reviews Book Reviews 91 91 Book Reviews Collection Development in an Electronic En- vironment. Ed. Thomas E. Nisonger. Champaign, lll.: Univ. of Illinois, Graduate School of Library and Infor- mation Science. $18.50. ISSN 0024-2594. It is a rare article or essay on any facet of librarianship nowadays that does not address, or at least allude to, the chang- ing nature of information and scholarly communication. Terms such as ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity, and conflict abound, and more often than not, they refer to the resultant confusion and tur- moil of new opportunities, expectations, and changes brought on by technology. And so it is with this volume of fourteen essays on collection development and management in the electronic environ- ment, written by a group of highly expe- rienced academic librarians and library and information science educators. The volume, an issue of the quarterly thematic journal Library Trends (48:4, spring 2000, 639—941), is edited by Thomas E. Nisonger, a widely published author of books, articles, reports, and reviews on collection development, management, and evaluation, as well as an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science at Indiana University. The general theme that runs through- out the volume is one we encounter ev- ery day about the trend away from own- ership and purchase and toward greater access to a variety of materials, both vir- tual and physical, provided through a combination of licensing, consortial agreements, and other cooperative ar- rangements. But as the editor of the vol- ume points out, though everyone seems to agree on the trends, opinions diverge as soon as one begins to speculate about their future outcomes; no one can predict with any certainty what kind of changes in technology or scholarly communica- tion the future holds. Half of the essays in the vol- ume examine various facets of selecting electronic resources. In addition to essays on general principles of selection and evaluation (Curt Holleman and Paul Metz), several authors zero in on more specific topics, such as full-text electronic resources in the humanities (Beau David Case and Roberta Astroff), the World Wide Web (James Sweetland), selection for digitization (Kristine Brancolini), and selection of electronic resources as a group activity (Glenda Thornton). Selection has always played a central role in developing library collec- tions, and no doubt most selectors and bibliographers have been impacted heavily by the current tug-of-war be- tween print and electronic. Dan Hazen carries the selection theme further by considering the role of bibliogra- phers within several overlapping and changing contexts, both within and outside the library. He suggests that bibliographers of the future may be called on to play a much more collaborative leadership role than the “exalted” one they have enjoyed for the past fifty years. Holleman summarizes this trend toward user- rather than collection-centered academic libraries in his statement that “the librarian will increasingly be the interpreter of information, not its selector.” With the proliferation of electronic re- sources, especially serials, and the grow- ing number of electronic options available from a large variety of vendors, librarians are faced more and more with decisions concerning cancellation of resources, both print and electronic. Janice Jaguszewski and Laura Probst propose an array of is- sues to be examined when libraries with integrated collections are considering can- cellation or remote storage of materials. Two of the essays in this volume that I found particularly engaging and thought provoking were the more theo- 92 College & Research Libraries January 2002 retical and philosophical ones by Marlene Manoff and Edward Shreeves. Manoff writes about the need to reconceptualize not only collection development, but also bibliographic control. She discusses the confusion that exists over the nature of the electronic object itself and asks how one can provide control over something that can be manipulated by the user to create a new object or that exists remotely and may change or disappear at any time. Manoff’s observations concerning erod- ing boundaries and hybrid functions lead her to suggest that the future of the selec- tor may lie more in creating paths to re- sources elsewhere rather than in build- ing their own collections. Shreeves ad- dresses what he terms “the acquisitions culture wars” and relates the current tur- moil about the role of print and digital resources to the larger question of tech- nology and its effect on society. He urges collection development librarians to af- firm their commitment to collections and the values that librarians have been asso- ciated with in the past even as they com- municate the reality, necessity, and inevi- tability of a digital future. Because the present is but a moment in time on a continuum between the past and an uncertain future, the two review essays by Ruth Miller and Ann Okerson provide the context for asking what led up to the present environment and what the future might hold. Okerson echoes the sentiments of many of the authors when she states that the challenge for all librar- ians will be to choose the way they will navigate the “muddle” of the future, rather than attempting to manage and control the turmoil itself. Central to success in navigating the complexity and confusion of the future will be the next generation of library and information science professionals. Virgil Blake and Thomas Surprenant round out this collection of essays nicely by suggest- ing that collection development and man- agement professionals will need special- ized course work and training more than ever in order to have the skills to function effectively in an electronic environment. The topics and issues presented in this volume are not new; we have heard them all before. But the individual approaches, ideas, and solutions are creative, bold, and optimistic. This is not a volume to be read from beginning to end; it will seem too much like force-feeding. But taken singly, these thoughtful essays present the reader with real opportunities for an ex- amination of one’s own attitudes toward collection development and management in a digital world.—Maija M. Lutz, Harvard University. Garber, Marjorie. Academic Instincts. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Pr., 2001. 187p. $19.95 (ISBN 069104970X). LC 00-56510. “Marjorie Garber delights in draw- ing our attention to the uncanny (one her favorite words) connections that weave us into the web of our culture. Her methods and means of scholar- ship—not always easy to distinguish from one another—likewise range from philology to Freud, from puns to pundits, from the inexplicable alogic of the dream to the clear-thinking, quick-witted deduc- tive/detective work of the traditional literary scholar.” —http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lec- turers/garber Marjorie Garber is that much-envied phenomenon in the publishing world, or at least that part of it which inhabits academia, where she has become adept in writing crossover books. Originally a specialist in the literature of Elizabethan England, she wrote a number of important works in that field before finding a wider audience for her 1992 meditation on cross-dressing, Vested Interests (Routledge). Since then, she has also produced books on subjects as diverse as bisexuality, dogs, and houses. Though rooted in literary and cultural studies, Garber is aiming at, and appears to be reach- ing, larger audiences. In enthusiastic testi- monials to Dog Love (Simon & Schuster, 1996), for example, readers posting reviews << /ASCII85EncodePages false /AllowTransparency false /AutoPositionEPSFiles true /AutoRotatePages /All /Binding /Left /CalGrayProfile (Dot Gain 20%) /CalRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CalCMYKProfile (U.S. Web Coated \050SWOP\051 v2) /sRGBProfile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) /CannotEmbedFontPolicy /Warning /CompatibilityLevel 1.3 /CompressObjects /Tags /CompressPages true /ConvertImagesToIndexed true /PassThroughJPEGImages true /CreateJobTicket false /DefaultRenderingIntent /Default /DetectBlends true /DetectCurves 0.0000 /ColorConversionStrategy /CMYK /DoThumbnails false /EmbedAllFonts true /EmbedOpenType false /ParseICCProfilesInComments true /EmbedJobOptions true /DSCReportingLevel 0 /EmitDSCWarnings false /EndPage -1 /ImageMemory 1048576 /LockDistillerParams false /MaxSubsetPct 1 /Optimize true /OPM 1 /ParseDSCComments true /ParseDSCCommentsForDocInfo true /PreserveCopyPage true /PreserveDICMYKValues true /PreserveEPSInfo true /PreserveFlatness false /PreserveHalftoneInfo true /PreserveOPIComments false /PreserveOverprintSettings true /StartPage 1 /SubsetFonts false /TransferFunctionInfo /Apply /UCRandBGInfo /Preserve /UsePrologue false /ColorSettingsFile () /AlwaysEmbed [ true ] /NeverEmbed [ true ] /AntiAliasColorImages false /CropColorImages false /ColorImageMinResolution 151 /ColorImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleColorImages true /ColorImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /ColorImageResolution 300 /ColorImageDepth -1 /ColorImageMinDownsampleDepth 1 /ColorImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeColorImages true /ColorImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterColorImages true /ColorImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /ColorACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /ColorImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000ColorImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages false /GrayImageMinResolution 151 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 300 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.10000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /GrayImageDict << /QFactor 0.15 /HSamples [1 1 1 1] /VSamples [1 1 1 1] >> /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /JPEG2000GrayImageDict << /TileWidth 256 /TileHeight 256 /Quality 30 >> /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages false /MonoImageMinResolution 600 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 1200 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.16667 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict << /K -1 >> /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile () /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName () /PDFXTrapped /False /CreateJDFFile false /Description << /ENU (IPC Print Services, Inc. Please use these settings with InDesign CS4 \(6.x\). These settings should work well for every type of job; B/W, Color or Spot Color. Contact Pre-press Helpdesk at prepress_helpdesk@ipcprintservices.com if you have questions or need customized settings.) >> /Namespace [ (Adobe) (Common) (1.0) ] /OtherNamespaces [ << /AsReaderSpreads false /CropImagesToFrames true /ErrorControl /WarnAndContinue /FlattenerIgnoreSpreadOverrides false /IncludeGuidesGrids false /IncludeNonPrinting false /IncludeSlug false /Namespace [ (Adobe) (InDesign) (4.0) ] /OmitPlacedBitmaps false /OmitPlacedEPS false /OmitPlacedPDF false /SimulateOverprint /Legacy >> << /AddBleedMarks true /AddColorBars false /AddCropMarks true /AddPageInfo true /AddRegMarks false /BleedOffset [ 9 9 9 9 ] /ConvertColors /ConvertToCMYK /DestinationProfileName (U.S. Web Coated \(SWOP\) v2) /DestinationProfileSelector /DocumentCMYK /Downsample16BitImages true /FlattenerPreset << /ClipComplexRegions true /ConvertStrokesToOutlines true /ConvertTextToOutlines true /GradientResolution 300 /LineArtTextResolution 1200 /PresetName ([High Resolution]) /PresetSelector /HighResolution /RasterVectorBalance 1 >> /FormElements false /GenerateStructure false /IncludeBookmarks false /IncludeHyperlinks false /IncludeInteractive false /IncludeLayers false /IncludeProfiles true /MarksOffset 9 /MarksWeight 0.250000 /MultimediaHandling /UseObjectSettings /Namespace [ (Adobe) (CreativeSuite) (3.0) ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfileSelector /NA /PageMarksFile /RomanDefault /PreserveEditing true /UntaggedCMYKHandling /LeaveUntagged /UntaggedRGBHandling /UseDocumentProfile /UseDocumentBleed false >> << /AllowImageBreaks true /AllowTableBreaks true /ExpandPage false /HonorBaseURL true /HonorRolloverEffect false /IgnoreHTMLPageBreaks false /IncludeHeaderFooter false /MarginOffset [ 0 0 0 0 ] /MetadataAuthor () /MetadataKeywords () /MetadataSubject () /MetadataTitle () /MetricPageSize [ 0 0 ] /MetricUnit /inch /MobileCompatible 0 /Namespace [ (Adobe) (GoLive) (8.0) ] /OpenZoomToHTMLFontSize false /PageOrientation /Portrait /RemoveBackground false /ShrinkContent true /TreatColorsAs /MainMonitorColors /UseEmbeddedProfiles false /UseHTMLTitleAsMetadata true >> ] >> setdistillerparams << /HWResolution [2400 2400] /PageSize [612.000 792.000] >> setpagedevice