reviews Book Reviews 411 411 Book Reviews Gorman, Michael. The Enduring Library: Technology, Tradition, and the Quest for Balance. Chicago: ALA, 2003. 157p. $35 (ISBN 0838908462). LC 2002-151679. In the past few years, Michael Gorman has published several books and articles that address the hype about technology and the notion that libraries and librar- ians have no future. He has been an ar- ticulate and combative defender of tradi- tional library roles and values, arguing that they are still reliable guidelines as we face current and future challenges. His latest book continues in that vein. The book’s eleven chapters are grouped into four sections: “Libraries and Communi- cations Technology,” “Reading and the Web,” “Library Work and the Future of Libraries,” and “Overcoming Stress and Achieving Harmony.” Gorman begins with the “Santayanaesque” premise that we “must understand the past, our place in relation to that past, and the lessons it can teach us if we are to deal with the present rationally and without fear.” His examination of the evolution of commu- nications demonstrates that new tech- nologies were causing our predecessors at the beginning of the twentieth century to ask the same questions about the fu- ture of libraries that we are asking now. Gorman urges us to keep this perspective in mind and not overreact to apocalyptic claims about the new digital age. As he states in another chapter, “If librarians and others persist in seeing the advent of electronic documents and resources as the Second Coming of Gutenberg and if we continue to behave as if we are in an ex- ceptional and transformational time with- out basing that belief and those actions on a clear-headed examination of reality, we could provoke an unnecessary cata- clysm.” Gorman contends that digital media will not replace other media and make libraries irrelevant but, instead, will “find their place and level in society and will be incorporated into the ever evolving library.” In considering the nature and impact of the World Wide Web, Gorman concludes that for the good of society, librarians should promote literacy and integrate into library programs only what is worth- while on the Web. Electronic resources, in his view, are contributing to the decline in literacy that is found especially among young people. He is impatient with the li- brary profession’s tendency to focus on minimal reading and Internet navigational skills instead of a more advanced reading ability that improves the mind and better facilitates lifelong learning. And given his extensive background as a leader in the effort to achieve universal bibliographic control, it is not surprising that Gorman rejects the belief that in order to bring bib- liographic order to the enormous Internet, we should content ourselves with some- thing less rigorous, complex, and expen- sive than traditional cataloging. He insists that full cataloging for electronic resources is far preferable to metadata approaches such as the Dublin Core because “no bib- liographic database of any significant size could possibly work if filled with Dublin Core records containing random data without vocabulary control and standard presentation.” However, he acknowledges that the vastness of the Internet makes it impractical to catalog fully everything on it. Gorman speculates that a “cataloging pyramid” system might be created, in which there could be varying levels of bib- liographic control depending on the im- portance of the resources. Full cataloging could be reserved for resources that merit it (presumably based on the criteria in a library’s selection policy) whereas en- riched Dublin Core records with vocabu- lary control in certain fields could be ap- plied to somewhat less-valuable resources and uncontrolled Dublin Core records 412 College & Research Libraries September 2003 could be used for a third level. Finally, at the broad base of the pyramid would be the vast remaining Internet sites and re- sources that we would not catalog but, in- stead, would access using free-text search engines. But whether using a cataloging pyramid system or not, we will serve so- ciety best if we build “an internationally agreed data set, a set of agreements on in- ternational controlled vocabulary data- bases, interfaces between the artificial lan- guage of classification and the ‘natural lan- guage’ of subject headings, and a devel- oped international MARC format.” Along with cataloging, the heart of what Gorman calls the enduring library will continue to be reference service, par- ticularly if it maintains “the vital person- to-person component that has typified ref- erence service across our history. This is an age in which human values are under strain and human contact and sympathy become more prized as they become more rare.” Further, the information overload from which we all suffer, thanks in large part, but not exclusively to digital media, makes the role of reference librarian more important than ever. He concludes his chapter on reference service with the re- minder that it “is crucial to the library’s struggle to improve democracy and to bring knowledge and information (free of specific charge and free of value judg- ments) to all who ask.” It is critical that we defend this goal in the face of the increas- ing commodification of information and the encroachments on fair-use rights. After his ruminations on reference and cataloging, Gorman proceeds to analyze what he regards as the greatest future challenges for librarianship: the mallea- bility, selectivity, exclusivity, vulnerabil- ity, and superficiality of electronic re- sources. Although all five challenges arise from the nature of electronic communi- cation and its inherent shortcomings, not all can be mitigated by librarians alone. What librarians can do, according to Gorman, is pursue and apply research findings that will directly improve ser- vices to library users. He proposes that the profession’s research agenda include: • addressing the electronic resource preservation conundrum; • finding the best ways to create and maintain what he calls the bibliographic control web; • creating a system that electronically disseminates and archives scholarly lit- erature at the article level in order to break away from the current serials pricing cri- sis caused by bundling high-use and low- use articles into expensive periodicals; • promoting and improving reading in a digital age; • determining how best to apply computer technology to publishing; • reducing the library services gap that exists in our socially and economi- cally stratified society; • improving library education by identifying and teaching what Gorman calls “core competences.” Gorman’s final two chapters deal with the individual librarian’s need for a per- sonal and professional life that is balanced and harmonious. Librarians must cope with the dangers of information overload and the ethical challenges of a profession that Gorman believes “is a manifestation of having a ‘right livelihood’—one based on values, service, and selflessness; one that seeks to help others and avoid harm to others; one that aspires to the qualities of clarity, compassion, universal friendli- ness, and selflessness.” But Gorman is quick to point out that selflessness is not the same thing as self-sacrifice, and he devotes several paragraphs to the prob- lems created by self-sacrificing librarians: personal burnout, enabling exploitative administrations to continue underfunding library personnel budgets, and respond- ing first to every e-mail, fax, or telephone call at the expense of fulfilling more ur- gent responsibilities. Regular readers of Gorman will recognize his writing style immediately. He is clear and straightfor- ward, curmudgeonly at times, acidly witty, and merciless when dissecting opponents’ viewpoints. An amusing example is his response to William Arms’s contention that although “almost everything that is best about a library catalog service is done Book Reviews 413 badly by a web search service,” yet Web indexing services are less expensive and more comprehensive than library catalogs: This argument beggars belief. It would be far cheaper to have surgery performed by your brother-in-law Fred armed with a saw and instructions from the Internet than it would be to go to the Mayo Clinic (another institution with high labor costs). Also, once he got into the swing of it, Fred could probably perform many more op- erations than a team of surgeons at the Mayo Clinic. Although some will complain that Gorman has a tendency to dismiss oppos- ing opinions rather than dispute them, this reader finds that is true only when he has already addressed the issue elsewhere. Depending on one’s perspective, Gorman is either infuriating or inspiring. I think this book is a much-needed antidote to the drumbeat from digital technology promot- ers. It is too bad we cannot make it required reading for university administrators, pub- lic library board members, and in what used to be library schools. It would be a sad commentary on our profession if most librarians do not feel energized and chal- lenged by Gorman’s vision of our tradi- tions, values, and opportunities.—W. Bede Mitchell, Georgia Southern University. Libraries in the Information Society. Ed. Tatiana V. Ershova and Yuri E. Hohlov. Munchen: Saur (IFLA Publications, 102), 2002. 172p. 58 EUR; 43.50 EUR for IFLA members (ISBN 359821832X). This is a slightly anomalous volume. It is not the proceedings of a symposium, con- ference, nor other organized intellectual event nor is it a general anthology on a broad topic. Rather, it is “an attempt to bring together works relating to the change role of the library as a social institution in the emerging Information Society, which were prepared by IFLA participants dur- ing 1998–2000.” The authors were IFLA participants, but not all the papers seem to have been presented at IFLA. There is no index and only a very general page- and-a-half introduction. Styles and formats of papers vary considerably, ranging from case studies to very abstract approaches. Finally, the editing is not all what it might have been. Some papers appear to have been written by writers for whom English is not their primary language, with slips (such as omitted articles) that copyediting should have fixed. However, there is much of value in the volume. In the most general sense, the very randomness and wide range of the various papers mean that there is almost certainly something of interest to almost any librarian contemplating current is- sues in our profession, even if that same range means no reader is likely to find all the papers useful. Few, if any, new issues are raised here—if for no other reason than many writers are summarizing work published or presented previously for the benefit of a worldwide audience. The fact that it is an IFLA publication, of course, means that one value for North Ameri- can readers will be encountering experi- ences and perspectives from countries less frequently reported to us. The global and summary nature of the book also means that it is a good source for “factoids” and illustrative statistics. For example, South Africa aside, Internet-connected comput- ers in Africa jumped from “around 290” to “almost 10,000” from 1995 to 1998; Rutgers University saw a 23 percent drop in reference questions from 1996–1997 to 1998–1999. And with respect to larger con- text, the reviewer, who paid for library school with a World Bank consulting job, noted with shocked interest Qihao Miao’s observation, when writing about the im- portant role for “Public Libraries [in] the Global Knowledge Revolution” that “there is no significant presence of pub- lic libraries in the knowledge-related ac- tivities by the World Bank.” In general terms, the volume offers discussions of differences between, and also inside, regions and countries with respect to library access in general and access to electronic resources in particu- lar. A perhaps-unavoidable result of the underlying problem is that many papers refer readers to Web sites and other elec- tronic tools not all readers will able to use. << /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