bkrevs 94 College & Research Libraries Philosophical Aspects of Information Systems. Eds. R. L. Winder, S. K. Probert, and I. A. Beeson. London; Bristol, Penn.: Tay­ lor & Francis, 1997. 258p. $79.95 (ISBN 074807588). The essays in this compilation apply philosophical approaches practically— specifically, to help solve problems in in­ formation systems. The authors, the ma­ jority of whom appear to have degrees in philosophy but who work in computer science departments, revised papers pre­ sented at a 1993 symposium on the Philo­ sophical and Logical Aspects of Informa­ tion Systems (IS). Dealing primarily with Britain, the book does not articulate a common problem set or orientation to its subject. Instead, the editors opt for eclec­ ticism in approach. There is nonetheless im­ plicit and frequently evoked previous work with which reader familiarity is assumed. I am a relatively philosophically in­ formed anthropologist who has spent the past twenty years doing the ethnography of information technology (IT). This has included two extended field studies in Sheffield, England, the second of which focused on IT, local public policy, and change in working-class culture. My will­ ingness to review this book is a conse­ quence of my appreciation of how much IT inevitably involves philosophizing. I am convinced, for example, that comput­ ers are ultimately general symboling, rather than primarily calculating, ma­ chines and that their use often lands one in some contemporary “crises of repre­ sentation” or another. This is even more true if, like me and many of the authors, one’s desire is to encourage certain social correlates of IT and discourage others (e.g., “euskilling” versus de-skilling). It is especially true if one chooses to par­ ticipate actively in what I refer to as “the cultural construction of cyberspace” by being involved in IT development projects. Fenton Robb’s opening chapter is the only effort to survey the general issues addressable by IS philosophy. Among his points are questioning whether theoreti­ cal and practical work actually have much January 1999 to do with each other; the existence of what he calls “official views” of “infor­ mation” and “system”; questionable as­ sumptions underlying the official views that deserve closer attention (e.g., the world is well ordered and that IT systems operate in a stable environment); conse­ quences of these assumptions (“half­ baked systems cobbled together. . . gran­ diose plans for integrated corporate sys­ tems which never leave the planning stage. . . [and] . . . concealment of knowl­ edge about the fragility and vulnerabil­ ity of the information systems them­ selves”); ethical implications of current IS practice (how “the use of information sys­ tems forces on us an appreciation of the world through accountant’s or statistician’s eyes . . . simplified, but highly specific definitions of people”); and the dangers of electronic surveillance. Robb passes lightly and quickly from de­ tached observation to scathing critique to pious hope. He articulates contradictory impressions, for example, contending that an organization’s IT system “can insure that correct behavior is constantly main­ tained,” but also that “the technology of surveillance is neither neutral nor reliable.” Norma Romm takes up the issue of how to conceptualize “information,” ad­ vocating an approach that stresses its so­ cially meaningful—produced through the participation of people—rather than neu­ tral, factual character. Ignoring structural supports for the popularity of positivist conceptions of information, Romm’s re­ petitive argument leaves me dubious about this “philosophy first” road to suc­ cessful activism. Like most of the authors, her approach, a survey of other thinkers on this issue with the occasional reference to empirical data, is typically philosophical. Jim Gilligan again raises Romm’s ques­ tions on how to think about “informa­ tion,” especially the various, often changeable, ways that informaticians dis­ tinguish it from “data.” He constructs a Wittgensteinian “language game” ap­ proach to these efforts in order to “high­ light the need to question which game is being played in any particular situation, Book Reviews 95 and how useful it is to our purpose.” An enthusiast in relation to recent IT devel­ opments such as object orientation and increased processing power, Gilligan would have us just enjoy the conceptual ride: “If we turn away from attempting to define and produce the substance of information, we may discover new ben­ efits and new opportunities in providing for the activity of information.” John Mingers agrees with Gilligan about the lack of IS clarity regarding “in­ formation,” but he thinks this is a prob­ lem. Its solution, as for Romm, depends on getting right the relationship of infor­ mation to “meaning.” Because humans are always already wrapped in meaning, we never interact with pure information: “Information systems is, therefore, a mis­ nomer. We should really be concerned with the much larger domain of meaning systems or sense systems, seeing infor­ mation as but a part of this.” In essence, Mingers makes a case for repositioning IS similar to Romm’s, but on conceptual rather than primarily ethical grounds. Martin Spaul explores the philosophi­ cal roots of Heidegger’s “tool perspec­ tive,” arguably the most influential, as well as philosophically most explicit, al­ ternative approach to “official” IS design. Sproul’s intent is “to caution against the crusading tone of the principal formula­ tions of the tool perspective and its por­ trayal as a replacement for, or improve­ ment on, the Cartesian approach.” He argues that (e.g., Scandinavian) writers’ polemical appropriation of Heidegger’s notion without adequate attention to its political and ethical dimensions compro­ mises their interventions. Invoking Habermas, Spaul provides the book’s most convincing, albeit indirect, argu­ ment for sustained philosophical eclecti­ cism with regard to IS. “[T]o create a space to explore an al­ ternative understanding of the nature and generation of knowledge,” Anne Moggridge’s contribution performs the reflexivity so central to postmodern femi­ nism. She situates herself in relation to the symposium as a woman and a person whose “position reflects values which are often perceived as “inferior,” apparently including the human-centered systems development and critical systems think­ ing that she briefly invokes. Abjuring cri­ tique, she sets her task at finding “a way of bringing my own ideas in.” She does this by repeating the brief position paper she prepared for the symposium, recon­ structing the talk she actually offered, and then reflecting on her experience, high­ lighting the male posturing that domi­ nated discussion of her talk. Frank Gregory takes up “the real world mapping problem” or “how a system that is an invention of the human mind helps us to understand a world that is not.” Eleven thousand years of cultural evolu­ tion have given humans the “trial-and­ error ” time to create mathematics that map. Thus, distinguishing those artificial systems that help us understand the real world from those that do not is a prob­ lem in IS because it is “young,” feedback deprived. Richard Kamm philosophizes that as­ pect of the “official” view that holds that organizations evolve through a predict­ able developmental trajectory, the “organ­ ismic” metaphor. This idea is particularly central to current, very popular notions regarding flexible, “virtual” organiza­ tions. Finding this idea at the root of both systems theory and sociotechnical sys­ tems ideas, Kamm uses its articulation by Talcott Parsons “for discussing the possi­ bility of developing a consistently organic definition of the nature of organizational information.” Kamm focuses on Parson’s functional theory of the creation of moral consensus and the role of information in it, which is not a mechanical, numeric process: “the development of organiza­ tional information systems is a normative activity similar to the practice of law or the writing of constitutions.” Thus, the privileging of statistical measures in pro­ grams such as total quality management is a mistake. Perhaps most valuably, he recognizes the necessity for models of information in organizations to come to terms with disagreement, not only over 96 College & Research Libraries the meaning of data, but also what the relevant cultural constructs are. Other papers take diverse approaches. Brian Petheram thinks the mess that is IS has to do with insufficient philosophical sensibility. Rather than select a philo­ sophical package or adopt a single ap­ proach, Petheram echoes Spaul’s call for eclecticism. Paul Wernick and Russel Winder apply the terminology developed by Thomas Kuhn with regard to scientific revolutions to the various moments in software engineering (SE). Their appro­ priation of Kuhn actually does little to il­ luminate this issue; indeed, their use of paradigm contributes to the plethora of widely divergent appropriations of this term. Stephen Probert, in contrast, offers a closely argued critique of soft systems methodology (SSM) via illumination of contradictions in its epistemological as­ sumptions. His essential position is that, although SSMers overtly justify their ap­ proach in terms of a subjectivist episte­ mology, its more general rationale is firmly grounded in early science objec­ tivist ontology. A set of papers on the organizational context of IS shifts attention away from conceptual issues toward empirical ones. Nick Plant’s efforts to help community organizations develop “sustainable” IS raise, he believes, important issues for IS philosophy. He identifies several distinc­ tive features of IS in this domain, discov­ ered via previous work in community IS development. Stuart Maguire critiques previous efforts to develop organizational IS as “product-led.” He advocates a “mar- ket-led” approach as a “new philosophy.” Like Plant, he argues that IS is different in organizations that are not directly profit oriented. Like many people with a more social orientation to IS, George Bakehouse, Chris Davis, Kevin Doyle, and Sam Wa­ ters evoke anthropology in conceptualiz­ ing their role developing IS for a specific purpose. The philosophical contribution is to derive from General Systems Theory, Soft Systems Methodology, Cartesian philosophy, social science, and a large list January 1999 of other domains, a set of conceptual nug­ gets they feel are related to the “quick and dirty” ethnography they employ on their project. The philosophizing is also sup­ posed to support a complex analytic framework oriented primarily to cost con­ siderations. This is illustrated in several pages of charts, data for which are only indirectly related to their ethnography. The book ends with two papers on IS and the biologically human. John Gammack and Carolyn Begg consider the implications of the phenomenon of syna­ esthesia, the integration of sensory mo­ dalities in experience, for IS. Ian Beeson argues more generally that IS thinking, including even its more socially progres­ sive forms, pays insufficient attention to the body in concentrating on disembod­ ied mind. He argues for designing sys­ tems that develop fully into lived, situ­ ated experience. Although predisposed to appreciate a philosophical approach to IT, I found this eclectic collection ultimately disappoint­ ing. In general, the pieces were well writ­ ten and intelligible to a nonphilosopher, but I wanted sharper arguments over obvious points of difference between au­ thors. I urge the group involved to have another go at specifying more exactly where current philosophy of IS is on the wide spectrum between “anything goes” eclecticism and demands that systems developers line up behind a single philo­ sophical approach or methodology.— David Hakken, SUNY Institute of Technology. Shiflett, Lee. Louis Shores: Defining Edu- cational Librarianship. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Pr., 1996. 304p. $36, alk. pa­ per (ISBN 0-8108-3114-7). LC-95­ 050041. Louis Shores conceived of librarians working in American universities as teachers and worked for their promotion to a level equal to that of other faculty. His other contributions to librarianship include serving as editor of Collier’s En- cyclopedia; developing “educational li­ brarianship,” and establishing the ALA’s Library History Round Table.