reviews.indd


202 College & Research Libraries 

hymn to the inherent superiority of online 
education; and the concluding chapter 
seems not to offer much that is new. But 
the integrated cogency of the first five 
make this book worthwhile nonetheless. 
The concept of “expressive space” is use-
ful as a way of conceptually organizing 
diverse types of communication; the use 
of the ancient rhetorical device of oscillat-
ing between surface and depth is adroit 
and insightful; and the author’s clever 
exploitation of font selection in his own 
textual design nicely reinforces the central 
importance of attention.—Michael F. Win-
ter, University of California, Davis. 

Meadow, Charles T. Messages, Meaning, 
and Symbols: The Communication of 
Information. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 
2006. 250p. alk. paper, $40 (ISBN 
0810852713). LC 2005-23069. 

Charles Meadow’s Messages, Meaning, and 
Symbols is intended to be an introductory 
text about information, communication, 
and knowledge for general readers, in-
formation science undergraduates, and 
“anyone from age fourteen or fift een up.” 
Meadow cuts a wide swath, attempting 
to survey the history of communication 
technologies, the nature of information, 
and the dense conceptual interrelation-
ship of communication, information, and 
knowledge. His style is conversational 
and informal, and, as befits an introduc-
tory work, the book contains dozens of 
photographs, drawings, graphs, and 
charts. 

The first third of the book outlines the 
history of communication, beginning 
with cave drawings and moving into 
the Internet age over the course of four 
chapters. Meadow defines and explains a 
number of important terms over the next 
two chapters, then continues the narrative 
with a discussion on messages, media, 
and the transmission of information. The 
book concludes with chapters on meaning 
and understanding, an overview chap-
ter entitled “Communication: The Full 
Monty,” and a summary chapter on the 
nature of communication and informa-

March 2007 

tion in the modern, technology-drenched 
world. Throughout the book, he provides 
numerous examples and anecdotal evi-
dence to support his points, sometimes 
at the expense of providing the kind of 
clear explanations that an introductory 
text needs when discussing such complex 
topics as meaning and understanding. 

Meadow covers a lot of territory 
here; it’s an ambitious undertaking to 
be so inclusive in such a thin volume, 
especially one pitched to the information 
science novice. Recognizing that such an 
approach sometimes precludes adding 
much depth, Meadow makes a point of 
sending his introductory-level readership 
to the many references listed in the book’s 
sixteen-page bibliography. He refers read-
ers to the Library of Congress’s online 
catalog, with the caveat that “many of 
the works listed are not easily available 
elsewhere.” He also states that “an inter-
ested reader must do a lot of searching, 
on the Web and in libraries. Many people 
seem to feel that all the information they 
might want is on the Web and is free. 
Both assumptions are wrong. Just as in 
archaeology, there is no substitute for 
digging.” This can hardly be encouraging 
news for the “general reader” without 
sophisticated searching skills or access 
to a good library. 

Upon inspection, however, it seems 
that Meadow himself sometimes relies 
on easily available Web resources in his 
research, rather than digging deeper. He 
frequently cites general reference sources 
such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, when 
more authoritative, subject-specifi c sourc-
es would be more appropriate. He cites 
the hobbyist Web site World War 2 History 
Info (www.worldwar2history.info/) for 
information about the Allied disinforma-
tion campaign prior to D-Day. Why use 
a hobbyist Web site, one that would fail 
a basic Web evaluation test for authority, 
when other sites that are more academic 
or authoritative are easily available? 

Some information he provides is 
incorrect. For instance, Meadow asserts 
that Navajo code talkers in World War 

www.worldwar2history.info


Book Reviews 203 

II did not encode their Navajo language 
messages, stating that “they could speak 
in plain language; no need to encode.” 
According to a number of resources, the 
Navajo created a specific code based on 
their native language to transmit messag-
es, to the extent that Navajos unfamiliar 
with the encoding were unable to under-
stand the messages (see the Encyclopedia 
of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security. 
Detroit: Gale 2004, Vol. 3, p 263–265 and 
U.S. military records (www.history.navy. 
mil/faqs/faq61-2.htm). 

The provided end-of-chapter citations 
are inconsistent, and attempts to verify 
references can sometimes be frustrating. 
Some quotations from monographs pro-
vide page numbers, while others do not. 
While discussing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 
use of the radio during the Great Depres-
sion, Meadow quotes “a member of his 
staff.” However, the citation includes 
only the name of the book, not the page 
number of the quotation itself or the 
name of this anonymous staff member 
he deems important enough to quote. In 
another instance, he fails to provide page 
numbers for a quote from James Boswell’s 
Life of Samuel Johnson. Later in the same 
paragraph, however, he quotes Plato and 
provides a page number in the citation. 

These are the kinds of problems—poor 
reference choices, factual errors, incon-

Index to advertisers 
American Economic Assoc. 103 
American Scientifi c Publishers cover 2 
Annual Reviews 106 
Archival Products 167 
Atlas Systems 154 
Cambria Press 140 
Cambridge Scientifi c Abstracts 182 
CHOICE 197 
EBSCO cover 4 
Elservier ScienceDirect cover 3 
EmeraldInsight 100 
Emery Pratt 118 
Perry Dean Architects 134 
SIL International Books 169 
Thomson Scientific 99 

sistent citations—that should be cleared 
up in the final revision process before a 
book actually goes to press. In addition to 
these problems, there are scores of other 
mistakes that suggest that a fi nal, compre-
hensive edit never occurred. Citations in 
the bibliography are not consistent, and 
sometimes omit dates (the year “004”) or 
are not spaced correctly. Words appear in 
mid-paragraph with incorrectly placed 
hyphens, as if the text had been trans-
ferred from one format to another without 
checking the formatting of imported text. 
Chapter titles in the running heads are 
extremely inconsistent, and, in one case, 
an entire chapter’s running head is em-
blazoned with the title from the previous 
chapter. The editing job was so poor that I 
thought I might have an advance copy or 
galley, but everything about the binding, 
publication information, and promotional 
literature suggested that, alas, the copy I 
received was a final published edition. 

These problems are so persistent 
that they detract the reader from the 
content and purpose of Messages, Mean-
ing, and Symbols, which is to serve as an 
introductory text for general readers. 
This assemblage of unprofessional book 
layout, inconsistent citation formatting, 
poor fact checking, and reliance on such 
resources as hobbyist Web sites results in 
a book that I would hesitate to assign to 
entry-level students.—Gene Hyde, Radford 
University. 

Staikos, Konstantinos. The History of the 
Library in Western Civilization—Volume 
II: From Cicero to Hadrian. New Castle, 
Del.: Oak Knoll, 2005. 428p. $75 (ISBN: 
1584561483). LC 2003-58221. 

This is the second of a projected fi ve-vol-
ume history of “the library” in the West, 
freshly rendered into English from the 
Greek original by Timothy Cullen. The 
series title is actually a bit deceiving. The 
arc of Staikos’ journey begins in Greek 
antiquity and will end with the exile of 
Greek manuscripts in Italy, following 
the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 
the fifteenth century. The writer’s focus 

www.history.navy