reviews.indd


human information needs). This section 
also includes a model for investigating a 
community-based digital library designed 
to meet the specialized information re-
quirements of a marginalized community 
and an examination of the tough issues of 
“control and governance, economics and 
sustainability, and audience,” all concerns 
of traditional libraries, but issues for the 
digital realm that are still in the awkward, 
gangly stage to be expected of the teen-
aged, technology or otherwise. 

The authors of the essays in the last sec-
tion attempt to explain the role of digital 
libraries in knowledge creation and to 
describe specific user communities. An-
chored in social theory, one author argues 
that the “sociological conceptualization 
of user communities and institutions is 
logically prior to the design and evalua-
tion of technical systems.” Another inves-
tigates how digital libraries designed to 
serve large groups of users must scale up 
concepts traditionally seen as individual 
or psychological, specifically focusing 
on “transparency,” the idea that you do 
not have to know the intricacies of how 
a thing works to use it. (A refrigerator is 
transparent to me; I can’t explain its phys-
ics, but I can use it to make ice cubes.) This 
essay explains that as digital libraries seek 
to meet the needs of larger communities, 
contentions arise over transparency, but 
when that larger community accepts the 
transparency, it becomes “coercive.” In 
other essays, the authors examine issues 
of trust and credibility in digital libraries 
by studying data sharing between two 
closely related fields, and they employ 
social realist theory as a frame for the 
evaluation of the digital library resulting 
from the Flora of North America project, 
an immense collaborative data-collecting 
program. 

Although the above description might 
sound like a totally abstract, academic 
exercise, most of the essays involve or 

Book Reviews 185 

grow out of real digital libraries with real 
content designed to serve real people. 
Investigation into these systems provides 
the jumping-off place for more conceptual 
thinking. Of special note are essays by 
David M. Levy (“Documents and Librar-
ies: A Sociotechnical Perspective”), Gary 
Marchionini, Catherine Plaisant, and 
Anita Komlodi (“The People in Digital 
Libraries: Multifaceted Approaches to As-
sessing Needs and Impact”), and Clifford 
Lynch (“Colliding with the Real World: 
Heresies and Unexplored Questions 
about Audience, Economics, and Control 
of Digital Libraries”). The editors’ intro-
ductory essay is also quite useful. On first 
read, it appears to be the standard here-
is-what-is-between-the-covers produc-
tion, but because the individual chapters 
explore digital libraries from a variety of 
angles, the editors’ extremely succinct, but 
equally useful, mapping of digital library 
research and their identification of recur-
ring themes and overriding motifs bring 
a helpful coherence to the book. 

Digital libraries are sociotechnical 
systems, interconnected ecologies of 
machines, people, and content. This 
work provides a rewarding, multifaceted 
investigation into those systems.—Kevin 
Cherry, East Carolina University. 

Buschman, John E. Dismantling the Public 
Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Li-
brarianship in the Age of the New Public 
Philosophy. Westport, Conn.: Libraries 
Unlimited, 2003. 218p. alk. paper, $60 
(ISBN 031332199X). LC 2003-53882. 

In this stimulating new book, John 
Buschman argues that for the past few 
decades librarians have responded at 
best incompletely and at worst ineptly 
to a long series of perceived crises. He 
attributes much of the problem to our 
not fully understanding how a new 
public philosophy has changed the 
framework within which libraries func-



186 College & Research Libraries 

tion. By employing a market-oriented 
approach to directing public policy, the 
new philosophy has so altered public 
debate that librarians are increasingly 
defending library budgets on the basis of 
how libraries return “high dividends” to 
the community, instead of how providing 
access to information benefits a free and 
democratic society. Buschman asserts 
that even when the latter argument has 
been made, it usually lacks an adequately 
worked-out theoretical justifi cation. To 
achieve a sound philosophical defense 
of librarianship, Buschman relies on the 
concept of the public sphere and its sup-
port by educational institutions, such as 
libraries. The public sphere exists where 
opinions are developed and shared out-
side the government. Public institutions 
(libraries, museums, schools, universities) 
support the public sphere because the 
moral, political, and civic discourses es-
sential to a democracy take place within 
them. Buschman’s analysis of the public 
sphere leads him to conclude “The social, 
democratic—in short, public—role and 
purpose of libraries is one of providing 
alternatives (possibility and balance) in 
a society dominated by the ethic of the 
private and the consumer.” 

Buschman draws heavily on the work 
of several writers for the notion of the 
public sphere, particularly Jurgen Haber-
mas, and Buschman’s description of the li-
brary role in supporting the public sphere 
is drawn primarily from the work of Amy 
Gutmann. He has absorbed their concepts 
well and applied them convincingly in 
building his philosophical defense of 
librarianship. Buschman is adept at ex-
plaining complex ideas clearly, and what 
could have been a tedious slog through 
some heavy philosophizing turns out to 
be painless and illuminating. 

Many readers will appreciate having 
such a well-developed and reasoned 
defense of the importance of libraries in 

March 2005 

a democratic society. Some may object 
that although Buschman’s arguments are 
convincing to members of the profession, 
we will be ignored if we do not defend 
libraries using the economic criterion of 
the New Public Philosophy. In response, 
Buschman might point to the several 
chapters he devotes to describing how 
using the market-oriented philosophy 
has led many libraries to treat users as 
customers, has moved ALA toward a 
business model of operation, and has 
influenced our profession’s response to 
technology trends. In each case, Bus-
chman concludes that the New Public 
Philosophy has pointed librarianship in 
self-defeating directions. 

This is a substantial contribution that 
deserves and rewards careful study.—W. 
Bede Mitchell, Georgia Southern University. 

Assessing Student Learning Outcomes 
for Information Literacy Instruction 
in Academic Institutions. Ed. Eliza-
beth Fuseler Avery. Chicago: ACRL. 
2003. 299p. alk. paper, $29 (ISBN 
0838982611). LC 2003-21498. 

The information provided by assessment 
is essential for improving our information 
literacy programs and garnering support 
for these efforts. In 2000, ACRL adopted 
its Information Literacy Competency 
Standards for Higher Education. To en-
able implementation of these standards, 
ACRL was awarded a National Leader-
ship Grant from the Institute of Museum 
and Library Sciences to train librarians 
in assessment principles and techniques. 
Twenty-four academic librarians from a 
cross section of colleges and universities 
lent their expertise to this effort; this book 
is the result of this collaborative grant 
activity over a two-year period. 

The authors of the introductory set of 
five short chapters explain the basic con-
cepts of planning for assessment, select-
ing and developing tools for assessment,