reviews 292 College & Research Libraries that warrant further research. Among his points is the need to establish long-term infrastructure for authentication, includ­ ing provision of a watermarking process, intellectual and economic support for the process, and the technological support necessary for management of digital ob­ jects. At the current time, this manage­ ment process is being driven by the mo­ tivation for profit in the publishing indus­ try, and this will not sustain the goals of archival preservation. Finally, Jeff Rothenberg, a senior com­ puter scientist at the Rand Corporation, writes in his essay, “Preserving Authen­ tic Digital Information,” that a “uniform technological approach” is necessary for the true authentication of digital objects. He accurately compares this concept with the Rosetta Stone, as it would provide translation capabilities borne through the commonality of validation. Urging cross-disciplinary communication and cooperation, Rothenberg builds a case for the establishment of a common authenti­ cation vocabulary. These essays, read individually and as a whole, are provocative to anyone who has interests in publication, research, ar­ chives, copyright, and other aspects of information perpetuity. None is so tech­ nical as to be daunting nor so scholarly as to be obscure. This is, in fact, a remark­ ably clear-eyed and cohesive collection. Each essay is opinionated and compel­ ling. The summary following the essays, written by Abby Smith, director of pro­ grams at CLIR, does a good job of identi­ fying key issues that appear in the papers and that arose in discussions during the meeting. Her introduction also serves its purpose well. This collection can be rec­ ommended to all who are interested in this timely topic, as well as to students preparing to forge a career in the infor­ mation world broadly defined.—Tom Schneiter, Harvard University. Douglass, John Aubrey. The California Idea and American Higher Education, 1850 to the 1960 Master Plan. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Pr., 2000. 460p. May 2001 $55, alk. paper (ISBN 0804731896). LC 99-45668. Is there a distinctively “American” contribution to the development of higher education in the Western world? Begin­ ning at least with Veysey’s landmark study of The Emergence of the American University (1965), a number of scholars have suggested that there is. Douglass builds on Veysey’s work, as well as that of more recent historians of higher edu­ cation, including Levine and Geiger, to describe the evolution of public higher education in California as a reflection of American egalitarianism. He suggests that the “California Idea” is a model for building a broadly accessible system of high-quality institutions of higher edu­ cation that eventually might be as influ­ ential on the world stage as was the Ger­ man model of the research university more than a century ago. For those unfamiliar with the subject, a short introduction is required. In its cur­ rent form, public higher education in Cali­ fornia is built on three systems: the Cali­ fornia Community Colleges (CC), the Cali­ fornia State University (CSU), and the University of California (UC). This tripar­ tite system provides the youth of the state with unparalleled access to postsecondary education. Moreover, each type of institu­ tion occupies a specific niche within the system (with the UC system, for example, the only one authorized to independently grant the doctoral degree). Although the present arrangement is largely the result of the so-called master plan for higher edu­ cation engineered by UC President Clark Kerr in 1960, Douglass argues that Cali­ fornia had long been committed to coor­ dinating a statewide system of comple­ mentary educational institutions. This commitment to both increase access to higher education and create high-quality institutions as part of “a logical and inter­ connected system” of public higher edu­ cation is what Douglass refers to as the California Idea. Douglass contrasts the California ap­ proach to public higher education with Book Reviews 293 those taken elsewhere in the United States. Midwestern land-grant universi­ ties, for example, are seen as trying to be “all things to all people, incorporating not only the goals of a research university, but also the educational responsibilities and admissions standards of a junior college, including vocational training.” Likewise, postwar approaches to institutional coor­ dination such as the State University of New York system are seen as belated at­ tempts to enforce order from the top down on a “happy anarchy” of histori­ cally unrelated colleges and universities. Although there is an inevitable air of boosterism about this work, Douglass’s arguments concerning the unique ap­ proach to public higher education taken in California during the past century are persuasive. Also significant is the way in which the present work complements and extends earlier studies in the history of education. Douglass’s history of educational policy- making at the state level is valuable, and it extends familiar arguments about sup­ port for K–12 public education to the postsecondary level. Likewise, his analy­ sis of the influence of Progressive-era movements, both in political and educa­ tional reform, on the evolution of the Cali­ fornia Idea builds on earlier work focus­ ing on K–12 education (e.g., Tyack’s The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education, 1974). Douglass’s analy­ sis of the historical relationship among public investment in accessible higher education, individual socioeconomic mobility, and state and regional economic growth not only builds on earlier work, but also has important implications for contemporary debates on educational policy. One thing that I have always remem­ bered about the brief period of my child­ hood spent in southern California is that my mother never worried about how she would afford the higher education we both knew I would eventually obtain. Everyone went to college in California, my mother told me, and it was virtually free. My memory is undoubtedly colored by the fact that I was only ten years old at the time, but my mind turned back to those days more than once as I read Douglass’s richly researched history of higher education in California. As he writes in his Introduction, “Access to a public higher education … [was] an im­ portant facet in the lives of Californians. It profoundly shaped their aspirations and, ultimately, their views on what it meant to be Californian.” More than once, I have encountered the brilliant products of California state schools and wondered about the devel­ opment of its unusual system of higher education. This study answers a number of questions about how California has gotten to its present point in the provi­ sion of public higher education. Although many will undoubtedly question the overwhelmingly positive portrayal of the California state system as described by Douglass, its significance to programs in history of education, higher education, and public policy ensures its value for any academic library collection.—Scott Walter, Washington State University. The New Review of Libraries and Lifelong Learning. Ed. Peter Brophy. Cam­ bridge: Taylor Graham, 2000. v.1. Pub­ lished annually. U.S. subscription price $130. ISSN 1468-9944. Editor Peter Brophy states in his opening editorial for this first volume, “Lifelong learning is among the most important policy issues across the world at the start of the twenty-first century.” The advent of globalization, the rise of multinational corporations, and the rapid development of digital networks that span continents challenge higher education systems ev­ erywhere. The definition of student and teacher are being transformed. This new serial publication seeks to show how li­ brarians can contribute to these trends. At first glance, one might be skeptical of the need for this journal. Many of us are not experts on the topic, nor heavily engaged in the issues surrounding either “lifelong” learners or their kin, the “dis­ tant” learner. However, further examina­