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College and Research Libraries
May 2000, Vol. 61, No. 2

Book Review

Librarians as Learners, Librarians as Teachers: The Diffusion of Internet Expertise in the Academic Library. Ed. Patricia O’Brien Libutti. Chicago: ALA, 1999. 296p. $27 (ISBN 0-8389-8003-1). LC 99-13042.

As early as 1994, members of ACRL’s New York chapter planned a book documenting their experiences learning and teaching the Internet. The resulting collection of more than twenty articles by librarians, MLS students and faculty, and administrators should strike a chord with anyone who lived through the technological changes of the past five years. The book is organized into four roughly chronological sections:

“Foundations of Internet Expertise in the Academic Library”; “Enlarging the Internet Literature: Early Training and Learning Experiences”; “The Present Tense: The Diffusion of the Internet into the Workflow of Academic Librarians”; and “Preparing Librarians to Teach the Internet.” Contributions range from personal accounts to research articles and resource lists. The articles vary in quality, style, and methodology; and there is much overlap in content, perhaps reflecting the light editorial hand of a democratic editor. It would be impossible to do justice to individual articles, so this review focuses on themes that recur throughout the book.

The relationship between learning and teaching has taken some unexpected turns over the years. Rapid technological change forced librarians to learn so that they could teach. At the same time, they found that they had to teach in order to learn. New attitudes had to develop, as technology forced librarians into a learning mode driven by need and (sometimes) curiosity rather than tradition or formal credentialing. Ideally, the result was a new sense of competence for both teacher and learner (if the two can be distinguished), and a diminished fear of both technology and change. Several authors make the point that library school students and practicing librarians experience many of the same frustrations and rewards as other adult learners. David W. Carr’s opening essay, “The Situation of the Adult Learner in the Library,” provides a thoughtful, humane reflection on this theme.

Several authors describe their experiences with the Internet over time. Early learning was unstructured, and early teaching stressed the use of tools. Since the arrival of the Web and other user-friendly tools, it has become possible to use the Internet without any understanding of computers, networking, or information storage and retrieval. Whether this is a blessing or a curse depends on your point of view. David J. Franz, in his engaging memoir, “Between Gutenberg and Gigabytes: A New Librarian Makes the Leap,” laments that kids today “are raised on AOL. Spoon fed. They are not learning as I did.” Others are relieved that the pioneering days are over and they can concentrate on conceptual issues rather than techniques and tools. Anne Woodsworth states in her foreword that “No matter what work arena graduates wish to enter, the core curricula they take will have to incorporate areas such as introduction to information science, information storage and retrieval, database searching, metadata management, knowledge management, information processing, human–computer interaction, electronic records management, indexing, and information systems management, to name a few.” The hyperbole here does the cause no good, in my opinion.

Another common thread is the recognition that the Internet is not only something to teach, but also a new medium for teaching and learning.

Heather Blenkinsopp’s piece on using the Internet as a teaching tool to connect MLS students with cataloging practitioners is a good illustration. The Internet has made it easier to simulate the workplace, blurring the lines between “school” and “work” in a way that mirrors wider trends in academia.

This collection might serve best as a reference repository of practical advice and Internet teaching resources. Reading it from cover to cover, I became frustrated by the absence of an overarching intellectual framework, as well as periodic lapses in coherence, clarity, and analytic rigor. The bibliographies and resource lists seemed in danger of trying to include everything on or about the Internet, rather than concentrating specifically on teaching and learning. I felt a little the way I do when using the Internet itself: overwhelmed by information overload and an inability to synthesize or even make sense of all the information. The quantity of Web sites, listservs, online tutorials, syllabi, program statements, and other resources is mind-boggling. How is a person to choose?

Anne Woodsworth and Theresa M. Maylone do a good job of pulling together some of these diverse, contradictory elements in their foreword and afterword. But the collection remains no more than the sum of its parts. It never really fulfills the promise of its subtitle, “The Diffusion of Internet Expertise in the Academic Library.” I doubt that the fault lies with the authors, or even the editors. It may be that the topic itself is too amorphous or would be better addressed in a monograph. Despite some disappointments, this book is well worth adding to library collections for the practical ideas and tools that it makes available on a topic of importance to all librarians.—Jean M. Alexander, Carnegie Mellon University.