reviews


Book Reviews  483

 

Book Reviews 

Bowers, C. A. Let Them Eat Data: How 
Computers Affect Education, Cultural Di-
versity, and the Prospects of Ecological 
Sustainability. Athens: Univ. of Georgia 
Pr., 2000. 216p. alk. paper, cloth $40 
(ISBN 0820322296); paper $18.95 
(ISBN 082032230X). LC 00-26718. 

C. A. Bowers is a well-known environ­
mentalist and educator who belongs to 
what is known as the “deep ecology” 
movement. Let Them Eat Data is the latest 
of several books in which Bowers presents 
a radical critique of modern technologi­
cal society. “This book,” he explains, “ex­
amines the linkages between 
computer-mediated learning and the 
spread of environmentally destructive 
cultural patterns and practices.” For Bow­
ers, the computer is only the latest devel­
opmental stage of a technocracy that goes 
back at least as far as the Industrial Revo­
lution, perhaps even to Ancient Greece. 
According to Bowers, no one questions 
the prevailing optimistic view of com­
puter technology, or if they do, “few in­
dividuals can imagine viable alterna­
tives.” Bowers has alternatives to offer. 
Whether they are viable, the reader must 
judge. 

Without completely denying the use­
fulness of computing for certain purposes, 
Bowers argues that computers threaten 
to dominate the entire world, imposing a 
monoculture on the planet and driving 
out traditional cultures that live more 
spiritually and harmoniously within the 
natural environment. Modern Western 
rationalist, individualist, anthropocentric 
culture (exemplified by the cyberspace 
experience) is depleting resources and 
polluting the earth at a rate that cannot 
be sustained. According to one source 
cited by Bowers, if the entire world’s 
population were to adopt the consumer 
lifestyle of the average North American, 
“it would need two additional planets to 
produce the resources, absorb the wastes, 

and otherwise maintain life sup­
port.” This apocalyptic vision 
demands an almost-religious 
response, a revolution in con­
sciousness and lifestyle that few 
of us would be likely to make 
after merely reading a book. But 
we do not have to agree with Bowers to 
benefit from his unsparing attack on the 
cherished myths of today’s digitally 
crazed society. 

The book begins by questioning the 
legitimizing ideology of computers and 
the “widespread acceptance of data as the 
basis of thought,” which devalues ways 
of knowing that are not quantitative or 
scientific in nature. One of Bowers’s most 
insistent points is that computers are not 
neutral, they are not simply tools that 
people can use as they will. Cyberspace 
culture posits an individual identity freed 
from traditional social and biological con­
straints. It projects an “affluent, progres­
sive, and experimental” mind-set. Com­
puters commodify and colonize more and 
more aspects of human life, just as they 
are colonizing more and more regions of 
the world. “Local knowledge” is replaced 
by abstract, universal, and wholly disem­
bodied “data.” Local knowledge is at­
tained through transgenerational com­
munication that respects elders and the 
past, mentoring, oral communication, 
sensual experience, ritual, and experience 
of place. Cyberspace, in contrast, is with­
out context; indeed, its proponents boast 
about its ability to erase the boundaries 
of time and space. Bowers sees this as a 
loss to the individual, the community, and 
the necessary diversity of the earth as a 
whole. 

As a reference librarian, I am im­
pressed with the book’s insights into the 
unsettling properties of the Internet as a 
source of knowledge. It is not just a ques­
tion of information overload and quality 
control. Many people experience the lack 

483 



484 College & Research Libraries September 2001 

of context, the reduction to bits and pieces 
of data, as a qualitative loss. I think that 
Bowers is correct to see this phenomenon 
as something broader than the Internet, 
something that permeates and perhaps 
(as he claims) even serves as a root meta­
phor for our culture. Consider these chill­
ing words: “By shaping consciousness 
and bodily experience to accept computer 
mediation as normal, the computer sub­
culture (which is fast becoming the domi­
nant culture) is also defining what is ab­
normal, deviant, and deficient.” Which of 
us has not wondered whether libraries, 
librarians, and physical collections are not 
viewed by students today as abnormal, 
deviant, and deficient. It is no exaggera­
tion to say that, at least at the campus 
where I work, students expect all infor­
mation to be mediated by computers. The 
library accepts that fact and tries to pro­
vide services and collections electroni­
cally. In doing so, Bowers would say, we 
are accepting and endorsing a reductive 
view of knowledge and education. 

Bowers writes in a style that is acces­
sible to the nonspecialist, with quotations 
from authors on both sides of the debate 
and a decent bibliography and index. 
There is a great deal of repetition in the 
book, and I suspect that many of the ideas 
are recycled from earlier publications. At 
times, the focus wanders into areas of 
cultural studies, environmentalism, or 
educational theory that have little to do 
with computers per se. Computers are 
used as a handle on which to hang more 
general arguments. To give just one ex­
ample (which may surprise librarians), 
Bowers attacks computer culture as ex­
clusively visual and based on writing, 
traits that are also shared by books. And, 
of course, it is true that books are 
decontextualized forms of communica­
tion that eliminate the boundaries of time 
and space just as computers do. 

The latter section of the book, entitled 
“Educational Consequences,” begins 
with a spirited attack on the “industrial 
model” of university education that has 
recently emerged, which Bowers charac­
terizes as “just-in-time learning for em­

ployees.” He takes a swipe at the cur­
rently dominant educational paradigm 
(based on Piaget) which insists that stu­
dents “construct their own knowledge.” 
Examples from popular educational soft­
ware packages such as Storybook Weaver, 
DynoPark Tycoon, Oregon Trail II, and 
the Sim series of simulation programs 
expose the cultural bias and pedagogical 
weakness of the technological approach 
to learning. Bowers concludes by explain­
ing why computers should not replace 
teachers, offering several detailed sce­
narios for making teachers and students 
more aware of the cultural dimensions of 
software and computing. This was the 
least convincing aspect of the book for me. 
Bowers is better at attacking the assump­
tions and consequences of computer tech­
nologies than at developing solutions that 
are not overly simplistic or utopian. The 
value of the book lies in its ability to make 
a case for the prosecution. The defense 
can take care of itself.—Jean M. Alexander, 
Carnegie Mellon University. 

Creating Web-Accessible Databases: Case 
Studies for Libraries, Museums, and 
Other Nonprofits. Ed. Julie M. Still. 
Medford, N.J.: Information Today, 
2001. 184p. $39.50 (ISBN 1-57387-104­
4). LC 00-063283. 

Have you ever wondered what it takes to 
publish a database on the Web? Does your 
library have a Web-publishing initiative? 
Are you aware of a resource unique to 
your institution (inside or outside the li­
brary) that deserves wider dissemina­
tion? Do you have an idea for a Web da­
tabase but are not sure how or where to 
start? If you answered yes to any of these 
questions, you will likely find much of 
interest and value in this edited collection 
of case studies and general essays on Web 
publishing from the nonprofit perspec­
tive. Indeed, most of the chapters address 
issues directly relevant to academic librar­
ies and librarians. 

The prefatory matter includes a useful 
preface by the editor, Julie M. Still, a librar­
ian at Rutgers University. Of special inter­
est here is the list of questions she asked