Reviews.indd 290 College & Research Libraries May 2008 person or agency whom the document is about may incur. In “Access to Information and the Free- dom to Access: The Intersection of Public Libraries and the USA PATRIOT Act,” the authors examine two surveys conducted by the Library Research Center at the University of Illinois. One of the surveys examines the impact on libraries and li- brary patrons of the attacks on September 11; the other examines what eff ect the USA PATRIOT Act has had on libraries and their users. These studies, combined with a Pew Internet and American Life survey, paint a picture of libraries in flux. Changing policies and tightening library security oft en conflict with our patrons’ right to explore diverse ideas and read as their interest guides them. In “Watching What We Read: Impli- cations of Law Enforcement Activity in Libraries since 9/11,” the authors discuss a nationwide study conducted by the American Library Association’s Offi ce of Information Technology Policy examin- ing the impact that inquiries by federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies have had on public and academic librar- ies. The study found evidence that these law enforcement agencies had requested information regarding patrons’ informa- tion-seeking and reading habits. Few if Index to advertisers ACRL Publications 284 American Psych. Assoc. cover 3 Annual Reviews 267 Bernan 241 Bowker 294 Brill 200 CHOICE 226 EBSCO 204 Emery-Pratt 293 H.W. Wilson cover 4 IGI Global 199 Intelex cover 2 Perry Dean Architects 223 The Roper Center 203 Serial Solutions 251 any changes were made by libraries in response to these requests. Other chapters include “Security, Technology, and Democracy Resisting Government Internet Surveillance by Participating in Politics Online and Of- fline,” “Security, Sovereignty, and Conti- nental Interoperability: Canada’s Elusive Balance,” “Information Technology and Surveillance: Implications for Public Administration in a New World Order,” “The Little Chip That Could: The Public Sector and RFID,” and “Out of Control?: The Real ID.” Each of these chapters ex- amines technology and how the adoption of certain technologies without critical thought may lead to a society where government offi cials have uncontrolled access to a citizen’s personal information. This information could then be used to wrongfully limit a person’s freedom. Patriotic Information Systems presents a very negative view of the Bush admin- istration and how it has chosen to enact and interpret laws relating to personal information, freedom of information, and information privacy. It would have been interesting to see a few chapters that examined the opposing view. Chapters four, “Access to Information and the Free- dom to Access: The Intersection of Public Libraries and the USA PATRIOT Act,” fi ve, “Watching What We Read: Implications of Law Enforcement Activity in Libraries since 9/11,” and nine, “The Little Chip That Could: The Public Sector and RFID,” will be of particular interest to librarians due to their content. The book is well researched and written and makes some very com- pelling arguments; I recommend it.—Tim Daniels, Georgia Public Library Service. Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester. Eds. Nancy Fried Foster and Susan Gibbons, Chicago: ACRL, 2007, 90p. alk. paper, $28 (ISBN 0838984371). LC 2007-28559. Available online from www.ala.org/ala/acrl/ acrlpubs/downloadables/Foster-Gib- bons_cmpd.pdf. www.ala.org/ala/acrl This innovative project, using ethnograph- ic research methods at the University of Rochester, set out to ask a basic question that all academic librarians have pon- dered at one time or another: “What do students really do when they write their research papers?” The project took an ethnographic approach in that it studied student culture by conducting interviews, observing students both inside the library and out, and mapping their curricular and extracurricular activities. In Studying Students, Nancy Fried Foster, Lead Anthropologist, and Susan Gibbons, Associate Dean for Public Ser- vices and Collection Development at the River Campus Libraries, have assembled a collection of essays that provides an en- lightening view into the psyche of today’s students. Funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the au- thors suggest strategies to help academic librarians discover how to best provide information services, both on campus and off, to undergraduates who don’t really think they need the resources that libraries off er. The paperback book is divided into thir- teen chapters, including an introduction to the project and a conclusion that proposes that modern academic libraries need to be “student-centered.” Early chapters depict surveys of faculty expectations on the one hand and student research habits on the other. “Night Owl Librarians: Shift ing the Reference Clock” relates the experiences of reference librarians who conducted an experiment at Rochester. Noting that changing technology and social habits had transformed student culture, they initi- ated a blitz program: keeping later library hours, offering free coffee and cookies, and promoting chat and telephone services. To no avail. Although students are in constant contact with their parents and friends via cell phone and instant messaging, it did not seem to occur to them to use those kinds of technology to access information for academic purposes. Early on in the project, it became evident that the design and culture of the Book Reviews 291 library itself played a part in the research and writing practices of undergraduates. Two design workshops ensued: one to map the “perfect library” and one to redesign the library Web site to fi t un- dergraduate needs. Although amenities such as massage rooms and gaming tables appeared in a few “ideal library” maps, common elements in the library designs did surface, including comfortable spaces, group study areas, and great numbers of high-tech tools with the staff to support them. Shared themes also emerged in the student designs for Web sites. Smith and Clark’s “Dream Catcher: Capturing Student-inspired Ideas for the Libraries’ Web Site” describes student Web designs, all of which included more links on the homepage, and all were highly custom- ized with links to personal professors and courses. Another creative idea adapted by the researchers was the use of a “mapping diaries” approach to learn more about student culture—what they do all day and when they do their academic research. A photo survey documented student study habits that many adults and librar- ians would not believe without visible evidence. The results of these studies served to open a few more eyes, as they reiterated the cultural differences be- tween today’s Millennial generation and even recent graduates in the “X” and “Y” generations. But as the authors observe, academic librarians are also Millennials, employing the same technologies that college students use, sometimes far more effi ciently. The difference may be that today’s college student is less experienced and hasn’t actually lived through all these changes, suggesting that successive generations of information can provide a depth of knowledge that today’s “latest word” cannot. Following the conclusion, of an account of an intriguing approach to the assess- ment of library services, is a comprehen- sive bibliography and biographies of all of the chapter authors. The research project concluded that persuading students to 292 College & Research Libraries search for library resources instead of using the Internet for academic research requires innovative ideas and a thorough understanding of student culture on the college campus. Academic librarians must reach out to students where they are and assure them that the library is a place where they want to be—to hang out, read their e-mail, drink coffee, and, along the way, gather with classmates to pick out a book or find a few articles for a research paper or project.—Elizabeth M. Williams, Appalachian State University. The Commonwealth of Books: Essays in Honour of Ian Willison. Ed. Wallace Kirsop. Victoria, Australia: Monash University, Centre for the Book; New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll, 2007. 271p. $70 (ISBN 0732640024). While there is probably no scholarly labor more difficult than organizing a festschrift and finding a publisher for it, surely reviewing one must rank a close runner-up. Especially when the career of the honoree is broad, diverse, and not readily pigeonholed. Which leads us to the present volume. Ian Willison, now pushing past four score, has been a major, if underappreciated, figure in the world of 20th-century librarianship. From his post in the British Museum and then the British Library, he helped launch and contributed to everything from Printing and the Mind of Man (1963 and subsequent editions) to the Eighteenth Century Short Title Catalogue. He was and remains an exemplary fi gure, one who managed to preserve and nurture the best traditions of research librarianship at a time of major transition throughout the profession. He did the impossible: he served institutions and scholars equally well. He knew everyone on both sides of the pond and beyond and never lost his zeal for promoting international projects and partnerships. Thus it was with a sense of pleasant expectation that I approached the present volume. Some ten years in the making, it includes contributions from major figures in scholarship and librarianship, includ- May 2008 ing David McKitterick, J. Paul Hunter, Warwick Gould, Keith Maslen, Simon El- iot, Bernhard Fabian, Terry Belanger, and Wallace Kirsop, among others. Moreover, a “Comité d’honneur” of more than sixty notables presides over the enterprise. Few projects of this ilk could have come with better credentials Alas, the results are disappointing. Even by festschrift stan- dards, the volume lacks coherence. The contributions are wildly uneven, from the routinely scholarly to the miscellaneous and anecdotal. Each piece seems to have a different implied reader, making the audience for this anthology impossible to define, outside the circle of the honoree’s friends and colleagues. In some cases, it is not even clear what the connection with the honoree is. The best pieces stay close to their au- thor’s academic and scholarly turf. Thus, J. Paul Hunter contributes a smart piece on the ways in which “book history” can help reshape to advantage the practices of genre studies of literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. Hunter’s observations on the use and abuse of title pages are well worth consulting. Michael Suarez intro- duces us to the notorious “freethinker” Thomas Woolston, whose running battles with Church and State in 18th-century Britain make for a fascinating case study in the ways in which the Enlightenment triumphed in spite of determined adver- saries and zealous prosecutors. Warwick Gould has been working on W.B. Yeats for many years now, and his editorial forays have resulted in some important observations on the nature of texts and the relationship between bibliography and bi- ography, above all about the contributions that the serious study of bibliography can make to the craft of biography. Three articles look broadly at “book history” and offer their own guidance for future directions. Simon Eliot argues the need for a broader integrating context for book history, one that locates it in a total communications environment and draws on a variety of disciplines and fi elds. He is particularly concerned to get beyond