Reviews.indd tags are passive and can only be read from a few feet away. However, active RFID tags, used to track shipping containers or railroad cars, transmit data and can be read from several hundred feet away. Although the book describes the category of RFID tags used by libraries as passive devices, it notes that privacy concerns related to the use of RFID led the ALA to pass a resolution addressing the issue. The discussion of privacy issues within public libraries, school media centers, and academic libraries is divided into three chapters. Although each sett ing has unique issues such as parental consent as required by COPPA, access to licensed resources, intellectual freedom, etc., there are more similarities than diff erences in the issues confronting each type of library. These issues include the use and reten- tion of patron records in circulation and interlibrary loan (and in some instances reference transactions), Internet use policy compliance, radio frequency iden- tification, other uses of library facilities (e.g., meeting rooms), and surveillance activities such as cameras. Each chapter also examines the use of privacy audits and privacy policies, their purpose be- ing to both protect and guide libraries in the treatment of privacy issues. The legal authority for these privacy protections is described elsewhere in the book in the general discussion of privacy statutes. The review of these issues and their basis in law would have worked better if they had been discussed together, identifying unique issues where appropriate. The appendices complement the dis- cussion providing privacy audit docu- ments and sample privacy and confiden- tiality policies for each type of library. They also include a number of policy statements on privacy and confidentiality issued by the ALA. Each chapter is well documented with footnotes. In addition, one chapter is a select bibliography of both Web- and print-based resources on privacy. The emphasis on Web-based resources throughout the book will make it easy Book Reviews 195 to research these issues in more depth; however, the relatively short lifespan of Web-based resources may make these references less useful in the future. Each abbreviation used is clearly defi ned, but the definitions do not always immediately follow their use in the text. Many, but not all, of the abbreviations used in the book are included in the glossary. Although the book is short and some- times repetitious, it does address a num- ber of complex legal and ethical issues in a clear and concise manner. In particular, the sample privacy audit documents and privacy and confi dentiality documents will be valuable to any library currently reviewing its policies relating to privacy and confi dentiality.—Juri Stratford, Uni- versity of California at Davis. Rogers, Richard. Information Politics on the Web. Cambridge, Mass.; London: MIT Pr., 2005. 216p. alk. paper, $35 (ISBN: 0262182424). LC 2004-050458. Rogers’s new book consists of six chapters that present a profoundly different way of thinking about information in cyberspace. It begins and ends with discussions of “back-end” and “front-end” politics and the extent to which they increasingly have led to the demise of alternative accounts of reality. In between, the author attempts to establish a set of principles and from them derive a proactive research strategy that can survive a searching info-political critique. Rogers bases his political analy- sis of the back-ends and front-ends of Web projects on the assumption that there exists, in the public sphere, a widespread public-spiritedness. In chapter one, the author introduces information politics. According to him, the terminology is used “to describe how sophisticated Western governments stage democracy, not through classic forms of deliberation and representation, but with polls that pulse and other manipulative tactics that attempt to ensure media communication strategies are eff ective in forming views that will fall in line with the offi cial account.” 196 College & Research Libraries One can examine information politics on the Web from one of two perspectives: as being either “back-end” (that of search engine technology) or “front-end” (the ac- cessible public Web sites characterized by diversity, inclusivity, and relative promi- nence). For the purpose of this study, Rogers developed four political soft ware tools to capture information about Viagra; to measure the pressure of social debate; to measure the campaigning behavior of stable sets of NGO actors; and to measure changing political party commitments. Chapter two discusses medieval practices of knowledge seeking and how contemporary knowledge-seeking technique is based on the old practice of collaborative filtering. The chapter also of- fers an entertaining analysis of offi cial and unofficial accounts of the health benefits of Viagra. On the basis of his fi ndings on how information politics works, Rogers argues that the Web should be—and can be—a “collision space” for offi cial and unofficial accounts of reality. Chapter three describes how one may capture “de-territorialization,” or the displacement of issue making by select social groups and the provision of deci- sion-making input to networks, actors, and positions outside the organization. According to the author, when a “de-ter- ritorialized” issue has been located, the organization of national public debate becomes a matter of re-territorialization. Rogers discusses the recent eff orts made to stage a national public debate on the safety of genetically modified food, and how the Web may aid in showing when and why re-territorialization moves may Index to advertisers AIAA cover 2 Annual Reviews cover 3 Archival Products 198 CHOICE 100 EBSCO cover 4 Emery Pratt 176 Idea Group Publishing 99 Library Technology Alliance 105 March 2006 fail. Rogers and his colleagues follow, map, and visualize the national and international circulation of information pertaining to issues of food safety and genetically modified food. This leads them to question the Web’s aptitude to reveal and accommodate diff erent forms of democratic activities. Presented earlier at the international FirstMonday Conference in Maastricht, chapter four attempts to defend the cre- ation, as well as a particular design, of an issue stream dedicated to civil society. The defense is based on empirical findings concerning the inadequacies of press coverage of civil society issues as well and of the summiteers to G8 in Genoa. The findings also indicate an additional item of interest to many people curious about Web source dynamics vis-à-vis print media. The researchers found streams need not be refreshed daily; monthly or bimonthly will do. The discussion in chapter fi ve, present- ed earlier at the University of Amsterdam, looks at how political strategists deal with press attention. He utilized an instrument that watches the press in a particular way to gain an indication of how well or poorly a party and its issues are rep- resented. Here, the stream att empts to capture and display a politics-of-press attention. Chapter six summarizes all the issues discussed in the book. Information Politics on the Web is an important contribution to the ongoing debate about Web epistemology. It identi- fies the cultures, techniques, and devices behind recommended information on the Web, analyzing not only the political content of Web sites, but also the politics behind the Web’s infrastructure. The book will be of interest to information specialists, politicians, government, and nongovernment organizations.—Kaba Abdoulaye, Al-Ain University of Science & Technology, United Arab Emirates. Stockdale, Eric. ‘Tis Treason, My Good Man”: Four Revolutionary Presidents and a Piccadilly Bookshop. New Castle,