reviews.indd Book Reviews 385 temporary conditions. Although private institutions, the membership libraries’ collections are generally available for researchers, and, over hundreds of years, collections of special interest and great strength have been developed such as George Washington’s personal library at the Boston Athenæum (1807) or the extensive Western Americana holdings at the St. Louis Mercantile Library As- sociation. Other membership libraries have expanded their programming to include broader cultural offerings for their communities. The Mercantile Li- brary of Cincinnati (1835) inaugurated its Niehoff lecture series in the 1980s and has brought such writers as Saul Bellow, Wil- liam Styron, Joyce Carol Oates, and John Updike to its home city. The Athenæum Music & Arts Library (1899) of La Jolla, California, sponsors classical and jazz music programs. Many of the membership libraries have become as much museums as libraries. The furnishings, paintings, and statuary are important to each institution, but of greater importance are the library build- ings themselves, which are the visible emblems of each membership library. The buildings that house these libraries are a lesson in the history of American archi- tecture from the mid-eighteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century. The Athenæum of Philadelphia (1814), designed by John Norman, is one of the first American buildings in the Italinate Palazzo Revival style; the Portsmouth Athenæum (1817) in New Hampshire was designed by Bradbury Johnson in the Neoclassical style; and the St. John- sbury Athenæum (1871) in Vermont was designed by John Davis Hatch III in the Second Empire Baroque style. In spite of the luxuriously designed buildings and finely furnished interiors, these institutions have retained an es- sential American democratic impulse, an important attribute in the era prior to the public library movement. The New York Society Library “was always intended to be open to anyone—free of charge—for research, with circulation and other services supported by fees, as is the case today.” The Library of the General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen had a separate room for women, and “males of African descent” were admitt ed begin- ning in 1861. Today, membership libraries continue outreach programs, such as the Charleston Library Society’s Junior Liter- ary Club, founded in 1990, and the Salem Athenæum’s monthly book group and film society, both formed in the 1990s. America’s Membership Libraries is a handsome book with lavish photographs illustrating the buildings, furnishings, paintings, and, of course, books and docu- ments of these institutions. For scholars of American library history and reading culture, this extensively indexed and well-referenced volume will be of great research value.—Geoffrey D. Smith, The Ohio State University. Budd, John M. Self-Examination: The Pres- ent and Future of Librarianship. West- port, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited (Beta Phi Mu Monograph Series), 2008. 281p. alk. paper, $60 (ISBN 1591585910). LC 2007-19948. Professor John M. Budd introduces his latest book, Self-Examination: The Present and Future of Librarianship, not simply with a summary of chapters, but with a rousing elbow into the ribs of a profession that seems to dismiss the work of its most im- portant thinkers (such as Michael Gorman and Jesse Shera) “as mere ruminations or reminiscences.” Budd suggests that their thought—and, by association, his thought as well—is critical to founding a professional philosophy for librarianship, a philosophy that is long overdue. From the earliest pages, Budd implicitly asks his readers to join him in his “quest for meaning in the profession” and to keep the phrase “consciousness of purpose” always at the front of our minds. To do so, we must be willing to question our own beliefs and our own actions (which may in fact contradict our stated beliefs), and even the professional associations 386 College & Research Libraries from which we seek guidance. “Profes- sional meetings can all too easily become places where orthodoxy is confirmed,” warns Budd, “where universal author- ity is expressed through the reduction of communication to monologue.” Over and against “monologue,” Budd posits dialogue and spirited exchange, where disagreement and debate are crucial to librarianship’s self-critical development. “Evolution happens, but the evolution of librarianship should be intentional, guided by professionals who are cogni- zant of and sensitive to the world in which librarianship exists… and will exist” (el- lipses in original). Self-Examination is an extended medita- tion on a number of issues that are central to John M. Budd’s career as a diagnosti- cian of the library and information profes- sions. Professor in the School of Informa- tion Science and Learning Technologies at the University of Missouri-Columbia, Budd is the author of several previous books and articles that include most recently The Changing Academic Library: Operations, Cultures, Environments (2005). Budd’s diagnoses arise from keen and skeptical observation, a depth of research, and a philosopher’s ability to distill a clear point from a complicated and sometimes muddied field of investigation. And, like a philosopher, Budd commands a skill at carefully constructing and arguing his points. Self-Examination proceeds chapter by chapter across the broadest possible themes for our times: professional ethics, intellectual freedom, democracy, the edu- cation of librarians, and so on. There isn’t space enough in this review to discuss Budd’s scrutiny of each of these topics, but examining a single chapter as representa- tive of the others will give us some idea of Budd’s approach. The book’s sixth chapter is entitled “The Information Society,” and it opens with four basic claims, which are more or less paraphrased here: first, “[w]e now live in an ‘Information Society’ in which communication, information…, and knowledge are essential for both the July 2008 good life and the successful life”; second, “[t]he Information Society has depended on technological innovation…”; “third, [t]echnology is different from science” and thus has its own ontology (philoso- phy of being); and fourth, this results in a “different epistemology, ethics, econom- ics, and politics.” As in other chapters, Budd fi rst surveys the landscape of writings on his subject, here the concept of an “Information Society” (I hesitate to use the phrase “lit- erature review” because Budd’s surveys are much more robust than that phrase suggests). After a substantial mapping of debates and definitions, Budd clarifies precisely how these issues aff ect librar- ians and library users. He insists, for instance, that an Information Society should enable us to swerve away from “proprietary stance[s] on the part of orga- nizations” and toward “cooperation and the relaxing of a proprietary att itude,” as in library consortia. But the most thought- provoking and impassioned section of this chapter (and perhaps in the entire book) finds Budd wrestling strongly against “consumption’s ideology,” which is taking root in libraries. “[T]he tactic employed by public libraries of emulat- ing bookstores,” proclaims Budd, “is an abandonment of any contribution to a vibrant public sphere.” What’s more, the reduction of information exchange and knowledge production to a model of “market-driven consumerism” works directly against Budd’s concept of “civic librarianship.” Instead of assessing librar- ies based on “circulation data, gate counts, and favor with city/county/educational administrations,” a civic librarianship would look to “genuine outcomes that can include greater educational achieve- ment…, more effective and accessible health care, a safer and cleaner environ- ment, protection of civil liberties, and an inclusive community.” He concludes the chapter with a “revised taxonomy” for a Moral Information Society, which stands juxtaposed with an Information Society steeped in consumer ideology. Book Reviews 387 Budd demonstrates a formidable knowledge of philosophy and critical theory, and Self-Examination draws heav- ily on the thought of John Stuart Mill, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas, among many others. Occasionally, how- ever, Budd’s own worthwhile messages are obscured by the very theory and phi- losophy he invokes to support it. Pep- pered throughout the book are phrases that suggest Budd is aware of this minor foible: “This isn’t a trivial question,” “This may seem a bit esoteric,” and “This isn’t a purely academic exercise” are a few examples. Much more rarely, one negoti- ates a thicket of theory only to find, at its center, what approaches a platitude of the profession. In a brief sub-chapter titled “Categorizing Information,” for example, Budd visits the views of several “theorists of categorization in librarianship,” includ- ing Elaine Svenonius and Paul Otlet, as well as theorists John Searle and George Lakoff, to conclude that “Classification and description are tools of our profession that are genuinely effective, but not abso- lutely effective. They should, then, be used by professionals for the purposes they suit, subject to the judgment of profession- als.” One would be hard-pressed to fi nd a librarian (or even library school student) who would hazard a disagreement. “Self-examination is fundamental to professional progress and growth.” In Self-Examination, Budd demands 21st-cen- tury librarians to look at themselves in the proverbial mirror and to question a pro- fession where there are often “no ques- tions, no counterpoints.” Budd implores us to enliven our field with self-critical minds and productive debate, because “our professional future is… bound to the reconciliation of discontents.” We must “overcome a conservatism… that preserves past action and thought as in- herently good and useful” (my emphasis). Ours is a future at once bristling with challenges and unknowns but also starred with potential, innovation, and new op- portunities.—David Pavelich, University of Chicago. Byrne, Alex. The Politics of Promoting Freedom of Information and Expression in International Librarianship: The IFLA/ FAIFE Project. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow (Libraries and Librarianship: An Inter- national Perspective, no. 4), 2007, 226p. alk. paper, $55 (ISBN 0810860171). LC 2007-22006. The idea of freedom of information and expression has been the subject of consid- erable debate in the professional practice of librarianship in the United States and among Western democracies throughout much of the 20th century. Nevertheless, to take these issues to a global stage during an age of substantial political and social upheaval and change is to introduce deeper levels of intricacy, as Alex Byrne reports in his new book. Byrne, presently the university librarian at the University of Technology in Sydney, served as chair of the Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (IFLA/FAIFE) initiative and as president of the Interna- tional Federation of Library Associations from 2005 to 2007. Using research initially reported in his dissertation submitted to the University of Sydney in 2003, Byrne’s new work endeavors to “trace the development of the FAIFE initiative over its first five years, from the Council resolution which established the new committee in August 1997 to the council’s endorsement of the Glasgow Declaration on Libraries, Information Services and Intel- lectual Freedom in August 2002.” In Chapter 1, Byrne begins his presen- tation by outlining its purpose, which as- sociates concern for human rights with an adoption of the principles of intellectual freedom in the inner workings of IFLA as an international organization represent- ing the strategic direction of both librar- ies as institutions and the professional values of librarianship. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the development respectively of libraries and of IFLA as a “haven for peace in a stormy world.” Especially useful are Byrne’s fresh insights into the agency of libraries, and in particular national libraries, in transmitting and preserving