reviews


76 College & Research Libraries 

we are building libraries that allow pa­
trons access to a mixture of analog and 
digital materials, both on- and off-site. 
And as more universities and colleges 
become involved in distance education, 
their libraries will need to provide even 
more services to remote users. Crawford 
predicts that the provision of library ser­
vices to remote users will increasingly 
rely on partnerships with other academic 
and public libraries. 

Remote services are not limited to the 
academic world; the public library, which 
already takes its collections to patrons via 
the bookmobile and answers scores of 
daily reference questions over the phone 
and through e-mail, also is developing 
new online services for remote users. The 
public library will continue to play a ma­
jor role in the future; it will be a place 
where people can have access to a wide 
range of materials, from mystery novels 
to online resources. Moreover, the public 
library of the future will continue to be a 
place where new readers are developed 
through activities such as story hour. 

What is the role of librarianship in the 
future? According to Crawford, “Real 
librarianship isn’t about catch phrases 
and paradigm shifts. Real librarianship 
applies consistent professional philoso­
phies and continuously evolving skill sets 
to the increasingly complex landscape of 
tomorrow’s libraries and library-related 
needs.” For libraries to provide the high 
quality of service users have grown to 
expect, librarians must become lifelong 
learners and develop an understanding 
of the increasingly complex nature of in­
formation resources. By understanding 
how the complex mix of resources work 
together, we will be able to communicate 
with our users and guide them to the re­
sources, digital or analog, that best serve 
their needs. Crawford writes: “Libraries 
serve people. Libraries will prosper in the 
future by serving people’s diverse inter­
ests and needs, not by asserting that li­
brarians know what people should want 
and how they should acquire informa­
tion, knowledge, and recreation. People 
require a mix of analog and digital re-

January 2000 

sources to serve their preferences and 
abilities; libraries should honor those re­
quirements.” 

Walt Crawford’s vision is of a more 
complex library in which librarians give 
higher priority to learning about, under­
standing, and assessing media of all 
types. Even if readers do not agree with 
everything Crawford has to say in this 
book, it will give librarians and informa­
tion professionals a great deal to think 
and talk about as the future becomes the 
present.—Timothy F. Daniels, University of 
North Carolina at Asheville. 

Informationsversorgung “Politik und 
Strategie”/Information Provision-Politics 
and Strategy: Proceedings of the Interna­
tional Seminar 1999. Wurzburg: 
Akademy Frankenwarte/Deutsches 
Bibliotheksinstitut, 1998. 445p. 

Seldom considered in the deliberations of 
librarians in the United States are the dif­
ficulties encountered by our colleagues 
around the world in our common effort 
to provide information through libraries. 
Whether the clientele are specialized by 
profession or interest, or not specialized 
at all, each library must overcome ob­
stacles caused by infrastructure, funding, 
administrative disinterest, and many 
other factors. This review concerns the 
published proceedings of an institute that 
pulls together the experiences of librar­
ians in East Asia; Russia; Central, South­
ern, Northern, and Eastern Europe; Great 
Britain; as well as one from the U.S. The 
twenty-six papers presented here may be 
eye-opening to complacent librarians 
with comparatively well-supported pro­
grams in place. Each paper is published 
in both English and German versions, and 
each describes an institution-specific 
project or a national effort in the library 
context. 

It is impossible to give a fair review of 
this publication without mentioning the 
difficulty of reading the translated texts 
of the papers. Elizabeth Simon, writing 
in the introduction, frankly apologizes for 
the poor translations: “Most authors have 
written in a second language,” meaning 



Book Reviews 77 

in German or English, “therefore it may 
happen that some parts are not always 
translated very well especially when the 
authors were using colloquial expressions 
or highly technical and professional 
terms.” This is an understatement, as 
nearly every paper suffers mightily un­
der the weight of poor English expres­
sion. Perhaps the German texts read more 
clearly, but it is likely that they are equally 
difficult. That having been said, if one 
invests the effort to get through the pa­
pers, it is a simple task to extract their 
intended meaning. The result should be 
a real broadening of perspective for most 
librarians. 

An unnecessary shortcoming of these 
published proceedings is that each con­
tributor, in nearly every case, is identified 
only by an address. Although the institu­
tional affiliation is generally clear, the sta­
tion held by the author in that organiza­
tion is absent. Thus, the authority of the 
speaker is compromised. It is one thing 
for a director, informed by long experi­
ence, to discuss his or her perspective on 
a subject, but it is an entirely different 
matter for a fairly new librarian, informed 
by little, to do the same. One hopes that 
in the next iteration of this publication, 
the position title, at least, will be included 
for each of the published contributors. 
Better would be a short description of the 
authors’ current responsibilities and ca­
reer highlights in a biographical index. 
Also missing in this publication is an in­
dex to the papers. 

Having engaged in negative criticism, 
it is high time for this reviewer to single 
out praiseworthy contributions. For ex­
ample, Eric Duijker, of the NBLC Foun­
dation, writes an engaging and humor­
ous thirty-year history of the develop­
ment of his organization, which is, in 
translation, the Dutch Association of Pub­
lic Libraries. His essay should be required 
reading by everyone at 50 Huron St., Chi­
cago. He traces the growth of the library 
association from its beginning, with few 
staff and small budget, to a behemoth 
with large staff, large budget, and little 
contact or empathy with its constituents. 

Finally, he discusses the changes that 
were implemented to bring the associa­
tion back to a position of vitality within 
the Dutch public library culture. Another 
group of noteworthy papers addresses 
the heartbreaking and inspiring efforts to 
develop information networks in Croatia 
amidst war, poverty, political consider­
ations, and a traditional structure that 
combines municipal and university li­
braries in one organization. For more in­
formation, one may take a look at 
www.carnet.hr to see the impressive ac­
complishments of these dedicated librar­
ians. 

In summary, this publication is well 
worth reading, if only to help one to be­
come aware of the difficulties faced by our 
colleagues around the world. Two things 
become clear: (1) This is a tremendously 
dedicated group of librarians; and (2) we 
are all involved in exactly the same ques­
tions, regardless of the location of our ef­
forts. It is astounding that while sup­
ported by the most fragile infrastructures, 
librarians are still pondering copyright 
issues, ownership versus access, collec­
tion development, appropriate cataloging 
levels, and bibliographic instruction. 
When looking for different perspectives 
on common problems, this can be a tre­
mendously valuable source of original, 
project-oriented, information. It is unfor­
tunate that one must pay a toll for this 
information, in the form of difficult trans­
lation, but the effort demanded of the 
reader to absorb the content yields an 
overwhelmingly positive result.—Thomas 
E. Schneiter, Harvard University. 

“LOEX” of the West: Collaboration and In­
structional Design in a Virtual Environ­
ment. Ed. Kari Anderson, et al. Stam­
ford, Conn.: JAI Pr. (Foundations in Li­
brary and Information Science, v. 43), 1999. 
282p. $78.50 (ISBN 0-7623-0549-5). LC 
99-12397. 

Good ideas and inspiring calls to action 
abound in this substantial collection of 
nineteen papers from the second LOEX 
of the West Conference, held in 1996 at 
the University of Washington. Readers 

http:www.carnet.hr