College and Research Libraries Book Reviews Klein, Julie Thompson. Interdisciplinar- ity: History, Theory, and Practice. De- troit: Wayne State Univ. Pr., 1989. 331p. $37.50 (ISBN 0-8143-2087-2). LC 89-035166. Is there a librarian even remotely con- cerned with education or research who does not routinely use the word interdis- ciplinary? The selection, classification, indexing, and accessing of library mate- rials are all activities directly concerned with the organization of knowledge. Ac- ademic librarians have a ringside seat at the spectacle of shifting departmental boundaries, core curricula, interdiscipli- nary programs, and research institutes. Librarianship itself is referred to as an in- terdisciplinary field. But how often do we stop to ask ourselves what the term interdisciplinary really means? Is it an or- ganizational structure, a political stance, a process, or an idea? The label interdisciplinary, says Julie Thompson Klein, is rooted in ideas of unity and synthesis: "Interdisciplinarity has been described as both nostalgia for lost wholeness and a new stage in the evolution of science." Klein, a former president of the Association for Integra- tive Studies, attempts in this book to synthesize the growing literature on in- terdisciplinarity, and thus contribute to a more unified discourse on a phenome- non riddled with confusion and appar- ent contradiction. She begins with a history of interdisci- plinary movements from the early twen- tieth century to the present, and goes on to survey the origins, purposes, struc- tures, ideologies, and practices found in today's international ''interdisciplinary archipelago. II A clear distinction is made, for example, between the terms multidisciplinarity (an essentially addi- tive combination of two or more disci- plines, as in many team-taught courses); interdisciplinarity (an integration of mate- rial from various fields of knowledge into a new, coherent entity); and trans- disciplinarity (a higher-level conceptual framework, such as systems theory, Marxism, structuralism, or behaviorism, that transcends individual disciplines). Klein is at her best when she exposes the simultaneous struggle and interde- pendence between established disci- plines and interdisciplinarity. The chap- ter ''The Rhetoric of Interdisciplinar- ity," for instance, is a brilliant pastiche of the geopolitical imagery of depart- mental boundary disputes. ("Some will come to rest in the 'bureaucratic foothills of interdisciplinary cooperation' or in designated interdisciplinary programs, the 'Switzerland of academia.' ")There is a perceptive chapter on borrowing be- tween disciplines, with a candid admis- sion of the dangers of reductionism. Also outstanding is the discussion of the activist thrust motivating ethnic, wom- en's, and area studies and of the vicissi- tudes of these "studies." Detailed chapters follow on problem- focused research (IDR), interdiscipli- nary health care, and interdisciplinary education (IDS). The theoretical and practical problems encountered by proj- ects in government, industry, and aca- demia prove to be rather similar, and practitioners in any of these settings can benefit from the experience of others. The book concludes with thoughts on "the interdisciplinary individual" and "the interdisciplinary process, II fol- 95 96 College & Research Libraries lowed by a ninety-page bibliography. As a survey and literature review, Klein's book fills a real need. A vast ar- ray of projects is described, from local history to biophysics, American Indian law, ecology, child development, ar- chaeology, American studies, im- munopharmacology, urban studies, ho- listic health care, and undergraduate liberal studies. The book does not, how- ever, quite achieve its goal of synthesis. The material is very compressed; much of it remains only partially digested. In- dividual chapters adhere to the focus and emphasis of the existing literature on various branches of interdisciplinar- ity, which can range from recommenda- tions on the best physical layout of office space for interdisciplinary teams to the structure of the universe. Nevertheless, this is a good introduction to an impor- tant subject. It answers questions we may not have had the wit to ask and challenges us with problems still unre- solved. The cumulative evidence compiled by Klein suggests a paradox at the heart of the idea of interdisciplinarity. It aims at a holistic, integrating synthesis, an alter- native to the fragmenting specialization of modern knowledge. But it has con- sistently failed to achieve this ideal. One might even argue that, in practice, inter- disciplinarity represents the deconstruc- tive, disintegrating force of new per- spectives, and that every interdiscipli- nary project is an ad hoc, temporary so- lution to a particular problem. As Klein and others openly admit, it may be that modern thought simply defies classification.-Jean M. Alexander, North- western University, Evanston, Il. Veaner, Allen B. Academic Librarianship in a Transformational Age: Program, Pol- itics, and Personnel. Boston: G .K. Hall, 1990, 520p. $40 (ISBN 0-8161-1866-3). LC 89-27335. Allen Veaner' s book is interesting, worthwhile, and at times exasperating. Although it is intended chiefly for '' aca- demic librarians holding or aspiring to administrative positions," Richard De- Gennaro rightly observes in his brief January 1991 foreword that ''anyone with a serious interest in the evolution and future of ac- ademic libraries" would profit from it. The first chapter, "The Transformed World of Academic Librarianship," in- troduces the larger context. Particularly imaginative is the author's description of the traditional academic library as a "manor," a relatively self-sufficient and autonomous entity in which "on-site staff provided services almost entirely from local holdings, custom-tailoring their own bibliographic control sys- tems.'' In less than a generation, Veaner finds, the academic library has shed its manorial trappings and become part of a community, transformed via "linkages to a vast ... worldwide array of biblio- graphic resources and services.'' The ac- ademic library as one-time manor now transformed is an image at once provoc- ative and deserving of further critical re- flection . In his second chapter, "The Academic Community as Institution and Work- place," Veaner correctly observes that ''the academic workplace is highly polit- ical and strongly elitist, an island of ex- clusivity in an openly democratic soci- ety.'' But most academics, on most days at least, probably would not share his bleak views of ''the viciousness of aca- demic politics. In their relentless and egotistic competition for resources, the faculty manifest bad behavior toward each other that, although refined in exe- cution, is no less savage than that pre- vailing in the outside world: extreme pettiness, backstabbing, treachery, ma- licious destruction of colleagues' ca- reers, one-upmanship, and dark and mean-spirited power plays .'' If this was the environment with which Veaner had to cope during his twenty-six years of li- brary experience at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California at Santa Barbara, it is no wonder that he left the academy to establish his own consulting firm. The following chapter, '' Adminis- trative Theories, Business Paradigms, and Work," contains a number of in- sightful observations about the nature of library work, who and what librarians are, and the "duality of employment"