Reviews.indd


Book Reviews 

Herring, Mark Y. Fools Gold: Why the 
Internet Is No Substitute for a Library. 
Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2007. 191p. 
alk. paper, $45 (ISBN 0786430826). LC 
2007-13548. 

This book is based on Mark Herring’s 
article “10 Reasons Why the Internet Is 
No Substitute for a Library” that origi-
nally appeared in the April 2001 issue of 
American Libraries. Written to counter any 
ideas that “nonlibrarian bean counters” 
might entertain about replacing libraries 
with Internet services, Herring’s article 
was well received and was reprinted in 
various languages. Based on this acclaim, 
Herring was asked to expand his ideas 
into a monograph, and the result is this 
volume. 

Presented in a conversational, informal 
tone that displays Herring’s vast vocabu-
lary, the narrative makes the case that the 
Internet is “a fine accessory to libraries” 
but not an ersatz library in and of itself. 
Yet it’s not just the relationship between 
online options and brick and mortar 
libraries that propelled Herring to write: 
a larger cultural context underlies his 
concerns about the “perilous times librar-
ies are in today.” He takes this broader 
context very seriously: in his original 2001 
article he even claimed that he was try-
ing to “save our culture,” no less. In this 
vein he laments the poor state of public 
education in America while worrying 
that America is becoming a country that 
no longer values reading books, stating 
that the act of reading is “at the core of 
the culture of libraries.” While he doesn’t 
see the Internet as the cause of these woes, 
he does fear that many see the ’Net as a 
potential cure, “a magic pill to cure all of 
our diseases.” 

Over the course of nine chapters, 
Herring examines such topics as the 
overwhelming amount of misinformation 
and disinformation on the Web, some of 
the problems with fraud and abuse in 

Web-based commerce, dif-
ficulties with search engine 
reliability and accuracy, and 
the nature and threat of “link 
rot” and its implications for 
bibliographic accuracy in 
online subscription journals. 
He also offers observations on why 
electronic books aren’t the same as print 
books, provides a general overview and 
debunking of the myth of the “paperless 
society,” and devotes an entire chapter 
to the various problems associated with 
Google books and other massive book 
digitization projects, and in the clever 
fashion that permeates this book, titles the 
chapter “Google Über Alles.” Many of the 
topics he covers won’t be news to many 
librarians, but rehash familiar territory. 

Herring is particularly upset with how 
easy it is to access pornography on the 
Web, making the interesting claim that 
“no one who has used the Web for more 
than ten minutes can doubt that Web 
porn is readily available.” He does not 
provide any documentation for this as-
sertion—he just states it as fact, assuming, 
it seems, that surfing the Web for at least 
ten minutes will lead to an encounter with 
online pornography. He attacks what he 
calls the American Library Association’s 
“defense of pornography,” referring to 
the ALA “First Amendment absolutists.” 
He strongly advocates Internet filtering, 
calling on the ALA to “express its con-
tempt, if it has any, for smutographers by 
calling for the fi ltering in every library, not 
just public ones, and not just in children’s 
areas. Such an act would go a long way to 
exhibit its concern for the enormity that is 
pornography, whatever the kind.” 

The effectiveness of Herring’s argu-
ments are weakened by a number of 
sweeping, unsubstantiated assertions. In 
a discussion about electronic books and 
printing, he claims that “no one reads 
more than three or four pages on the Web 

285 



286 College & Research Libraries 

at a time anyway” without providing any 
documentation to support his claim. No 
one reads more than three or four pages? 
An informal survey of the undergraduates 
in my library quickly put this notion to 
rest. In a discussion on online commerce, 
he states as inevitable “the sad conclusion 
is that if one chooses to use the Web as his 
or her preferred means of doing business, 
he or she will eventually become a victim 
of Internet fraud of some kind,” as if this 
were some law of economics. 

Herring’s conservative viewpoint 
dominates these pages, and he oft en states 
his opinions as fact. “Democratic capital-
ism has proven to everyone (save a few 
political science professors working at 
American universities) to be the best form 
of economic government,” he asserts with 
certainty. He uses the term “First Amend-
ment absolutists” with nothing less than 
disdain, and pretty much equates anyone 
who is against Internet filtering as being 
pro-pornography. By his own admission, 
Herring is a cultural warrior, and at times 
this book feels far more like an extended, 
clever rant intended to rally the faithful 
and alienate the opposition. As such, it 
reads like more like a guest editorial on 
Fox News or an op-ed piece in The Wash-
ington Times than a solid work of scholar-
ship.—Gene Hyde, Radford University. 

Woodward, Jeannette A. What Every 
Librarian Should Know about Electronic 
Privacy. Westport, Conn.: Libraries 
Unlimited, 2007. 222p. alk. paper, $40 
(ISBN 1591584892). LC 2007-13566. 

After reading this book, some users will 
likely throw away their computers, re-
gress to communicating through smoke 
signals, and toss their underwear out the 
window. Why? The reason is because “Big 
Brother” is watching you. Most Ameri-
cans know that the possibility of their 
electronic communications being read 
by a third party is very likely in today’s 
tech-savvy world, but what does under-
wear have to do with “Big Brother”? At 
least one underwear manufacturer was 
caught imbedding traceable RFID (radio 

May 2008 

frequency identification) tags in their un-
derwear. While this company and others, 
including libraries, only use these tags in 
their products to trace shipments and for 
inventory, there is the possibility of using 
RFIDs for tracking people. 

Yet, what happens when some unscru-
pulous person gets hold of the means 
to use RFID tags to trace someone? An 
RFID tag in a library book could be used 
to trace a library user anywhere. Imagine 
what happens when this same patron 
is using a public library computer that 
happens to have key logging soft ware on 
it? Everything they type is conveyed to 
another party who is stealing this patron’s 
information. Then there are also legal 
ways of data mining in which third- party 
vendors sell information retrieved from 
online searches. Each of these intrusions 
into an individual’s right to privacy is 
appalling, but imagine combining all of 
them together. 

Examples such as these are Jean-
nette Woodward’s reason for reminding 
librarians that their task is not only to 
provide public access to information but 
also to protect patrons from those who 
manipulate them in the world of elec-
tronic information. Woodward, herself a 
former public library director, academic 
library assistant director, and author of 
several books, has most likely dealt with 
electronic privacy issues herself and as 
a director, has been a decision maker on 
privacy policy. Understanding that there 
is no guaranteed method of protecting 
electronic information, she contends that 
librarians need to be proactive in inform-
ing their users how to protect themselves. 
Current privacy legislation is outdated by 
more than twenty-five years; and, until 
legislation catches up with changes in 
communication technology, data brokers 
will continue to mine data from online 
searches and sell it to interested parties, 
and hackers will continue to steal in-
formation. There are tactics available to 
library users to guard their information 
and to protect it from online predators. 
Libraries should collect and store only