College and Research Libraries Book Reviews The Journal of Information Ethics. Jef- ferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1992- . Semiannual. $38 (ISSN 1061-9321). Like any other profession, librarian- ship has a continuing need to reconsider, and if necessary revise, the ethical foun- dations of its mission. Practicing librari- ans draw on these principles to make pragmatic decisions about such matters as access to information, censorship, pri- vacy, conflict of interest, and intellectual property. When it was launched in 1992, the Journal of Infonnation Ethics (JIE) promised to provide a forum for discus- sion and debate of these issues through editorials, letters from readers, regular columns, scholarly articles, and book re- views. Robert Hauptman, the journal's editor, is the author of the book Ethical Challenges in Librarianship. Norman Stevens and John Swan, both frequent contributors, have been active in intel- lectual freedom circles, and McFarland is known as a publishing company with a social and political conscience. Regrettably, the first three issues of JIE are very uneven. Although the author guidelines describe it as a "scholarly journal," it is actually a miscellany that includes not only practical advice, opin- ion, and research but also such unconven- tional pieces as a stream-of-conscious monologue on the theme of the homeless, an interview with an entrepreneur in the student term paper business, and a po- liceman' s tips on library security. Pub- lisher Robert Franklin's credo reflects the emotional tone of JIE' s editorial voice: "This journal is indicative of a devotion to an elitist, dying, even wrong-headed body of society: those who believe that there are ethics to be found in information." It seems to me that a journal devoted to philosophical and moral reasoning (ethics) should 268 carefully distinguish itself from an organ that seeks to disseminate and defend particular points of view, even views as hallowed as "freedom of information" and "the right to read." I therefore hope that the editor will work to achieve a more consistent identity and quality for the journal than is evident thus far. Three central themes emerge from the initial issues of JIE: (1) the philosophical basis of information ethics, (2) censor- ship, and (3) electronic information and its consequences. Even articles that fo- cus on specific institutional or social set- tings such as the university, the workplace, or the public library, usually tum out to be dealing with one or more of these three fundamental themes. Joseph E. Behar's "Critique of Com- puter Ethics: Technology as Ideology'' defines what it means to talk about an ethics of information. He points out that "where traditional ethical approaches are 'personalistic' and address individu- alistic orders of moral responsibilities, the industrial effects of computerization involve macrosociological dimensions of social and organizational change .... One key area of ethical philosophy in studies of technology involves the cri- tique of instrumental reason." Richard N. Stichler ("Ethics in the Information Market") rejects the currently dominant post-Enlightenment schools of ethics, utilitarianism, and deontology (the Kan- tian categorical imperative that requires moral standards to be universalizable). In their place, he recommends a context- based neo-Aristotelian model that focuses on ethical practices. These and other philosophical articles seem to be ulti- mately concerned with the problem of information as commodity, and with the social consequences of the market ap- proach to information. This is a question that affects us all, from the small public library to the federal government. Compared with this vexing problem, the question of censorship or suppres- sion of information appears more ame- nable to compromise, although it can be difficult in practice to balance conflict- ing political and social "goods." fiE's writers come down on the liberal side of most of these issues. Contributors com- fortably call for the publication of aNa- tive American history of Little Big Hom, oppose the Wilson Library Bulletin's firing of 'Will Manley, and attack Pat Robertson, Dan Quayle, left-wing censors, and state terrorism around the world. They have not yet dealt with the thornier issues of pornography and hate speech. Ethical discussions of computerized information often concern the integrity, privacy, and security of data encoded in this most fluid of formats. The computer can make information more widely acces- sible, as Senator Patrick Leahy proudly explains in a solicited piece. But it also makes information difficult to control: subject to damage, mishandling, hidden surveillance, and unauthorized reproduc- tion and revision. Articles on this subject, such as Carol Tenopir's sensible ''Ethics for Online Educators," tend to be recipes for the prevention of abuse rather than probings of ethical dilemmas. Articles on ethical questions in acade- mia cannot be said to share any particu- lar problem or approach. Perhaps the theme of dishonesty would cover pla- giarism, hackers, and book theft. Con- flict of interest is addressed in a study of faculty textbook selection and in Adam Drozdek's warning about corporate and military sponsorship of university re- search ("Pecunia Non Olet"). Again, the underlying philosophical question is the possible danger to the public good of an instrumental approach to the generation and dissemination of information. This theme of the public trust emerges once again in Fred Whitehead's column decrying the sale of the rare book collec- tion of the Kansas City Public Library. Whitehead delivers an unusual argu- ment against the conventional wisdom that librarians should manage their col- Book Reviews 269 lections without outside interference from the public. An editorial in the Spring 1993 issue of JIE ends with this plea: "The point of all these warnings is to alert us to the dangers inherent in an increasingly tech- nological society. Be wary! Individual freedoms require vigilance." The lesson contained within the journal's own pages is, I think, somewhat different. It points to the need for thoughtful explo- ration of the place of information (and of librarians) in the good ("ethical") life, both at the individual and the sociallev- els.-Jean Alexander, Northwestern Uni- versity, Evanston, Illinois. Gattegno, Jean. lA Bibliotheque de France a mi-parcours: de Ia TGB a Ia BN bis? Paris: Editions du Cercle de la Librairie, 1992. 259p. FF 125 (ISBN 27654-0512-3). "J' en ai 1' ambition et je le ferai": This is my ambition, and I will do it. This statement typifies the July 14, 1988, let- ter of Fran<;ois Mitterand to his prime minister, announcing, in his visionary manner, a new project in the series of "grands travaux" that includes the Grand Louvre and the Opera de la Bas- tille. Mitterand's letter created the tex- tual blueprint for what was to become the Bibliotheque de France (BdF), also known as the Ires Grande Bibliotheque (TGB). Its few paragraphs contain a philosophical conception of a library that had yet to become a shared vision. This new library, according to Mitter- and, would be a "very large library of a completely new type .... [I]t will cover all fields of knowledge, will be open to all, and will use the latest technical innovations to transmit information." The contrast with the venerated but tra- . ditional Bibliotheque Nationale (BN) could not have been stated more clearly: the BN in its cramped site on rue de Richelieu has one of the richest and most important collections in the humanities but covers the other branches of knowl- edge only from a historical perspective. The BN has also been dependent on the depot legal, and as a consequence is weak in foreign imprints. Furthermore, the li- brary has restrictive access procedures