Reviews.indd 382 College & Research Libraries July 2006 York (1941), we see reproductions of illus- trations such as William Steig’s (of Sylvester and the Magic Pebble fame) cartoon protest- ing the firing of New York City teachers following the infamous Rapp–Courdert hearings, and learn all about Langston Hughes’s relations with his publisher, Franklin Watts, in the 1950s. The last third of Mickenberg’s book, “Science and History for Girls and Boys,” describes exactly how it was that left-wing authors continued to be gainfully em- ployed during the McCarthy era. Learning from the Left has all the hallmarks of being a seminal contribution to a litt le explored aspect of children’s literature and progres- sive social change, it should be read by everyone with an interest in that genre and is a “must purchase” for all library collections serving schools of library and information science, departments of education, and the general public.—Elaine Harger, Mount Si High School, Snoqualmie, Washington Intellectual Freedom Manual, 7th ed. Comp. the Office for Intellectual Freedom. Chicago: ALA, 2006. 521p. alk. paper, $52 ($46.80 ALA members) (ISBN 0838935613). LC 2005-22409. As with earlier incarnations, this edition consists largely of “guidelines, policies, and interpretations of the Library Bill of Rights, along with the ALA Code of Ethics and Freedom to Read Statement.” Additionally, it contains essays on “timely issues” such as minors’ First Amendment rights, Internet access, and Public Forum Doctrine, as well as a guide to OIF’s Web site and a short glossary. Contributors in- clude Candace D. Morgan, Judith F. Krug, Beverley Becker, Evelyn Shaevel, Theresa Chmara, Daniel Mach, Larra Clark, Linda K. Wallace, and Don Wood. Unquestionably, a necessary item for all libraries, the Manual nevertheless displays a number of serious flaws and omissions. It continues to itself exclude dissident or inconvenient opinions and events. For instance, the widely condemned, OIF-sponsored film, The Speaker, is not discussed in historical overviews. (Zoia Horn and Eric Moon do recount that mis- adventure in their memoirs, and detailed information also appears in the 1992 E.J. Josey festschrift.) And serious critics of the much-vaunted, but essentially fraudulent, Banned Books Week go unmentioned. Because, even after previous prodding, OIF refuses to cite divergent views on BBW, here are a few: Charles Willett , “The Almost Banned Book Awards” (Counter- poise, Jan. 1999); Earl Lee, “Really Banned Books” (Counterpoise, April 1998); Earl Lee. “Almost Banned Books, 1998 and 1999” (Counterpoise, April 2000); Dan Cherubin, “Banned Books Week: Creating the Ac- ceptable Taboo” (Counterpoise, Oct. 2003); Earl Lee, “Almost Banned Books 2002” (Counterpoise, Oct. 2003); Earl Lee, “Almost Banned Books: A Brief History” (Counter- poise, April 2001); and Fred Woodworth, “Crap-Detection Department” (The Match, winter 2001/2002; reprinted in Unabashed Librarian, no. 124). Laudably new are three discrete ref- erences to ALA’s Poor People’s Policy, adopted in 1990 and substantially ignored since then. However, there is no mention whatever of the recent cascade of barriers to poor people’s use of library resources, reported from Denver, Philadelphia, and Houston to San Luis Obispo, California, and Elgin, Illinois. Typically, libraries in low-income areas are open fewer hours than those in more affl uent neighborhoods and are more likely to be closed complete- ly or reduced to clerk-only service during budget crunches. Some institutions have deliberately proscribed “off ensive body odor” (aka homeless people) and sleep- ing on the premises. Others have devised elaborate behavior codes and have limited time spent, for instance, in the concession room. This alarming trend, clearly counter to the intent of ALA’s Poor People’s policy, goes unremarked, even though SRRT’s Poverty Task Force issued an urgent alert on the topic (partially reprinted in Public Libraries, May/June 2005), and I addressed the problem at ALA’s 2005 Annual Confer- ence (“Classism in the Stacks: Libraries and Poor People,” Counterpoise, summer 2005). The treatment “Expurgation of Library Materials” righteously denounces the “de- letion, excision, alteration or obliteration” of items already in the collection. Notably absent is any consideration of how acquir- ing expurgated materials such as “sani- tized” CDs and videos might itself violate ALA mandates to actively oppose censor- ship. Doesn’t selecting preexpurgated material, in effect, support censorious ac- tivity, often sparked by retail giants such as Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video? What’s the difference between content restrictions imposed before and after acquisition? Aren’t they both deplorable, fundamen- tally damaging the artistic or intellectual integrity of a work as well restricting “the availability of the material”? Merely two paragraphs deal with the issue of repression in Cuba, particularly the persecution of “independent librar- ians” and destruction of library materials. Indeed, the text doesn’t even explicitly mention the “bibliotecas independientes” movement nor the fact that ten librarians figured among the more than seventy-five dissidents subjected to kangaroo court trials and long prison sentences in early 2003. Nor is there any reference to the weighty national and overseas opposition to those acts of suppression, refl ected in myriad statements and documents by individuals and organizations as varied as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International PEN, Friends of Cuban Libraries, Vaclav Havel, Eric Al- terman, Ray Bradbury, Nat Hentoff (who renounced an earlier ALA intellectual freedom award over its inaction), Barbara Ehrenreich, Elena Bonner, Howard Zinn (who candidly characterizes Castro as a dictator), Cornel West, John W. Berry, Naomi Klein, and Noam Chomsky. Workplace speech at last gains ac- knowledgment as an intellectual freedom concern, mainly because ALA Council in 2005 passed a long-gestating resolution that encourages libraries to promote “discussion among library workers … of Book Reviews 383 … professional and policy matt ers about the operation of the library and matt ers of public concern.” Regrettably, there is no indication of the original wording, which was far more direct and unencumbered by legalistic qualifications. The tone is de- cidedly tepid. And no references appear to relevant literature and opinion outside anointed ALA sources (for example, no citations for “Berman’s Bag: ‘Not In My Library,’” [Unabashed Librarian, no. 125]; Stephen Michael Carney, “Demo- cratic Communication and the Library as Workplace” [Journal of Information Ethics, fall 2003]; S. Berman, “Rights or Ethics” [American Libraries, Sept. 1999; reprinted as “An Open Letter to ALA Members,” in Alternative Library Literature, 1998/1999]; and S. Berman, “Letter to William R. Gordon, ALA Executive Director, on Free Speech Rights for Librarians” [Librarians at Liberty, Dec. 2002]). Radio frequency identifi cation (RFID), apparently not an issue in 2002, this time gets some attention. Although noting that consumer groups, librarians, and users “have raised concerns about the misuse of RFID technology to collect information on library users’ reading habits and other activities without their consent or knowl- edge,” the treatment nonetheless declares that “this rapidly developing technology has the potential to increase the level of privacy … , increase the effi ciency of li- brary transactions, and reduce workplace injuries.” In fact, opponents’ views are severely misstated. Criticisms of RFID ac- tually range from doubt that it performs as efficiently as claimed to skepticism that it has any benign effect on repetitive motion and other workplace disorders. Beyond that, critics charge that its hazards to pri- vacy are intrinsic and not readily fixable. It would have been more accurate and enlightening to record that community and staff protests have so far prevented or slowed RFID implementation in the San Francisco and Berkeley public libraries, perhaps quoting, or at least citing, a few critiques and editorials by, among others, James Chaffee (Save Our Libraries), Peter 384 College & Research Libraries Warfield (Library Users Association), Lee Tien (Electronic Frontier Foundation), and Ann Brick (ACLU-NC). In reviewing the previous edition (C&RL, Nov. 2002), I suggested that the next “would greatly benefit from an an- notated directory of journals, groups, and Websites concerning freedom of informa- tion, censorship, and media democracy.” Although the latest edition, like its prede- cessor, does contain a guide to basically ALA resources and activities compiled by Don Wood and featuring many more online citations, it still does not extend beyond the parochial confines of ALA itself. No entries appear in Wood’s chapter or the overall index for Project Censored, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), People for the American Way, and Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and other watchdog organizations; international human rights groups such as Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights First; and such sources for identifying and acquiring diverse and alternative materials (to genuinely implement and revivify the Library Bill of Rights) as Multicultural Review, Coun- terpoise, International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses, Independent Press Association, Alternative Press Cen- ter, Alternative Press Review, Books to Watch Out For, Broken Pencil, Factsheet Five, Queer Zine Explosion, Rain Text, Zine World, Small Press Review, and Xerography Debt. It’s a pleasure to observe that “Intel- lectual Freedom” appears as an assigned subject heading in the Cataloging-In-Pub- lication (CIP) entry. For the preceding six editions, it did not. Although welcome, why it took so long for the nation’s pre- mier library to recognize and validate one of the profession’s core concepts remains a mystery. Lastly, as a major library reference took, the index should be impeccable. It’s not, for instance, lacking entries for these clearly mentioned persons and topics: Bin Laden, Osama; bisexual persons; Book In- dustry Study Group; Catch-22; Cat’s Cradle; Colorado Constitutional Amendment 2; July 2006 Daddy’s Roommate; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; Heather Has Two Mommies; Little Black Sambo; Man Who Declared War on America; Sarokin, H. Lee; Steig, William; Sylvester and the Magic Pebble; transgen- dered persons; user fees.—Sanford Ber- man, ALA Honorary Member. Centers for Learning: Writing Centers and Libraries, Eds. James K. Elmborg and Sheril Hook, Chicago: ACRL (Publica- tions in Librarianship, no. 58), 2005. 231p. alk. paper, $28 ($25.20 for ACRL members) (ISBN 0838983359). LC 2005-13806. The twelve chapters in this book were writ- ten by a group of experienced academic librarians, educators, and writing center professionals and provide insightful re- views and reports illustrating possible and successful cases of collaboration between libraries and writing centers in creating an enhanced learning environment. For a long time, writing centers and libraries on university campuses around the country have shared in the common vi- sion of their parent institutions. However, they have usually acted independent of each other as separate campus support units. The driving force behind their re- cent collaboration, as stated in the book, has come from major changes “driven by (among other things) technology, the increasing diversity of American culture, a global economy, and a new accountabil- ity demanded by funding agencies and the workplace.” Chapter One presents a theoretical framework for a pragmatic ori- entation of libraries and writing centers, examining the process-based activities of the two units, the social nature of aca- demic work involving writing and library research, and the importance of peer tutor- ing and counseling in writing centers. In the ever-changing landscape of higher education, library and writing cen- ter professionals continually face issues related to institutional support, funding, space, and training when they attempt to make their collaborations work. The examples dealing with these issues are