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Book Reviews

Jeannette Woodward. The Transformed 
Library: E-books, Expertise, and Evolu-
tion. Chicago: ALA Editions, America 
Library Association, 2013. 131p. ISBN: 
978-0-8389-1164-8. LCCN: 2012-23767.

I feel ambivalent about this book. On the 
one hand, I think it worthwhile to read 
Woodward’s ruminations, as a seasoned 
librarian—she was previously a senior 
library administrator at Wayne State 
University, then director of the Fremont 
County Library System in Wyoming. 
On the other, I frequently found that the 
pacing and style of this book interfered 
with its purpose. Nevertheless, I think 
it valuable in providing one prominent 
librarian’s snapshot of the current state 
of the profession, which includes public, 
academic, and school librarianship.

The chapter headings themselves give 
a nice indication of the content and flow 
of the book: “Gutenberg Meets Kindle: 
The Arrival of Digital Books”; “Librar-
ies vs. E-Publishers: The Library’s Point 
of View”; “The Age of High Anxiety: 
Threats That Fuel Library Nightmares”; 
“The Library in Cyberspace”; “Will the 
Coffee Shop Save Us? The Library as 
Place”; “Library Careers That Won’t Go 
Away”; “Survival Strategies for Public 
Libraries”; “Survival Strategies for Aca-
demic Libraries”; and “Survival Strate-
gies for School Libraries.”

Of these, I thought the chapter on 
library as place was particularly strong, 
as were the chapters dealing with public 
libraries. It is clear that Woodward has 
had to wrestle with boards of trustees, 
local government, harrowing budget-
ary constraints, and even the mundane 
though centrally important issues of 
facilities management and maintenance. 
Her wisdom in these matters shines forth. 

The weakest chapters, in my opin-
ion, were the ones having to do with 
academic libraries. Woodward does not 
cover current and important issues—for 

instance, there is no mention 
of the open access move-
ment or data curation, and 
only passing mention of 
Geographic Information 
Systems (GIS). These are as 
important now as was, say, 
the movement to develop and implement 
institutional repositories, which began 
several years ago.

One objectionable trope of the book 
is that libraries tend to be “stodgy.” In 
the past six months I’ve had the plea-
sure not only of working in a vibrant 
academic research library—a library 
that is anything but stodgy—but also 
of visiting, sitting, and reading in 
wonderful public library branches in 
Adams County, Pennsylvania, Worces-
ter County, Maryland, and my home 
library system in Baltimore County, 
Maryland. My sense is that each of 
these public library systems is flourish-
ing. Baltimore County, in fact, recently 
opened the largest branch in its entire 
history! Moreover, Woodward urges the 
library world to better use social media, 
but I often attend the joint Maryland 
Library Association/Delaware Library 
Association’s annual conference, and I 
am astounded and impressed by what 
the public libraries in my region are 
doing with social media. And what 
other service profession is using these 
technologies to such good effect? 

Stasis and flow, being and becoming, 
transformed and transforming—it’s dif-
ficult to examine our profession in the 
midst of a protean evolution (witness 
the publishing industry’s present throes) 
and accurately report on progress. I 
do admire Woodward’s attempt to do 
so in this brief book, and think it is a 
worthwhile and timely read for those 
interested in taking the current pulse of 
the library world.—Mark Cyzyk, Johns 
Hopkins University.