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College and Research Libraries
May 2001, Vol. 62, No. 3

Book Review

Arms, William Y. Digital Libraries. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Pr., 2000. 287p. $45, alk. paper (ISBN 0262011808). LC 99-14773.

This important, but difficult-to-read, book is likely to elicit a broad range of responses and reactions from its readers. A tradition-minded librarian might easily be tempted to think at once about early retirement, whereas someone eager to explore the ever-changing panorama of new technologies will excitedly welcome its vision of the future.

The first chapter, a broad gauge tutorial, probably designed mainly for academic administrators or university governing boards, is unlikely to tell active librarians anything they do not already know. The following three chapters describe the development of the Internet, detail with considerable accuracy the sometimes-contentious relationships between libraries and publishers, and discuss contemporary innovation and research. Arms correctly points out that many people who grew up with the Internet believe they have “discovered” online information systems and are completely unaware that the concepts forming the basis of digital libraries were long ago researched and developed by the library community.

Librarians are not likely to receive well the author’s statement in chapter four—“Computer scientists take research seriously ”—with its clear, gratuitous presumption that librarians do not. Computer scientists, writes Arms, are the hares of digital libraries, whereas large libraries—and by extension, one can infer, their librarians—are the tortoises. Yet, there is little discussion about why librarianship was for so many years averse to research, an attitude constantly criticized by early pioneers of library research such as Pierce Butler and Jesse Shera. There is no discussion of the obvious arrogance among some computer scientists who, for years, held back the development of practical, user-friendly information systems. Missing from the work is any substantial consideration of the research role of the former Council on Library Resources (CLR); its work is alluded to only in passing. Arms suggests that research in information science is “at least 30 years old,” but it is actually almost twice that age, dating back to the 1940s when Ralph Shaw developed and demonstrated his RapidSelector. Arms does not mention the pioneering theoretical research done at MIT in the mid-1950s by Calvin Mooers, perhaps the first person to connect a typewriter terminal to a mainframe, nor does he discuss the important developmental work on automatic indexing done over an entire lifetime by Gerard Salton at Harvard and Cornell.

Throughout the work, Arms discusses in substantial detail a variety of important, major issues. The interoperability of various computerized information systems, the costs of standardization, and the need to maintain legacy systems are given valuable and thoroughgoing discussion. Chapter five, devoted to personnel, users, and organizations, is one of the best treatments anywhere of how challenging it is to weld together disparate interests into a fundamentally restructured, unified service mechanism. The author properly rejects as naive the idea that technology “eliminates” the need for professional management of information. Quite the opposite, Arms maintains that technology more than ever demands managerial talent strong enough to administer personnel, equipment, and services that vary widely in every dimension. Librarians may not want to hear about the university library’s declining importance relative to other information resources, but Arms does not shrink from stating this fact. Citing an anonymous University of California professor, Arms acknowledges baldly that for many students, the Internet is the library. Chapter six on economic and legal issues and chapter seven on access management and security are models of clarity and detail. Chapter twelve, which deals with object models, identifiers, and structural metadata, could profitably have come much earlier in the book, for it lays an excellent foundation for the technical details underlying the concept of the digital library. The permanence and durability, or more accurately, the impermanence and evanescence, of digital data are topics that Arms discusses at length throughout the book. Just ten pages from the end may be the work’s most important point about digital libraries and permanence, a quotation from Michael Wettengel, a German archivist: “Computer technology is made for information processing, not for long-term storage.”

There are problems with this book that make it difficult to read. Overall, a choppy style lends an aura of incoherence to parts of the work; sometimes paragraphs contain simple declarative sentences so short that the reader is left wondering about the connections between them. Similarly, some chapters have weak transitions and do not segue well into each other. It is disappointing to find grammatical and spelling errors that a competent proofreader should have caught immediately. Did author and editor rely on the notoriously undependable grammar checkers that come with word processors?

A maddening feature of the book stems from its graphic design. Throughout the work are dozens of sidebar-like “panels,” each containing a succinct summary of some extraordinarily important or essential technical matter (e.g., Java, the Dublin Core, Real Audio). Unfortunately, the designers chose to print these panels onto an overdense, half-tone background. Consequently, the panels are virtually impossible to read with any degree of speed or comfort. Furthermore, the arrangement almost guarantees lack of easy comprehension. Only a dedicated (or perhaps masochistic) researcher will get through the panels, without which the full import of the author’s work cannot be appreciated. It is astonishing that so distinguished a publisher would permit this intrusion into the communication process and quite ironic that it occurs in a book whose chief subject is communication over the ages. If the work is reprinted or revised, correction of its editorial and production flaws is mandatory.

In a bizarre and embarrassing error in panel 9.1, which deals with the Oxford English Dictionary, Arms credits its creation to “James Morris and his colleagues.” It is universally known that Sir James Murray (1837–1915) almost single-handedly created the OED, having spent the last thirty-six years of his life on the project. (The OED’s home page lists all editorial personnel connected with the project from its inception; there is no reference to James Morris.)

A generally excellent glossary helps the reader understand numerous technical terms and acronyms, although some acronyms are left undecoded and entered into neither index nor glossary. For example, CNRI (Corporation for National Research Initiatives) first appears on page 90, again on page 102, but is not explained until one reaches panel 12.8 on page 240. The index itself is seriously deficient, lacking entries for obvious topics such as the CLIR (or its predecessor, the CLR), Library of Congress, NISO, RLG, RLIN, and UNIX, and excluding a host of contemporary personal names important to the development of digital libraries (e.g., Henriette D. Avram). In fact, the entire index contains only two personal names: Vannevar Bush and J.C.R. Licklider. Quite a number of index entries even lack their full complement of locators.

In sum, Digital Libraries is a mixed bag, marred by some serious errors and questionable claims, but serving as a powerful stimulus to thinking that departs from tradition. It integrates into a single work detailed information on a vast range of modern technologies and inventories a cluster of unpleasant problems besetting contemporary librarianship. Digital Libraries is a disturbing, distressing book, as it should be. Modern librarianship can benefit from a gadfly, and Arms plays that role with admirable effectiveness.—Allen B. Veaner, Tucson, Arizona