reviews Book Reviews 397 Book Reviews Habich, Elizabeth Chamberlain. Moving Library Collections: A Management Handbook. Westport, Conn.: Green­ wood Pr. (Greenwood Library Man­ agement Collection), 1998. 344p. $79.50, alk. paper (ISBN 0-313-29330­ 9). LC 97-53221. As I write this review, my office is in a shambles because I am packing for a ma­ jor move. A week from today, my library staff and I, along with our professional moving company, will be on day three of a move from a building that was state-of­ the-art in 1956 to a gorgeous new facility appropriate for library service at the close of the twentieth century. Because I have been involved in several moves at two other institutions, and because this par­ ticular move has dominated my recent work life, I was keenly interested in re­ viewing Elizabeth Habich’s book. Extremely qualified to write a guide on this topic, Habich successfully managed a move at Northeastern University ten years ago, and she has been asked to manage several others since. Her frustra­ tion at the lack of a good manual to guide the process led her to write this book, in which she supplements her own experi­ ence and knowledge with input from a major library and office moving company. In Moving Library Collections, Habich has done a fabulous job of getting her arms around one of the most difficult, over­ whelming, and (potentially) fun major projects a library staff might face. She addresses everything a move manager should consider and some other issues, too. Good organization is essential in a move, and Habich has logically divided this how-to book into five major areas: Planning Collection Space, Planning the Collection Move, Using a Moving Com­ pany, Doing the Move Yourself, and Spe­ cial Topics. Particularly strong are the sec­ tions on planning space (a must-read for anyone who is in the beginnings of building planning and pro­ gramming—and possibly sev­ eral years away from move-in) and do-it-yourself moves. A quick skim of the latter will send all but the strongest of heart running to a professional mover. As Habich notes, few academic libraries per­ form their own moves, and she outlines the reasons why this is true. In the Spe­ cial Topics section, she includes two con­ tributed chapters, one by Agnes Quigg of the University of Hawaii on pest manage­ ment control issues and another by Joyce Frank Watson of the same institution on cleaning collections. Habich concludes this section with her own chapter, delight­ fully titled “Moving from Disorganized Conditions.” Here, she addresses key top­ ics such as dealing with multiple locations and sequences, items “shelved” on the floor, or collections stored in very dirty conditions. The book includes appendi­ ces of useful data (including a fascinat­ ing list of “146 moves reported in the English-language literature, 1926–1996,” divided by library type), an extensive bib­ liography, and index Throughout Moving Library Collections, Habich acknowledges the need for con­ stant communication both within and outside the library, and she offers sugges­ tions on how to use various media to keep staff, patrons, and administrators in­ formed about what is happening. A sepa­ rate chapter on the emotional side of move management might have strength­ ened the book slightly. Major moves are stressful, aggravating, and physically ex­ hausting, but they present the library with a team-building opportunity that is un­ matched by any other project because every employee—regardless of rank—is affected and can be involved. A separate discussion of the people side of collection moving could be useful to others just 397 398 College & Research Libraries starting the move-planning process. Even with this minor omission, Habich’s book is essential reading for the staff of any academic library that might move into whole new quarters, an addi­ tion, or renovation in the foreseeable fu­ ture. Those who follow Habich’s planning and implementation guidelines will save time, stress, and money. I wish I had had this volume at my disposal several years ago. I strongly recommend it. —Diane J. Graves, Hollins University. The Knowledge Economy. Ed. Dale Neef. Boston: Butterworth-Heinemann (Re­ sources for the Knowledge-Based Economy), 1998. 278p. $21.95, alk. pa­ per (ISBN 0750699361). LC 97-34241. Most readers of College & Research Librar­ ies are keenly aware of the impact of changes in the global infosphere on our own institutions. Every workday, we deal with new developments in information technology and cope with the limitations of our budgets as we labor to provide in­ formation better, faster, and cheaper to those on whose behalf we work. Keep­ ing on top of these continuing changes is a challenge that may fully occupy us, leaving us with no leisure time to explore the even wider implications of the “knowledge revolution.” Dale Neef has provided a partial remedy to this situa­ tion with the publication of this selection of readings on the political economy of knowledge. Just as economic wealth has begun to be measured in terms of intel­ lectual capital instead of tangible re­ sources, Neef (of Ernst & Young’s Center for Business Innovation) has assembled a collection of readings from a variety of sources and points of view. Some of the sixteen contributions are authored by people whose names are familiar, such as Peter F. Drucker, Robert B. Reich, Lester C. Thurow, and Hedrick Smith; others are probably less well known. With the ex­ ception of his excellent introductory es­ say, all the items have been previously published, but only recently—sometimes as chapters in books, as journal articles, or in less broadly circulated papers of the July 1999 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The essays are organized into five broad areas: The Changing Economic Landscape; Knowledge as the Economic Force of Growth and Change; Measuring and Managing the Intangibles of Knowl­ edge; Learning Organizations in the Glo­ bal Knowledge-Based Economy and So­ ciety; and Public Policy: Government, Education, and Training in the Knowl­ edge-Based Economy. The most striking revelation is the subtle, but escalating, shift in the relative importance of univer­ sities, in their traditional roles, to busi­ ness, which is seen to be taking a more direct and directive place in the transmis­ sion of information and economically pro­ ductive technical skills. A comparative study of secondary education in Japan and Germany to the failing system in the United States should be of special concern to college and university library admin­ istrators. “Partnerships” between busi­ nesses and research universities result in our becoming dependent on nongovern­ mental funding and the subsequent privatization of information that would, in an earlier time, have been placed in the public domain. The commercialization of educational services once regarded as the intellectual property of their creators, but now coming to be regarded as “works made for hire,” and similar changes in the making are reshaping the nature of higher education. In conclusion, this may not be an easy book to read, but it is a necessary one. —Charles Wm. Conaway, Florida State University. Nolan, Christopher W. Managing the Ref­ erence Collection. Chicago: ALA, 1999. 231p. $30, acid-free paper (ISBN 0­ 8389-0748-2). LC 98-037178. If your reference collection is typical, it harbors a lot of deadwood. Studies have shown that more than half of reference materials see no use in any one-year pe­ riod, and one-fourth of the collection will not be used over a five-year span. Man­ aging the Reference Collection will be a valu­ able resource for helping you to transform