510 College & Research Libraries September 2012

services that are traditional to public 
libraries, the book will be of less interest 
to most academic librarians. Public librar-
ians and library school students are the 
principal audience. As a result, overall, 
this book serves as a valuable source for 
public librarians who want to reevaluate 
and reexamine their instructional servic-
es.—Ning Han, Mississippi State University.

Transforming Information Literacy 
Programs: Intersecting Frontiers of 
Self, Library Culture, and Campus 
Community. Eds. Carroll Wetzel 
Wilkinson and Courtney Bruch. Chi-
cago: Association of College and Re-
search Libraries, 2012. 263p. $62 (ISBN 
9780838986035). LC 2011-050153.

Librarians have long been viewed as 
gatekeepers, stationed at the boundary 
between information resources and in-
formation users. In an era of ubiquitous 
information, when there is no gate left 
to keep, libraries are reexamining their 
culture and priorities as they adapt to a 
rapidly shifting environment. Perhaps 
one of the most dramatic responses to 
this era of change has been libraries’ in-
creased emphasis on information literacy. 
However, as the editors and contribu-
tors of Transforming Information Literacy 
Programs observe, libraries are still torn 
between their traditional role as service 
organizations and this still-evolving idea 
of the academic library as an institution 
fundamentally engaged in teaching and 
learning. The ambitious agenda of this 
book is to survey the current landscape 
of information literacy programming 
development, identify frontiers as yet 
little explored, and “serve as a catalyst…
for transformational change” in libraries.

Transforming Information Literacy Pro-
grams is broken into four sections, each 
with two to three chapters. The sections 
explore the metaphor of the “frontier” in-
cluding “Outlining Current Boundaries,” 
“Frontiers of Self,” “Fortifying Institu-
tional Partnerships,” and “Charting Next 
Steps.” The nine chapters all fall within 
the larger theme of their respective sec-

tions, and the sections follow each other 
in logical order. 

The first section, “Outlining Current 
Boundaries,” focuses on the current state 
of information literacy, both in the litera-
ture and in practice. In the opening chap-
ter, the editors, Carroll Wetzel Wilkinson 
and Courtney Bruch, provide a literature 
review that, for the most part, focuses on 
the main challenges librarians face when 
working with information literacy. Rather 
than stop there, they conclude with a 
review of the literature on changing 
institutional culture to focus on informa-
tion literacy and provide a list of specific 
recommendations for ACRL leaders, key 
campus officials, individual instruction 
librarians, and groups of librarians to 
foster an information literacy culture. In 
the second chapter, Dr. Celene Seymour 
continues the theme of “outlining current 
boundaries” by investigating the culture 
of information literacy instruction using 
an ethnographic study of nine informa-
tion literacy instructors. She analyzes the 
challenges they see in their work, the suc-
cesses they have accomplished, and what 
they believe the future holds. Her chapter 
provides rich, individualized accounts of 
the challenges information literacy librar-
ians face, as well as areas the profession 
needs to address, including better prepa-
ration for teaching, the need for a more 
precise definition of information literacy, 
and the need for more institutional sup-
port for information literacy.

The second section, “Frontiers of 
Self,” offers two different accounts of the 
librarian’s relationship with information 
literacy. It begins with an engaging essay 
on the inherent difficulties in defining 
critical information literacy by Dr. James 
Elmborg, who has written extensively 
on the subject. In it, he provides a frame-
work for thinking about information lit-
eracy as a “complicated set of interwoven 
practices” rather than a “goal-driven, 
product-driven activity.” He asks readers 
to rethink librarians’ current relationships 
with students and become collaborators 
with them rather than instructors. The 



Book Reviews 511

second chapter in this section, by Noël 
Kopriva, focuses on how information lit-
eracy instruction is shaped by the femini-
zation of both teaching and librarianship. 

The third section, “Fortifying Insti-
tutional Partnerships,” focuses on insti-
tutional issues facing instruction librar-
ians. Anne E. Zald and Michelle Millet 
discuss how the Coates Library at Trinity 
University successfully implemented a 
universitywide program that integrated 
information literacy outcomes in course 
curricula across campus, in response to 
the university undergoing accreditation. 
They highlight the necessity of the library 
being “actively engaged” with other cam-
pus partners, especially organizations that 
control the curriculum, as well as the im-
portance of having a library administration 
focused on advocating for the “educational 
mission” of the library. Robert Schroeder 
then provides a literature review on the 
connections and associations between 
critical thinking and information literacy; 
he also reports on a survey that asked re-
spondents their views on the relationship 
between the two concepts. He finds that 
the concepts are similar enough in their 
goals that partnering with other organi-
zations on campus who are interested in 
promoting critical thinking is beneficial in 
assisting the library’s own goal of further-
ing information literacy. The final chapter 
in this section, by Jo Ann Carr, focuses on 
methods of creating a “seamless informa-
tion literacy curriculum” for K–12 and 
higher education. She offers suggestions 
to the leadership in ALA, ALA’s divisions 
and state chapters, and librarians in aca-
demic, school, and public libraries on what 
they can do to assist in building a com-
prehensive information literacy program.

The fourth section, “Charting Next 
Steps,” includes two chapters about stra-
tegic actions that instruction librarians 
should take to illustrate their importance 
to their institution as educators. April 
D. Cunningham and Carrie Donovan 
discuss the evolving role of librarians 
from service to teaching and report on 
the results from a survey that investigated 

the “perceived effects of evaluation proce-
dures and reward structures on librarians’ 
teaching and the effect of librarians’ teach-
ing on their evaluations and rewards.” 
Using results from their survey, they 
then propose a useful set of best prac-
tices for the documentation and review 
of librarians’ contributions to teaching in 
academia. Nancy H. Seamans’ final essay 
looks back retrospectively at information 
literacy in libraries and reports on discus-
sions she had with several library leaders 
concerning the successes and failures of 
library information literacy instruction in 
the last twenty years, as well as pointing 
to opportunities for the future.

Transforming Information Literacy Pro-
grams does not offer any easy answers on 
transforming into an information literacy 
culture at an academic institution; several 
authors throughout the book note that 
information literacy itself has no set, 
easy definition even within the library 
profession. This book does, however, offer 
librarians multiple perspectives on what 
information literacy means to a number 
of instruction librarians, library deans, 
and faculty members in LIS and related 
professions, many of whom have worked 
in academia and academic libraries for 
years. These perspectives serve to illu-
minate some of the key issues instruction 
librarians face when working in academic 
institutions, and they shape the authors’ 
responses to how librarians can overcome 
some of these issues. 

Overall, this book provides a useful 
overview of the issues faced by librar-
ians who provide information literacy 
programming at their institutions. It 
provides a nice mix of well-indexed and 
documented research reviews, case study, 
surveys, and essays and balances the theo-
retical aspects of creating an institutional 
information literacy culture with practical 
ideas on what individuals and groups of 
like-minded librarians can do to work 
toward this goal. This is a great book for 
librarians who undertake any teaching 
responsibilities on their campuses and 
can serve as a tool to start or continue the 



512 College & Research Libraries September 2012

discussion within your library about the 
importance of and need for a more com-
prehensive information literacy focus both 
in your library and on campus. Several 
chapters would be very useful in courses in 
library school, including the two chapters 
in the second section highlighting differ-
ent theoretical definitions of information 
literacy. Finally, library administrators and 
academic policy makers and strategists, 
especially those whose universities are un-
dergoing accreditation or rethinking their 
strategic goals, should read this to be able 
to better articulate the need for information 
literacy learning outcomes within the uni-
versity’s mission and curriculum.—Kate B. 
Moore, Indiana University Southeast.

Christina Zamon. The Lone Arranger: 
Succeeding in a Small Repository. Chi-
cago: Society of American Archivists, 
2012. 157p. alk. paper, $69.95 (ISBN 
1931666415). LC2011-052238.

Lone arrangers are the sole staff of an 
archives, often working alone or with a 
staff of part-time employees, interns, or 
volunteers. The term originates from the 
Lone Ranger, the fictional masked hero 
who, with his Native American sidekick, 
Tonto, crusades against injustice in the 
Old West. In an archival context, lone ar-
rangers fight for access and preservation 
of the world’s cultural heritage while 
battling budget cuts, administrative de-
mands, and preservation problems. 

With this in mind, The Lone Arranger: 
Succeeding in a Small Repository offers 
guidance and best practices on the daily 
challenges and work demands of small 

archives. Author Christina Zamon ad-
dresses a range of topics, including ad-
ministration and management, budgeting, 
fundraising and donor relations, informa-
tion technology issues, collection develop-
ment, records management, preservation, 
reference and outreach, facility adminis-
tration, disaster planning, and internship 
and volunteer programs. The volume’s 
insight is relevant to both experienced 
professionals and novices in religious, 
academic, corporate, government, library, 
museum, or historical society settings. 

The book exhibits a sense of humor on 
its cover by displaying a domino mask 
alongside the traditional archival accoutre-
ments of white gloves and acid-free fold-
ers. Additionally, amusing chapter titles—
“What Am I Doing Here?” “What Is This 
Stuff?” and “You Want What?” among 
others—demonstrate the bewilderment 
some archivists experience when starting 
work in a small repository. 

For lone arrangers, time manage-
ment and goal setting is vital. As Zamon 
mentions, “It is essential to take things 
in stride and learn to say no, while still 
trying your best to meet the demands of 
your job.” This is especially important 
for archivists who tend to be perfection-
ists. She advises, “It is easy to focus too 
much on how something ‘should’ be 
done while we lose sight of what really 
‘needs’ to be done. Look at archival stan-
dards as a goal to aim for, but don’t feel 
as though you have failed if those goals 
are not met. When it comes to managing 
collections, any structure is better than no 
structure.” Often, new archivists inherit 
less-than-ideal organizational systems, 
but, as the author writes, “Leave what 
has already been done and start working 
on the big picture by defining groups of 
records rather than individual records.” 
The recommendations offered in Mark A. 
Greene and Dennis Meissner’s influential 
2005 American Archivist article, “More 
Product, Less Process,” are ideal for lone 
arrangers who “may need to give up the 
idea of fully fleshed out finding aids in 
favor of simpler inventories or box lists.” 

Index to advertisers
ACRL 2013 430
ACRL Awards 516
ACRL Publications 419
ALA Joblist 468
Archival Products cover 3
Bowker/RCL 414
Counting Opinions cover 4
EBSCO 413
MIT Press Journals cover 2