reviews.indd


484 College & Research Libraries September 2006 

year, and symbols representing specific 
librarian attributes. For example, the letter 
“B” is used to highlight films that contain 
a librarian with a bun and the letter “E” is 
used to denote films with librarians wear-
ing eyeglasses. The authors also supply a 
list of 181 films that they did not consider 
and provide brief explanations why these 
titles were excluded. This interesting book 
is a good choice for film and popular 
culture collections.—Caroline Geck, Kean 
University 

New Challenges Facing Academic Librari-
ans Today: Electronic Journals, Archival 
Digitization, Document Delivery, Etc. 
Eds. Jean Caswell, Paul G. Haschak, and 
Dayne Sherman. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin 
Mellen, 2005. 288 p. alk. paper, $119.95 
(ISBN 0773460136). LC 2005-3895. 

This collection of thoughtful, albeit at 
times seemingly random, essays contains 
something of significance for every aca-
demic librarian. The mix is eclectic and 
not every essay will be equally useful for 
every reader. Many of the essays were 
originally published in the electronic 
Journal of Southern Academic and Special Li-
brarianship (JSASL), later rechristened the 
Electronic Journal of Academic and Special 
Librarianship (E-JASL), and they certainly 
reflect the increasing influence of digiti-
zation upon libraries and librarianship. 
The editors are all faculty members of the 
Library Science and Information School of 
Southeastern Louisiana University. 

New Challenges is divided into five 
sections: “Scholarly Communication,” 
“Instruction and Learning,” “Legal Is-
sues,” “Metadata and Digitization,” and 
“Library Studies.” The essays in each 
chapter are only loosely related, but they 
do successfully address various aspects of 
the larger topic. For instance, the chapter 
titled “Legal Issues” contains only Rory 
McGreal’s “Stealing the Goose: Copy-
right and Learning” and Eleanor Lomax 
and Linda Lou Wiler’s “The Americans 
with Disabilities Act Compliance and 
Academic Libraries in the Southeastern 
United States,” two essays on very diff er-

ent topics that are tangentially connected 
only under the general rubric, “Legal Is-
sues.” While both essays do in fact deal 
with legal issues, the essay on copyright 
is much more theoretical than the spe-
cific, more utilitarian piece focusing on 
ADA compliance in a particular region 
of the country. Despite this imbalance, 
there is something to be gleaned from 
each essay. 

While the “Legal Issues” and “Meta-
data and Digitization” sections are 
sparsely populated at two essays each, the 
substance of the book resides in the heftier 
sections, “Scholarly Communication” 
and “Instruction and Learning.” Here 
the editors have selected essays dealing 
with critical issues and debates such as the 
future of electronic journals and the vari-
ous models for providing instruction in 
the area of information literacy. Academic 
librarians will be intrigued by the pos-
sibilities offered in these helpful essays 
on trends in bibliographic instruction, 
illustrated with examples from various 
institutions. Many of the essays make 
the crucial point that practice must in-
deed vary, predicated upon the mandate, 
mission, and organizational structures 
of individual libraries and academic 
institutions. Ideally, of course, academic 
librarians should have some authority to 
make or at least influence decisions that 
affect their user populations, but these 
pieces also acknowledge that this ideal 
is rarely realized. 

Despite the book’s fragmented design, 
that virtually dictates the lack of a central 
argument, in the aggregate this collection 
presents a broad overview of the current 
issues confronting academic librarians. 
New Challenges Facing Academic Librari-
anship provides a welcome and needed 
sampling of the current scholarship in the 
field. It is a text to be savored, rather than 
devoured wholesale.—Lynne Maxwell, 
Villanova University 

The Reference Collection: From the Shelf 
to the Web. Ed. William J. Frost. Bing-
hamton, N.Y.: Haworth, 2005. 310 



Book Reviews 485 

p. alk. paper, $34.95 (paper); $49.95 
(cloth) (ISBN 0789028409;0789028395). 
LC 2004-22799. 

Edited by William J. Frost, retired librarian 
from Bloomsburg University, The Reference 
Collection: From the Shelf to the Web was co-
published simultaneously as the Haworth 
Press journal The Reference Librarian num-
bers 91/92. In his introduction, Frost states 
that this work was assembled around 
the theme of “the migration of reference 
materials in print to an electronic format 
accessible on the World Wide Web.” In 
today’s electronic environment, librarians 
are finding themselves using more and 
more Internet resources. The Reference 
Collection combines sixteen articles on all 
aspects of electronic reference sources, 
including “a survey of the most important 
Web-accessible reference tools.” 

In the first article, “Getting It Right— 
The Evolution of Reference Collections,” 
author Margaret Landesman traces the 
development and transformation of 
reference collections. She looks at print 
reference sources, automated searching 
through systems such as MEDLARS, 
commercial providers like DIALOG, CD-
ROM, and Web databases. Landesman 
concludes that libraries will soon move 
away from “reference collections” since 
“given the convergence of formats, we 
can’t recognize a reference book when we 
see one. Nor can its electrons be pinned 
down to a ‘reference collection’.” 

The next few articles discuss a vari-
ety of issues surrounding Internet and 
electronic reference sources in all types 
of libraries. In “Out of the Stack and 
into the Net: International Perspectives 
on Academic Reference Resources,” 
readers see how university libraries in 
Australia shifted their reference col-
lection from print to electronic format. 
Authors Gaynor Austen and Carolyn 
Young also look at this transition in other 
English-speaking countries including 
the United Kingdom, the United States, 
Canada, and South Africa. Jeanne Holba 
Puacz’s “Electronic vs. Print Reference 
Sources in Public Library Collections” 

explores the impact electronic sources 
have had on public libraries, specifically 
addressing accessibility, ready reference 
sources, research and free Web resources, 
and library-created resources for local 
history, genealogy, and archives. In his 
“Digital Versus Print: The Current State of 
Reference Affairs in School Libraries,” D. 
Jackson Maxwell examines the use of both 
print and digital sources and its implica-
tions for the future of school libraries. 

The next several articles in this book are 
devoted to topics like plagiarism, ready ref-
erence Web sites, and federated searching. 
Jennifer R. Sharkey and F. Bartow Culp’s 
“Cyberplagiarism and the Library: Issues 
and Solutions” offers librarians methods 
for detecting and deterring plagiarism 
in addition to listing a number of library 
Web sites that provide “informational 
guides for instructors and students on 
defining plagiarism, how to avoid it, and 
how to detect it.” In his “Structures and 
Choices for Ready Reference Web Sites,” 
Steven W. Sowards shares the results of 
his survey of one hundred library Web 
sites. Among the features he addresses are 
number of links, search method options, 
categorization of resources, and technical 
aspects like the use of frames and tool 
bars. Concluding this portion of the book 
is Stephen C. Boss and Michael L. Nelson’s 
“Federated Search Tools: The Next Step in 
the Quest for One-Stop-Shopping.” This 
article describes and evaluates federated 
search systems from four leading vendors: 
MetaLib by Ex Libris, ENCompass by 
Endeavor, Agent by Auto-Graphics, and 
WebFeat by WebFeat and Thompson ISI. 
The authors examine the basic design and 
searching capabilities, management of 
search results, user customization, and, 
in addition, administration, configuration, 
and maintenance for each system. 

The latter portion of the book consists 
of articles about Internet and electronic 
reference sources in a variety of disci-
plines, including the humanities, science, 
medicine, social sciences, business, and 
education. These articles provide readers 
with descriptions of a number of impor-



486 College & Research Libraries 

tant Web sites and databases for each sub-
ject area; the authors include both free and 
subscription-based resources. The book 
concludes with Lori Morse’s “100 Best 
Free Internet Web Sites: A Selected List.” 
She supplies readers with an annotated 
list of Web sites that are “useful for al-
most all reference librarians, regardless of 
whether they are in an academic, public, 
school, or special library setting.” 

September 2006 

The Reference Collection: From the Shelf to 
the Web is a timely work on the transition 
of reference sources to today’s increas-
ingly electronic environment. With its 
insightful articles and helpful resources, 
The Reference Collection is sure to become 
a valuable tool for all librarians, especially 
those engaged in reference and collection 
development.—Nicole Mitchell, University 
of Alabama