Michelle Reale. Becoming an Embedded Librarian: Making Connections in the Classroom. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2016. 128p. Paper, $54.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1367-3). Book Reviews 555 Michelle Reale. Becoming an Embedded Librarian: Making Connections in the Classroom. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2016. 128p. Paper, $54.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1367-3). Though the concept of the embedded librarian is not a new one, it still can draw looks of bewilderment or disbelief in faculty and librarians alike. Librarians may ask: Should I embed in a class? How do I go about it? How can I convince faculty to buy into the concept? Many faculty members have never heard the phrase at all. However, if you are looking to clear the fog around this interesting and important concept in library services, Michelle Reale’s book is a coherent and well-organized discussion of the various aspects of embedded librarianship reinforced with details of her personal experiences as well as lists of practical strategies. Reale begins her book by laying a foundation for the reader, discussing traditional librarianship as well as the disconnect inherent in the librarian/faculty relationship that had led to the emergence of embedded librarianship as an alternative to traditional library instruction. Librarians have been struggling with the challenge of explaining to faculty the importance of information literacy for many years. Next, Reale takes a fresh approach to defining what it means to be a librarian embedded in a class. We know that being embedded means being within and of the class. Reale expands on this idea to include not only the students whom we are there to teach; she also includes the faculty with whom we are there to collaborate. She sees the classroom as a laboratory—where we can work with faculty and students to develop relationships and where we can apply our knowledge and skills in a meaningful way. Additionally, embedding allows us to form a strong relationship with both students and faculty while we work to address their needs on their turf. Throughout the book, Reale shares her personal experiences. These anecdotes emphasize the practical advice she gives. For example, in Chapter 5, “Clarifying your Role in the Embedded Classroom,” Reale writes about how she initially viewed her role as an embedded librarian. As she began embedding in classes, Reale felt that her presence in the classroom and her willingness to share her knowledge was the “miss- ing piece” that the class needed to be fully in sync. So, upon arrival to her first class where she was fully embedded, she took her seat and smiled. The faculty member reviewed the syllabus. Neither Reale nor the faculty member addressed why she was there or even who she was. Although she had met the students before in her capacity as the English department liaison, since her role was never defined, the students in the class were never quite sure what she could or could not do for them. Spelling out the librarian’s function at the beginning of class, writes Reale, “will help you to manage your role in relationship to the student support you will be delivering.” As she does in other chapters, Reale ends chapter 5 with a list of useful strategies to assist embedded librarians with explaining their roles. Subsequent chapters in this informative book focus on teaching style, creating com- munities of practice, facilitating process, setting personal goals, and personal branding. For the most part, these chapters also follow the format of previous chapters. Reale begins each of these chapters with a satisfying conversation consisting of personal recollection frequently enhanced with thoughtful information from noted scholars in both education and librarianship. For example, in chapter 7, “Classroom Embedding Creates Communities of Practice and Possibilities,” the author explains Lave and Wenger’s learning model and leads us through her journey in creating community in her own classes. She helps construct the community. She guides and mediates. She facilitates collaboration and exploration. Reale finishes this concise text by summarizing and evaluating her, as she calls it, “odyssey.” She shares the ups and downs of her journey in embedded librarianship as well as the results of her reflective and earnest self-assessment. Throughout the book, doi:10.5860/crl.77.4.555 556 College & Research Libraries July 2016 doi:10.5860/crl.77.4.556 the author is straightforward and candid not only in making her suggestions but also in sharing her own experiences. The book will prove to be a practical and enjoyable resource for librarians who are thinking of adding embedded librarianship to their instruction arsenal. Additionally, librarians who have already decided that the embed- ded life is for them will benefit from Reale’s fresh survey of embedded librarianship, keen self-analysis, and imaginative lists of strategies. This volume will make a handy addition to any instruction librarian’s bookshelf.—Kelli Johnson, Marshall University Is Digital Different? How Information Creation, Capture, Preservation and Discov- ery Are Being Transformed. Michael Moss, Barbara Endicott-Popovsky, and Marc J. Dupuis, eds. London: Facet Publishing, 2015. 224p. Paper, $95.00 (ISBN 978-1- 85604-854-5). Those who experienced a streamed curriculum in their library education have likely questioned the practice of offering areas such as archives as discrete and separate disciplines of study. Is Digital Different? addresses the need to recognize information studies as interdisciplinary and interlocking. This is reflected in the background of the editorial team who represent such fields as cyber security, human factors, and archival science. The reader will also note the international cross-section of contributors, rep- resenting institutions from the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, and Australia. The editorial team brings a wealth of both academic and practical experience to the project and was active in authoring a third of the volume. Each chapter functions as a top-level introduction to a field of interest to information professionals. Topics covered include essentials on the Semantic Web, trusted information management systems, crowdsourcing, archival information retrieval, digital information seeking, information privacy, and online security. Thomas and Johnson in the final chapter of the book add digital humanities and related tools, mass digitization projects, scholarly communication, open access, digital libraries and digital monographs to the discussion. Marketed to graduate students in information science, this volume is salient reading for students and established information professionals alike. Of note is Norman Gray’s introduction to RDF and the Semantic Web. A difficult topic to introduce in narrative style, his attempt to clarify concepts and technical terminology is one of the better guides available to date. Readers may be shaken by Endicott-Popovsky’s chapter on security, which advises us that today’s network manag- ers “have evolved to adopting a strategy of ‘assumption of breach’, which accepts that attackers are already established within” (162). This illustrates directly the complexity of digital when considering offering online access to archival records in light of secu- rity and information privacy issues as discussed in McCarthy and Morgan’s chapter. Those pondering future library crowdsourcing projects will appreciate Berglund Prytz’s contribution to the volume. The author cautions that infrastructure and sup- port on the library side for crowdsourcing projects can be rather labor intensive and that the greatest benefit to be gleaned from such initiatives is the increased awareness and appreciation of the work of the library borne out of positive engagement with contributors. As such, the library must anticipate staffing such projects adequately to support their publics at points of need. Gollins and Bayne’s thoughtful chapter “Finding Archived Records in a Digital Age” addresses the need to level the playing field between paper and born-digital archival documents. As born-digital materials are likely to benefit from the use of modern lan- guage, longer descriptions, and superior Optical Character Recognition (OCR) results, the authors introduce a layer of abstraction called an information asset as a means of standardizing descriptions for archival records. The information asset functions as a flexible surrogate data model for a variety of purposes including search and display.