402 Book Reviews David Pearson. Books as History: The Im- portance of Books beyond Their Texts. Lon- don: British Library; New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2008. 208p. alk. paper, $49.95 hardback (ISBN9781584562337). LC2008-039127. Will books die? Reports of the death of the book may be greatly exaggerated, but the pace of technological change means that librarians, publishers, and all those for whom books are a way of life will face increasingly difficult decisions in the coming years. David Pearson writes Books as History in the age of the Amazon KindleTM and Google Book Search, not as a defensive Luddite against technological innovation. He writes amid the potential closing of Brandeis’ Rose Art Museum and the deaccessioning of hundreds of thousands of print volumes from aca- demic libraries, as a voice of caution and advocacy. He deliberately and openly declines to wrestle with potential and fu- ture alternatives to the book as gateways to the written texts of human civilization; he takes these alternatives and future improvements in their long-term sustain- ability for granted. Pearson does, on the other hand, argue passionately in favor of the “interesting characteristics of [a book], which are not replicated in whatever sur- rogate or alternative.” (p. 182) Pearson takes as his positive thesis that value exists in each individual copy of a physi- cal book beyond its mere text and that understanding this can empower librar- ians in making difficult decisions between expending scant resources on books or on electronic alternatives. Technological change will change our relationship as a society to books and to libraries; Books as History asks us to consider the value of books before discarding them. The bulk of Pearson’s Books as History is devoted to a lavishly illustrated explication of the various features that can contribute to the uniqueness, and thus the value, of any particular copy of a book. Not only does the book itself carry iconic weight in West- ern society as an emblem of wisdom and cultural develop- ment, but Pearson also argues that every physical detail of a single book can preserve unique informa- tion about its history, cultural and intel- lectual context, and readership. Each detail of typeface, page layout, illustration, and even basic paper quality can contribute to a different experience between the reader and the text. The author demonstrates the point with a number of full-color com- parisons of the typography and layout of different editions of the same text, as well as different designs for cover art and the different expectations each might engen- der in a potential reader. Even within an “identical” modern print run, he shows how variations and corrections may be present and meaningful. Pearson’s strongest argument for a book’s particular value details the indi- viduality stamped upon a book by its various owners (reinforced by his per- sonal studies in provenance research). Following the work of Don McKenzie and Owen Gingerich, Pearson discusses the various possible interactions between a book and its owners: from binding notes and nameplates, to both the presence and content of marginal notes, corrections, and annotations. His illustrations include marginal notes from Gabriel Harvey to Samuel Coleridge, from Henry VIII and Thomas Cranmer to William Blake. Other distinctive features include the “venera- tion [due a book] through association”: the particular historical interest in the copy of the Prayer Book carried by Jane Grey to the scaffold, for instance, or the slashed and mutilated manuscript used as a shield by St. Boniface while being martyred. Pearson’s chapter on bindings (a second scholarly specialty of his) is also vivid in Book Reviews 403 illustrative comparisons. Until relatively recently in our history, the binding of printed book pages was a handcrafted art, and thus the different physical and orna- mental structures that contained different instances of a book carry indications of the wealth of an owner, the historical aesthetic of his or her time, and the very cultural and intellectual regard for the text inside. Sadly, one of the slimmest chapters is the one discussing the “Collective Value of Libraries.” Pearson proposes his book’s thesis against our changing cultural re- lationship to both individual books and the institutional libraries that for the past hundred years or more have been these books’ principal preservation hubs. The first five chapters of Books as History richly explore the cultural and historical value of individual books—especially those that today tend to be preserved in archives and “special collections.” He does in one chap- ter defend the value of complete library collections. However, his correspond- ingly rich exemplars of aggregate library value are correspondingly singular and esoteric, from the spectacular collections of Samuel Pepys and William Gladstone to the institutional and collective memory reflected in the library of a cathedral or English country home. These examples provide less ammunition for the collec- tion management or preservation librar- ians serving more mainstream academic institutions facing budget cuts. On the other hand, the very physical object of each copy of Books as History powerfully argues the value proposition for the experience of a book beyond its mere text. Oak Knoll Press has provided the edition with not only a very select topi- cal bibliography and index but also more than two hundred full-color illustrations. These often frame the text in artful modes, offer instructive comparisons (including an appended “case study” comparing five editions of the same text), or capture the reader’s full attention in multiple openings of full-color facsimile; the illustrations run the gamut from medieval manuscripts to “book art,” marginal annotations referenc- ing Shakespeare and Cranmer to Oscar Wilde signatures, as well as bindings, illustrations, and cover art spanning cen- turies of technical and aesthetic develop- ments. The overall layout on each page of the volume is elegant and tasteful—even reminiscent of manuscript and earlier print traditions—with marbled endpapers and plenty of white space interrupted only by picture captions as if a “gloss” framing each page of the text. Pearson himself seems aware of this aspect of the book’s produc- tion: his last textual instruction is, “Reader, write your thoughts in the margins of this copy … and turn it into a unique object for posterity.” (p. 183) My copy of Books in His- tory, at least, will never be the same object as its text on an electronic screen.—Timothy J. Dickey, OCLC Research, Columbus, Ohio. Stuart Sillars. The Illustrated Shake- speare, 1709–1875. New York: Cam- bridge University Press, 2008. 394p. $120 hardback (ISBN 978521878371). LC2008-025988. This lavishly illustrated book (16 color plates, 150 illustrations) aims to make a contribution to the history of reading through an examination of the major editions of Shakespeare’s plays published between 1709 and 1875. Sillars (University of Bergen, formerly with the University of Cambridge) is also the author of Painting Shakespeare: The Artist as Critic, 1720–1820 (Cambridge, 2006). That work focused on scenes from Shakespeare as reflected in British art during the long 18th century; the present effort complements the earlier book but focuses on the printed page. As Sillars points out in his first chapter, for many people, whether in the eighteenth century or the twenty-first, the experience of Shakespeare comes via the printed page rather than performance. (This despite the recent attention critics have given to the plays in performance.) Sillars does not deny the importance of this line of criti- cism, but he wishes to look at play texts as objects in their own right: rather than con- sidering the visual elements of the plays as performed on stage, he wants to examine 404 College & Research Libraries July 2009 the book as its own kind of “Theatrum,” or arena for performance, parallel to the plays as acted. He is especially interested in considering the way in which the common reader (and not the scholar) might have ap- proached the plays, whether through silent reading, or with companions, and the way such readings might have contributed to the creation of Shakespeare as England’s national (and best?) poet. Illustrations, especially early engraved frontispieces, would have served both as a connection to the play in performance (a memory device), but also as a “theatregram” that revealed the key actions and characters in the play. The placement of these illustra- tions is significant as well: a frontispiece would immediately shape the reader’s ideas about the play, even before he or she had read a single word, while illustrations placed within the text could affect the pace of reading and the reader’s understanding of the action. One of the most interesting aspects of Sillars’ argument about “illus- trated Shakespeares” is how the placement of illustrations on right- or left-hand pages, before or after the action, before or after the plays’ divisions into acts and scenes, could affect the reading experience. Even placing illustrations horizontally rather than vertically on the page disrupts the flow of reading. He points out that the mise-en-scène of the stage gets translated into the mise-en-page of the book. Illustrations might also affect groups of readers in different ways. What Sillars calls a “new” reader (one who had no acquain- tance with the play) might approach a text differently from what he calls a “qualified” reader (one who has some prior knowledge of the play’s actions or themes). The aim of his book, says Sillars, is to look at the way readers decoded the visual in printed editions of Shakespeare. His method is based on a study of particular editions of Shakespeare, from Nicholas Rowe’s octavo of 1709 through the popular mass-market volumes of the Victorian era. The popular- ity of the nineteenth-century cheap editions was enormous—one publisher claimed sales of 700,000 copies in a two-year period. Their ubiquity, argues Sillars, meant that the illustrated Shakespeare offered a very tangible way to shape a reader’s beliefs and to impose a set of cultural norms. In his chapter on the Rowe edition, Sillars notes that publisher Jacob Tonson chose a dramatist, not a scholar, to edit the plays, thereby placing Shakespeare in the contemporary world of the theatergoer, not that of an academic editor such as Samuel Johnson or Lewis Theobald. But, interestingly, Sillars suggests that the artist who produced the illustrations, French- man François Boitard, was unlikely to have had time to see the plays in performance and so must have created his images based on his reading of the plays. Sillars spends most of the chapter showing how Boitard’s illustrations fell in with earlier modes of illustration, with their use of classic archi- tectural frames, emblemata, drapery, and multitemporal events in the same illustra- tion. He notes that even the choice of which scenes to illustrate had a potential effect on the reader: the frontispiece for Romeo and Juliet, for example, pictures the death of the two young lovers (not the balcony scene), thus privileging that moment, that scene in the play. The illustrations for the second Rowe edition (1714), engraved by Louis du Guernier, displayed a more naturalistic style, presaging the transition in painting to the narrative and the realistic. Sillars’ chapter on the Theobald edi- tion of 1740 provides close “readings” of the illustrations designed by Hubert Gravelot, who also illustrated Pamela and Tom Jones. The tendency toward natural- ism, as evidenced in the rise of the novel, was eventually reflected in the illustra- tions for Shakespeare; urban scenes and landscapes, not stage sets, became the settings for key moments in the plays. The illustrations for Cassell’s Illustrated Shakespeare (1864) could have come out of any Victorian popular novel, says Sillars. This connection to a completely different genre, the novel, leads Sillars to suggest that the experience of reading plays was to become similar to that of reading novels. Readers would invest themselves in the Book Reviews 405 action of the plays in the same way that they involved themselves in the cultural concerns of the nineteenth-century novel. Marriage, class, commerce, the British Empire—illustrations reflected these common concerns and provided a link between the popular contemporary genre of the novel and the plays of Shakespeare. Sillars’ discussion of John Bell’s editions of Shakespeare (1774, 1788) offers a use- ful snapshot of the publishing industry during the late eighteenth century. Bell published illustrated editions for the masses, and these created, according to Sillars, “an intricate pattern of commercial, intellectual and cultural intersections.” The texts were based on prompt-books used in Drury Lane; the plays were issued in weekly parts, as well as in standard volumes; the frontispieces with actors’ portraits in character played to a con- temporary cult of celebrity. And, while Bell gave the binder instructions on the placement of illustrations within the vol- ume, book buyers could, and did, create volumes suited to their tastes and needs. Sillars reports on further developments in the illustrated Shakespeare industry, such as the publication of miniature edi- tions (for women readers) and a print edition of the paintings from the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery. (See Sillars’ earlier work for more on the Boydell project.) Sil- lars’ chapter on the publishing phenome- non of the extra-illustrated, or grangerised, edition serves as an example of the perfect “dialogue between reader and text,” with the reader creating his or her own personal version of the illustrated plays. (Sillars re- lies on two copies of such editions from the Folger Library.) In the same chapter, Sillars also traces the connections between illus- trations for the history plays and the publi- cation of illustrated biographical histories; this linked Shakespeare and his characters with British royalty, thus guaranteeing his position as the British national poet. My review thus far has focused on Sil- lars’ discussion of visual imagery. Howev- er, his art-historical approach frequently serves to illuminate the action of the plays as well. His description of an illustration for the ending of Measure for Measure perfectly captures the perplexities of that problem play’s ending. There are many such explications of book illustrations that demonstrate how art can inform one’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s plays. The book concludes with Sillars’ review of the current state of illustrated Shake- speare editions. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the market had been saturated, and the cheap illustrated edition “became associated with the least positive aspects of populism.” Scholarly editions, for the most part, eschewed illustration, and only luxury editions focused on art- work. The author ventures to say, though, that the ready availability of digital images might lead to a resurrection of the illus- trated edition, with every reader free to do his or her own “electronic grangerising.” This absorbing book will be of interest to art historians, students of book history, and literary scholars. I have only two small negatives to offer: there appear to be errors in the references to the color plates, beginning with chapter seven. And smaller college libraries will undoubtedly find the price prohibitive.—Cecile M. Jag- odzinski, Indiana University Pauline Shaw Bayne. A Guide to Library Research in Music. Lanham, Md.: Scare- crow Press, 2008. 274p. alk. paper, $35 paper (ISBN 9780810862111). LC2008- 025088. Pauline Shaw Bayne, Assistant Dean of Libraries and Professor in the School of Music at the University of Tennessee, drew on 16 years as a music bibliography instruc- tor for A Guide to Library Research in Music. Well-organized and direct, it contains the tools necessary to learn the basics of library research in music. Its simplistic approach and emphasis on print sources, basic data- bases, and Library of Congress structures yield a traditional, library-centric approach appropriate for beginning researchers. The organization of this book is a clear strength. Part I, “Short Course: Music Research and Writing,” can be used on 406 College & Research Libraries July 2009 its own as a bare-bones primer. It covers the research process, basic resources, case studies, and the writing process. Part II, “How To: Discover and Use Resources,” explores searching strategies such as browsing, subjects and keywords in databases and library catalogs, and the- matic catalogs. Part III is “Resources: The Literature of Music.” This “bibliographic essay” describes select music resources and explains corresponding Library of Congress Classification. Parts II and III can be integrated into the “short course,” or all parts can be done in sequence. Each part contains short chapters with previews, text delineated by subsections (1.1, 1.2), and review questions. “Learning exercises” provide hands-on experience. Four appendices related to Library of Congress Classification and subject head- ings aid in locating resources. A bibliogra- phy distinguishing highly recommended titles is included, as are author/title and subject indexes. Charts and tables are clear and helpful. The organization is effective in Part I, making the “short course” an easily navi- gable and comprehensive introduction to the basics of researching and writing about music. The case study and writing samples enhance understanding. This short, sectionalized approach falters in Part II’s discussion of search- ing library catalogs and databases using subject headings and keywords. While the content is solid, the granular structure prevents the logical flow of concepts. The chapters alternate by search method: database structure, subject headings in a library catalog, subject headings in databases, keyword searching in library catalogs, keyword searching in databases. In addition, explanation of the Library of Congress Subject Headings and Boolean logic occur within the context of the chapters. Overviews of these concepts fol- lowed by comprehensive explorations of library catalogs and databases may have worked more smoothly. Part III is better suited to the simpler style. Although billed as a selective bibliography, it in- cludes significant explanation of Library of Congress Classification. The understanding and highly sophis- ticated use of the Library of Congress Classification and subject heading struc- ture is central to Bayne’s methodology for library research in music. While these concepts are important to research, the depth of the treatment here is unusual. This is important in evaluating an appro- priate audience for this book and putting it into a larger instructive context. Bayne’s stated primary audience is graduate music students. The text succeeds as a basic introduction to music research, assuming no previous experience. Simplis- tic language supports this, and the content is geared to the traditional canon of West- ern art music. Yet coverage is inadequate for graduate students who have mastered basic research skills. Primary sources are barely addressed, and necessary subtlety is sacrificed for succinctness (for instance, the thematic catalog chapter doesn’t ad- dress “themes”—the main tune—versus “incipits”—the opening measures). So who benefits from extended discourse on syntax for subject headings when many noncataloging librarians express frustra- tion over the labyrinthine system? The answer lies in Bayne’s philosophy of music instruction. Her approach is solely practical; she does not place her work in the larger context of contemporary research, perhaps revealing the most by that omis- sion. Resources are largely print, library catalogs, and basic databases. The Internet, Google, and Wikipedia are fleetingly cov- ered; and, although guidelines are given for evaluating Web sites, few sites are rec- ommended as scholarly resources. There is no discussion about the radical change in research since the Internet’s widespread adoption, and there is no mention of the decline of students’ traditional skills or the increasing amount of information available online. A Guide to Library Research in Music is rooted in standard physical library or- ganization and structured library catalog searching. Traditional methodologies are preferred and result in a high level of Book Reviews 407 competence. Bayne seems to bank on the timelessness of this approach. Two other guides to music research published in 2009 by experienced teaching music librarians illustrate different ap- proaches. Music Library and Research Skills by Jane Gottlieb from the Juilliard School addresses the new world of research head on, discussing what is available online and what is not by page 5. Gottlieb spends three pages on subject heading searches, acknowledging the difficulty of its func- tionality for Google users accustomed to keyword searches. Flexibility and infor- mation literacy concepts are essential to mastering research in her approach. Laurie Sampsel of the University of Colorado at Boulder takes the middle ground in Music Research: A Handbook. She comprehensively examines traditional sources but also gives ample space to scholarly Web sites, blogs, and methods to keep up with the ever-changing Internet. Both Gottlieb and Sampsel have accom- panying Web sites updating information published in the book. While Bayne’s is the only book that could be used as a comprehensive textbook, Sampsel’s is based on a sixteen-week semester and provides evaluation checklists. In essence, A Guide to Library Research in Music is music bibliography basic training. Everyone starts at the bottom, drilling the basics. Those who succeed can use a library like a professional. However, it is not for everyone, and students soon discover that they’ve taken the long way and that re- search is more complex than they thought. Bayne’s book is well done and successful within its parameters, and it can be recom- mended for academic libraries with music programs. The same is true for Gottlieb’s and Sampsel’s books. When choosing one or seeking to find a text for a course, all three should be examined to determine the best fit for the needs of the students and the instructional philosophy of the teacher.—Lisa A. Lazar, University of Akron. Cynthia Pease Miller. Managing Con- gressional Collections. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2008. 138p. $19.95 paper (ISBN 1931666296). LC2008-029612. Cynthia Pease Miller ’s manual provides a superb introduction to the herculean task of managing Congressional collec- tions. The average U.S. senator generates more than 100 linear feet of files per year in office. Modern-day senatorial collections typically range from 1,800 to 2,500 linear feet when they arrive at an archival repository. All collections contain a variety of record formats, too, from constituent correspondence to au- diovisuals of every imaginable variety. As the author rightly concludes, “The responsibility of administering these challenging archival collections tends to be poorly understood by donors and repositories alike.” The documentary record of Congress takes two primary forms. The official administrative and legislative records of the nation’s legislature are collected and preserved by the Center for Legislative Archives, part of the National Archives and Records Administration. This manual addresses the second form: the personal papers created by individual senators and representatives which, by rule of the House and Senate, remain their personal property. Miller’s introduction features brief sec- tions on the importance of congressional collections, efforts since 1976 to establish standards for managing these records, and the continuing challenges posed by them. The first of five chapters in the 138-page publication explores the process of solicit- ing or donating a congressional collection. Topics include benchmarks against which the enduring documentary and research Index to advertisers Annual Reviews 307 CHOICE 308 Cold Spring Harbor 314 Counting Opinions cover 2 Modern Language Assoc. cover 4 Social Explorer cover 3 408 College & Research Libraries July 2009 value of a member’s papers may be as- sessed, conditions affecting the quality of a collection’s content and its manageability, and 14 qualities of a model congressional collections repository. Although aimed mainly at administrators and archivists who work with these specialized collec- tions, the manual contains a wealth of in- formation for collections donors, too. The author includes, for example, a checklist of 15 items for collection donors to consider when selecting a repository. Chapter 2, the longest at 24 pages, deals with administering a congressional collection. It includes sections on calculat- ing costs, space, personnel, and budget; sustainability and outside funding; the ac- quisition process; access standards and the deed of gift; oral histories; and ongoing do- nor relations. The next chapter tackles the transfer of papers, including the perplexing matter of electronic records. “Processing a Congressional Collection,” chapter 4, ad- dresses planning, physical control of the collection, processing, appraisal, and the treatment of classified documents. The final chapter speaks to description practices and access tools, reference service, and exhibi- tions and outreach. The author provides 52 pages of sup- plementary material in eight appendices. A chronology of advances in managing congressional collections identifies 26 milestones from 1974 to 2008. Other appendices provide information about sources of professional advice, a sample deed of gift, a list of typical congressio- nal staff and the files they are likely to keep, guidelines for records disposition, frequently asked questions and “cursory answers for the congressional archivist,” a bibliography of selected readings, and the text of H. Con. Res. 307 (June 20, 2008) expressing Congress’ sense that members’ papers should be properly maintained. The publication’s format encourages use. Miller writes succinctly and clearly. She employs section headings and bul- leted lists liberally, making it easy to scan the manual quickly. Readers will find the “best practices” highlights particularly helpful—there are 14 of them on topics ranging from appraisal to memorabilia policy. An index of 386 terms is a valuable addition, too. Managing Congressional Collections is the result of an unusual collaboration. Cynthia Pease Miller, assistant historian of the House of Representatives for more than 15 years, gained hands-on experience as staff archivist for three senators and a Senate committee. For this publication, she worked with an editorial advisory board consisting of seven individuals, all members of the Society of American Archivists’ Congressional Papers Round- table. The Roundtable received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission for the manual. Miller would be the first to admit that Managing Congressional Collections is not the last word on the subject, nor was it intended to be. No publication twice its length could cover the myriad complexities of acquiring, preserving, organizing, and providing reference service for congres- sional collections. Instead, this excellent publication will alert Congress members, their families, congressional staff, and archivists to the challenges they face in deciding how to manage congressional col- lections.—Frank H. Mackaman, The Dirksen Congressional Center, Pekin, Illinois. Convergence and Collaboration of Cam- pus Information Services. Eds. Peter Hernon and Ronald R. Powell. West- port, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2008. 240p. alk. paper, $50.00 (ISBN 9781591586036). LC 2008-029356. This collection of essays provides thor- ough case studies emerging from a population consisting of diverse academic libraries sharing one commonality: name- ly, an innovative approach to intricately connecting libraries with their larger institutions and user populations. Each library, then, has initiated convergence and collaboration strategies to promote campus information services, as the title of this timely book asserts. The authors hale from eleven quite diverse university Book Reviews 409 libraries: Yale, Brown, Columbia, Emory, Albion, Georgia Tech, University of Con- necticut, University of Georgia, University of Michigan, University of Massachusetts, and Wayne State. Significantly, the authors describe successful strategies for guaran- teeing relevance and promoting change, so that libraries can adapt to the ever- evolving brave new world of technology. What constitutes “convergence and collaboration”? Each essay provides a set of approaches, providing definitions, illustrations, and suggested courses of action to demonstrate what the editors mean by this phrase. In the first essay be- yond the Introduction, Carol Ann Hughes offers an insightful piece entitled “Innova- tion Is an Ongoing Process: Collaboration at the University of California Irvine.” She states that library administrators at that institution must first pay particular attention to the ways in which users seek information. “Librarians,” she maintains, “should focus less on further enhance- ment of library-based services and take note of how users are actually working.” Only then can convergence occur in col- laborating, for instance, with Webmasters from IT, with departments offering un- dergraduates research opportunities, and with the Writing Center to support peer tutoring. Working with various university departments, the library succeeds in de- veloping and maintaining its relevance to the institution as a whole. Hughes’ point, echoed by all of the subsequent essays, is that library administrators need to culti- vate active, universitywide relationships. Other essays emphasize the fact that library administrators must be vigilant about realizing and implementing col- laboration with university departments to capitalize on virtual learning oppor- tunities such as distance learning. In fact, in their essay entitled “From Isolation to Engagement: Strategy, Structure and Process,” Barbara J. Kriigel and Timothy F. Richards maintain that administrators must vigorously promote the library and its critical services. IT and AV de- partments are obvious departments that would derive mutual benefit from close collaboration with the library. Another prevalent practice for many of the libraries represented in this book is the need for reorganization or restructuring of library staff to reflect the new networks of interdepartmental connectivity. Indeed, such reorganization may naturally evolve from the library’s increasing involvement with other campus information services. In “Libraries and Convergence at Yale,” Alice Prochaska advocates that libraries expand their mission to include larger communities beyond the university itself. Moreover, in the Conclusion, Peter Hernon, Ronald R. Powell, and Amy F. Fyn synthe- size the arguments of the book as a whole, drawing attention to the fact that, beyond collaboration involving technology, librar- ies can dedicate “space to an activity such as a poetry center that builds on historical links to an academic department.” Ultimately, this collection of pro- vocative essays has much to offer library administrators, whose vision can impel their libraries to redefine their missions. Every library administrator, then, could benefit from reading Convergence and Col- laboration of Campus Information Services. If, as Flannery O’Connor, writes, “every- thing that rises must converge,” these “rising” collaborations will, in the end, converge for the benefit of the academy as a whole.—Lynne F. Maxwell, Villanova University School of Law. E-learning and Business Plans: National and International Case Studies. Eds. Elaina M. Norlin and Tiffini A. Tra- vis. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008. 222p. alk. paper, $60 hbk (ISBN 9780810851955). LC2008-003163 Electronic learning, known as e-learning, is an increasingly common supplement or alternative to traditional on-site learn- ing. Technology over the last decade has continued to improve the ability to share knowledge effectively and learn new or improve upon existing skills. There has been an explosion within the e-learning industry in the variety of services available 410 College & Research Libraries July 2009 for nonprofit or commercial use. Many educational, corporate, and nonprofit institutions have already invested in some type of e-learning systems, some of which choose to develop their own system. The book E-learning and Business Plans: National and International Case Studies is really geared toward organizations that are considering new e-learning systems, and for this purpose it would be a very useful resource. However, this would also be a worthwhile read for those with an e-learning system already in place. This book is split into two sections. The first includes the first four chapters and provides background information about e-learning in the twenty-first century. A wealth of information about e-learners is covered, such as user demographics, cultures and associated learning styles, current uses of e-learning systems, mo- tives for using e-learning, and more. The statistics throughout the book are primar- ily from the early to mid 2000s. The fourth chapter rounds out the first section by outlining the process of creating a business plan and establishing a solid base for the following chapters. There are several prac- tical examples in chapter four that would effectively apply to any new project, hence the chapter title “Business Planning 101: Starting a New Business Venture.” The second section makes up the bulk of the book and consists of case studies from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Each of the case studies focuses on specific topics that progres- sively build upon each other in terms of planning, management, marketing, and collaboration, among other topics. There is a nice variety of case stud- ies in which useful information can be gleaned and applied to various e-learning circumstances. Some specifically deal with libraries, such as the chapter about Golden Gate University’s method for developing an e-learning vision. Others provide a perspective from a nonprofit organization, such as the chapter by the Criminal Justice Team in Hatfield, England, that describes their experience with integrating and managing personnel in their e-learning system. There are also corporate examples sprinkled throughout the book that provide a different flavor periodically. E-learning systems are not cheap, but if they are well designed they can reduce the cost of programs, as the last chapter, entitled “Maintaining Qual- ity Education While Reducing Costs” by Wayne State University, demonstrates. There are a few redundant sections, such as chapters two and ten, which dis- cuss similar hybrid models. Other over- lapping examples include chapters four, six, and eight, each of which touches on management of personnel. However, the repetition is primarily due to the nature of this book and how the content of the case studies is structured. They occasionally repeat information to provide context to an institution’s experience, but these areas are often brief. While there are other books on this topic, the editors have done a good job in pulling together a wide range of ex- periences into one book. Each author has experience in the areas in which he or she has written. The graphs, charts, and tables are all appropriately used and adequately support the text. This book contains ad- equate bibliographies at the end of each chapter with a rich and well-developed index at the end. The one disappointing aspect of this book is the lack of discussion about back- up systems for e-learning, such as what to do when technology fails. The case stud- ies discuss the pitfalls or problems they have experienced, but they do not always provide details of their solutions. For ex- ample, the last page of the last chapter is the only place that briefly mentions what was done in case of technical issues. In this case, they resorted to pencil and paper. Overall, this book provides a wonderful overview of the e-learning industry and provides solid national and international case studies that demonstrate how to de- sign, implement, market, and maintain an e-learning system.—John Repplinger, Willamette University, Salem, Oregon.