reviews 414 College & Research Libraries September 2003 For those who can, the brevity of the book and the papers is offset by the related or expanded materials for which addresses are supplied. The changing organization of libraries and information distribution shows up in various ways and places—Claudia Lux’s study of changes affecting former East German libraries after reintegration of the country with former West Germany is al- most entirely concerned with wider orga- nizational, political, and financial issues, yet illuminates very well how libraries exist within larger contexts we may not always see clearly. Some papers offer spe- cific solutions, especially Alfred Kagan’s summary of several reports from the IFLA Social Responsibilities Discussion Group concerning “the growing gap between the information rich … and poor … within and between countries.” Others, by presenting case studies, suggest solutions and/or re- port unexpected complications. As befits an entity as broad as IFLA, the libraries discussed are of all sorts: aca- demic, national, public, school, and spe- cial. Although that means that not all the particulars are central issues for readers of this journal, the overarching questions usually are. And even the public library focus may be useful insofar as it tends to illuminate national perspectives on the general concept of libraries, their fund- ing, and access to them in the various countries and regions at hand. There are twenty-two papers by twenty-five authors, two of whom are also the editors. Six authors are from the United Kingdom; five from the United States; two each from Russia, China, Den- mark, and India; and one each from Aus- tralia, Germany, South Korea, Namibia, Mexico, and Canada. Four papers are glo- bal in scope, and two are abstract with- out reference to specific places. Four pa- pers chiefly discuss libraries in the U.K., three the U.S., with others covering Af- rica in general, South Asia in general, In- dia in particular, and Germany, Denmark, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and China. Kagan’s summary draws on re- ports by others in South Africa, India, Norway, and the United States. Feria’s paper, “ICT and Marketing Challenges in Latin America” covers that region but draws heavily on interesting projects at his own university in Mexico. The papers are mostly short, though this is somewhat offset by the very small type size used, which this aging reader found added ef- fort to reading. Among the wide range of topics, the half-life of technology reports, and the brevity of most papers, this is not an es- sential book for academic libraries. How- ever, it does do an excellent job of intro- ducing the reader to an array of related topics whose usually brief treatments gain in pithiness what they lose in detail. It would be a nice review for students fac- ing comprehensive exams in library school. Most of all, it brings to North American readers examples and perspec- tives not often seen. The editors’ own paper, “Migrating from the Library of Today to the Library of Tomorrow,” is an especially well-done overview of Big Questions we all face.—Gregory A. Finnegan, Harvard University. Lowenstein, Joseph. The Author’s Due: Printing and the Prehistory of Copyright. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 2002. 349p. alk. paper, $45 (ISBN 0226490408). LC 2002-552. The digital revolution has radically un- dermined the principles of copyright, in- tellectual property, and fair use endorsed by the international Berne Convention of 1886 and elaborated throughout the twen- tieth century. As Joseph Loewenstein re- minds us, “property is a social institution” whose meanings derive from a complex web of social, political, economic, legal, and ideological factors. His book is not a history of the development of the mod- ern concept of authorial rights but, rather, a series of historical “investigations” of the “imagery of literary property” in law, rhetoric, and practice in Early Modern England. It is a subtle scholarly work written primarily for specialists in En- glish literature and history. Its aim is not to simplify but, rather, to question overly Book Reviews 415 simplistic readings of the history of print- ing and publishing. The chapters of this book do not pro- ceed chronologically. “The Reformation of the Press: Patent, Copyright, Piracy” in- vestigates the case of the publisher John Wolfe in the late seventeenth century. “Mo- nopolies Commercial and Doctrinal” moves back and forth in time, treating the introduction of printing technology to England, the first systematic licensing of printed materials in the 1530s, tensions between the rival monopolies of printers guilds and royal licensees, and the Statute of Ann of 1710. Later chapters explore Ben Jonson and “possessive authorship” (the subject of an earlier book by Loewenstein), two case studies illuminating the idea of invention, John Milton’s Aereopagitica and the twentieth-century British school of “New Bibliography.” I found the organi- zation of the book confusing. It is difficult to know where any argument is going, like being lost in a maze. The prose lacks em- phasis. Qualifications and paradoxes abound. Lowenstein muses that “I won- der if it’s not the case that the longer the book, the more unfinished it feels. It be- comes a report on continuing meditations and, best, ongoing conversations.” But conversations with whom? Al- though acknowledging the author’s deep knowledge of English history, law, and literature, I am troubled by his lack of concern for the nonspecialist reader. Latin quotations are not translated into English, even in notes. There is no bibliography. To be fair, the book does include exten- sive notes and a good index. These criti- cisms are meant to warn the librarian au- dience that Loewenstein’s book is not an easy read; they are not meant to deny the validity of the author’s arguments. In referring to the “prehistory” of copyright, Lowenstein means the various strands that came together eventually in the concept of authorial copyright. These strands go all the way back to the medi- eval period: to common law, to practices associated with manuscript culture, and to traditional monopolies held by trade guilds such as the stationers. As printed books became more numerous and prof- itable, these older understandings came under increasing pressure. Tudor mon- archs sought to extend royal power and, at the same time, protect the realm from heresy and treason, support a fledgling industry, raise money, and grant privi- leges to political supporters. A long struggle ensued between the stationers and the crown, involving many skir- mishes and retreats. In the context of these essentially eco- nomic and political contests, ideas such as invention, censorship, free speech, pla- giarism, authorship, and intellectual property were debated. During the sev- enteenth century, a liberal antimonopoly position struggled to come to terms with the fact that copyright is a kind of mo- nopoly. The concept of property rights, at least in English law, is strongly associ- ated with real estate, so that for centuries the idea of treating texts as property was not easily assimilated. Equally difficult was the mental transformation needed to recognize writings as something original, new, invented, and deserving of “patent” protection. Previously, originality had not been a chief concern of the reading pub- lic, so the concept of plagiarism had little importance. Changes in the way that people viewed the world left traces in le- gal and literary texts. Lowenstein is conscious of writing this book from the perspective of an age that is seeking answers to problems brought about by technological change. As he says, “the ‘birth of the modern’ is reenacted at the occasion of any important struggle for control of a powerful new information technology.” Nothing was clear or simple in the Early Modern Age; nothing will be so today. It may actually be comforting to realize that history is always a mixture of struggles for power and for profit, for hu- man aspirations and ideals. Such an un- derstanding makes it easier to tolerate the uncertainties that libraries and scholars face, knowing that solutions will come in due time through a confluence of forces, just as they did in the past.—Jean Alexander, Carnegie-Mellon University. << /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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