of specific projects. Of course, the posi­ tive spin on this is that the book has some­ thing for everyone. On the whole, it is an enjoyable treatment of its subject matter, with useful insights and tips on enhanc­ ing librarian–faculty collaboration for the benefit of both their academic constitu­ ents and the collaborators themselves.— John Payne, Furman University. Hakken, David. Cyborgs@Cyberspace?: An Ethnographer Looks to the Future. New York and London: Routledge, 1999. 264p. $60, alk. paper, cloth (ISBN 0-415-91558-9); $18.95, paper (ISBN 0-415-91559-7). LC 98-38185. This is a difficult book to read and suffi­ ciently marginal to librarianship that the value for us of Hakken’s insights probably is not worth the trouble it will take to read them. The reason for reviewing the book here at all is that the “cyberspace” that con­ cerns Hakken is not Internet chat or pa­ tron information-seeking behavior but, rather, the manner in which culture influ­ ences “information systems develop­ ment,” which he abbreviates as ISD. Hakken is writing from a multiply marginal position. He is an anthropologist in a technical institute, working with en­ gineering colleagues who, as often as not, do not see the value of social science in general. Because he is an enthusiastic pro­ ponent of STS (Science, Technology, and Society studies, investigating the “cultural construction of techno-science”), he faces, as well, opposition from those who see science as objective and universal. Within anthropology he is in the more recently re­ spectable, but still defensive, community of scholars who study Europe and North America rather than non-Western cultures; and among them, he studies work, work­ ers, and workplaces rather than larger communities. Finally, he is a Marxist and a Post-Modernist, expressed in almost un­ readable prose. If all that were not enough, a good part of the literature Hakken and his col­ leagues are producing analyzes some­ thing whose very existence, much less January 2001 definition(s), is argued: Does the fact that many claim we are undergoing a “com­ puter revolution” that is creating new forms of work mean much, anything, or something different when work and workers are studied? Hakken seemingly never met jargon he did not embrace. My saying this is partly a question of theoretical differences with Hakken. I see nothing gained by the Marxist term social formation in place of society or social organization, but Hakken defends the term as “not giv[ing] unwar­ ranted priority to any one level,” like na­ tional. But in other cases, it is a matter of Hakken apparently wanting to frame ev­ ery thought with a unique term, regard­ less how opaque the result. An important point is the differentiation of views of computers and computing as either good or bad for the larger society, in terms of jobs lost, benefits gained, shifts in loca­ tions of power, etc. But to label the con­ trasting views “computopian” and “compputropian,” and then to use the terms frequently, impedes reading, as do neologisms such as “cyborgification,” “machinofacture,” and “cyberfacture,” or “preanthropoic” versus “transanthropic,” to cite only a few. Hakken’s view of social theory em­ phasizes individual actors rather than structures, which leads him to use (mostly as abbreviations) many unfamiliar terms: TAN (Technology Actor Network), ANT (Actor Network Theory) and ANTers who practice it, not to mention RANT (Realist ANT) and TANT (Technocist ANT.) More familiar terms such as “labor theory of value,” “computer revolution,” and “computer-mediated communication” almost always occur, chapters away from their introduction, as LToV, CR, and CMC. And so on, very far on, indeed. As a post-modernist writer who would deny the possibility of an authori­ tative text (“my personal walkabout in cyberspace has given me glimpses of a truly different world, and I wish to share them”), Hakken would likely object to a reviewer pointing out omissions from the Book Reviews 93 bibliography and argument. The work of anthropologists who have studied cyberspace (such as David Jacobson and, especially, Bonnie Nardi, who has the vir­ tue from our perspective of having stud­ ied library reference desks ethnographi­ cally) would have added value to the book. Hakken makes much of the diffi­ culty of studying groups or organizations that have no center, no village plaza, when communication is electronic and actors are scattered and cannot all be ob­ served directly. But the anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker encountered the same problem in her attempt to study the Hollywood film industry in the 1930s, when most communication took place by telephone. And despite Hakken’s having conducted some of his research in Nor­ way, he ignores the founder of modern network analysis in ethnography, John A. Barnes, whose legendary vision of a fish­ ing net on a Norwegian dock in the early 1950s solved his problem of studying a spatially dispersed community. For a work about information system design, the book itself is poorly crafted. There is no glossary, and only a few terms (and fewer of the many unfamiliar abbre­ viations) can be recovered through the index. There are noticeable numbers of typographic errors and at least three in­ stances of in-text citations either omitted from the bibliography or with year garbled, and another with author se­ quence reversed. The book is not without virtues; one has a nagging sense that the author is a good guy and would be fascinating to talk with. The main value is that beneath his jargon and academic factionalism, Hakken remains an ethnographer grounding his understandings in the acts, statements, and opinions of real people in real settings. He is particularly good at puncturing technology-based visions that ignore social, cultural, political, and/or economic factors that do matter. But the effort to slog through the book outweighs its value for those outside the specific re­ search and policy arenas that concern the author. A shorter and more readable ver­ sion by Hakken, and accessible in JSTOR as well, is “Computing and Social Change: New Technology and Workplace Transformation, 1980–1990,” in Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 22. (1993), 107– 132.—Gregory A. Finnegan, Harvard Uni­ versity. Hamilton, John Maxwell. Casanova Was a Book Lover and Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Pr., 2000. 351p. $24.95, alk. paper (ISBN 0-8071-2554-7). LC 99-059582. The jacket of this ponderously light­ hearted book features a black-and-white image of the Sheik gazing soulfully into the eyes of a vamp, whom he embraces with his left arm while holding an open book with a red cover in his right. Old-fashioned typography reinforces the jocular title, which promises an assort­ ment of “naked truths” and “provocative curiosities.” Never mind that Casanova is conflated with Rudolph Valentino or that the coy term book lover is misapplied to one of the boldest writers of the eigh­ teenth century. According to John Max­ well Hamilton, “the best way to study books, reading, and people is not to take them too seriously.” Hamilton is the Hopkins P. Braezeale Professor and dean of the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University, author of books on inter­ national affairs and the media, and com­ mentator on Public Radio International’s Marketplace. I expected more from him than this collection of anecdotes and tru­ isms (“having garnered a prize, a book almost certainly will enjoy a big boost in sales”) gathered from a huge range of sec­ ondary sources and strung together with mediocre prose. Perhaps LSU Press was trying to score a hit with the general reader, and Hamilton was hoping to clear out his desk drawer. Along with the anec­ dotes, he throws in a couple of light es­ says previously published in magazines, quick-and-dirty media studies conducted by his graduate students, a journalistic re­