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490 College & Research Libraries September 1998 

driven out of our country and who found 
a haven in newly liberated Ghana. Bruce 
Cummings describes how power and 
money shaped the enterprise, and for 
those who say it is hard to insult faculty, 
they can now add it is not hard to seduce 
faculty. In Cummings’s story, the prod­
uct of academic knowledge generally fol­
lowed changes in world power and world 
markets. So much for independent lead­
ership in the academy. The Slava 
Gerovitch piece describes the interplay 
between the state and academy in Russia 
and concludes with the surprising obser­
vation that it was very much like what 
was happening in the United States at the 
time. There was more in common than in 
difference between Russia and the U.S. 
The final essay by Lawrence Soley indi­
cates how the national security state was 
supplanted by corporate-sponsored 
scholarship and knowledge to create an 
environment conducive to corporate in­
terests. In this essay, Soley describes what 
must be obvious, but is not, to most uni­
versity professors, especially at the 
“great” universities. By my observation, 
the takeover is coming close to total, es­
pecially in certain quarters such as busi­
ness schools and integrative biology pro­
grams, but elsewhere as well. We can see 
it in the names of companies scattered all 
over the University of California at Ber­
keley, and elsewhere. 

Such examinations of a submerged his­
tory make the reader once again recon­
sider the nature of knowledge. When pri­
vate interest pervades the universities, 
just as when state interests pervade, 
knowledge produced becomes suspect 
and credibility becomes an issue. Why 
should anyone believe what biochemists 
are saying about pesticides not being re­
lated to cancer cause if there is no arm’s 
length? Indeed, why should special-inter­
est knowledge be funded by the taxpayer 
for private interests, they may ask. Uni­
versities and Empire provides us with the 
nitty-gritty with which to think about 
such issues and insight as to what it will 

take to remedy them, and what we lose if 
we do not. This book is a sobering contri­
bution as to how we got to where we are. 
It is well written, accessible, and well in­
formed, and should stimulate thinking 
among students, faculty, and taxpayers 
alike.—Laura Nader, University of Califor­
nia-Berkeley. 

The Role of Professional Associations. Ed. Joy 
Thomas. Champaign: University of Il­
linois Graduate School of Library and 
Information Science, Library Trends 46 
(fall 1977): 229–425. $18.50. 

This is a rather pedestrian addition to the 
usually distinguished Library Trends se­
ries. In many cases, it seems that the ar­
ticles were assigned, and dutifully 
cranked out, but without much panache 
or enthusiasm. In other cases, however, 
they are quite lively. But, distressingly, 
none of them ask the key question that 
should have been the basis of any seri­
ous discussion of professional associa­
tions: What is a professional association, 
as opposed to a voluntary association that 
admits anyone, degreed librarian or not, 
who cares to join? Is ALA really a profes­
sional association, or merely one in which 
most of the members happen to be (but 
do not have to be) librarians? The lead 
article, “Professional Associations or 
Unions?” by Tina Hovekamp, would 
have benefited particularly from some 
awareness of this definitional issue, as she 
searches for some sort of tertium quid, 
rather than the false dilemma of having 
to choose simply between a union and a 
“professional association.” She concludes 
that a combination of both is needed, in­
dicating the usefulness of considering 
new models—but she never does. 

What we have here, therefore, is a book 
about professionalism that never defines 
professional—a serious flaw. That having 
been said, however, some of the articles 
do have value, and one cannot deny the 
overall importance of the volume’s 
theme. Librarians spend great amounts 
of time working in these associations, 



 

 

Book Reviews 491 

whatever they are; just how much is high­
lighted in Joy Thomas’s survey/article on 
the attitudes of people who have served 
recently as president of a state or local 
association. Many of these people had no 
clerical support and sacrificed valuable 
personal and financial resources to serve, 
out of a pure sense of duty. This speaks 
well for the profession. Another well-
written article is Cindy Mediavilla’s piece 
on the role of the California Library As­
sociation in fighting anti-Communist cen­
sorship between 1946 and 1956. Also 
noteworthy is Sue Kamm’s survey of why 
librarians choose to join associations (for 
networking, receipt of publications, op­
portunity to contribute to the profession, 
and so on). Other pieces march though 
topics such as the role of staff versus vol­
unteer in associations and the value that 
associations have in individuals’ careers. 

William Fisher’s “The Value of Profes­
sional Associations” comes to the remark­
able conclusion that “without such asso­
ciations of which they become officers, 
without professional association confer­
ences at which they attend and/or deliver 
papers and go to meetings, and without 
professional association publications of 
which they become editors, reviewers, 
and/or authors, library directors would 
have to devote more of their time to the 
day-to-day running of their libraries. If 
they exist for no better reason than to 
keep library directors busy, our profes­
sional associations play an important 
role.” If this flippant and outrageous in­
sult to the altruistic sacrifices of so many 
people constitutes a valid conclusion to 
one of the volume’s think pieces, one can 
only wonder where Library Trends is 
headed.—William Miller, Florida Atlantic 
University, Boca Raton. 

Edward R. Tufte. Visual Explanations: Im­
ages and Quantities, Evidence and Nar­
rative. Cheshire, Conn.: Graphics Pr., 
1997. 156p. $45 (postpaid from au­
thor/publisher) (ISBN 0-9613921-2-6). 
LC 97-127584. 

This is Edward Rolf Tufte’s third self-
published, self-distributed, and self-pro­
moted book on representing information. 
Whatever one thinks of this trilogy, it is, 
collectively, one of the more interesting 
footnotes in the history of late twentieth-
century publishing. As venerable old 
houses increasingly find themselves in 
the bellies of much larger beasts, as mega-
media groups form and reform like giant 
protoplasma, there remains Edward 
Tufte. A professor of engineering at Yale, 
he is a publishing phenomenon of his 
own. I am unaware of any other academic 
who has been as successful as Tufte in 
putting out his own corpus. 

I will not pretend to account for Tufte’s 
popularity; it perplexes me as much as 
Umberto Eco’s. To be sure, each of his 
books is handsomely designed and lov­
ingly made, illustrative of the principles 
it communicates. But packaging goes only 
so far. I first encountered Tufte years ago 
in a smart-looking ad in the New Yorker. 
The fact that the ad was (a) handsome and 
(b) in the New Yorker was (for me, any­
way) persuasive. I ordered a copy of The 
Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 
even though I did not have the remotest 
interest in the topic. 

Whatever the reasons, one thing is cer­
tain: In this current age of the interface, 
where everyone is his or her own Web 
master, Tufte’s work is timely and rel­
evant. Like most everyone else, librarians 
spend large chunks of time huddled be­
fore screens filled with words, numbers, 
icons, bars, colors, and anything else that 
can be made to fit the space. We admire 
their occasional elegance, and we scream 
at their all-too-frequent indifference to 
design. Moreover, librarians are not only 
information specialists and managers, 
they also are information designers. Al­
though trained to manage information, 
librarians are not trained to present it vi­
sually. This is why Tufte is worth con­
sulting. He is clear, straightforward, 
witty, and opinionated. He will give some 
context and guidelines for thinking about