Book Reviews

Electronic Expectations: Science Journals on the Web.TonyStankus. New York, NY: Haworth Press; 1999: 204 pp. Price:$24.95. (ISBN: 0-7890-0846-7.)

The last few years have witnessed a revolution in the wayscientists access information. Preprint servers, electronic journals,and web-based interactive learning environments provide re-searchers the opportunity to answer many of their questions with-out leaving their desks or labs.Electronic Expectationslooks at theentire environment surrounding the electronic journal componentof the electronic environment and what it means for libraries andtheir users, publishers, and aggregators and indexers. The authorhas created a handful of self-styled ‘tutorial reviews’ that cover: 1)key trends, 2) the basics of publishing (from a print perspective),3) technology/computer issues, 4) publisher strategies and con-cerns, and 5) the concerns of the aggregators and indexers. Thebook concludes with an extended, subject-indexed, bibliography ofthe URLs of electronic journals available in the sciences. Thematerial is geared toward not only science librarians, but also thepublishers and aggregators involved in the packaging and dissem-ination of scholarly scientific information.

This book, unlike the bulk of theScience and TechnologyLibraries Monographsseries, is unedited, and written entirely byTony Stankus. It illustrates the peril of being one’s own editor.Stankus’ decision to write his tutorial reviews on subjects where“it should be admitted that there is no unanimity of historicalrecounting or consensus of forecasting in the literature surveyed bythis author” (p.5), without referencing any of his ideas, makes fortroubling reading, especially since the text of his reviews does notallow for dissenting opinions. Where the author and reviewer didnot see eye to eye on an issue, it was not easy to resolve thedifference by consulting the literature. Whereas the reader isadvised that “contrary assessments are readily to be found in theseveral reference lists following each paper in this work” (p. 5), thenumber of reference lists is typically closer to one, with titles suchas “Bibliography on Electronic Publishing and Electronic Journalsin General, Including Pro and Con Assessments” (p. 11). Thus, the‘contrary assessments’ are buried somewhere within these undif-ferentiated, and unannotated, lists of 50 or so references. Thereader is hard pressed to duplicate the thought processes of theauthor short of consulting all cited references. Thus, practicallyspeaking, the book becomes a 100-page opinion piece with someassociated bibliographies, rather than a scholarly review of thestate of electronic journals.

Despite the deficiencies of style and its concomitant lack ofaccountability of the content, this book does provide some goodinsights into scholarly publishing, especially from perspectivesother than those of librarians. The second article in the book, forexample, explains the costs and requirements of publishing ajournal, showing where there is room for cost savings by going toan electronic format and/or automating a particular process. He is,perhaps, a little presumptuous at times, for example, when he takes

the entire profession onto his shoulders and proclaims that librar-ians prefer a highly screened set of scientific titles/articles over thecurrent unbridled publication patterns of scientists as “fairest tolibrary budgets.” This may be valid in his academic environment,but at least this reviewer understands that the most useful article isnot always the one most acclaimed at the time of its publication.He does include a nice little bibliography on preprint archives atthe end of the article (which may ameliorate the need for quite aslarge body of refereed journal literature), but, alas, does not men-tion preprints at all in the body of the article, nor does he bring thatidea forward as a solution to the unbridled publication problem.

His third article deals with technology issues. It starts out withsome solid introductory descriptions of computers, internet proto-cols, different file formats used by electronic journals, and the like.He then launches into a gleefully sordid history of the computerindustry (complete with an extended analogy between Bill Clintonand Bill Gates), with the end result of trying to persuade librariansto back Sun Microsystems’ Java standard in any e-journal theypurchase or make available. Essentially, if librarians don’t back thePure Java/Netscape axis, they will be forced to live with the evilWintel empire and its constant appetite for more and more frequentand expensive upgrades.

The fourth and fifth articles address some of the issues sur-rounding the electronic strategies of the various scientific publish-ers and the ‘middlemen’ of the journal industry: the aggregators,indexers, and OCLC. They consider the resources available andthe priorities of the different kinds of publishers (universitypresses, non-profit societies, and for-profit publishers), and howthey can and are working together and/or with libraries to maintaintheir market. The aggregators and indexers have to keep them-selves relevant to libraries amidst the lessening need for serialsmaintenance (since, for example, electronically, there are no miss-ing issues) and the growing interlinking of references betweenjournals.

In the final article, Stankus has reworked his list of journalsfrom his booksMaking Sense of Journals in the Physical Sciencesand Making Sense of Journals in the Life Sciences, which rankjournals according to his homegrown evaluation system, brokendown into very specific subtopics. Thus, the list contains theapproximately 1,000 ranked core journals in the sciences that areavailable electronically, with their respective URLs. Unfortu-nately, Stankus has created an absolutely tortuous classificationscheme and organization of the journals (starting with chemistry,going through solid earth, atmospheric sciences, physics, life sci-ences [with different entries under plant sciences separated by 10pages of zoology and evolution], and on the order of 20 or moresubdivisions within each major division [none of which is inalphabetical order]), necessitating the browsing of the entire bib-liography to find the subject area one is interested in. However, thebibliography does unearth several websites of small society pub-lishers that would be difficult to locate by other means, and one caneasily locate specific journals by consulting the index at the end ofthe book.

Overall,Electronic Expectationsis typical witty and entertain-ing fare from Mr. Stankus, although he lapses into long anecdotes© 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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and verbose sentence structures that detract from the learningpotential, and occasionally the entertainment as well. While half ofone’s mind is puzzling over the meaning of section headings like“‘THEY’LL ALWAYS HAVE PARIS. . .’ AND ‘WHEN INROME DO AS THE ROMANS DO’ AND OTHER MOVIELINES AND CLICHES THAT SUGGEST THAT AMERICANFOR-PROFIT COMPANIES WILL INCREASE THEIR PRES-ENCE AND ASSUME A PARALLEL ‘EUROIDENTITY’ IN AGROWING EUROECONOMY” [all caps, his](p. 83), the contentof the section is passing one by. The book provides some uniqueinsights to librarians of the mechanics of journal publishing andelectronic journal publishing in particular, and does serve as abasic introduction into the overall publishing and computing en-vironments. However, due to the roundabout and unreferencedstyle of the book, it does not succeed as well as it might.

Michael FosmirePhysics and EAS LibrarianPurdue UniversityWest Lafayette, IN 47907-1530E-mail: fosmire@purdue.eduPublished online 16 February 2001

Snap to Grid: A User’s Guide to Digital Arts, Media, andCultures. Peter Lunenfeld. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press;2000: 226 pp. Price: $32.95. (ISBN: 0-262-12226-X.)

Post-modernists like to double-code: that is, through an eclecticmix of styles, create parody, ambiguity, and paradox. InSnap toGrid, the double-coding involves the artistic representation of the“commodity camaraderie’s” technology with something else—alot of somethings else—to forge the post-modern pastiche thatreality, virtual or otherwise, isn’t as real as it once seemed.Post-modernists also like to talk about how truths are not eternal,but made: Freed from any grand narrative that binds medium,message, and messenger to Truth, we have lots of narratives withmany language games therein. In fact, in the technology-basedpost-capitalist (or did he say post-industrial this time?), capital-driven morphed world of teledildonic wankers, some sunk in anEdenic fallacy, finding the Other in non-linear texts is the game:“Reading becomes less a matter of following than a process ofextracting” (p. 44).

When I readSnap to Gridfor the first time, I took it seriously,hewing neologisms and multifarious dependent clauses, in a searchto find the author’s point. It became obvious when I read it asecond time: this is a post-modernist’s post-modern parade ofnames and ideas, simulacra and antiform, the process and perfor-mance of intertext. To interpret the work, then, requires the senseof play and acceptance of anarchy that marks the post-modernist’sturn. So depending on what side of the philosophical fence thereader finds him- or herself, she’ll/he’ll either despair or delightwith Snap.In both cases, it isn’t an easy read. But way down in thetext, there are interesting, insightful, and perhaps important obser-vations.

This review will look atSnapfrom both perspectives.If you pick up Snapas a “guide to digital arts, media, and

cultures,” as the title warns, and want to be informed about thosephenomena, and read it without a post-modernist stance, you willbe disappointed. Not so much from the content—which is over-flowing—but from the dense writing style, the logical inferences,and often the author’s tone.

Consider these examples:

Journalists furnished thecamera rasaof virtuality with teledildon-ics on demand, but of course, they never built any virtual worlds.Digital artists, on the other hand, did indeed construct workingimmersive environments, but interestingly enough, they regularlyfilled their virtual rooms with displaced guilt over spending somuch money on hardware and software. As the debate raged as towhether or not the computer augured the twentieth century’s lastavant-garde, too many of those who employed its technologiesoffered a never-ending idyllicization of nature in the service offeel-good eco-aesthetic (p. 91).

Or:

Dialectical immaterialism, critical discussions about technologyuntethered to the constraints of production. Vapor theory oftenmutates into technomysticism, and can lead even exceptionally ablethinkers into a hype-driven discourse that dates instantly (p. 174).

How about:

In positing a TechnoVolksgeist, I hope to foreground the mostprogressive aspects of (Johann Gottfried) Herder’s thought, even atthe cost of smoothing over both its nuances its contradictions [sic].The TechnoVolksgeist can and often does denegrate into the pre-tensions to culture of a pampered network of elites. If the self-proclaimed digiterati refuse to promote access and include thedispossessed, their rhetoric of revolution through technology willseem nothing more than the callous justification for unregulatedaccumulation of personal wealth.

Before going any further, I should clarify terms by engaging ina transtemporal dialectical exercise: citing Karl Marx to theorizecybernetica (p. 4).

So the text continues for another 166 pages.It is interesting to note that the author doesn’t seem to care for

jargon’s impact on society:

Obviously, hobbyists of all sorts have their own special vocabular-ies and subcultures have their rituals of inclusion and exclusion, butthe technoculture has achieved such a mass of specialized semanticand syntactic elements that one can truly speak of a languagespecific to it. Indeed, these technologies have become so pervasivethat we are forced to assimilate their language into the culture as awhole (p. 7).

He is indeed right. Our technoculture has forced upon the largersociety a command of once group-specific language in order toparticipate. But couldn’t this have been said more simply? Indeed,couldn’t the text be less prone to jargon and thus perhaps moreapproachable by those very dispossessed?

Counters the author:

This neologorrhea—to coin a phrase—is a response to the fore-shortening of the horizon of new technologies. Neologizing isneither new nor intrinsically bad, of course, and as Thomas Jeffer-son noted, ‘Necessity obliges us to neologize.’ But as the future/present barrels along, the critical community can too quickly followthe lead of developers and hackers by continually refashioning thelanguage to account for novelties it confronts. This accounts for theneologizers’ fascination with the immediate present (p. 32).

There is frequent use of “obviously” and “ad nauseum” in thetext, and a lot of emphasis on the juxtaposition of “past” to“future/present.” To the non—post-modernist reader, the dismis-sive tone can be a roadblock to a desire to continue with the text,and ultimately, many readers will feel the author’s confrontationwith novelty places him squarelyin the present.

In the course of one page of text (p. 16), we fly throughproduction (“One must also take into account how the computerindustry developed, how it sells itself to the public (and just asimportantly, to itself), and how its particular mix of marketing and

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evangelism has migrated into the realm of art and design”), to themethod of artist–commercial communication (“Artists and design-ers rarely send out original work to curators or cart it to meetingswith commercial clients”), to a sidestepping “while it soundswonderful and may yet be wonderful,” over to the problems ofcomputing compatibility, and back to interactivity. One wondershow the author (and we readers) can get from thesis to conclusionvia this rough road, hacking our way through thickets of post-modernist expressions, needlessly complex sentences, and the un-repentant neologisms. For the non–post-modern reader, this will beinfuriating. But it suggests thatSnapshould be read at the “chap-ter-level,” i.e., gleam what you can from the specifics, count to 10when the neologisms pile up, wonder just what the hell theauthor’s talking about, and reflect on the chapter title. In this case,it’s “Cyborg Economics.” Short and understandable. Calm again.

One will wonder also if the writer-as-critic is being witty andself-mocking or is self-consciously inserting himself into thetext—“For all of my hyperbolic dismissal of contemporary poli-tics. . .” (that’s an understatement; p. 8)—describing his academicqualifications, or the ribbing of the art critic/artist in a DanielClowes’s cartoon, the author is, at times, too present. In thatcartoon, we see in the top frame “Fortunately, talent really isn’t theissue . . . far more important is thegift of gab!”; and below, dronesa critic, “David Rivers told me at the Whitney the other day hefound my work to have traces of latent futurism, certainly there isa conscious homage to Leger in several of my pieces but this oneowes more to blah blah blah” (p. 20). We read about the critic’sbackground in the text: “With the ascendancy of conceptual artpractice in the 1960s and the infiltration of critical theory from thelate 1970s on, the crit has tended to take an increasingly linguisticturn, especially in the elite schools of art and design, one in whichdiscourse about art discourse is at least as important as discourseabout art” (p. 21). That’s interesting. On page 16 (there’s that pageagain), we read, “Since returning to academia [to USC, a prettyelite place] to teach a graduate program in communication and newmedia design . . . I also coordinatemediawork: The SouthernCalifornia New Media Working Group. . .” We understand andrespect that the author has experienced technology and now standsas a qualified crit.

Let’s now close this stream of thought and become, or return tobeing, post-modern. The keys are a sense of play, plurality, andtolerance. I’ve emphasized,ad nauseum(as the author likes tosay), the post-modern perspective and the need to adopt the rightstance in order to profit from the work. This is because the text isunintentionally a history of post-modernism. You will respond tothe explicit and implied influences of Gibson, “Blade Runner,”Madonna, Saussure, Lyotard, a lot of Baudrillard, and even hintsof Deleuze and Guattari. So, whatis the book?

As the title suggests,Snap to Grid, or the imposition of struc-ture to guide digital artists, is Lunenfeld’s mapmaking of thedigital world. Acknowledges the author, this book is more abouthis personal experiences: “I claim that this book constitutes auser’s manual for digital arts, media, and cultures, but shouldadmit that it really constitutes a guide to this user’s experiences”(p. xxi).

From his academic post, he maps “Technocultures,” “CyborgEconomics: Demo or Die,” “Hyperaesthetics: Real-Time Theory,”hypertext, digital photography, the Web, “Virtual Reality,” hybridarchitecture (what post-modern work wouldn’t include architec-ture?), and finally, a section on the “Makers.” The “demo or die”phenomenon of chapter 2, I believe, truthfully and interestinglydescribes the impact of business and technology on the ways inwhich artists get their work before the world. When the verbage ispared from other chapters, we find other insights.

● “I want to analyze the radical changes in the nature of commoditiesgenerated by the advent of digital hardware and software” (p. 5)

● “Commodity camaraderie encourages inclusion not by blood, butrather by chip” (p. 9)

● “Yet what concerns me here are not the marketing errors companiesmake in ‘casting’ their demos, but rather the way in whichthe demohas become an intrinsic part of artistic practice” (p. 19)

● “This kind of excess is proof that hysterical neologizing is notenough. There must be more than mere naming: care must be takento develop a process for contextualizing the new words and conceptsgenerated in and by the future/present” (p. 33)

● “There formerly discrete photographic elements blend even furtherinto the computer’s digital soup of letters, numbers, motion graphicsand sound files: what is crucial is that all of these and more aresimply different manifestations of the data maintained in binaryform” (p. 59), and

● “The camera rasaof VR will be far better filled with their discreteinterventions than with journalistic hype or the fantasies of amateurfuturists” (p. 97).

The issues Lunenfeld gets around to introducing are not trivialmatters for people who work with technology or use its tools increating art. When approached in the right spirit, Lunenfelddoesn’t appear the cybershaman. He has something to say. I justwish it wasn’t so difficult to hear.

Read it? Yes.

G. Benoı̂tCollege of Communications and Information Studies502 King Library Building, SouthUniversity of KentuckyLexington, KY 40506E-mail: gbenoit@pop.uky.eduPublished online 16 February 2001

From Web to Workplace: Designing Open Hypermedia Sys-tems.Kaj Grønbaek and Randall H. Trigg. Cambridge, MA: TheMIT Press; 1999: 386 pp. Price: $45.00. (ISBN 0-262-07191-6.)

From Web to Workplaceis a solidly grounded reference sourcefor systems and human–computer interactions researchers work-ing in the areas of open and distributed systems, multiuser collab-oration and coordination, and user-centred design. It is also highlyrelevant for information architects and researchers in the field ofinformation architecture—a growing field of importance. From the386-page publication it is clear that the authors have a concreteunderstanding of hypermedia theory, on which they build theirsuggestions for a systems approach to improved open hypermediaaccess that should integrate applications and software across net-works, platforms, and environments. The principles they suggestreflect the results from decades of hypermedia research (as canalso be seen from the extensive bibliography). Such researchfindings are shared with the readers in an easy-to-follow style, andform the basis of each chapter. The authors, Grønbaek and Trigg,also have extensive practical experience, which is reflected in thenumerous examples of practical problems and the concrete solu-tions offered. They proclaim: “Our approach in this book is to giveup the goal of a standard that supports compliance checking forcurrent and future open hypermedia systems. Rather we argue infavor of a set of design principles that can guide the developmentof a variety of turnable object-oriented frameworks. We believethat the wisdom of earlier hypermedia systems captured in theDexter model is most useful as design input, as a resource ratherthan a prescription” (p. 42).

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To achieve their aim of offering a new object-oriented ap-proach to the design of open hypermedia systems, they take thewidely accepted Dexter Hypertext Reference Model as point ofdeparture and supplement it with their own extended object-ori-ented version of this model. Furthermore, they work from a user-centered design paradigm, which is frequently mentioned: Theusers should be involved in all phases of a project. Their partici-pation applies to the design as well as the development process.

There are currently many core issues with which researchersbattle; e.g., problems with the locating and placing operations atthe heart of hypermedia, and problems with distribution and mul-tiuser support. In one of the first examples of the kind of problemsexperienced in practice, the authors consider the work materials ofan engineer. These include procedural handbooks, photos, progressreports, action or done lists, videos, CAD drawings, change re-quests, mail/faxes, spreadsheets, internal notes, personal notes,quality documentation, etc. (p. 17). From this list they drawmultiple scenarios before concluding that these scenarios call forcrosslinking of heterogenous materials managed by existing appli-cations on diverse platforms, support for nonlinked overlappingstructures, annotation for nonwritable material, sharing of materi-als and hypermedia in collaborative settings, and support formonitoring ongoing changes to both content and structure (p. 25).This is but one of the many practical examples they demonstrateand which inspired the design principles they offer throughout thebook, and which are aimed at addressing diverse working condi-tions: from the workplace to the World Wide Web. Grønbaek andTrigg profess the following about the design principles they offer:“The principles and frameworks reflect our belief in the power ofan open systems approach, one that can integrate applications andsoftware across networks, platforms and environments” (p. xiii).

From Web to Workplaceconsists of 20 chapters whichare grouped into four parts, namely: 1) hypermedia in supportof integration, 2) hypermedia fundamentals, 3) implementinghypermedia systems, and 4) the open hypermedia design pro-cess.

Part I, on hypermedia in support of integration, consists of fourchapters. These serve as the sources for the authors’ proposals andprovide the reader with the background necessary to appreciate thesuggestions made in the following chapters. This section includesa chapter on the history of hypermedia and open hypermedia,hypermedia at work, and the Dexter Hypertext Reference Model.The accomplishments and problems of the Dexter model are dealtwith in some detail, since this serves as a point of departure for theauthors’ approach to the design of object-oriented open hyperme-dia systems. In the subsequent chapters, Grønbaek and Trigg buildon the strength of the Dexter model and adapt it to support theirown view of design principles and object-oriented design princi-ples. They believe that a different approach is needed because thenew hypermedia has more to offer. Such an approach shouldprovide powerful support for shareable materials organised intocomplex structures, and those which go beyond the mere click ona hyperlink.

Part II on hypermedia fundamentals covers the building blocksof open hypermedia, and the various means of locating in andpointing across third-party material. It includes chapters dealingwith locations, placements and interconnections, the structuring ofcomponents, links as traversable components, composites as struc-tured components, hyperspaces as structures for containment,managing hypermedia structures at run time, and structures fornavigation and synchronization; it also contains suggestions foropen hypermedia frameworks. The last chapter in this part sum-marizes and exemplifies the authors’ design principles with can-didate object-oriented frameworks.

Part III concerns the implementation of open hypermedia sys-tems and addresses issues concerning the design of hypermedia. Itincludes chapters on open hypermedia architectures, framework

tailorability, hypermedia and application openness, open hyperme-dia communication design, collaborative hypermedia, distributedhypermedia, open hypermedia, and the World Wide Web. Thesechapters too are based on the extended Dexter framework asproposed by the authors. In chapter 18, the issue of how openhypermedia services and collaboration support can be applied tothe World Wide Web is addressed. The authors declare: “Ratherthan the naive goal of replacing the web with a Dexter-basedsystem, we advocated augmenting the web with Dexter-basedhypermedia services in order to support, for example, distributedwork groups that share a body of web documents” (p. 259). Theyoffer a design pattern to do this.

Other chapters in Parts II and III include concise design pat-terns, each meant to capture an essential concept or design choicelikely to be faced by the developers of open hypermedia systems.The patterns range from the means to connect program datastructures with online text and multimedia materials, through prin-ciples providing for hypermedia functionality, to collaboratingusers who are geographically separated. Collaboration and distri-bution support are also dealt with.

Part IV covers the open hypermedia design process. It con-tains chapters on the design of open hypermedia for a work-place, and the move from specific workplaces to general-pur-pose designs. The two chapters in this part draw on the authors’experiences in designing applications for real users. They basethese designs on the principles and frameworks they propose inFrom Web to Workplace. The emphasis is on cooperative designand prototyping activities, and how these activities are informedby the authors’ open hypermedia frameworks and design prin-ciples.

From Web to Workplaceconcludes with an extensive 14-page bibliography, which includes seminal research works suchas Dough Engelbart’s work on Augment (considered by some tobe the first CSW project) in the 1960s, to current proceedings onopen hypermedia systems. The publication of a book takes timeand may therefore account for the fact that the most recentsources in the bibliography appeared in 1997. Since the subjectfield under consideration is evolving so rapidly, a website withmore current resources would certainly add to the value of thebook.

The book includes a series forward, a preface, an epilogue,two appendices, and a detailed 20-page index. Appendix Aoffers a brief survey of hypermedia systems, and Appendix Btakes a closer look at the messages that compromise the OpenDexter Hypermedia Protocol (ODHP).From Web to Workplaceis part of the MIT Press Series on Digital Communicationwhich, according to the series editor Edward Barrett, will seekto explore and define new genres of thought and expressionoffered by digital media.

The main contribution ofFrom Web to Workplacelies in itsapproach to open systems technology, object orientation, and theexpansion on the Dexter Hypertext Reference Model. A secondarybenefit lies in the emphasis on collaboration, distributed practices,and involvement of users from the beginning. Although it iswritten in a very clear and easy-to-follow style with numerousexamples to illustrate practical problems, solutions, and designprinciples, From Web to Workplaceis aimed essentially at re-searchers, web programmers, or hypermedia authors who havesome experience in hypermedia systems. Due to its technicalnature, I do not consider it suitable for the novice or undergraduatestudent. Although Grønbaek and Trigg consider the book as po-tentially valuable for graduate or advanced undergraduates as theygain experience using and programming on the web, it is myopinion that faculty should first familiarise themselves with thecontent and level of presentation. It would make an excellent textbook or recommended reading, provided that the students havesufficient background knowledge.

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According to the publishers,From Web to Workplaceis alsoaimed at systems designers, researchers, professional systems de-velopers, and teachers—an ideal target group for this well-bound,value-for-money publication.

Ina FourieDepartment of Information ScienceUniversity of South AfricaP.O. Box 392Pretoria 0003South AfricaE-mail: fourii@unisa.ac.zaPublished online 21 February 2001

Organizing Audiovisual and Electronic Resources for Access:A Cataloging Guide. Ingrid Hsieh-Yee. Englewood, CO: Librar-ies Unlimited; 2000: 285 pp. Price: $40.00. (ISBN: 1-56308-629-8.)

Given the emerging popularity and increasing need for thecataloging technique suggested by the title of this book, quite a fewpublications have covered nonbook cataloging. For example,An-glo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR2R), 2nd edition, revised(1988), edited by M. Gorman and P. W. Winkler, is both the bookand nonbook cataloging standard used in the United States. In June2000, the Library of Congress publishedArchival Moving ImageMaterials: A Cataloging Manual, 2nd edition. A great deal ofediting and a new loose-leaf binder format (with free catalogingpolicy updates) make this a great value for $50.00. N. B. Olson’s1998 Cataloging of Audiovisual Materials and Other SpecialMaterials: A Manual Based on AACR2, 4th edition, edited byIntner and Swansonis, is undoubtedly a favorite. L. M. Chan’s1994Cataloging and Classification: An Introduction, 2nd editionis used in many library and information science classrooms acrossthe country, but it only touches on the specialties covered inHsieh-Yee’s guide. M. B. Fecko’s 1993Cataloging NonbookResources: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians, a helpful,simple guide for librarians, is less widely known to professionalcatalogers. Cataloging computer files is not described in as muchrigor in Hsieh-Yee’s guide, but N. B. Olson’s 1996Update toCataloging Computer Files(Minnesota AACR2 Trainers Series,No. 2) covers this topic in detail.

What makes this guide unique is that Hsieh-Yee captures basiccataloging instruction and details the specific elements of nonbookmaterials. The OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) guide-lines for MARC (MAchine-Readable Cataloging) records are usedas examples in this text.

As an instructor, Hsieh-Yee intends this book “to help studentcatalogers, educators, and anyone new to these media gain compe-tency in cataloging them” (p. 7). Hsieh-Yee accomplishes her objec-tive with a complete, if not a bit simplistic, guide that instructs novicecatalogers in the creation of cataloging records for special formats.

The discussion, presented with each MARC record example,proves to be a very useful resource for students learning catalogingbecause it provides rationale for the application of what aresubjective rules. The arrangement suggestions highlight theexperiences and resourcefulness of a good cataloger. The finalchapter isdedicated to the changing environment of cataloging anddescription.

At the end of the book, there is a short bibliography dividedinto subjects, and two indexes (author/title and subject). Having

two indexes, instead of a unified index, means more work and timespent for users since a browsable list is not available. A well-organized, more complete bibliography and table of contents canbe found in the companion web site, which was written to accom-pany this guide. Hsieh-Yee’s companion web site is a compen-dium of OCLC and MARC resources and related catalogingefforts which the Library of Congress’s MARC web site over-looks. TheLibraries Unlimitedsupplemental textual informa-tion web site URL mentioned in the preface is outdated (xiii).The updated URL is http://slis.cua.edu/ihy/catmeta.htm (ac-cessed 1 February 2001). Unfortunately, this well-constructedand comprehensive web site, a terrific asset to a subject that isfroth with updates and changes, might be overlooked due to theoutdated URL.

Hsieh-Yee describes the “Information Transfer Cycle” inChapter 1. The major concepts covered are “scope and selectioncriteria, creation of representation, analysis for access, and orga-nization of resources and their representation” (pp. 3–4). Theseconcepts are then related to the principles of cataloging in general,and audiovisual and electronic materials in detail.

In 22 pages, Chapter 2 summarizes the “treatment of nonbookresources” (p. 11) and describes the eight areas of good descriptivecataloging. In this chapter Hsieh-Yee insightfully comments that“Current cataloging rules reflect a strong interest among librariansto integrate types of resources in to the catalog.” (p. 12). Perhapsthis explains why pre-coordinate subject headings, access points,and bibliographic record formats are forced on materials whichmay be better suited to a pre-coordinate format. Following thisdiscussion is a short description of access points. Hsieh-Yee ex-plores subject analysis by outlining the guidelines offered in theLibrary of Congress’s MARC format, bibliographic utilities, andvariable fields are explained at length followed by a section onarrangement.

Cataloging examples are introduced in Chapter 3. “Sound Re-cordings,” which is Chapter 6 inAACR2R, are the first explained,and Chapter 4 analyzes the treatment of video recordings high-lighted inAACR2R’s Chapter 7 (motion picture and video record-ing). In Chapter 5, computer files, like Chapter 9 inAACR2R, arediscussed, and Chapter 6 considers interactive multimedia, whichis not discussed in its own right byAACR2R. Chapter 7, “InternetResources,” is marginally covered in Chapters 9, 12, and 21 ofAACR2R.

Chapter 8, “Cataloging and the Changing Information Environ-ment,” explains the future of cataloging in the changing techno-logical environment. Hsieh-Yee argues that technological ad-vances, the World Wide Web in particular, have changed thevolume, format, speed, and formality in which information iscreated and distributed. In addition, combining formats, such asbooks with CD-ROMs and/or multimedia web sites, is becomingthe standard. These have cataloging implications relating to theability to accurately and insightfully evaluate and select informa-tion and the ability to describe the increasing number of formats.Along with the impact on catalogers, Hsieh-Yee describes theeffects on users and publishers.

In the section “Responses from the Library Community,” theauthor addresses some “practical solutions” to these problems. Onesolution is using subject guides, like Cornell University’s gateway(http://campusgw.library.cornell.edu/gateway.html). Another solu-tion is applying cooperative cataloging efforts, like those forbibliography utility OCLC. Experimental cataloging and othermetadata initiatives have been implemented to test retrieval results(see www.images.undl.umich.edu).

Hsieh-Yee struggles to come to terms with the advent ofmetadata. By engaging this topic, she argues that cataloging is justone part of a larger information management tool, namely meta-data. She describes MARC, Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), Stan-dard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), and their relation-

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ship to Dublin Core. The discussion ends with the OCLC Coop-erative Online Resource Catalog (CORC) Project. Considering herpenchant for cataloging, Hsieh-Yee presents this topic with abalanced discussion and honest critique of the limitations andbenefits of both information standards.

Karen SpernArchive Impact1249 Washington Blvd., Suite 2700Detroit, MI 48226Kspern@archiveimpact.comPublished online 21 February 2001

ReferencesChan, L.M. (1994). Cataloging and classification: An introduction. (2nd

ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.Fecko, M.B. (1993). Cataloging nonbook resources: A how-to-do-it man-

ual for librarians. New York: Neal-Schuman.Gorman, M., & Winkler, P.W. (1998). Anglo-American cataloguing

rules. (2nd ed.). Chicago: American Library Association.LC Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. (2000).

Archival moving image materials: A cataloging manual. (2nd ed.).Washington DC: Library of Congress.

Olson, N.B. (1998). Cataloging audiovisual materials and other specialmaterials: A manual based on AACR 2 (4th ed.). Intner, S. and Swanson,E. (Eds.). DeKalb, Ill.: Minnesota Scholarly Press.

Olson, N.B. (1996). Cataloging computer files w/1996 update. Swanson, E.(Ed.). Lake Crystal, Minn.: Soldier Creek Press.

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