Continuity and Transformation: The Promise of Disappointingly, only one of the four keynote papers, Saskia Confluence. Proceedings of the Seventh National Sassen’s “The Global City: Place, Production and the New Cen- Conference of the Association of College and Research trality,” is present. This reviewer would like to have seen Libraries, edited by Richard AmRhein. Chicago: Association Ronald Takaki’s provocative reassessment of the Japanese and of College and Research Libraries, American Library American experiences in World War II included. No explana- Association, 1995. 479~. $49.95. ISBN O-8389-7786-3. tion is given for the absence of three-fourths of the theme

A national conference, like an opinion poll, may be expected to reflect the concerns of a profession at a particular point in time. The 7th National Conference of the Association of Col- lege and Research Libraries (ACRL), held March 29-April 1, 1995 in Pittsburgh, was organized into four “tracks:” (1) knowl- edge workers and their organizations; (2) technology and the service-centered library; (3) multiculturalism and intemational- ism; and (4) society, economics, and politics. A keynote presen- tation, conference papers, and panel discussions were scheduled within each track. The overall program was intended to address the question, “How do we define and maintain appropriate con- tinuities while transforming our libraries into dynamic institu- tions prepared for the beginning of the 2 1 st century?’ (p. xi).

The proceedings capture much of the excitement of the con- ference itself. All 54 contributed papers are present in their entirety, and many of the papers remain useful more than a year after their initial delivery. The conference papers included a large number of case studies, 28 in all. Given the rapidity of technological and organizational change in academic librarian- ship, the case studies provide a rich array of innovative adapta- tions to changing realities. In addition, 14 papers can be categorized as theoretical or opinion pieces, while 12 papers were based on empirical research.

It is difficult to single out individual papers for attention, but several have made genuinely important contributions to the pro- fession. In “Winning the War: A Framework for Selecting Elec- tronic Sources of Government Information and Making Them Available,” Debora Cheney provides a masterful overview of the electronic government information environment and sug- gests seven “rules” for selection and provision. Nancy Dewald provides an impressive overview of copyright, economic, access, and control issues affecting the evolution of network- based services in “Heading Toward the Virtual Library: Exam- ples and Issues.” In addition, some papers focused on the use of electronic sources by the end user.

In “Texts, Images, Sounds, & Movies: Using a World Wide Web Server for Instruction,” Jill Powell discusses the teaching of access to data structures through the Internet and the location of public domain software needed to view multimedia. Fran Nowakowski and Elizabeth Frick reach an affirmative conclu- sion in their study, “Are Faculty Attitudes Towards Information Literacy Affected by Their Use of Electronic Databases?’ In “You Want It When? Document Delivery in the 1990’s,” Lor- raine Haricombe and J. J. Lusher address the potential for inter- library loan departments to provide documents to the growing body of remote users. Other papers remain relevant, as well.

Surprisingly, there is a sharp quantitative imbalance among the tracks. The society/economics/politics and multiculturalism/ internationalism tracks offer 2 and 6 papers, respectively, while 24 papers were placed in the knowledge workers/organizations category and 22 in the technology/service track. While Steven Bell’s “Five Societal Revolutions in the Age of Information” probably belongs in the social track, it is curious that there is much more emphasis on the internal organization of libraries than there is on the broader societal trends impacting our envi- ronment. Are we suffering from a strain of professional myopia?

papers. Likewise, it is disappointing to find only abstracts of the 3 1

panel presentations, many of which featured stimulating pre- sentations and exchanges of viewpoints. For example, I would like to learn what Kevin Long actually said about Rice Univer- sity’s “innovative merger of the computer center help desk and the library reference desk” (p. 452). In addition, I would like to know more about Bill Orme’s one-credit librarian instruction course over cable TV from Indiana University-Purdue Univer- sity-Purdue University at Indianapolis to the urban community served by that institution. Perhaps transcripts of the panel pre- sentations were not recorded. Perhaps, at 470 pages, the confer- ence proceedings were already too long to permit further expansion. It is hoped that the actual content of panel proceed- ings will be preserved at subsequent ACRL conferences.

Finally, since abstracts of the panel presentations were included, it is curious that there is no listing of the poster ses- sions presented at the conference. Many of these presentations shared useful innovations and insights. Perhaps they could be offered on a Web version of the proceedings from the 1997 ACRL Conference in Nashville.

The 7th ACRL Conference provided a forum for academic librarians to address a broad range of important, emerging issues. Although certain constituent groups-liberal arts col- lege libraries, community college libraries, and Big Ten librar- ies-were under-represented in the program, the conference was a clear success. The proceedings volume loses some of the excitement of the program itself through the omission of three keynote papers, the lack of panel presentation transcripts, and the absence of a listing of the poster sessions. Some of the papers will also seem a little dated, since World Wide Web use was not extensive at the time of the October 1994 paper submis- sion deadline.

This volume is a worthwhile purchase for libraries wanting to capture the exchange of knowledge in the conference papers and for individual librarians wanting exposure to issues in the four tracks. While the overall emphasis is more upon transfor- mation than continuity, it does share a large body of state-of- practice information. The American Library Association, ACRL, and proceedings editor Richard AmRhein are to be commended on capturing a large number of papers with an attractive presentation of text graphics.-Harold B. Shill, Head, Division of Library and Information Services, Penn State Harrisburg, Middletown, PA 17057-4898 <hbs2@oas.psu.edu>.

Customer Service & Innovation in Libraries, by Glenn Miller. Fort Atkinson, WI: Highsmith Press, 1996.93~. $12.00 (paper). ISBN o-917846-39-7. LC 95-53261.

Miller, the former director of the Orange County Library System, in Orlando, Florida, provides his perspective, experi- ences, and opinions on a variety of topics-not all of which relate to customer service and innovation. He does not support his opinions, even sweeping ones, in the brief 12 chapters by referencing literature or research; rather, he bases the discussion on his experiences at the Orange County Library System. His

470 The Journal of Academic Librarianship