reviews.indd


384 College & Research Libraries July 2005 

and, in particular, high-speed access to 
the Internet. Although it is hard to fault 
Wilhelm on this account, his argument 
would be well served by considering 
Oscar Gandy Jr.’s assertion that the digital 
divide is actually one between consumer-
ism and citizenship.1 With the exception 
of chapter 7, where he discusses Internet 
use among young people, the major focus 
of Digital Nation is built on a consumer 
model of accessing and utilizing what can 
be made available via the Web by public 
and private information providers. There 
is a missed opportunity here in the role of 
government in fostering access for citizen 
empowerment. For instance, Digital Nation 
does not anticipate the role of Web logs as 
a tool for political activity or the creation 
of virtual communities to increase social 
capital as described by Robert Putnam and 
Lewis Feldstein in Better Together: Restor-
ing the American Community (2003). Nor is 
there meaningful discussion of fi le sharing 
among computer users or the power of 
wireless technology in creating culture 
shifts as described by Howard Rheingold 
in The Virtual Community (1994) and Smart 
Mobs (2003). Not only are these examples 
of important trends in the social use of 
information and communications tech-
nologies that connect well to both Freud’s 
concern for the human condition and 
Rawls’s theory on social justice, they are 
likely to be among the more contentious 
challenges to federal telecommunications 
and information policy. 

Despite this shortcoming, the argu-
ment for the centrality of public debate 
over the relationship between technology 
and citizens’ inclusion remains an issue 
of serious interest to higher education. As 
long as colleges and universities encourage 
prospective students toward online ap-
plications and libraries continue to direct 
a greater share of their resources toward 
information and communication technolo-
gies, the goals of universal access, training, 
and further development of resources to 
fit the multiplicity of learning needs will 
continue to require our attention.—William 
C. Welburn, University of Arizona. 

1. Oscar H. Gandy Jr., “The Real Digital 
Divide: Citizens versus Consumers,” in The 
Handbook of New Media, ed. Leah A. Lievrouw 
and Sonia Livingstone (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: 
Sage, 2002), 448. 

Chasing Moore’s Law: Information Tech-
nology Policy in the United States. Ed. 
William Asprey. Raleigh, N.C.: SciTech 
Publishing, 2004. 322p. $27.95 (ISBN 
1891121332). 

Moore’s Law is the name given to the his-
torical trend that the number of switches 
that may be placed on a computer micro-
chip doubles every eighteen months. This 
explosive increase in computing power 
spawns such rapid change in technologi-
cal capabilities that government policies 
often cannot keep up with developments. 
As a result, federal legislation and legal 
precedents often fail to address con-
temporary concerns. This collection of 
essays describes information technology 
(IT) policy issues in the United States, 
highlighting the ways federal policy has 
responded to IT developments. 

The book is divided into ten chapters, 
each organized around a particular 
topic, many of which will be familiar 
to librarians and others working in the 
information field. Chapters not written 
by the editor were contributed by his 
former graduate students in a course on 
information policy at Virginia Tech. The 
stage is set with a historical overview of 
government IT funding during and after 
the World War Two through the Sputnik 
era and beyond to the early development 
of what became the Internet. A key point 
is that the division of federal IT funding 
among such agencies as the National 
Science Foundation, the Department of 
Defense, and the National Institutes of 
Health led to present-day competition 
among federal agencies and the institu-
tions they fund. A result of this funding 
strategy has been confl ict and confusion 
concerning various policy issues. 

Other essays cover Internet regula-
tion and governance, computer security 
(including national security, viruses, and 



hacking), privacy issues, intellectual 
property rights, the Microsoft antitrust 
case, the “digital divide” between IT 
haves and have-nots, and the IT work-
force. Taken together, the essays touch on 
most major aspects of federal IT policy. 
The four chapters devoted to Internet 
use, privacy, intellectual property, and 
the digital divide will be the sections of 
greatest interest to librarians. 

In his chapter on Internet use, Asprey 
describes corporate interests in legal ju-
risdiction and Internet taxation and the 
government’s involvement in electronic 
voting. Most of the remaining discussion 
focuses on pornography, online preda-
tors, and gambling, all of which have been 
targets of federal legislation. The brief dis-
cussion of the Children’s Internet Protec-
tion Act (CIPA) provides a good summary 
of the key elements in the fi ltering debate. 
The use of the Internet as a research tool 
is not emphasized for the reason that little 
or no government policy has been enacted 
in this area. However, a discussion of the 
current federal policy of shift ing govern-
ment information from print to electronic 
formats and the consequent implications 
for access and preservation would have 
been appropriate. 

The chapter on privacy provides a 
good historical overview of the relevant 
legislation in the U.S. It also addresses 
some possible ways of protecting pri-
vacy by incorporating additional legal 
and technological elements. The doc-
toral student who authored this chapter, 
Najma Yousefi, views privacy as more 
black-and-white than do many librarians 
concerned with intellectual freedom and 
related questions. His emphasis is on 
privacy in electronic commerce, banking, 
and related services rather than in terms 
of intellectual, political, or social issues. 
Only two paragraphs directly address the 
USA-PATRIOT Act, and even less space 
is devoted to the consideration of related 
intellectual privacy concerns such as those 
involving library records. Yousefi argues 
that the concept of privacy has become 
so complex that protection will require 

Book Reviews 385 

an amalgamation of technological and 
legal solutions flexible enough to adapt 
to rapid change. However, he fails to offer 
any concrete proposals. 

Intellectual property rights are a 
growing dilemma for librarians and 
academic administrators who must deal 
with unauthorized copying of music 
and videos or with illegal peer-to-peer 
sharing of copyrighted material on 
institutional networks and equipment. 
In her excellent chapter on intellectual 
property, Lorraine Woellart (legal affairs 
correspondent for Business Week) defines 
such concepts as “fair use” and “fi rst use” 
in her discussion of the legislation leading 
to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 
(DMCA). She examines recent legal cases 
involving peer-to-peer file sharing and 
the copyright infringement lawsuits filed 
by the entertainment industry. Although 
the focus is on business issues rather 
than educational concerns, this chapter 
provides a succinct and highly readable 
summary of the complex legislation, 
many court cases, and ongoing debate 
over intellectual property rights. 

Librarians have been very concerned 
about the digital divide. Indeed, provid-
ing online access to those who would 
otherwise lack it has been a standard 
argument in justifying the cost of provid-
ing public computers in libraries. Jolene 
Kay Jesse of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Science provides a 
synopsis of the debate on whether a digi-
tal divide actually exists and discusses 
different approaches to the issue taken 
by the Clinton and George W. Bush ad-
ministrations. The author cites statistical 
evidence that the divide is decreasing but 
stops short of suggesting that government 
investing in IT be discontinued. 

In the end, this collection succeeds in 
producing an overview of the many is-
sues raised by the growth of information 
technology. In any work of this sort, some 
relevant subjects are only briefl y covered 
or not covered at all. As the editor states 
in his introduction, only brief attention 
is given such issues as Universal Service 



386 College & Research Libraries 

except where they directly converge with 
IT policy. Likewise, there is no discussion 
of technology export restrictions as these 
have become of little relevance or of state 
policy issues such as shrink-wrap licens-
ing and economic development initiatives. 
Although the emphasis on the corporate 
viewpoint may be seen as a shortcoming 
by those in libraries and higher education, 
government policy tends to be economi-
cally driven. An understanding of the 
issues from this perspective is of value for 
those librarians seeking possible solutions 
that are in the best interest of libraries and 
their users. 

The essays are written in a scholarly, but 
easy-to-read, style, not an easy task when 
describing legal and legislative issues. Each 
chapter has suggestions for further read-
ing, and an index makes it easy to locate 
discussions of particular legislation. This 
book will be of interest to library admin-
istrators involved in IT policy decisions as 
well as anyone who desires an overview 
of the major IT issues and resulting leg-
islation.—Mark A. Stoffan, Western North 
Carolina Library Network. 

Digital versus Non-Digital Reference: 
Ask a Librarian Online and Of-
fline. Ed. Jessamyn West. New York: 
Haworth (published simultaneously 
as The Reference Librarian, no. 85), 
2004.154p. alk. paper, paper $29.95 
(ISBN 0789024438); cloth $49.95 (ISBN 
078902442X). LC 2004-6246. 

Librarians, in their role as information 
providers, have always had to adapt to 
changing technologies in their continu-
ing efforts to serve patrons. Digital versus 
Non-Digital Reference explores the use 
of digital reference services (online and 
e-mail) in various settings and describes 
the many issues and challenges librarians 
face in the development and implementa-
tion of these types of services. The book 
is arranged thematically and examines 
issues from the past (“The Old versus 
The New”), the present (“How We Do It 
Here”) and the future (“A Few Things to 
Think About”). 

July 2005 

Section one offers the reader an op-
portunity to review traditional reference 
services and to view them through the 
lens of more recent technologies. Do these 
older models of reference service provide 
lessons from which we can still learn? This 
section examines the history of telephone 
reference; presents a case study on the 
development and implementation of an 
e-mail reference service; explores the use 
of digital reference as a teaching tool for 
new librarians; considers the relationship 
between university archives and remote 
users in the digital age; and includes a 
survey of e-mail reference service in use 
in public libraries. 

At its most basic, telephone reference 
served as a precursor to the myriad AskA 
services that exist today. The telephone 
extended beyond the walls of the physi-
cal building and served as a conduit for 
allowing the user to enter the library 
remotely. M. Kathleen Kern states that 
in the early days libraries marketed their 
telephone services to a specifi c clientele, 
mainly businessmen. “Businessmen” 
writes Kern, “were thought to be people 
with serious questions and with serious 
community influence.” By the 1970s, ref-
erence services began to change their fo-
cus to encompass the broader community. 
One issue of particular concern was on 
what types of questions were acceptable 
for telephone reference. Although many 
libraries varied in their approach, others 
viewed telephone reference as “a limited 
method of reference communication… 
and discouraged providing in-depth 
and research assistance via telephone.” 
According to Kern, “a less than perfect 
innovation in the past does not indicate 
that a similar future innovation will fail, 
but it should be something from which 
we learn.” 

Susan M. Braxton and Maureen Bruns-
dale explore the historical development of 
e-mail reference services and report on its 
use at Illinois State University. E-mail was 
initially used in libraries for interlibrary 
loan because it was a cheaper alternative 
to telephone or traditional mail commu-