College and Research Libraries


Book Reviews 
Harris, Michael A., and Stan A. Han-

nah. Into the Future: The Foundations of 
Library and Information Services in the 
Post-Industrial Era. Norwood, N.J.: 
Ablex, 1993. 182p. $39.50 cloth, $19.95 
paper (ISBN 1-56750-01503). 
Treatises on the social environment 

of information often demonstrate the 
parochialism of the library literature. This 
new book is a welcome exception. It is 
both synthesis and commentary, in-
tended to provide a background against 
which students and practitioners can 
make intelligent decisions about "the fu-
ture of library and information service in 
these changing times." To remedy the 
"impoverished and incestuous nature of 
the literature of library and information 
science," the authors deftly summarize 
relevant theory from sociology, political 
economy, economics, and critical theory. 
The result is an exhilarating series of 
new perspectives and insights into the 
meaning of the information age, national 
information policy, professional iden-
tity, and workplace issues. 

The book is structured around Daniel 
Bell's seminal concept of the post-in-
dustrial society, originally conceived in 
the early 1960s. Bell saw information as 
the totalizing principle that would de-
fine the society of the future, transform-
ing a goods-producing into a service 
economy. The codification of theoretical 
knowledge and its application to prob-
lem solving within large and complex 
systems would be carried out by a new 
breed of information technologists, the 
knowledge elite. As Harris and Hannah 
point out, Bell's elitist, technocratic vi-
sion was characteristic of its time. Later 
critics have found flaws in Bell's vision, 
including the privileging of technology 
over other aspects of the social environ-
ment, leading to extremes of technopho-

bia and technophilia. But, as Harris and 
Hannah also point out, "something very 
real is happening to contemporary 
society as a result of the emergence of 
information technology," yet "we re-
main uncertain as to what it is." 

F. W. Lancaster, foremost advocate of 
the paperless library, is introduced as 
Bell's counterpart within the library pro-
fession. Lancaster foresaw the transfor-
mation of librarians into information 
entrepreneurs. His ideas launched con-
tinuing disputes over the fate of the 
book, the commodification of informa-
tion, and the passive versus active role 
of librarians. Somewhat later, the golden 
age of state-sponsored library funding 
came to an end (an inevitable swing of 
the policy pendulum) and the Reagan 
administration began promoting priva-
tization. Harris and Hannah illuminate 
issues surrounding state policy on infor-
mation by tracing the historical dialectic 
between the accumulation (economic 
growth) and legitimation (social justice) 
functions of government. 

Surveying the literature on the soci-
ology of professions, the book casts 
doubt on any easy assumptions about 
the role of librarians in a post-industrial 
society. Nor is the impact of computeri-
zation on workers in general at all clear. 
Does automation lead to labor segmen-
tation, a widening gap between knowl-
edge workers and the unskilled? Or does 
it create more democratic, nonhierarchi-
cal organizations? Research on. these 
matters has led to inconclusive results. 
As Harris and Hannah explore these 
questions, a picture begins to emerge of 
a library profession that is having diffi-
culty coming to terms with political and 
economic change. 

Marxist, feminist, and deconstructive 
points of view (seldom invoked in li-

551 ~ 



552 College &: Research Libraries 

brary literature) contribute some re-
freshing twists. For example, the belief 
that the traditional library was apoliti-
cal is exposed as an illusion. Similarly, 
concepts such as democracy, freedom, 
equality, and neutrality are shown to be 
contested concepts rather than timeless 
truths-a point made through an amus-
ing comparison of the hacker's ethic of 
free access to all information and the 
only slightly less sweeping claims of the 
American Library Association. Apropos 
of a discussion of gender and librarian-
ship (women do not fare well in the in-
formation age), the authors cite a study 
that "documents the way that men have 
always defined women's ideas as 'un-
original,' thus legitimizing the exclusion 
of women from the upper ranks of the 
class system of the intellect." 

The book concludes with a prolego-
menon "to Library and Information 
Services in the Post-Industrial Era," in 
which the authors offer their own sug-
gestions. This is the most disappointing 
part of an otherwise excellent book. 
Rather than actually taking positions, 
Harris and Hannah merely continue to 
set the stage for the formation of posi-
tions. They remind librarians that capi-
talism is dynamic by nature, and that 
change is inevitable. They advise us to 
acknowledge that the paradigm of li-
brary services "for the public good" is in 
eclipse-advice that may have .already 
been superseded by the "politics of 
meaning" of the 1990s. Their call for a 
"commitment to arguing well" and a 
"struggle to establish a consensus" post-
pones commitment to actual choices. We 
will have to make those choices our-
selves, of course, but at least we have 
been given a new way of thinking about 
them.-fean Alexander, Northwestern Uni-
versity, Evanston, Illinois. 

Towner, Lawrence W. Past Imperfect: Es-
says on History, Libraries, and the 
Humanities. Ed. by Robert W. Karrow, 
Jr., and Alfred F. Young. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1993. 298p. 
alk. paper, $25 (ISBN 0-226-81042-9). 
Lawrence "Bill" Towner was for 

twenty-four years the director of the 

November 1993 

Newberry Library, one of the nation's 
most prestigious independent research 
libraries. This collection of Towner's 
writings, some previously unpublished, 
includes articles, essays, and speeches 
given on a variety of occasions. Pub-
lished to mark his seventieth birthday, 
they are meant to define "the man and 
his vision" -to give us something of the 
flavor of the individual and to document 
his achievements as a historian, librar-
ian, and spokesman for the humanities. 

This volume is likely to be of greatest 
interest to librarians for an uncommon 
view of a visionary leader's personality 
and the library he shaped. The public 
Towner emerges as a man of great erudi-
tion, charm, coherence of vision, definite 
purpose, and adaptability, and he ap-
pears as someone capable of doing a 
great many different things-exemplary 
historical research, planning, adminis-
tering, testifying before committees, cul-
tivating mentors and donors-and using 
the appropriate rhetorical strategies for 
each occasion. 

Towner's career as a historian was 
perhaps too brief to be truly distin-
guished, but his experience as a re-
searcher had a distinct influence on 
some of the projects he undertook and 
promoted as a librarian. His interest in 
primary documents was reflected later 
when, as a librarian, he sponsored 
definitive editions of major American 

· political figures and the microfilming of 
large bodies of documents. His convic-
tions as a liberal historian of the progres-
sive school and his interest in social 
contexts were evident in his own re-
search, which focused on the behavior of 
marginal groups in colonial America-
slaves, indentured servants, apprentices, 
and criminals. This interest in "democra-
tizing'' research is also apparent in his 
vigorous attempts to broaden access to the 
Newberry's beyond-the-usual clientele 
of university-affiliated scholars. 

Towner's role as an articulate and 
forceful spokesman for the humanities 
also sheds an interesting light on his 
career as a librarian. This role is docu-
mented chiefly by his support of the 
National Endowment for the Humani-