College and Research Libraries their social and political histories. Pool also speculates about the ways in which telecommunications will free our lives geographically and professionally. Most of the book, however, is devoted to refut- ing charges that global communications will destroy indigenous cultures, wreak havoc on the economies of the have-not nations, and imperil their security. In the 1970s, these fears led both developing and developed nations to create idiosyn- cratic standards and rates and to enact a spate of protectionist legislation control- ling the importation of both hardware and information. In Pool's view, recent technological developments and social science research have proven all these concerns to be unfounded. The charge of cultural imperialism, he argues, is but a smokescreen for the more real economic fears of the business community and the political insecurity of those in power. Protectionism in economic and cultural matters betrays an elitist attitude on the part of Third World governments and their American supporters. Pool cites cur- rent social science research that suggests that people do not passively absorb in- formation fed to them, but rather reject unsought information not relevant to their lives (witness the birth-control campaign in India). Research also sup- ports the notion that the flow of informa- tion may at first be centralized in one area of the world, but then soon becomes diffused to other areas, which then de- velop their own fields of expertise. On the economic front, Pool maintains that protectionism can only be self-de- feating for developing countries. It is in their interest to adapt the inventions of large, well-capitalized countries for local use and leapfrog into the next stage of development. Pool also argues that global telecommunications no longer pose a threat to national security. The develop- ment of minicomputers and intelligent ter- minals should lay to rest the fears of governments wary of storing important and sensitive information abroad. In fact, the availability of various means of telecommunications makes it likely that, in the future, businesses and governments will employ a mix of cen- Book Reviews 385 tralized and local data processing. Though data needing large storage facil- ities and powerful processing may still have to be centralized or processed abroad-bibliographic data, for exam- ple-local storage and manipulation of most data have become economically advantageous. It is in the political sphere, however, that global telecommu- nications will have the most beneficial effect, because the development of inter- active modes of communication makes possible the political participation of the citizenry inhabiting even the most re- mote locations. Pool's vision of what telecommunica- tions can do to humanize our environ- ment, promote cultural diversity, and empowertheindividualisprovocativeand useful for information specialists to bear in mind. Yet how realistic is it? Even with desktop publishing and camcorders, can a small enterprise compete as a provider of information with large, well-funded news organizations? How valid is Pool's rejection of government regulation in any form? Can the marketplace be trusted as the only regulator of new tech- nologies, especially when large telecom- munications corporations already hold an unfair advantage? Pool's passionate belief in personal liberty and in the value of free access to information is inspiring, if not entirely convincing.-Eva M. Sartori, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Computer Files and the Research Library. Gould, Constance C., ed. Mountain View, Calif.: Research Libraries Group, 1990. 59p. An outgrowth of a 1989 Research Li- braries Group (RLG) workshop on ma- chine-readable data files, this booklet is intended to fill a need, in its editor's words, for "a succinct publication de- scribing innovative approaches to col- lecting, describing, and providing service for computer files in research li- braries." The volume consists of four brief essays on specific aspects of com- puter file management. Also included are the agenda and discussion summa- ries from the RLG workshop, as well as an appendix presenting summary results 386 College & Research Libraries of the initial 1987 RLG Machine-Reada- ble Data Files (MRDF) project, in which six RLG libraries developed model ap- proaches for "collecting, controlling, and providing access to computer files." Margaret Johnson's essay, "Adding Computer Files to the Research Library: Issues in Collection Management and De- velopment," begins with the truism that while computer files have grown in- creasingly important as an information resource, librarians have not paid ade- quate attention to organizing and con- trolling access to such materials. If libraries are to maintain their centrality within the institutional "information in- frastructure," librarians must take up this responsibility. The bulk of Johnson's essay is a concise but reasonably com- prehensive consideration of the key fac- ets of such an enterprise. These include understanding the complex and various nature of machine-readable data re- sources; identifying and locating data files (she provides a brief but useful list of directories for this task); selecting ap- propriate files (she reviews some basic ALIVE, WELL, AND BEING PUBLISHED IN SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND! JOURNAL OF PARENTERAL AND ENTERAL NUTRITION and NUTRITION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE are now being published by: A.S.P.E.N. American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition 8630 Fenton St. , Suite 412 Silver Spring, MD 20910-3805 (301) 587-6315 Address all sub scription inquiries, renewaJ in stru ctions (except those sent through a sub- sc ription agent) manusc ripts, a nd other co rre- spondence to the address above. A.S.P.E.N., 8630 Fenton Street, Suite 412, Silver Spring, MD 20910-3805. July 1991 and commonsensical collection develop- ment criteria that can be applied to com- puter files); and coordinating and supporting data file access. In "Machine-Readable Texts in the Ac- ademic Library: The Electronic Text Ser- vice of Columbia University," Anita Lowry takes as her point of departure an exchange on the HUMANIST online dis- cussion group about the ready availabil- ity of primary texts in electronic form as a step toward making the library the "laboratory of the humanist." She ad- dresses the challenges and questions fac- ing librarians when they undertake provision and support of electronic texts for scholarly purposes beyond basic ref- erence applications. Her essay includes an incisive consideration of the differ- ences b~tween published and unpub- lished electronic texts. This discussion leads into a description of the Electronic Text Service (ETS) research and instruc- tional facility at Columbia. Lowry ex- plains the goals of the ETS project in relation to the key issues facing librari- ans who provide electronic textual re- sources to humanities scholars and students. She then examines "infrastruc- ture" requirements (facilities, equipment, and staff support), access policy, and pro- cedural issues as they have been dealt with at the ETS. Lowry's discussion pro- vides few answers to the questions it raises; its real value lies in the candor and seriousness with which Lowry con- fronts the difficulty of integrating schol- arly electronic textual resources into a service- and access-oriented research li- . brary setting. Lynn Marko's contribution, "Biblio- graphic Description of Computer Files," is a brief but thorough overview of the problems involved in cataloging a large collection of machine-readable social sci- ence files, specifically the data archives of the biter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). She describes the conversion of some 1,300 records from the SPIRES database used to produce the ICPSR Guide toRe- sources and Services into USMARC for- mat via a tape load to RUN, and the subsequent challenges faced by the Uni- versity of Michigan cataloging staff in the editing of the resultant RLIN records. Marko concludes her piece with an out- line of the "issues that are applicable to the bibliographic description of all com- puter files," followed by a short para- graph on the project's benefits for the University of Michigan library. Katherine Chiang's "Computer Files in Libraries: Training Issues" is an inven- tory of the skills and expertise required to incorporate electronically stored in- formation into the library. Like the Marko piece, it is rather brief, but substantive even so. Chiang focuses on the unique knowledge demanded for the tasks of se- lecting, acquiring, cataloging, and servic- ing machine-readable files. She then addresses central issues related to the training of library staff to meet the de- mands of managing computer files; stress- ing level of service, structure of service, service novelty and its relation to existing staff competencies, and staff learning styles as key points for special attention. The inclusion in this volume of discus- sion summaries from the RLG workshop is particularly welcome because these are at least somewhat visionary in artic- ulating the formidable array of tasks fac- ing the broader research library community as it begins to integrate computer data files into its collections. In fact, the most telling aspect of the discussions is that they are far less tentative than the four articles in setting an agenda for making computer data files a central resource in the research library of the near future. The result of these efforts is a more than adequate primer for librarians just be- ginning to think about computer file management and access. But collective thought about "the big picture" may be what most of us need quite urgently at this moment. There is, in fact, something frightening about the pace with which the national informa- tion infrastructure is evolving. Two re- cent examples make this clear: the anarchic expansion of information resources on the Internet and the proliferation over the past half-year of government information dis- tributed on CD-ROM. Each of these de- velopments has serious implications for Book Reviews 387 any discussion of computer data file management and access in the research library context, but neither is mentioned anywhere in this volume. Still, I learned much by reading this RLG publication, although I am concerned that the infor- mation it provides may be of only lim- ited value, given the velocity of change in the current electronic information envi- ronment-Joseph Lucia, Lehigh Univer- sity, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Van House, Nancy, and others. Measur- ing Academic Library Performance: A Practical Approach. Chicago: American Library Assn., 1990. 182p. (ISBN 0- 838905-293). LC 89-77253. When drafting this review, I was prompted by some misguided stylistic conceit to seek the grabbing quote. The beautiful phrase "shut up in measureless content" in Macbeth provides a backdrop for my ambivalence toward the work under review. Some eight years ago, I gave a workshop on the bibliographer's craft-including collection evaluation-to collection devel- opment librarians at a large upper-mid- western research library. I recall two pieces of advice I gave to that workshop group. First: "beware the fetish of mensura- tion"; that is, for a significant part of selectors' work, empirical measurement and quantification are of use only in the largest sense. Second: regard measure- ment, quantitative norms or standards, algorithms, and partial or full-blown models of collection development as heuristic exercises rather than empirical tools for decision making; that is, one should assess and, if necessary and rele- vant, perform such measurements as ex- ercises in informed persuasiveness and the art of the exposition and interpreta- tion of the mostly undemonstrable. On the one hand, measurement and mea- sures have their greatest social utility as a form of argumentation that comple- ments subjective judgment and experi- ence. On the other hand, they are least useful when reified and put forth as ob- jective determinants of human action or policy or when regarded as an intrinsic part of something called "the science of