Book Reviews 581 practical applications for any type of li- makes the library remote from its users, brary. The one anomaly is an Internet not the other way around.” health information guide for consumers. I thought I was a keen evaluator of Web I read the book on the long way back to content, but “Historical Fabrications on Philadelphia from the Special Libraries the Internet” shocked me out of compla- Association conference in Los Angeles cency. Frightening examples of hate lit- and wondered, if these chapters were con- erature and biased reports skillfully dis- ference sessions, which ones would I at- guised as historical fact prove that mali- tend? They are all worthwhile, but I found cious misinformation is more pervasive some more compelling than others. than many of us could have imagined. The essays in Teaching and Training “The Impact of ‘Scholar’s Worksta- tend to reflect our love affair with “infor- tions’ in an Undergraduate Library,” in mation literacy.” The authors acknowl- the IT management section is an excellent edge the seduction of students by the model of successful project management. fool’s paradise of search engines but do The systematic treatment does not omit not entertain the possibility that informa- the distressing detours taken and is a use- tion literacy may be a fool’s errand. How- ful lessons-learned account for any type ever, the research findings described in of library planning a major technological this section do hold numerous useful in- change. sights about what does and does not work Almost a century ago, Thomas Edison in coaching students. predicted that the motion picture would “E-mail Reference: Who, When, Where replace the book. Similar forecasts ascribe and What Is Asked” is an overview of the the future demise of printed matter to the current state of e-mail reference in general Internet. Today, we teeter on the brink of and, specifically, at Colorado academic and the Semantic Web, which will, according public libraries. The bulk of the report is a to Tim Berners-Lee who invented the close examination of two years of obser- World Wide Web in 1989, relegate the Web vation at Colorado State University. Al- to antiquity by 2005 (http://www.w3.org/ though no earthshaking conclusions about People/Berners-Lee). Evolution in Reference the value of e-mail reference are presented, and Information Services is refreshingly void the detailed usage statistics provide an in- of theoretical assumptions, focusing, in- teresting tool for comparison. stead, on down-to-earth practical obser- “Internet Engineering Reference: An vances by innovative and astute reference Academic Strategy” chronicles a Univer- librarians. The articles are well referenced, sity of Texas library’s active confrontation and the index is faultless. This is an inspir- with the widening gap between the ref- ing and educational work for information erence desk and library users. The boom students and veteran librarians alike.— in new classroom and residence facilities Terese Mulkern Terry, University of Pennsyl- presents challenges with which many vania. readers will readily identify. In their analysis of reference questions, the staff Intellectual Freedom Manual, 6th ed. uncovered interesting trends: Although Comp. the Office for Intellectual Free- “I need information on . . .” still predomi- dom. Chicago: ALA, 2002. 434p. $45, nates, the biggest change is represented alk. paper; ALA members, $40.50 by questions concerning access and com- (ISBN 0838935192). LC 2001-26684. puter-related problems. What aren’t they “A must-have guide,” reads a rear cover asking? They seldom ask about which blurb. And that is true. This latest, up- index to use, a sad indication of their mis- dated compendium of official ALA poli- guided reliance on the public Internet. cies, guidelines, and interpretations, to- The marketing and public relations aspect gether with a “history” of how each was of reference service is also addressed. “We created and some fifteen essays by intel- have changed our thinking—the Web lectual freedom (IF) authorities such as 582 College & Research Libraries November 2002

Judith F. Krug, Anne Levinson Penway, both librarians deeply committed to the Bruce J. Ennis, Beverly Becker, and Don freedom to read, unmask Banned Books Wood on topics such as the Buckley Week as a self-serving deception, demon- Amendment, Internet access, confidenti- strating that the works more truly ality policies, opposition to Religious “banned” in the sense of being barely Right censorship attempts, and lobbying, available in either libraries or bookstores belongs in all library systems. ALA’s Code are those emanating from small and al- of Ethics and a two-page Selected Bibli- ternative presses. In short, these are ma- ography, incidentally, appear as appen- terials no one has “challenged” in librar- dices. ies because libraries did not stock them However, even to someone embracing in the first place. The Manual alludes to a nearly “purist” stance on intellectual “self-censorship” once or twice but never freedom, something is wrong here. In- explores this major threat to intellectual deed, more than one thing is wrong. For freedom in any depth. Similarly, the ap- starters, there is a pervasive smugness, pended bibliography curiously fails to dogmatism, and self-righteousness, a cite a recent scholarly study on this very nearly “circle-the-wagons” mentality issue: Toni Samek’s Intellectual Freedom bordering on paranoia, that views any- and Social Responsibility in American one who questions the worth or appro- Librarianship, 1967–1974 (Jefferson, N.C.: priateness of particular library materials McFarland, 2001). as a benighted censor and sees the many Another overwhelming oversight is reported “challenges” to, for instance, Of the failure to acknowledge, much less dis- Mice and Men and the Harry Potter books, cuss, the broader IF context, especially the as evidence of a nonstop tidal wave of rapid concentration of media ownership suppression. In fact, any citizen should and consequent shrinkage of available be able to make a request for reconsid- opinion and information. This rampag- eration without being tarred as a narrow- ing process, disturbingly addressed by minded storm trooper. Materials selectors analysts such as Noam Chomsky, Robert make mistakes. And, increasingly, local McChesney, Michael Parenti, Ben librarians do not even see or evaluate new Bagdikian, Norman Solomon, Edward titles supplied by distant vendors through Herman, and Herbert Schiller, as well as outsourcing schemes or approval plans. by Project Censored and FAIR (Fairness Further, those myriad “challenges” actu- and Accuracy in Reporting), demands ally and typically arise in fairly rural and attention from librarians, whose collec- remote locales, hardly affecting large tions and clients are directly impacted by numbers of students or library users, and the constriction of diversity in print, elec- in any event are usually denied, although tronic, and AV formats alike. they do represent opportunities to reex- Although the Manual devotes some amine selection decisions and to explain space to “the librarian and intellectual free speech precepts to the challengers. freedom,” it smugly concludes after re- This leads to another Manual anomaly: counting details of the 1980 Layton The consistent exclusion of critical, dissi- Case—in which a Utah librarian success- dent IF perspectives within librarianship fully, and with ALA support, won a suit itself. As an example, Focus on the Fam- and regained her job after being dis- ily and the Family Research Council are missed for refusing to remove a novel excoriated for contesting the validity of from the Davis County Library—that “in ALA’s annual Banned Books Week. These general the library profession takes its are easy, fundamentalist targets. No- responsibilities on this front seriously in- where, though, are the serious criticisms deed.” Well, that is unalloyed fantasy. articulated primarily by Earl Lee and Since 1980, colleagues have been rebuked Charles Willett mentioned. Mainly in the or dismissed for the following: conduct- pages of Counterpoise, Lee and Willett, ing a program on Israeli censorship; writ- Book Reviews 583 ing prolabor freelance newspaper col- annotated directory of journals, groups, umns and scheduling a labor film series and Web sites concerning freedom of in- at a county library; questioning why a formation, censorship, and media democ- system closed on Easter, but not on Jew- racy. Such a list should helpfully include ish holidays; criticizing library manage- sources for identifying and selecting truly ment at a city council meeting; support- diverse materials (e.g., Counterpoise, ing a black coworker who charged the MultiCultural Review, Small Press Review, administration with job discrimination; Women’s Review of Books). Second, isn’t it publicly opposing a new main building about time for ALA’s Intellectual Freedom with inadequate space for books; asking Committee and Office for Intellectual for improved security following a sexual Freedom to advise the Library of Con- assault; and expressing an opinion on the gress that there really is a concept called merits of AACR2 to state OCLC vendors. “intellectual freedom” that deserves its In the last instance, the librarian was sub- own subject heading? (At present, the sequently reprimanded, forced into retire- term appears in LCSH as an omnibus ment, and five books written or edited by “see” reference to more specific topics him, plus a sixth about him, expunged such as “Academic freedom” and “Cen- from the library’s catalog and shelves. sorship.” A subject search under “Intel- Indeed, the “library profession,” includ- lectual freedom” will yield neither the ing local and national IF units, apparently OIF Manual nor Samek’s book.)—Sanford did not take “its responsibilities” very Berman, Alternative Library Literature. seriously in these cases. And an amend- ment to the Library Bill of Rights that Kister, Kenneth F. Eric Moon: The Life and would have extended free speech rights Library Times. Foreword by John N. to library staff, affording them the same Berry III. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, protection as materials and meeting 2002. 442p., alk. paper, $30 (ISBN rooms, was introduced to the ALA Coun- 0786412534). LC 2001-7509. cil in 1999 but ultimately scuttled, buried. Kenneth Kister, of Kister’s Best Encyclope- This event, perhaps unsurprisingly, also dias renown, has tackled the fertile, but is unreported in the Manual. (Likewise seldom tilled, field of library biography. unnoted are the documented examples of What makes Kister’s biography particu- censorship or omission within the library larly interesting is the fact that its subject, press [e.g., “Top Censored Library Stories the legendary Eric Moon, is still very much of 1998/2000,” Unabashed Librarian, nos. alive and kicking. That having been said, 118, 119]). Kister does not shrink from telling all he Two final observations: First, the next has gathered from more than a hundred edition would greatly benefit from an hours of interviews with Moon himself and his second wife, Ilse, but also with his family (including his mother Grace and his Index to advertisers younger brother, Bryan), and friends and AIAA 498, 544 colleagues (notably, Patricia Glass American Chemical Society cover 3 Schuman, John N. Berry III, E. J. Josey, and Archival Products 514 Arthur Curley, all of whom eventually Biosis 480 served as president of the ALA). Although CHOICE 561 Kister lets Moon and others tell their sides Elsevier Science 479 of the story in their own words, he remains Library Technologies 483 very much in control of the content and Primary Source Microfilm cover 4 direction of the narrative. TechBooks 527 Eric Edward Moon, the first of two Science Direct cover 2 sons of working-class parents Ted and University of California Press 497 Grace (Scott) Moon, was born March 6, 1923, in Yeovil, an old town in the south