College and Research Libraries 198 College & Research Libraries years of practical experience, graduates of this bachelor's degree program might then enter a master's degree program, perhaps for a duration of two years; and some might even go on to a doctoral pro- gram. Although the undergraduate de- gree program is described as an informa- tion studies program, apparently in- tended not to be narrowly focused on li- braries, the only specific content the au- thors discuss is instruction in cataloging. Courses would focus on practical skills such as bibliographic description and sub- ject analysis. The master's degree program would, they say, be heavily theoretical. Graduates would become "the leaders in cataloging organizations," perhaps as administrators or master catalogers. (Noth- ing is said to suggest any concern for the design or development of computer-based bibliographic systems.) After this depressingly retrograde sce- nario, however, there is a sudden and un- expected change of tone. A four-page con- cluding chapter abruptly suggests that the force of new information technologies will make librarians redefine their work; that the term librarian has become anach- ronistic; and that what may be needed is a new type of information professional who is expert in the new information technologies and educated in a new sort of professional school of information studies or communication and informa- tion systems, which would result from library education joining forces with edu- cators in (unspecified) information and communication fields. Then come seventy-five pages of ap- pendices, including the Academy of Cer- tified Archivists' "Role Delineation," the ALA's standards for accreditation as re- vised in 1992 and the official ALA state- ment on accreditation, and, rather mys- teriously, thirty-nine pages from the offi- cial announcement of a new Ph.D. pro- gram in library and information manage- ment at Emporia State University. Why these items are thought worth reprinting in this context is unfathomable, and why March 1996 anyone should be expected to pay fifty dollars for a short book half of which is devoted to them is a real puzzle. The dis- cussion in the first half is not rewarding enough to justify the cost of the book. It is true that the last few pages of dis- cussion, with their surprise proposal, do perhaps have some value as a so- cial indicator; however, given the tone of the rest of the discussion, it is a real surprise to find that these authors are prepared to give up the title "librarian" and the institution of the graduate li- brary school. It is as if the authors carne to a bridge at the end of their story and, perhaps to their own surprise, crossed it. Unfortunately, they got there too late for their book to be of interest to the rest of us. However, the fact that they could cross that bridge suggests that many others may be prepared to do likewise.-Patrick Wilson, University of California, Berkeley. Grotzinger, Laurel A., James V. Carmichael Jr., and Mary Niles Maack. Women's Work: Vision and Change in Librarianship . Occasional Papers no. 196/197. Champaign, Ill.: University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 1994. 132p. $15. (ISSN 0-276-1769). Women, Information, and the Future: Collecting and Sharing Resources Worldwide. Ed. Eva Steiner Moseley. Fort Atkinson, Wise.: Highsmith Pr., 1995. 296p. (ISBN 0-917846-67-2). Many books on library issues these days are obsolete before they appear in print. It is a pleasure to report on two books that will have a longer shelf life. The first is a collection of historical essays honoring the centennial of the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Informa- tion Science. The second is the published proceedings of an international confer- ence at Radcliffe College in June 1994 sponsored by the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, which featured more than 100 speakers from around the world. One book deals pri- marily with women as librarians in early twentieth-century America, the other with libraries and resource centers for women today. The authors of the three articles in Women's Work are library historians with a deep knowledge of the history and lit- erature of librarianship in America. Lau- rel Grotzinger has published frequently on early women librarians, especially Katharine Lucinda Sharp, who founded the Illinois State Library School in 1897 and served as its director until 1907. In her article "Invisible, Indestructible Net- work: Women and the Diffusion of Li- brarianship at the Turn of the Century," Grotzinger ably exploits primary sources such as letters and alumni files to trace a women's network that encompassed li- brary schools, summer schools, state li- brary commissions, publishing, and pro- fessional and social organizations. In his long, leisurely article "Southerners in the North and Northerners in the South: The Impact of the Library School of the Uni- versity of Illinois on Southern Librarian- ship," James V. Carmichael Jr. provides a history of cultural confrontation in the '20s and '30s, touching on themes of re- gional identity, race, gender, and politics. Mary Niles Maack, in "Women As Vision- aries, Mentors, and Agents of Change," outlines the dismal regression of women library school faculty from the age of "missionaries and mentors" (1887-1923) through a transitional period of professionalization that began to exclude women (1923-1950) to the era of the mas- culine professoriate (1951-present). The second half of Maack's rather tendentious article presents research on mentoring of women faculty in library schools today, concluding with remarks on the benefits of mentoring and the influence of the femi- nine "ethic of caring" on library service. These studies give texture and color to an age (actually more than one gen- eration) when women librarians were a Book Reviews 199 powerful, driving force in an unstoppable social movement. (Katharine Sharp "con- sidered the library as second only to the church in its ability to do good.") It is particularly gratifying to see library his- tory move from hagiography toward so- cial history, where it can make a real con- tribution to understanding the Progres- sive Era. Thanks go to the archives that preserved the records that make this his- tory possible, but regrets also are in or- der because we do not have enough in- formation on the private lives of these women to explore fully issues such as sexuality, ethnicity, and class. Another kind of missionary zeal char- acterizes Women, Information, and the Fu- ture: to empower women by organizing and disseminating information on legal rights, health, employment, politics, and the environment. These forty-six papers, mostly documentary and descriptive, only dimly reflect the enthusiasm that must have reigned at the conference it- self, whose delegates were gearing up for the 1995 Beijing conference on women. Although tedious to read at one stretch, the book is highly recommended as a ref- erence for specific information on women's resource centers such as the Fawcett Library in London, Anveshi Cen- tre in India, Centro Flora Tristan in Peru, Asian-Pacific Resource Centre in Malay- sia, and many more. Most of these cen- ters were started during the "second wave" of feminism in the 1970s. They gained support through NGOs (nongov- ernmental organizations) and interna- tional organizations such as the United Nations, which sponsored the Decade for Women (1976-85). A crucial step was the incorporation of women's rights into hu- man rights documents. The issue of separatism crops up again and again in these papers. Should women's information services and collec- tions be mainstreamed or set apart? Do women need classification systems and thesauri of their own? An acute problem in many regions is to find the best me- 200 College & Research Libraries dium and language for communicating with women, many of whom are illiter- ate· ·or know only local languages. An- other broad area of concern is the produc- tion of information about women. Stan- dard statistics often omit, or at least mask, women's "ec.o.no'mic roles, which conse- quently are ignore9, in economic planning in qeveloping countries. A more funda- mental' problerp, is that ~omen often do not document or record their activities, making their lives invisible historically. Each of these books encapsulates the spirit of an age, while suggesting some abic:Iing themes in the relationship be- tween women and libraries. The theme of gender itself is explored only partially and obliquely. A related theme is faith in p:rogre.ss, which may no longer prevail in ~ ~ . f!~ .. I I March 1996 American librarianship or even in the American woman's movement, but is ali~e and well in women's struggles else- where in the world. Perhaps the theme- or rather the image-that unites the two books most strikingly is that of a network. The differe~ce between the old-fashioned . social network of personal and profes- sional relationships and modern regional ~nd global networks is one of technology and scope, but not function. What emerges clearly is the idea that informa- tion c9~f~~s pow~r,~and power is a good thing for women to have. Although few early American women-librarians identi- fied with the woman's movement, they ·.~exemplified it in their lives.-Jean Alex- ander, Northwestern University, Evanston, · Illinois. ~. . . . , ·· ·::... . Teaching Information Retrieval and · ..... ,. Evaluation Skills to Education Students and Practitioners: A:Casebook of Applications Patricia O'Brien Libutti, Bonni~ Gratch, editors Scenarios depicting actual inStructional sessions at the undergraduate, graduate, practition.~r, and high school levels using goa~ and objectives statell}ents. Several cases inch.ide the teach~g of ERIC and Internet resources. Most useful are ~· the reflective analyses of the sessions by librarian instru,ctor~ that r~veallessons learned about teaching technology. $26.50; ACRL member $22.50, 152p. ,. 0-8389-7813-4, 1995 Order from ALA· Order Fulfillment, 155 N. Wacker Dr., Chicago ; ··· IL 60611; Tel.: 800-545-2433 (press 7); Fax: 312-836-9958