reviews.indd Book Reviews 561 networkable” typewriter, just as it has assumed so many other functions of our social and individual lives. For library and information historians, this book provides a meticulous, but for that reason no less readable and enter- taining retrospective on what was once a central technology of our field. At a more general level, however, The Iron Whim of- fers a case study of how material culture and spiritual culture interpenetrate and inform one another, becoming a single large symbiotic whole.—Jeff rey Garrett, Northwestern University. Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Knowl- edge Management. Ed. David J. Pau- leen, Westport, Conn. and London: Libraries Unlimited (Libraries Unlim- ited Knowledge Management Series), 2007. 259p. alk. paper, $45 (ISBN 1591583314). LC 2006-28274. Our horizons as librarians have always included scholarly communication and “information science,” but have neces- sarily widened as those fields have developed to include not only patterns and means of communication and dis- semination of information, but the array of factors involved in transforming data into “information” and that in turn into “knowledge.” A corollary, however, is that as fields of inquiry widen, so do the common vocabulary and shared literature diminish. This book is an example of how that can create difficulties. The twenty-two contributors to this book are mainly faculty or graduate students in international management schools or programs in several countries: New Zealand and the Netherlands lead, with five each; others are in the United Kingdom, Peru, Austria, Germany, Aus- tralia, and Taiwan. There are three authors with appointments in, or degrees from, library or information science schools in the United States and Hong Kong. The amount of citation of each others’ works suggests that the contributors are part of an ongoing network of researchers who share many techniques and interests. While not surprising, and not necessar- ily worthy of criticism, the fact that the book is an installment in an ongoing dia- logue among its authors does mean that it serves them better than we outsiders. That is, one cannot rely on this book to learn new techniques or approaches, and still less can one be instructed by concrete examples of actual problems or solutions. The value lies instead, and mainly for the authors and their colleagues in their field, in fine-tuning concepts they’re already persuaded are valuable. The book has three sections: conceptual approaches to culture and knowledge management, effects of culture on key aspects of knowledge management, and research on, and cases of, culture and knowledge management. The underlying presumption is that the anthropological concept of “culture” is essential for under- standing organized, and organizational, behavior. Such is especially a concern when organizations are multinational, international, or global, and hence are presumed both to operate in places whose cultures vary and to have staff from dif- ferent cultures. How to avoid problems stemming from cultural differences and to make global communication easier is the concern of the authors. The concept of culture is att ributed to anthropology, with some contributors cit- ing Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s landmark 1952 compilation of at least 164 definitions of the term. However, more generally, the contributors to this book draw their uses of the concept not from anthropological literature, but instead from management or organizational studies that employed it. The concept as used here is rather fixed. No mention is made of “culture change” or the vast literature in anthropology about it, which would mean that the authors would have to deal with a moving target instead of a fixed principle. Related terms like syn- cretism, acculturation, and enculturation aren’t mentioned either. Overall, the book is an argument in favor of being aware of cultural variation when studying (or ap- plying) management and its principles. 562 College & Research Libraries November 2007 Because the book isn’t aimed at per- suading outsiders, it’s rather empty of case studies, the title of the third section not- withstanding. The main exception—and one that only minimally discusses culture as such—is an account of the rapid devel- opment of Peruvian exports of asparagus, resulting from an effort to share resources to make shipping more effi cient and the product fresher. The cultural factor here is a need to develop mutual trust among players culturally disinclined to do so. Even a report of exercises involving busi- ness students in several countries is used to show that researchers found cultural or national differences in how participants did things or reacted to things others did, without actually stating what the diff er- ences were. This means the argument is somewhat circular—unless you already are aware of cultural differences, you’ll be told you should be, rather than learning from actual instances how such factors might affect projects or results. For a book basing itself on the key concept of anthropology, the book suffers from something anthropologists much lament: use of concepts too abstracted from their disciplinary context. Much of the research cited in these articles is based either upon opinion surveys or formal interviews lasting sixty to ninety minutes. The latter are called “ethnographic,” in the too-widespread applied-social-sci- ence sense meaning “qualitative, not quantitative.” But no research is discussed that’s based on participant observation of organizations or communities, much less such research over the longer term (a year or more) that anthropologists rely upon to both get to know their research subjects (and their culture) and to become known (and trusted) by them. The article most likely to be of inter- est to readers of this journal is chapter five, “From Concept to Context: Toward Socio-Cultural Awareness and Respon- sibility in the Organization of Knowl- edge,” by Chern Li Liew, who teaches at a School of Information Management in New Zealand. She is interested in how language, as a major facet of culture, aff ects classification, including that by librarians. One of her section titles is “subject access in turmoil: knowledge organization.” Among the authors she cites are Ranganathan, Sanford Berman, and William Arms. Other contributors cite Elaine Svenonius and Chris Argyris, the latter a Harvard education profes- Statement of ownership, management, and circulation College & Research Libraries, ISSN 0010-0870, is published bimonthly by the Association of College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association, 50 E. Hu- ron St., Chicago, IL 60611-2795 (the owner). The editor is Willliam Gray Pott er, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, GA 30602-1641, and the managing editor is Dawn Mueller, ACRL, 50 East Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611. Annual subscription price, $70.00. Printed in U.S.A. with second-class postage paid at Chicago, Illinois. As a nonprofi t organization authorized to mail at special rates (DMM Section 424.12 only), the purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes have not changed during the preceding twelve months. Extent and nature of circulation (Average figures denote the average number of copies printed each issue during the preceding twelve months; actual figures denote actual number of copies of single issue published nearest filing date: September 2007 issue.) 15a. Total number of copies (Net press run): average 14,275; actual 14,195. 15b(1) Paid/Requested Outside County: average 13,966; actual 13,642. 15c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation: average 13,966; actual 13,642. 15d(1). Free distribution by Mail Outside-County: average 26; actual 27. 15f. Total free dis- tribution: average 26; actual 27. 15g. Total Distribution: average 13,992; actual 13,669. 15h. Copies not Distributed: average 283; actual 526. 15i. Total: average 14,275; actual 14,195. 15j. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation: average 99%; actual 99%. sor who’s received much att ention from students of library administration for his emphasis on “organizational learning.” But the likely reason for reviewing this book in this journal is that the publisher is a leading “library lit” source. If one stretches chapter five a ways, one could say that the value of the book is to show that “they” (management students) can learn from “us,” rather than vice-versa. Another book could have given valuable examples of how cultural factors created problems when ignored (or enabled new solutions, when looked at), examples with implications for libraries. But this isn’t that book.—Gregory Finnegan, Harvard University. The Role of the Library in the First Col- lege Year. Ed. Larry Hardesty. Colum- bia, S.C.: National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, University of South Caroli- na (The First-Year Experience Monograph Series, no. 45), 2007. 296p. $40 (ISBN 1889271543). LC 2006-100837. Librarians have been directly involved in the education of first-year college stu- dents for over a century, but the rise of the “fi rst-year experience” (FYE) movement has provided them with new opportuni- ties to contribute to academic programs aimed at enhancing undergraduate student success. Librarian involvement with FYE programs (and with fi rst-year student instruction more broadly) has been documented many times, but this collection represents the most substan- tial attempt to bring discussions of the academic library as a “critical and central learning environment of undergraduate education in the United States” into the mainstream literature of higher educa- tion. For that alone, it is a welcome (and long overdue) addition to the field. Aimed both at instruction librarians and at the academic and student affairs administrators responsible for FYE programs, this collection provides the reader with an overview of existing work and a venue for discussions of emergent Book Reviews 563 practice. “Foundations” chapters intro- duce their primary audiences to each other through reviews of topics such as information literacy instruction and stu- dent engagement. “Initiatives” chapters provide information on best practices, including studies of librarian involve- ment in FYE programs across the country, and of the emergence of the “First-Year- Experience Librarian” as a professional position supporting the development of sustainable, programmatic collaboration between librarians and FYE educators. “Connections” chapters demonstrate how inquiry into areas such as assessment of student learning and student retention can inform the work of librarians and FYE educators equally. Finally, “Campus Case Studies” introduce the reader to a variety of active FYE-library programs across the country. Unfortunately, while the design of the collection is excellent, it is uneven in its execution. It is uneven because, while there are some chapters that present data gathered through well-designed research proj- ects, others provide primarily literature reviews and descriptions of existing practice at one or another institution. Given the number of descriptive essays already available on this subject in the library literature, it is disappointing to see familiar ground trod again. More- over, the connections made between the essays in the current volume and the literature on library-FYE collaboration to which it contributes is uneven. The collection would benefit from having the programs described placed more firmly into the broader contexts of research and practice. The “Campus Case Studies,” in par- ticular, seemed limited in terms of their diversity and depth. Of the thirteen cases considered, seven come from small, lib- eral arts colleges (and two from the same institution). Moreover, they are too brief to provide the foundation for future in- quiry that one might hope to find in a set of related case studies. Each of the case studies describes a program of unques-