College and Research Libraries Book Reviews Birdsall, William F. The Myth of the Elec- tronic Library: Librarianship and Social Change in America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994. 224 p., $55 (ISBN 0-313-29210-8). Critiques of the paradigm of the elec- tronic library in an information age are a dime a dozen, but William Birdsall's gripping polemic is not to be missed. Birdsall, who is university librarian at Dalhousie University, has been writing for years about the traditional social, po- litical, and cultural meanings of Ameri- can libraries. The Myth of the Electronic Library reads like a courtroom drama: "Myth of the Electronic Library v. Myth of the Library as Place." The author's clear intention is to expose flaws in the ·elec- tronic library model and defend the vir- tues of traditional library organizations, buildings, and roles. The fact that he is scrupulously fair in his assessment of the electronic library only adds weight to his passionate defense of the values that it negates or ignores. He forces the reader to consider seriously the implications of a "post-library society." The premise of the book is starkly du- alistic: the electronic library contrasts with the traditional library in every re- spect. The former is epitomized by the corporate special library, the latter by small-town and urban public libraries. The electronic library myth is an ab- stract, technology-driven vision of the transmission of discrete information parcels. Librarians-if they exist at all- are freelance experts delivering a prod- uct to paying clients, exemplified by the scientific researcher. The public library myth is a sensuous, historically rooted vision of a community institution that organizes knowledge for the benefit of personal self-awareness and fulfillment; it serves as a bridge among the individ- ual, the community, and the larger world of ideas. Birdsall devotes several chapters to the historical origins and development of the electronic library, beginning in the 1930s. His account demonstrates that the forecasts of the early visionaries of the electronic library were amazingly accu- rate, at least from a technical point of view. Their utopian vision has had an irresistible attraction for librarians, for "clarity of purpose in a time of change is reassuring to an occupation unsure of itself even in the most stable of times." Ironically, librarians have been falsely stereotyped by apostles of the informa- tion age as sentimental, book-loving conservatives. In fact, librarians consis- tently have shown great interest in and support of new technologies. Too much so, according to Birdsall. This Darwinian technological determinism, he argues, "the impulse for consistency and sim- plicity," should be resisted. By schematically contrasting two ex- tremes, Birdsall is able to expose para- doxical tensions within librarianship. His aim is to historicize both myths, to place them within the context of the pe- riods when they achieved dominance. In a discussion of politics and libraries, for example, he observes that "far from be- ing a radical break from the past, an electronic revolution, the myth of the electronic library represents an effort to incorporate social change into a neo-con- servative framework." Elsewhere, he calls the abstract image of the invisible electronic network "part of a more gen- eral modernist metaphor, the demateri- alization of culture itself." This coldly objective scientist culture, however, is under attack; "people are rejecting the professional facade (and values) in fa- vor of a return to a more emotive and 183 ._ _________________________________________________________________ ___ _ _ 184 College & Research Libraries flamboyant image." He also argues that librarians attain professional authority through their control of "a bureaucratic organization having the power to dis- tribu,te a public good." The professional model often touted as an alternative-that of the physician as solo practitioner-is actually anachronistic; even physicians now operate within bureaucracies. The disadvantage of Birdsall's adver- sarial rhetorical strategy is that the two library myths seem to be running on separate tracks that never intersect. The library universe cannot be as Manichean as Birdsall paints it. If it were, how could the two visions ever be reconciled? (For reconciliation there must be, if historic library values are to be preserved.) If the electronic library is such a monster, how can it be contained by a physical building, as in Birdsall's recommendation that "the ritual library as place incorporate the transmissional electronic library." Birdsall does not deal directly with academic libraries, except to note that they have been moving increasingly closer on the continuum to the special library model. It would have been more interesting, perhaps, to ask whether academic and school librar- ies have ruling myths of their own. In any case, the issues raised in this book can be transposed readily to an aca- demic context. The academic library's function as place and institution, the academic librarian's role as teacher and guide, have no necessary place within the electronic library. Technology will not provide for them. Only humans can do that.-Jean Alexander, Northwestern Uni- versity, Evanston, lllinois. Mitcham, Carl. Thinking through Technol- ogy: The Path .between Engineering and Philosophy. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Pr., 1994. 397 p. $47.50 cloth (ISBN 0-226-53196-1), $17.95 paper (ISBN 0- 226-53198-8). Mitcham writes that as a student he was attracted to the idea that the distin- guishing characteristic of our time was not so much modem science as modern technology. This is not startling if tech- nology is taken, as it very often is, to be March 1995 simply applied science; then it just means that applied science overshad- ows pure science. It has real force only if technology is seen to be an independent realm of activity that makes use of sci- ence when it can and otherwise works on its own. This is how Mitcham under- stands it. The issue is an important one that ought to interest librarians and in- formation scientists and others in- volved with information technology. It makes a difference how one thinks of one's work and its goals and criteria of evaluation whether one is oriented to- ward a model of scientific practice or toward one of technological practice. It may have made a difference that people once thought there was or ought to be a "library science," or that information sys,... tem designers thought of themselves as information scientists rather than as in- formation engineers. The science-technology relationship can be explored in many ways; Mitcham set himself the task of discovering what there was in the literature of philosophy that was of relevance to serious reflec- tion on technology. He published bibli- ographies and anthologies as preparation for what he now offers-a critical intro- duction to the philosophy of technology. It falls roughly into two parts, one a his- torical review of relevant literature, the other an analytic exploration of four as- pects of technology: as artifact, as activ- ity, as knowledge, and as volition. The historical review is dominated by a distinction between two supposedly opposed traditions: engineering phi- losophy of technology and humanities philosophy of technology. The engineer- ing approach is analysis of technology from within. The humanities approach is interpretation from the outside, from the vantage point of religion, poetry, or phi- losophy (i.e., not just philosophers-Le- wis Mumford and Jacques Ellul are prominent exemplars of the humanities approach). The engineering approach tends to be enthusiastically pro-technol- ogy; the humanities approach tends to be suspicious and critical. Mitcham quite pointlessly fusses over which of the two approaches is superior (inside and out-