472 College & Research Libraries September 1992 saying ("Managers do things right; diation: A Language of Leaders" de leaders do the right things"), or draw on scribes the potential of the formal the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Not process of mediation as a management surprisingly, the bibliographies often tool. Richard H. Moul's "Discourses of cite the same sources. Vision and Necessity: The Information Characteristically, many of the essays Age, the Library, and the Language of begin with easy, self-evident, or unsub Leadership" offers concepts with which stantiated generalizations: "Perhaps no to perceive and criticize our professional area of library leadership receives so discourse. much criticism as the area of com Unfortunately, this book does not munication"; "Communication is one of succeed on its own terms and falls short of the most discussed topics in libraries"; its pOtential. It probably will not make "Conflict is one of our most difficult better leaders. Had the editor articulated a areas for communication because we deeper vision and had the writers reflected generally feel strongly about the issues on one another's work, they might have involved in the situation." Similarly, worked together toward one common end many conclude vaguely: "In short, and produced a book that added up to growing to greatness as a library com more than the sum of its parts. municator is a never-ending process"; Rather shamefully, the book lacks an ''Through the preceding steps and the index. Of all people, librarians and the use of positive communication skills, we editors of ALA publishing should know can takeourpositionofleadership"; "An the value an index adds to the book. appropriate response, then, to those who This book exhibits the problem with urge greater leadership from librarians, leadership everywhere in our country and for those who desire to exert more today: hollow words and generalities in leadership in the world outside the pro stead of deeds and substance. Like bad fession, is attention to increasing our politicians, we aspiring library leaders communication skills." stand here mouthing platitudes with our The writers often admonish us: "Being feet carefully parallel, claiming a position a good listener is the other essential part of leadership and hoping no one will notice of communication and should not be we are doing nothing.-Marcia Pankake, forgotten." Urging us to believe that University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. communication is important, the essays exhort us to communicate well, but after From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar reading several, one cries, "Communi Bush and the Mind's Machine. Ed. by cate what?" A few give practical tips or James M. Nyce and Paul Kahn. San examples. These range from reorganiz Diego, Calif.: Academic Press, 1991. ing the library to using body language 367 p. $40 (ISBN 0-12-523270-5). carefully: "If standing, place your feet as Vannevar Bush could well be to elec- parallel as possible (inward indicates tronic information theory what Panini is to subordination)." the study of language or Melvil Dewey to Five noteworthy contributions pro library science. As director of the Office of vide substance. Eugene S. Mitchell's con Scientific Research and Development, cise "Review of Leadership Research" Bush oversaw the massive scientific directs readers through the literatures of bureaucracy created for weapons research management and librarianship. Peggy during World War II. An engineer by trade Johnson writes clearly about openness, and a pre-war pioneer in the development trust, and intuition in personal com of electromechanical analog computing munication in "The Role of Empathy in devices, Bush grew concerned as the war Managerial Communication." John M. came to a close about the future of scien Budd's "Leading through Meaning: Ele tific research. In a 1945 essay, Bush ex ments of a Communication Process" dis plained it this way: tinguishes between information and There is a growing mountain of re meaning. Rosemary Huff Arneson's "Me- search. But there is increased evidence Book Reviews 473
that we are being bogged down today speculation in the 1930s and culminates as specialization extends. The investi with the seminal 1945 essay. The second gator is staggered by the findings and part covers Bush's continuing extension conclusions of thousands of other of the theoretical and engineering issues of workers-conclusions which he can Memex in later years as digital computing not find time to grasp, much less to technology developed. The third part, remember, as they appear. Yet special ''The Legacy of Memex," traces its in ization becomes increasingly neces fluence in current work in information re sary for progress, and the effort to trieval, computer software and hardware bridge between disciplines is corre design, and hypertext. spondingly superficial. Professionally Although many of the technologies our methods of transmitting and re predicted and proposed by Bush in "As viewing the results of research are We May Think" have become part of generations old and by now are totally everyday life, the "generations old" inadequate for their purpose. methods for disseminating information That essay, "As We May Think," pro traditional paper journals, citations, in posed a device called a Memex as a solution dexes, and catalogs-which Bush found so to what is perhaps still a disturbingly fa inadequate in 1945 continue to be the basis miliar problem. The Memex was to be "a of the modem university library. Thus device in which an individual stores all his while Bush's original writings are fascinat books, records, and communications, ing in their prescience and their close un and which is mechanized so that it may derstanding of the history of the be consulted with exceeding speed and relationship between information re flexibility. It is an enlarged supplement trieval technology and intellectual pro to his memory." Bush's original thumb gress, the contemporary reader may find nail sketch of the Memex included a vast the last section-concerning the exten store of information on microfiche sion of Bush's theoretical constructs into cached in a personalized retrieval device the practical reality of a working elec hidden in a desk. Among other items, tronic university--of more interest. "As We May Think" predicted the desk Hypertext is the intellectual descen top computer, computer databases, the dant of the Memex, an attempt to put laserdisk, optical scanning, artificial intel Bush's "natural" indexing system into ligence, multimedia technology, and on practical use through modem computing line searching-technologies essential to technology. Included in the last section are the contemporary library. But perhaps the pieces by hypertext pioneers Doug Engel more essential issue, as Bush wrote (in bart and Ted Nelson; an excellent explana 1945!), "goes deeper thana lag in the adop tion of the relationship between Bush's tion of mechanisms by libraries.... Our ideas, hypertext, and current multimedia ineptitude in getting at the record is largely technologies by Norman Meyrowitz; and a caused by the artificiality of systems of contemporary scholar's experience with indexing. Information retrieval systems," trying to implement the Memex concept Bush argued, "must function more like in classical studies (Gregory Crane's the associative pathways of human Perseus Project at Harvard). thought" if they were to remain useful in From Memex to Hypertext is an impor the age of the information explosion. tant contribution to the emerging field of From Memex to Hypertext is a three-part electronic information theory, both for collection of Vannevar Bush's writings the critical links it establishes between along with essays by others focusing on the early work in the field and current the Memex concept and its subsequent in technologies and as an anthology of the fluence on information theory and comput theoretical essays of its most cited pioneer, ing. The first part describes the development Vannevar Bush. While individual essays of the ideas in "As We May Think" in the may be overly technical or specific in detail contexts of Bush's work with analog com for many readers, the collection as a whole puters and the social history of scientific is a solid integration of the historical, 474 College & Research Libraries September 1992 theoretical, and practical problems of ac design, reference, and collection man cessing electronic information. It is rec agement. Librarians and their technical ommended reading for those grappling partners would surely profit from, or at with planning and philosophical issues least be reassured by, this half-century of concerning the use of electronic resources material that addresses our contemporary and for library school courses in informa concerns.-Matthew Wall, Sloortlzmore Col tion retrieval theory, information systems lege, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
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