reviews 86 College & Research Libraries January 1998 In the remainder of the book, Rodgers uses historical perspective to examine issues that have an impact on the mod- ern-day paraprofessional. Because most library workers are women, a key issue for paraprofessionals is sexism. Rodgers explains how both historic misconceptions about women and the women themselves have worked to hamper the professional growth of the library worker. Also exam­ ined is how other issues, including low pay, lack of variety, micro management by im­ mediate supervisors, and lack of possible advancement, result in a great deal of dissatisfaction and burnout by todays paraprofessional. Possible solutions to these problems are presented, including better pay, more and diverse training, support organizations, and unionization; but unfortunately, according to Rodgers, these solutions either have been ignored or are ineffective. Rodgers presents a very grim view of the life of the library paraprofes­ sional. Admittedly there are problems, but after reading this book I wonder why anyone would work in a library as a paraprofessional. Almost the whole of the book is focused on what is wrong in the world of the library paraprofes­ sional with very few, if any, glimpses of what is right. Poor organization and lay­ out also distract from the books read­ ability and usefulness. In the introduc­ tion, Rodgers states that very little has been written about the library parapro­ fessional, yet the author found enough material to fill a thirty-seven-page bib­ liography, which she cites extensively. The extended use of quotations, com­ bined with the disorganized format, dis­ rupts the flow of the book to the point that it is difficult to read.—Tim Daniels, University of North Carolina at Asheville. Scholarly Publishing: The Electronic Frontier. Eds. Robin P. Peek and Gregory G. Newby. Cambridge, Mass., and Lon­ don: MIT Pr., 1996. 363 p. $35, alk. pa­ per. (ISBN 0-262-16157-5). LC 95-35556. Why read a printed-on-paper book about the new frontier of electronic scholarly publishing? Is not its very ex­ istence oxymoronic? Its format old- fashioned? How can it be up-to-date for such a rapidly changing topic? Although it is true that the most recent observations and citations in this mono­ graph date from 1994, its content is any­ thing but out-of-date. It is a collection of nine­ teen essays by librarians, library and elec­ tronic technology experts and entrepre­ neurs, library school faculty, publishers, academic administrators, legal experts, and professors in religion, psychology, com­ parative literature, and public policy. Almost every essay is brimming with vision. Uto­ pian scenarios, voices of caution, and in­ quiries into the legal, societal, intellectual, and cultural probabilities and pitfalls join to raise profound questions still relevant and still unanswered. The authors collectively disagree with one anothers ideas provok­ ing a lively dialog in the readers mind. Ev­ ery chapter is convincing, persuasive, and informed. The divergence in opinions ex­ pressed allows the reader to glimpse the future while we are in the midst of uncer­ tainty and chaotic change. The unifying assumptions behind all the essays are that the future will be dif­ ferent and that electronics present op­ portunities, not solutions. Society has a moment of choice, of redirection un­ equaled since Gutenberg. Publishing, the exchange and distribution of knowledge, the creative process, and traditional ser­ vices such as libraries and scholarly pub­ lishing will be transformed. This book does not offer any reassuring certain­ ties as to how the changes will look; there is no consensus. And therein lies the books greatest power. Its discussions and contradictions invite the reader to imagine and question a vast gamut of options not all of which can coexist. It gives us the concepts and terms to ex­ plore what is happening now and chal­ lenges us to carry on in our own minds the envisioning, and next steps, in the evolution or revolution that is occurring within scholarly communication. The authors disagree and transmit their incompatible enthusiasms and skep­ ticisms effectively. For example, how should we think about intellectual prop­ erty rights? The several answers offered to this question in the book explode it into concerns of who owns (should own) knowledge? Does it belong to scholars, universities, copyright holders, or anyone who has the electronic equipment to view (cause online “performance”) of a com­ puterized file? Legally, our notions of own­ ership and use are perplexingly outdated for the electronic world. Where are our laws headed? Where should they head? When the essayists direct their attention to the costs of publishing in the electronic future, the debate ricochets between the pro-publisher authors and the visionar­ ies who foresee the electronic world eas­ ily affordable, so desirable we will pay any cost to enjoy its benefits, or inevi­ table regardless of cost. When they raise issues of integrity and ethics, asking how much should we trust the electronic pos­ sibilities, the discussion is enlightened by questions indicating that our trust of print publishing is largely undeserved. Libraries and librarians roles are dis­ cussed frequently, with many futures anticipated, all different from the present. The books index points to about fifty passages concerning libraries, and on many other pages the prospects for the future of librarianship are implicit. The predictions range from libraries and librarians being superfluous to in­ dispensable. Publishers usually fare even worse, except in essays written by those involved in publishing. If there is a serious omission in this book, it seems to be in failing to address directly the question of preservation or archiving of electronic scholarly pub­ lishing. Frequently, essayists acknowl­ edge the reliance by society on librar­ ies to preserve somewhere significant scholarly publications in print. Some Book Reviews 87 vaguely allude to the need for national repositories, reminiscent of pipe dreams two decades ago about a com­ prehensive national print repository. But no essay in this compilation seriously treats the evanescence inherent in “publications” dependent for their ex­ istence on the continuous flow of elec­ trons, nor how selection for, or manage­ ment of, an archive of the scholarly elec­ tronic word might occur. Perhaps this issue would put too great a wrench in the spokes of utopian prophesiers, as­ sign publishers a costly responsibility they heretofore have largely disowned, or invite extravagant attention to this role some equivalent of libraries might play in the electronic future. The creativity and expertise compiled in his volume is nevertheless impressive. Many of the societal, moral, and intellec­ tual values raised are timeless. If we feel that its 1994 date of composition is not cur­ rent enough, we can easily update the theo­ ries, questions, and visions it expounds by using them to tune into the Web. The dis­ cussions and proposals in the book are observably alive and debated today. Search the Web for documents contain­ ing almost any of the authors names. Search for specific terms used in the book (e.g., TeleRead, eco-museum, “scholarly skywriting,” or USMARC and Internet). Or use concepts combined with names in the book to discover more recent Web page or newsgroup discussions (listservers on these issues also may be found). Perhaps anticipating readers desires for more cur­ rent information, the authors conveniently offer their e-mail addresses at the end of the book. Readers new to the kinds of concerns and visions in this book will gain from it a basis for joining in the discussions, often vital to the future of libraries. Those already attuned to the issues of scholarly electronic communication will find broadening challenges to their as­ sumptions.—Joseph W. Barker, University of California-Berkeley.