reviews.indd 186 College & Research Libraries tion. By employing a market-oriented approach to directing public policy, the new philosophy has so altered public debate that librarians are increasingly defending library budgets on the basis of how libraries return “high dividends” to the community, instead of how providing access to information benefits a free and democratic society. Buschman asserts that even when the latter argument has been made, it usually lacks an adequately worked-out theoretical justifi cation. To achieve a sound philosophical defense of librarianship, Buschman relies on the concept of the public sphere and its sup- port by educational institutions, such as libraries. The public sphere exists where opinions are developed and shared out- side the government. Public institutions (libraries, museums, schools, universities) support the public sphere because the moral, political, and civic discourses es- sential to a democracy take place within them. Buschman’s analysis of the public sphere leads him to conclude “The social, democratic—in short, public—role and purpose of libraries is one of providing alternatives (possibility and balance) in a society dominated by the ethic of the private and the consumer.” Buschman draws heavily on the work of several writers for the notion of the public sphere, particularly Jurgen Haber- mas, and Buschman’s description of the li- brary role in supporting the public sphere is drawn primarily from the work of Amy Gutmann. He has absorbed their concepts well and applied them convincingly in building his philosophical defense of librarianship. Buschman is adept at ex- plaining complex ideas clearly, and what could have been a tedious slog through some heavy philosophizing turns out to be painless and illuminating. Many readers will appreciate having such a well-developed and reasoned defense of the importance of libraries in March 2005 a democratic society. Some may object that although Buschman’s arguments are convincing to members of the profession, we will be ignored if we do not defend libraries using the economic criterion of the New Public Philosophy. In response, Buschman might point to the several chapters he devotes to describing how using the market-oriented philosophy has led many libraries to treat users as customers, has moved ALA toward a business model of operation, and has influenced our profession’s response to technology trends. In each case, Bus- chman concludes that the New Public Philosophy has pointed librarianship in self-defeating directions. This is a substantial contribution that deserves and rewards careful study.—W. Bede Mitchell, Georgia Southern University. Assessing Student Learning Outcomes for Information Literacy Instruction in Academic Institutions. Ed. Eliza- beth Fuseler Avery. Chicago: ACRL. 2003. 299p. alk. paper, $29 (ISBN 0838982611). LC 2003-21498. The information provided by assessment is essential for improving our information literacy programs and garnering support for these efforts. In 2000, ACRL adopted its Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. To en- able implementation of these standards, ACRL was awarded a National Leader- ship Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences to train librarians in assessment principles and techniques. Twenty-four academic librarians from a cross section of colleges and universities lent their expertise to this effort; this book is the result of this collaborative grant activity over a two-year period. The authors of the introductory set of five short chapters explain the basic con- cepts of planning for assessment, select- ing and developing tools for assessment, analyzing data, and reporting results. Authors of subsequent chapters trace the implementation of these processes in a variety of curricula and institutions. Each chapter is focused on a particular strategy, implemented in a particular course or curriculum, at a single institu- tion. For example, one chapter is devoted to an overview of the assessment of in- formation literacy (IL) in an introductory education class at Spokane Falls Com- munity College, whereas another focuses on assessment of IL in a history class at California State University at Northridge. The first of these projects utilized a Web page checklist, whereas the latter used a questionnaire to obtain information from students. These examples are valuable because they demonstrate that there is a chance to do assessment in nearly every curriculum and working within almost any administrative structure. Each chapter starts with a descrip- tion of the institution, followed by a list of project participants, and provides a description of the project and its results, challenges, and conclusions. Examples of assessment tools are included at the end of each chapter. Sample assessment strategies include rubrics, questionnaires, source-rating exercises, Web evaluation forms, and analyses of research papers. Although many of the strategies uti- lized to work with diff erent academic constituencies are innovative, the research methodologies are not groundbreak- ing. The goal is to show that with some fundamental assessment skills and a ru- dimentary knowledge of statistics, even folks who do not think of themselves as experts in assessment or research design can generate meaningful information for their organization. Most academic librar- ians should find at least one example in this book that will cause them to say, “I could do that at my institution!” It is in this way that this book will have its great- Book Reviews 187 est impact.—John P. Renaud, University of Miami. Levinson, Nan. Outspoken: Free Speech Stories. Berkeley: Univ. of California Pr., 2003. 359p. alk. paper, $29.95 (ISBN 0520223705). LC 2003-3000597. The jacket blurbs by Howard Zinn, Da- vid Cole, Candida Royalle, and James O. Freedman extol this collection of twenty profiles and cases as variously “heart- warming,” “inspiring,” “imaginative,” “compelling,” and “relevant.” They are. And the UC Press itself declares that “in an engaging, anecdotal style, Levinson ex- plores the balance between First Amend- ment and other rights, such as equality, privacy, and security; the relationship among behavior, speech, and images; the tangle of suppression, marketing, and politics; and the role of dissent in our society.” That’s an accurate description. Levinson, a Boston journalist, Tufts University lecturer, and free-speech advocate, never waivers in her commit- ment to First Amendment values but also doesn’t avoid complexity and nuance. As she admits, “I began this book as an … absolutist and finish it as something less comfortable.” There are stories about a variety of people, from government of- ficials, schoolteachers, and occupational health researchers to firefi ghters, teenage Webmasters, and black conscientious objectors, who wrote, spoke, read, drew, filmed, performed, or thought some- thing that mightily disturbed someone else. So much so that the off ended par- ties—among them, police, bureaucrats, and pressure groups—sought to silence the perpetrators, the boat-rockers and dis- sidents, by such means as jail, expulsion, firing, defamation, and de-funding, not to mention outright censorship such as removing a mural, denying distribution to a documentary film, and banning gay- positive literature from a high school.