reviews.indd


Book Reviews 455 

items out of circulation is complicated; 
censoring them conflicts with the right to 
free speech and the public domain poli-
cies in the United States. If control of their 
culture’s intellectual property is given 
to the indigenous groups, how can they 
effectively stop its distribution? Brown 
offers the following insight: 

There may be a place for tightly 
framed legislation that would oblige 
cultural repositories to respond to 
requests from native nations that 
specific images, music, or texts be 
placed in long-term quarantine. But 
the administrative costs of such a 
measure would be high and its ben-
eficial impact limited: there is simply 
too much of this information available 
to the world at large, far beyond the 
control of any institution. 

More important than determining 
ownership of specifi c objects, Brown ar-
gues, is a culture’s control over its place 
in a pluralist democratic society. 

Each chapter in the book is a discussion 
of varying conflicts concerning native cul-
tures. The first part of each chapter gives 
background on actual court cases, struggles, 
or debates. This is followed by a discussion 
of legal, ethical, and historical issues in 
which Brown gathers various viewpoints 
and insights into the question of ownership 
and offers them up for the reader. This book 
includes case studies involving indigenous 
art, religious symbols, botanical knowledge, 
and the use and protection of sacred sites 
that are on public lands. Finally, Brown tries 
to define how indigenous societies fi t into 
a pluralist democracy.  The book includes 
a section titled “Sources on Indigenous 
Cultural Rights,” and the author maintains 
supplemental Web site at www.williams. 
edu/go/native. 

Who Owns Native Culture? is an insight-
ful and accessible introduction to the com-

plex discussion of intellectual property. 
Brown’s writing is engaging and humor-
ous; the book is well organized, easy to 
read, and informative. Recommended for 
anyone who wants to bett er understand 
the implications of intellectual property 
rights for indigenous groups.—Jody L. 
Gray, University of Minnesota. 

Education for Cataloging and the Organi-
zation of Information: Pitfalls and the 
Pendulum. Ed. Janet Swan Hill. Bing-
hamton, N.Y.: Haworth (published 
simultaneously as Cataloging and Clas-
sifi cation Quarterly, v.34, nos. 1–3, 2002), 
2002. 398p. alk. paper, cloth $79.95 
(ISBN 0789020289); paper $49.95 (ISBN 
0789020297). LC 2002-15053. 

This book presents a clear examination of 
the current state of cataloging education, 
sets forth a brief synopsis of the history 
of education for catalogers, and explores 
where the future of cataloging educa-
tion seems to be headed. Writt en mostly 
by educators rather than professional 
catalogers, the emphasis is on the lack 
of traditional cataloging classes in most 
information science curriculums and the 
resources available for catalogers to fur-
ther their education aft er graduation. 

The articles are, for the most part, very 
easy to follow, written in clear, anecdotal 
styles that draw the reader in, and pres-
ent their cases plainly. Some articles also 
delve deeper with detailed analyses of 
statistical research supplemented by 
tables and charts. Each article is preceded 
by a summary. The book is divided into 
four overall sections. 

The first section, “A Matter of Opin-
ion,” includes four opinion articles on 
the nature of cataloging and how people 
react to it. This was my favorite section. I 
found it inspiring to read the opinions of 
these authors, who explore the problems 
concerning the education of catalogers, 
including the trend toward more theoreti-

www.williams


456 College & Research Libraries 

cal teaching versus hands-on experience 
in cataloging classes. Articles are written 
with humor and yet offer sincere and sea-
soned insights into the nature of catalog-
ing and the education of future catalogers. 
One article, “Why Does Everybody Hate 
Cataloging?,” is particularly engaging. 

The second section, “The Context,” 
focuses on current cataloging courses. 
Again, most authors see a trend toward 
teaching theoretical concepts on the orga-
nization of knowledge, including meta-
data and indexing, instead of practical 
cataloging skills. Traditional cataloging 
classes seem to be diminishing in most 
information science curriculums and in 
some schools are only available as ad-
vanced electives. The requirement tends 
to be a class on the theoretical organiza-
tion of information. Yet, there is a chapter 
devoted to a survey of LIS graduates in 
which 89 percent of the graduates, most 
of whom were not catalogers, felt that a 
practical cataloging course was essential 
and should be required of all students. 
Another article states that 67 percent of 
employers found that graduates were 
unable to perform entry-level profes-
sional cataloging. In a most stimulating 
article, “Where Are We and How Did We 
Get Here?,” the author clearly explains 
his views on cataloging education and 
the balance he feels is necessary between 
theory and practice. He honestly admits 
that he loves cataloging and wishes it 
were given more importance and time in 
curriculums. 

The third section, “Education for 
Specific Purposes,” covers such issues as 
format integration, metadata (including 
Dublin Core, etc.), subject cataloging, au-
thority control, and cataloging managers. 
Other than metadata, most of these topics 
are taught only in advanced classes, if at 
all. One chapter discusses the manage-
ment skills that catalogers who are also 
managers need. Most of these papers, 

September 2004 

again, deal with the notion of theoretical 
learning versus practical learning, with 
the majority of the authors favoring the 
teaching of theory. 

The main emphasis in the fi nal section, 
“Alternatives for Instructional Delivery,” 
seems to be on computers and cataloging 
education. One chapter presents the chal-
lenges of a Web-based basic cataloging 
course that focuses on teaching students 
how to catalog Internet resources. This 
course makes use of online mentors 
who are actual catalogers from around 
the country. The following chapters de-
scribe the students’ perspectives and the 
mentors’ thoughts on this class. Other 
chapters deal with distance education 
and cataloging, the use of Autocat (the 
cataloging listserve) as a mentoring tool 
for cataloging questions, and the train-
ing courses offered by the Program for 
Cooperative Cataloging (PCC). Two ar-
ticles focus on OCLC’s Web-based course, 
“Cataloging Internet Resources Using 
MARC21 and AACR2.” One evaluation 
found that people who completed this 
course gained a substantial amount of 
knowledge in the practical and theoreti-
cal aspects of cataloging these resources. 
There is also a chapter on teaching Dublin 
Core to noncatalogers, mostly museum 
staff and archivists, for a digitization 
project. Although the chapters are well 
written, I was rather disappointed with 
this section because I had hoped to learn 
of innovative alternatives for cataloging 
instruction, but the articles included 
explore training options that have been 
around for some time. 

Overall, I think this book presents a clear 
and rather bleak picture of cataloging edu-
cation. Despite the obvious need for more 
cataloging instruction in library schools, 
the emphasis seems to be on teaching 
theoretical concepts in broad basic classes 
and leaving it to the library departments, 
conferences, PCC, library associations, and 



others to pick up the slack. I have been a 
professional cataloger for twelve years, and 
although most of what I learned was on the 
job as a paraprofessional, I did have some 
in-depth, hands-on cataloging classes in 
school. Colleagues of mine, who attended 
library school after I had graduated, re-
ceived much less actual cataloging training. 
They have complained about the emphasis 
on the history and theory of cataloging 
(in most cases, they only cataloged a few 
books in an entire semester), as well as on 
the lack of advanced courses in cataloging. 
Upon graduation, they have had a hard 
time matching the requirements of even 
entry-level professional positions. The state 
of cataloging education is indeed in need 
of analysis. This book offers some insights 
into these problems but seems to reach the 
general conclusion that most in-depth cata-
loging education in the future will happen 
outside library schools.—Isabel del Carmen 
Quintana, Harvard University. 

Foerstel, Herbert N. Refuge of a Scoundrel: 
The Patriot Act in Libraries. Westport, 
Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2004. 
232p. $35 (ISBN 1591581397). LC 
2003-065950. 

Foerstel’s new book seems to address 
two needs. One is to recount an engaging 
and sometimes inspiring description of 
the continuing struggle in which library 
employees and others join forces against 
those who would impose police-state tac-
tics to “protect our freedom” in the name 
of security. (Or is it to protect our security 
in the name of freedom?) 

The second purpose would to be 
to document some of the legal issues 
involved. These include a listing of the 
components of the Patriot Act, Homeland 
Security Act, and similar acts and policies 
that the Justice Department has initiated 
under the cover of fighting terrorism. This 
portion of the book is a reference source 
for those wishing to conduct further re-

Book Reviews 457 

search, those writing library policies on 
how to respond to investigative inquiries, 
or those actually facing the need to re-
spond to such a request for information. 
To this end, sample court order forms are 
included in the appendices. 

Many library workers will want to read 
the narrative but skip over the details of 
the legislation or proposed legislation. 
Foerstel writes well, documents thor-
oughly, and provides both a bibliography 
and an index. The latter is almost detailed 
enough to overcome the lack of a glossary, 
which would have been useful to help 
readers keep the alphabet soup of initial-
isms mentioned in the text straight. 

The first fifth of the book is a sum-
mary of the author ’s 1991 Surveillance 
in the Stacks: The FBI’s Library Awareness 
Program. Even those familiar with the 
FBI’s Library Awareness Program will 
find it instructive. It documents a con-
tinuing struggle in which the pendulum 
has swung back and forth over the past 
several decades between advocates of 
citizens’ freedom to read and the eff orts of 
government agents, particularly the FBI, 
to control subversive behavior by moni-
toring the information-seeking habits of 
citizens. Reading this book, especially 
chapter one, cannot help but cause one 
to be proud to be a library worker and 
to realize the potential power we col-
lectively wield in promoting democratic 
values. Information is power, and those 
who control the flow of information are 
powerful. If the government controls 
information, the citizens are accountable 
to the government for their actions; if the 
citizens control information, the govern-
ment is accountable to the citizens for its 
actions. It is a zero-sum game. Every bit of 
control that one side gives up adds to the 
accountability it owes the other side. 

Foerstel explains how difficult it is to 
evaluate comments made by FBI officials 
concerning their use of the Patriot Act to