reviews 392 College & Research Libraries July 1998 encourage systematic development of library skills. Thus, very few of our us­ ers stop to consider the lessons these books, and the related paraphernalia of research instruction, offer. Moreover, because of the sheer volume and vari­ ety of what libraries contain, their idio­ syncrasies, and the frequency with which students take on new courses and pro­ fessors, it seems to many that whatever they learn about research does not help much next time. For these reasons, li­ braries, and by extension library re­ search, remain as chaotic to the aver­ age student or professor as we librar­ ians give the Internet credit for being. The question of what the Internet might mean methodologically and sub­ stantively for the ways that students and faculty conduct their work raises a final point of comparison between the two books, for, similar though they are, their authors frame the role of information technologies differently. Quaratiello ap­ peals to the timeless verities of research, urging students to keep in mind that no matter what the format or medium of ac­ cess, research has not changed all that much in the Internet Age because it is still “content content content” that counts. Without slighting the work networked computers can do, she takes a number of opportunities to warn readers against basing their work on whatever comes out of the computer most conveniently. In contrast, Woodward emphasizes how the computer “completely revolutionizes the way one sets about a research project.” Although recommending print sources and exhorting students to be critical of all they find, Woodward peppers her work with observations on how the processes of research and writing are reshaped by the capabilities of the computer and net- worked information. As the Genie of the Network seems so effortlessly and plentifully to serve up whatever “they” want, these two perspec­ tives remind us of the challenges ahead for the library instruction community. First, the electronic dispersion of collec­ tions requires us to think of new ways to organize access, offer advice, and inter­ vene in student work, ways that the print world may not have afforded, yet ways that must contest the perception that the Net is self-teaching and library research a glorified fishing expedition. Second, because the medium is the message and we can expect students to rely increas­ ingly on what they can bring to and print from a networked computer, bridging the gaps between sources that are networked and those that are on shelves becomes a major undertaking as the latter are bur­ ied not only by catalogs and classification schemes, which few nonlibrarians could ever negotiate well, but also by the ava­ lanche of the Net. Thus, though the world of research materials may change and the attentions of our users may be, as ever, otherwise engaged, Quaratiello and Woodward remind us that the tradition of research instruction is a continuing project.—Robert Kieft, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania. Shumar, Wesley. College for Sale: A Critique of the Commodification of Higher Educa­ tion. London and Washington, D.C.: Falmer Pr. (Knowledge, Identity & Social Life Series, no. 6), 1997. 208p. alk. paper, $64.95 (ISBN 0-7507-04101); paper, $24.95 (ISBN 0-7507-0411-X). LC 97-154053. This book is an ethnography written by a cultural anthropologist who conducted fieldwork at Temple University, where he was a graduate student until 1991. Shumar is concerned with the impact of the commodification process on higher education and how this is reshaping the work force of educators and the “produc­ tion of knowledge.” He argues that “commodification of culture is part of the global explosion of transnational corpo­ rations and their power to define . . . all aspects of social life, in instrumental eco­ nomic terms.” Education, especially since World War II, is increasingly evaluated, Book Reviews 393 Shumar argues, on its ability to create new products and for providing skills that a worker can sell in the marketplace. The university does not produce a commod­ ity in the traditional sense, but the ser­ vice it provides is treated as a product and capitalist institutional arrangements pro­ duce it. According to Shumar, global capital­ ism restructured the academic labor force in much the same way that other labor markets were reorganized by multina­ tionals during the 1980s and 1990s. This process “marginalizes people all over the world by limiting them to part-time or temporary work.” At the university where Shumar studied, about half the courses were taught by graduate students and part-time adjunct faculty members. In 1993, 40 percent of all faculty in U.S. colleges and universities were part-time (NEA Report, Part-Time Employment in Academe, 1996). Corporate control in the university is restricted primarily to two dimensions of university organization: (1) Power is wielded by the president and board of trustees who are increasingly recruited from the business world; and (2) language and imagery from the corporate world frame issues and problems in university decision-making. This type of language silences many “humanistic” arguments for policy change. In addition, university marketing, planning, and advertising transform college catalogs into materials for students who are consumers of edu­ cational programming. Shumar presents this view of students as primarily “edu­ cational consumers” as antithetical to the view of the university as a “democratic institution empowering people with knowledge.” Shumar also uses Bourdieu’s idea of “cultural capital” as a central organizing concept in this book. Bourdieu argues that accumulation of cultural capital in ad­ vanced societies is a basic strategy for upward social mobility because direct access to capital is blocked. Part of what Bourdieu means by cultural capital is that educational tags represent superior knowledge and skills, and these markers can be traded in for cash whether the skills are there or not. Markers of knowl­ edge such as degrees or certificates be­ come commodities themselves and circu­ late. Certain educational tags such as de­ grees from universities “of distinction” have greater ease of circulation regard­ less of the skill level acquired by students at these universities. The 1970s and the 1980s saw an in­ creased emphasis on career and “the in­ strumental functions of education.” Shumar is concerned with the impact of these changes on the way young aca­ d e m i c s t h i n k o f t h e m s e l v e s i n t h e shrinking academic job market. Alien­ ation is a problem for adjuncts and stu­ dents because if they seek a degree as a means of getting a job, it may be “an empty symbol.” Shumar presents stories to illustrate what he calls the “invisibility of marginalized part-time faculty.” In the 1960s, baby boomers enrolled in gradu­ ate programs in record numbers, but the succeeding generation has not. Initially, universities responded to this decreased enrollment by hiring part-time or tempo­ rary faculty. Now many Ph.D.s have be­ come the backbone of a flexible work force annually migrating throughout large metropolitan areas and regions. How do college faculty members ren­ der this large migrating work force in­ visible? First, physical space or other material resources (filing cabinets, phones, etc.) are rarely assigned to the adjunct faculty. Second, adjuncts them­ selves along with the permanent fac­ ulty practice denial—talking about in­ dividual adjunct positions as tempo­ rary situations even when everyone knows that many people work like this for years. The educational work force is frag­ mented. Part-time faculty who bear a large part of the teaching load are deprived of institutional visibility and of security and 394 College & Research Libraries July 1998 benefits. Full-time faculty are stratified into researchers and teachers. The further away from teaching duties one is, the bet­ ter off one is perceived to be. Supreme Court decisions such as the Yeshiva decision in 1980 have diminished the rights of university faculty to engage in collective bargaining because they have empowered the state to intervene in ne­ gotiations. Shumar, however, presents impressive statistical data that show an increase in unionization and collective bargaining efforts during the 1980s in spite of these rulings. Increasingly, uni­ versity professors are organizing to pro­ tect the interests of this much-misunder­ stood category of workers. The strength of Shumar’s analysis is in his use of powerful theoretical models to analyze higher education. Ironically, al­ though he uses a somewhat economistic model, he falls into an idealist trap by suggesting that we simply need to reimagine our roles as educators. When Shumar claims that academia is not fun­ damentally a meritocracy, perhaps he is trying to identify “false consciousness”; skilled educators do not rise to the top and marginalized adjuncts are not the less skilled. Unmasking the denial and mechanisms used to make adjuncts invis­ ible is a step toward change. More impor­ tant, by focusing on faculty unionizing efforts, Shumar encourages collective political responses. However, one has to wonder how adjuncts might engage in these efforts when many faculty associa­ tions exclude them in their bylaws. The status of “permanent adjunct” is, as Shumar has argued so eloquently, un­ recognized. The growing presence of this cheaper more flexible work force threat­ ens general educational wage levels and benefits. On my campus, the faculty as­ sociation has responded to the perceived threat posed by this process of commodification; a committee has been formed that includes adjuncts and per­ manent faculty members to voice de­ mands for better salaries and institu­ tional resources for adjuncts.—Elizabeth Higgs, University of North Florida, Jackson­ ville. What Else You Can Do with a Library De­ gree: Career Options for the 90s and Be­ yond. Ed. Betty-Carol Sellen. New York: Neal-Schuman, 1997. 335p. $29.95 (ISBN 1-55570-264-3). LC 97­ 18679. In this era of specialization and heavy credentialism, it is refreshing to take a moment and browse through this up­ dated edition of a book that highlights alternatives and describes the use of li­ brary training as a transferable skill. Building on an earlier Neal-Schuman ef­ fort (New Options for Librarians, eds. Sellen and Dimity S. Berkner, 1984), Sellen has gathered in these sixty-two essays per­ sonal accounts from librarians who have chosen to work outside the traditional li­ brary setting. She has divided the essays into seven major categories: publishers, writers, booksellers, and reviewers; pur­ veyors of products and services to librar­ ies; independent librarians on their own; independent librarians who have devel­ oped their own companies; those in­ volved in association work and work in the academic world; librarians involved in the corporate world; and finally, librar­ ians who have traveled farther afield. Within these seven categories are ac­ counts from librarians working in fields as disparate as an art dealer (Jim Linderman), a contract cataloger (Joni L. Cassidy), an independent publisher of academic books by young and upcoming authors (Rao Aluri), and a risk-manage­ ment researcher for Arthur Andersen (Anne McDonald). Despite vast differences in job descrip­ tions, some common themes emerge in these essays. Each writer describes his or her own transition from traditional li­ brarianship, and those progressions dem­ onstrate an impressive level of flexibility on the part of their authors. Many of these people ended up in their current roles