reviews Book Reviews 79 University of Arizona West gave the li­ brary and the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum (CWAC) an exciting op­ portunity to play what they hoped would be a substantial role from the outset in a course that might prove to be a campuswide model. However, as Carolyn R. Johnson and her colleagues write, when the course began, librarians found that the class time they had negotiated had been pared down and that students began overwhelming library staff with questions about basic business concepts and critical thinking aspects of the course assignments. Because CWAC staff were facing similar problems with the course, the two units collaborated to make a case with management school faculty for giv­ ing both units a stronger role in the course and for making major revisions in the assignments. Because they planned their exposition of the problems carefully and collaboratively, the two units gained the respect of the management faculty and achieved the changes they wanted. Sharon Mader’s stimulating paper pre­ sents content as well as individual and group activities from her active learning workshop, “Collaborative Leadership for Learning.” She began with discussions of librarian/teaching faculty role expecta­ tions and how librarians can contribute to successful collaborations. At the core of her message, however, is the distinc­ tion between managing and leading. She Index to advertisers AIAA cover 3, 1, 9 Alibris 38 American Chem. Soc. cover 2 ARL 2 Blackwell’s Book Services 5 CHOICE 37, 86 EBSCO cover 4 Greenwood Publ. 44 Haworth Press 55 Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr 73 Library Technologies 64 Library Tech. Alliance 83 OCLC 29 follows this distinction with a discussion of team-centered leadership and praise for the skills and qualities instruction li­ brarians have developed that make them natural candidates for leadership roles. The volume concludes with brief iden­ tifications of the authors and with a sketchy, unhelpful index. It is regrettable that there was such a time lag between the delivery of the pa­ pers (June 1996) and their publication in this volume. Some of the projects de­ scribed were planned or first initiated as early as 1993, and many libraries have moved past some of the technological is­ sues discussed. Still, the volume is well worth reading for instruction librarians looking to expand their impact on the curriculum. There is substantial value in the program ideas, instructional design concepts, practical tips and techniques, and the authors’ pervasive enthusiasm for instruction.—Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling, Appalachian State University. Medicine, Mortality, and the Book Trade. Ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Pr. (Publishing Pathways), 1998. 170p. $39.95 (ISBN 1­ 884718-81-7). This series of seven carefully selected es­ says assembled by Robin Myers and Michael Harris explores the many aspects of the relationship between printing his­ tory and the history of medicine. The es­ says are grouped around the book’s the­ matic axis, and cover topics ranging from the passions of book collectors to the ail­ ments of printers. This is an essential ad­ dition to a collection intended to support research in the history of the book. It is equally important to collections in the history of medicine. Originally presented as conference proceedings, the papers in this text com­ bine to form part of the Publishing Path­ ways Series. The conference, organized through the University of London’s Birkbeck College, featured well-qualified librarians and historians from the United Kingdom who presented in-depth schol­ arly research. Each essay presents a con­ 80 College & Research Libraries cise treatment of its own, individual sub­ ject; together, the papers constitute an in­ troduction to the history of medicine and its relationship with publishing. In their rather brief introduction, Har­ ris and Myers comment on the ties be­ tween medicine and the book trade, and the dearth of materials already available on the subject. Although this analysis warrants an expanded treatment, it does not receive it in this volume. Instead, the editors look at the origins of the confer­ ence and summarize the included essays. Michael Harris’s opening essay, “Print­ ers’ Diseases: The Human Cost of a Me­ chanical Process,” addresses the profes­ sional aspects and practical side of the relationship between printing and medi­ cine by exploring the health risks faced by printers in the nineteenth century. The knowledge that various ailments arose from contact with printing type was not new to the industry; however, this exami­ nation is timed to coincide with the rise in interest in occupational health and medicine. Two appendices and a map supplement Harris’s essay. “Pills and Print,” by Peter Isaac, opens by citing the long-established relationship between printers and pharmacists, not­ ing that John Newbery was equally in­ volved in patent medicines and children’s books. Isaac goes on to assert that the print medium was primarily responsible for the spread of proprietary medicines, noting that “the worlds of patent medi­ cines and books came together in at least three ways: advertising, distribution, and manufacture.” This is seen to the greatest effect in the advertising of patent medi­ cines in testimonials, handbills, and newspapers. Isaac documents several in­ stances where printers joined forces with manufacturers of proprietary medicines to aid in their distribution. Vanessa Harding’s “Mortality and the Mental Map of London: Richard Smyth’s Obituary” is an in-depth analysis of a manuscript resembling a bill of mortal­ ity. Smyth, who lived in London during the seventeenth century, maintained records of the deaths of all his acquain- January 2000 tances, many of whom were involved in the printing and publishing trade. In “Medical Incunabula,” Lotte Hellinga takes a look at early printed books. Hellinga, who edited the Incun­ abula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) for a dozen years, explains her methodology for selecting the items she analyzes, de­ scribing them as addressing anything having to do with the well-being of man­ kind. She notes that just over one thou­ sand of the more than 27,000 Incunabula in the ISTC database fall into this category. The next two papers focus on the ac­ cumulation of historical scientific and medical books. In “Between the Market and the Academy: Robert S. Whipple (1871–1953) as a Collector of Science Books,” Silvia De Renzi attempts to illus­ trate the rise of scientific books as a popu­ lar collecting theme by an examination of Whipple’s collecting patterns. This con­ cise study incorporates a biographical sketch of the subject and a discussion of what it meant to be collecting scientific texts in the early years, as well as their ties to medicine. De Renzi completes this study with a look at the interaction be­ tween collectors of science books them­ selves and concludes with a glimpse of dealer–buyer interactions. John Symons studies another signifi­ cant collector in “‘These Crafty Dealers’: Sir Henry Wellcome as a Book Collector,” tracing his career for nearly forty years. Symons looks at Wellcome’s methodol­ ogy, the disposition of his books during the collector’s lifetime, and the coopera­ tion of his assistants and book scouts in building one of the greatest historical medical collections in the world. He places Wellcome in historical context and chronologically analyzes Wellcome’s col­ lecting practices and philosophy, recog­ nizing his distrust of booksellers. Roy Porter analyzes a different aspect of the hazards of book production in his paper, “Reading: A Health Warning.” Through a series of quotes and anecdotes, he provides a humorous look at ailments beyond the expected eye troubles attrib­ uted to reading, including cholera, mad­ Book Reviews 81 ness, and other implausible diseases. He has located a plethora of quotes to illus­ trate these sometimes-outlandish claims. All of the individual essays contain copious references that will aid the reader in further study of this discipline. The editors have supplemented the essays with an index that, though extremely use­ ful, focuses primarily on proper names. Overall, Medicine, Mortality, and the Book Trade will make a solid addition to collec­ tions focusing on the history of the book or medicine, and makes for informative and interesting reading to anyone inter­ ested in this subject.—Lois Fischer Black, The New York Academy of Medicine. Nardi, Bonnie A., and Vicki L. O’Day. Information Ecologies: Using Technology with Heart. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Pr., 1999. 232p. $27.50, alk. paper (ISBN 0­ 262-14066-7). LC 98-29318. What should ordinary people do when faced with the rapid growth of technol­ ogy, from the Internet to cloning, with its potential to dramatically change society and our lives? Bonnie Nardi and Vicki O’Day address this significant question in Information Ecologies. Their answer, in short, is “using technology with heart.” Nardi, a researcher at AT&T Labs— Research, has previously published two books related to human–computer inter­ actions. O’Day was formerly a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and is now a graduate student in anthro­ pology. Their book is divided into two major sections: The first is a theoretical interpretation of technology and is com­ posed of six chapters; the second contains a conclusion and six case studies, includ­ ing a case study of library services. In the first section, the authors review and criticize two views and three meta­ phors of technology. The authors hold the middle ground against two extreme views of technology, namely, technophilia and dystopia. The technophile view ac­ cepts new technology uncritically whereas the dystopian view rejects new technology blindly. Both views assume the inevitability of technology. The three metaphors are technology as tool, text, and system. Both the tool metaphor and the text metaphor enhance our under­ standing of certain aspects of technology, yet neither of them captures technology’s totality. The system metaphor is very close to what the authors propose; however, in comparison with the authors’ own ecol­ ogy metaphor, the system metaphor does not distinguish among local settings. Lo­ cality is one of the essential attributes of the ecology metaphor; it is in various lo­ cal settings that “individuals have an ac­ tive role, a unique and valuable local per­ spective, and a say in what happens” re­ garding the use of technology. Information ecology, which has much in common with biological ecology, is defined as “a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment.” (Note that the word ecology used here does not denote an aca­ demic study or discipline such as sociol­ ogy or psychology. Rather, it means a unit, a community, and a system.) Thus, a li­ brary is an information ecology; a hospi­ tal is an information ecology. According to this definition, most of the units (fac­ tories, families, business offices, etc.) in the developed countries today are infor­ mation ecologies. People, with their moral and social values and who participate lo­ cally in the use of technology, are the pri­ mary agents in information ecologies. Their active participation and engage­ ment has a great impact on technology. Technology’s inevitability is, therefore, a myth. An important aspect of active partici­ pation is the asking of the right questions. The book urges people to ask more why questions about technology instead of merely pursuing how questions because the former are more valuable. For in­ stance, the question, Why should we use this technology? is much more important than the question, How do we implement this technology? Of particular interest to librarians is that Nardi and O’Day have convincingly argued the important role played by li­ brarians in the new information age. They