Reviews.indd Book Reviews 283 complex activity, and the idea here is that a proper understanding of task analysis as developed in HCI theory can inform that process to produce a bett er “fi t-to-pur- pose” Web site. Section III is concerned directly with the Web design process and how HCI concepts such as ethnography, scenarios, personas, and task analysis can be employed in that process. Section IV, called “Evaluation,” turns directly to the topic of Web site usability and offers several essays on Web site usability evalu- ation and usability testing. This reviewer found the fi nal section dealing with usability testing the one most likely to be of interest and use to librarians and those directly involved in Web site design and implementation. Librarians, as the stewards often of large and complex Web sites, have a direct and immediate interest in understanding and employing effective Web site usability testing tech- niques. The chapters by Zhang and Ryu do a nice job of categorizing and describing the various methods of usability evalua- tion available, ranging from metrics-based, automated methods to expert inspection of a system, to surveys and other forms of direct inquiry of users. The chapter by Moha et al. argues persuasively that remote usability testing, using methods such as videoconferencing and remotely embedded software to collect, record, and return a log of user actions, can be a cost- effective alternative to usability testing in a more formal laboratory situation. This book is likely to be of consider- able interest to HCI professionals. It is a serious work, formally presented and with extensive bibliographies, but the scattered nature of its practical guidelines and insights are likely to make it less ap- pealing to librarians and Web designers with a more urgent need for Web media directions and solutions. For academic libraries supporting human-computer interaction courses or programs.—Robert Bland, UNC Asheville. Libraries and Google. Eds. William Miller and Rita M. Pellen. Binghamton, N.Y.: Haworth (published simultaneously as Internet Reference Services Quar- terly (10:3/4), 2006. 240p. alk. paper, $24.95 (paper); $34.95 (cloth) (ISBN 0789031256; 0789031248). LC 2005- 31476. Google is a successful business whose product line includes the Internet’s most popular search engine. This success, combined with services such as Google Scholar and Google Print, have many librarians thinking Google is in direct competition with libraries and threaten- ing their very existence. Other librarians see the Google search engine, Google Scholar, and Google Print as tools and Google the company as a potential part- ner to extend the reach of information and information services. In Libraries and Google, editors Wil- liam Miller and Rita M. Pellen, director and associate director, respectively, of the Florida Atlantic University Libraries, have compiled a collection of articles on Google’s effect on libraries. As a collection, these articles cover the broad spectrum of views held by many academic librarians (all of the authors are from academic set- tings) from an almost paranoid alarmist view to practical guides for successful partnership with Google the company. The final chapter is a compilation of resources useful for tracking many of Google’s developments and offerings. For the most part, the chapters in this book can be broken down into two types: one, how Google impacts libraries and librarians and strategies for developing successful services in a world inhabited by Google; and two, articles that discuss various applications and the usability of Google products or that discuss partner- ships with Google. In “Disruptive Beneficence: The Google Print Program” and the “Future of Librar- ies and the (Uncertain) Future of Libraries in a Google World Sounding an Alarm,” authors Mark Sandler and Rick Ander- son, respectively, write articles that are representative of how Google impacts libraries and librarians and strategies 284 College & Research Libraries for developing successful services in a world inhabited by Google. In his ar- ticle, Sandler gives us three options for dealing with the Google Print project: 1) ignore Google and carry on with locally driven activities as if the Google Print project doesn’t exist; 2) do nothing on the assumption that Google will take care of everything; or 3) develop strate- gies that aim to complement and extend what Google is doing. Sandler supports option 3, calling for librarians to apply traditional library skills to the Google Print project by cataloging, tagging, and archiving both digital and physical copies of these digitized materials. By applying traditional library services to these new digitized materials, Sandler argues that we add value and enhance accessibility to the materials in Google Print. Rick Anderson is a bit harsher in his article, proclaiming, “For libraries in the 21st century, the situation is dire.” He points to the fact that information resources are no longer scarce or primarily print based and that for centuries libraries have based their business models on these facts. He does acknowledge the fact that libraries are making changes but indicates that they “are doing so slowly, reluctantly, and ineffectively.” Anderson calls for librarians to shift to a model that makes our resources easily accessible and to stop trying to make our users expert researchers. Index to advertisers Amer. Scientific Publishers cover 2 Annual Reviews 212 CHOICE 245 EBSCO cover 3 ScienceDirect eBooks 211 ScienceDirect College Edition cover 4 Emery Pratt 236 Haworth Press 208 Libraries Unlimited 228 Modern Language Assoc. 246-247, 286 Nature Publishing 207 Oxford University Press 237 Perry Dean Architects 244 May 2007 In “The Google Library Project at Ox- ford” and “Calling the Scholars Home: Google Scholar as a Tool for Rediscov- ering the Academic Library,” authors Ronald Milne and Maurice C. York, respectively, discuss various applications and the usability of Google Print and Google Scholar. In his article, Milne out- lines Oxford’s participation in the Google Print project. Dating back to its founding by Sir Thomas Bodley, Oxford’s Bodleian Library has been an academic library that is open to all users, not just affi liates of the university. More recently, Oxford has been involved with creating the Oxford Digital Library. With this rich history of open access and a developing digital presence, Milne states that “Oxford’s par- ticipation in the Google Library Project appears as a natural ‘next step’.” In his article, Maurice C. York discusses how many libraries are approaching Google Scholar. There are three approaches: one that dismisses the product, one that acknowledges the product but attempts to use it to direct their users back to their own resources, and a final group who are leveraging Google Scholar and opening their resources to the product. York ex- plains that those schools who are leverag- ing the Scholar are using a combination of OpenURL technology and well-placed FAQs to provide their users access to the full text of articles (when the library subscribes to them) through the Google Scholar interface. Libraries and Google gives the reader an interesting snapshot of how Google and its various products are affecting libraries and librarians. The book also examines how various Google products were currently functioning and how some libraries are taking, or, in some cases, not taking, advantage of the capabilities of these services. It should be noted, how- ever, that Google makes regular changes to their suite of tools, and some of the things discussed in this book have already changed. Which is why a second volume of this book is in development? This is an interesting book and is recommended for all librarians.—Tim Daniels, Georgia State University. The Impact of Technology on Asian, African and Middle Eastern Library Collections. Ed. R.N. Sharma. Lan- ham, Md.: Scarecrow (Libraries and Librarianship: An International Perspec- tive, No. 1), 2006. 292p. alk. paper, $50 (ISBN 0810854481). LC 2006-2784. “Information poverty” and “sustainabil- ity” are important concepts imbedded in the chapters of this book and are most saliently treated in J.J. Britz’s and P.J. Lor’s excellent essay on the role of librar- ies in combating information poverty in Africa. Information poverty is closely allied to economic poverty: the poorest nations have the least access to informa- tion. Sustainability in this context relates to efforts, often financed by Western entities, to resolve issues of information poverty that are abandoned when donor support ceases. What parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East have in common, at least for the focus of this book, are the colonial legacies and poverty—perhaps itself part of the colonial legacy. Yet, the essays here are two-pronged: they deal with the impact —or lack of it—of electronic infor- mation resources in those areas, and the impact of electronic information in area studies in U.S. academic libraries. It is ironic, but a fact of life, that the countries that could most benefi t from access to information are the very ones lacking that access. It is even more ironic that Asian, African, and Middle Eastern studies flourish most signifi cantly well outside those areas, in the U.S. and Western Europe. Britz’s and Lor’s essay posits a model for library and electronic technology development that focuses less on Anglo-American library models than on local realities that look at what kind of information people really need, at the requirements of even the nonliterate populations, and on the informational value of local languages, cultures, and oral traditions. Book Reviews 285 Asia, Africa, and the Middle East are vast areas with more differences than similarities, even within their individual countries. Thus, grouping China with Nigeria in this book may not be entirely illuminating. And yet we learn of the limitations of information technology in both poor and richer countries, such as the Chinese government’s tight control over electronic news sources and the reliance of some African nations on nonsustain- able foreign donors. As some of the essays in this book make clear, the “impact” of technology might better be described as the lack of impact. The solicited essays in this book are uneven. The ones on Asia, for example, deal more with the development of Inter- net technology than on the impact of that technology. Rajwant S. Chilana’s essay on South Asian collections and services in U.S. libraries provides useful information on both U.S. and South Asian networks and online resources. But the chapters on Africa focus precisely on the impact of technology. And my colleague Gregory Finnegan’s essay succinctly covers the major impact that Internet technology has made on African studies in the United States and what that has meant for book production in Africa. The states of Africa and the states of the Middle East share more similarities than do the states of Asia. Thus, both Africa and the Middle East are introduced here with “state of the art” overviews, but there is not one for Asia. Most of these essays deal with the developing countries and area studies in the West in isolation, but James J. Natsis’s piece gives us information on a successful cooperative project between West Virginia State University and the Université Nationale du Bénin, funded by a U.S. government Title VI grant to expand knowledge of foreign languages and cultures. The fact that Benin is in Francophone Africa presented a rare challenge to and opportunity for West Virginia State. Mohammed M. Aman’s chapter on libraries and collections in the Arab coun-