College and Research Libraries


that differs considerably from most of 
our day-to-day lives as librarians (I sus-
pect), it connects us that ntuch more to 
our users. The latter was borne out by a 
check of the circulation history of the 
copy in Harvard's Widener Library; it has 
already circulated four times! Moreover, 
if Dery is correct, Flame Wars offers a pre-
view of how popular culture will evolve 
in the years to come.-Ed Tallent, Harvard 
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Gates, Bill (with Nathan Myhrvoid and 
Peter Rinearson). The Road Ahead. 
New York: Viking, 1995. 286p. + 1 CD-
ROM. $29.95. (ISBN 0-670-77289-5). 

The Road Ahead has already been widely 
reviewed. Some reviewers have sug-
gested that Gates too often takes the easy 
way out. They say that he sanitizes and 
waters down, that we do not really learn 
anything new about his life or his take 
on the future, and that he dodges the 
meatier issues (e.g., the introduction of 
Windows 95last fall, the destructive com-
petition of technology companies, or the 
problem of helping current have-nots be-
come "haves" on the information high-
way). 

These critics raise valid points insofar 
as readers already aware of Gates's ca-
reer and conscious of the information age 
will find much that is bland rather than 
provocative. Still, for people who want 
to establish a foothold in the information 
age (and this is most of us), The Road 
Ahead is a lucid, readable presentation of 
what has happened, what is happening, 
and what might happen. It should not 
be surprising that Gates would rather 
offer something for everyone than a 
greater specificity which would be of in-
terest to only a few readers. He is a busi-
nessman and, as such, wants to sell his 
book and the accompanying CD-ROM 
(whose" Ask Bill" feature allows the user 
to understand Gates's broad picture in 
seconds). 

The Road Ahead is of immediate con-
cern to librarians. What I found of most 

Book Reviews 393 

interest was not whether Gates's points 
are correct (many are, if others still await 
resolution) but, rather, whether his hard-
hitting business acumen translates well 
to the II gentle" world of libraries and li-
brarians. Gates raises three issues wor-
thy of librarians' consideration: content, 
business, and personnel. 

What Gates calls the "content revolu-
tion" is best illustrated by a picture in a 
recent National Geographic of Gates sitting 
atop 55 feet of paper while holding a CD-
ROM. The CD holds more information 
than the pile of paper. One day, Gates 
notes, data carriers the size of our fist 
could hold the contents of the Library of 
Congress. With paper out and CDs and 
other technological advancements in, li-
braries must be able to accommodate this 
revolution. Because library users will be 
able to access information through an in-
creasing variety of ways, librarians will 
need to mediate the transfer of informa-
tion. 

It is to Gates's credit that he views Mi-
crosoft in both absolute and relative 
terms. We are doing great, he acknowl-
edges, but we can still do better. Librar-
ians, too, must think like this. Now more 
than ever, libraries need to position them-
selves in the best economic light in such 
a way as to illuminate the intellectual 
richness of library resources and to 
counter the negative impression fostered 
by the high costs of library materials. If 
librarians are to excel, new operating 
practices must be implemented. This can 
be done in several ways. First, libraries 
must increase their purchasing power by 
leveraging themselves whenever pos-
sible. Second, libraries must state their 
missions and fulfill them. This is obvi-
ous, yet too often the extraneous wins out 
over the essential. Third, libraries must 
raise, at an even faster rate, additional 
funds for their operations. 

Gates speaks about businesses need-
ing to renew themselves constantly. Stay-
ing in the forefront, he maintains, is nec-
essary to remain ahead of one's peers. 



394 College & Research Libraries 

Libraries do need to monitor their own 
operations and watch their bottom line; 
being "nonprofit" does not mean that 
wasting money is acceptable. If Gates fa-
vors the general reduction of a business's 
level of friction (friction understood as 
time-consuming, unnecessary layers of 
overhead), libraries would do well to re-
duce their own. 

Gates does not address how librarians 
can attain excellence. In the early days at 
Microsoft, Gates instructed his person-
nel director to "just keep hiring smart 
people as fast as you can." If it were that 
easy, every company would presumably 
hire "smart people" and attain Micro-
soft's level of success. It is not that easy, 
of course, but libraries need to examine 
their present hiring practices. How do we 
educate and attract "smart librarians"? 
What is the MLS worth, and how much 
importance should employers invest in 
whether prospective librarians have one? 
Is library school really as absolute a 
world as some would have it-that is, 
does a job candidate's having the MLS 
ensure that he or she is best qualified? 
After all, library patrons do not worry 
about MLS degrees; they worry about 
receiving adequate service. 

In line with the hiring strategy at Mi-
crosoft, the most crucial factor for library 
employment would be the candidate's 
rightness for the job. Today's "smart li-

Index to advertisers 
Ablex Publishing 310 
ACRL 329,383 
ARL 338 
Blackwell 330 
Bowker 309 
lSI cover 2 
Library Technologies 313 
OCLC 350 
Readmore 391 
Reed Reference cover 3 
Todd Enterprises cover 4 
H. W. Wilson 384 

July 1996 

brarians" evince three traits. First, they 
are critical thinkers. Second, they are, by 
definition, information junkies, yet their 
minds are supple enough to differenti-
ate and prioritize the information. Third, 
they combine the natural curiosity of a 
wide-eyed dilettante with the rigor of a 
scientist. In simple terms, the best librar-
ians of the future will be able to process 
more and more information via more for-
mats more quickly. That outstanding li-
brarians already bear these traits is obvi-
ous. "Smart librarians" are educated and 
educable, and it is people with the po-
tential to become this whom we should 
recruit and cultivate.-Michael P. Olson, 
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachu-
setts. 

Morville, Peter, Louis Rosenfeld, and 
Joseph Janes. The Internet Searcher's 
Handbook: Locating Information, People 
& Software. New York: Neal-Schuman, 
1996. 236p. $35, alk. paper. (ISBN 1-
55570-236-8). LC 95-47670. 

Internet-based resources, once consid-
ered only marginally important, now are 
taken more seriously and are rapidly be-
ing integrated into the information land-
scape of many scholarly disciplines. Aca-
demic libraries are further legitimizing 
network resources by selectively catalog-
ing them. Although the library OPAC 
provides a familiar and controlled search-
ing structure, it is unlikely that it will ever 
supplant the need to search the Internet 
directly. Because a variety of subject di-
rectories and search tools are sprouting 
up all over the Internet, this is a much 
less absurd proposition today than it 
would have been until quite recently. 
Today' s challenge is to understand the 
nature of these directories and tools, and 
to learn how to integrate them effectively 
into reference and instructional services. 

In his preface, Richard Wiggins, au-
thor of The Internet for Everyone, notes that 
"The Internet Searcher's Handbook will be 
uniquely useful because its authors are 
not just toolsmiths, but also scholars in