19 minute read
Reader's Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews
Column Editor: Corey Seeman (Director, Kresge Library Services, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan) Visit him at https://www.squirreldude.com/
Column Editor’s Note: I read an article recently that I cannot shake from my head. The article was from PetaPixel, a great news source for photography and my never-ending need for justifying more photographic equipment. The article was about an Arizona State Representative Alexander Kolodin who freely admitted that he used ChatGPT to help craft part of the bill moving through the Arizona Legislature on “deepfakes.”1 The article quotes from the original piece in The Guardian and goes through his rationale.
Kolodin was writing House Bill 2394 that hopes to establish criteria to determine if something is real or not. While claiming that he was by no means a “computer scientist,” he sought help while writing the law. He told The Guardian “... I was kind of struggling with the terminology. So I thought to myself, well, let me just ask the subject matter expert. And so I asked ChatGPT to write a definition of what was a deepfake.” When this was revealed, he came under criticism. Via X, he responded “Why work harder when you can work smarter.” He did not use punctuation, so I am not sure if it was a statement or a question. There is so much here to be furious about.
Sitting at my home office in Ypsilanti, Michigan, I wondered how hard it might be to find someone who might actually be a subject matter expert on the topic of artificial intelligence. Maybe it is my mad-librarian skills, but it took less than 30 seconds to find 18 experts in the field of artificial intelligence from Arizona State University, all of whom might actually be interested, willing and able to provide guidance to a state representative.2 Or maybe he could have reached out to the schools that he attended (according his site): Georgetown as an undergraduate and University of Pennsylvania for Law School. Maybe since they clearly missed educating him, they could do an alumni “a solid.” Or maybe he could have asked someone at a local coffee shop.
Paramount to this entire article and action was the issue of authority and expertise. Who can provide you with a simple definition when you are struggling with writing a law? Should it be a so-called expert who might struggle with the definition because of the legal ramifications of the wording that makes it into the state law? Or is it a machine that spits out an answer in less time and often less cost that you could get otherwise?
There are many questions that have definitive answers. What year did the Elvis film G.I. Blues come out? (1960). Who led the National League in ERA in 1978? (Craig Swan of the New York Mets). Google and other search engines have long used AI to help us answer these questions. When our questions are less definite and have more nuances, relying on a “black-box” solution indicates that someone has no idea what they are asking. I suspect that many in government and higher education are taking the same shortcuts that Alexander Kolodin took. We begin to realize that having an answer vs. having an answer that is well thought out and makes sense are two very different things.
While artificial intelligence has been with us for sometime (think about spellcheck, GPS, and predictive word options on your phone, among others), the launch of ChatGPT in 2022 ushered in a whole new world where you can seemingly do more with less. And that is why (I believe) this will take off. The notion of being able to produce content, images and laws with relatively little effort is super attractive. ESPN has launched daily game previews that are written (or more accurately compiled) by AI. Almost all the previews have this statement on the bottom — “The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.” These previews are factually accurate, but are about as useful as month old milk. But they generate a preview page without needing people to do the actual work. That means more clicks on the ESPN site without having to pay writers to generate content. I fear that it will be getting worse in the years to come.
While this is a grim approach to start the column, it is useful to applaud the work of people who undertake the work to understand something that they are reviewing. By having librarians carefully review these works, they have a sense as to how these reference and monographic works will fit into our collections. Our desire in this column is to ensure that we provide time with these works so librarians everywhere can make good decisions about where to place their valued financial resources. That is not something that can easily be done by sending a question to a GenAI service. That takes time and understanding.
An interesting mix of books were reviewed for this column — including two reference books and two monographs about our field. If there is a common theme here — it is likely that they were reviews that were completed. To hope and the goal continues to be to catch up with the column. Like world peace, that appears to be aspirational, but a good goal nonetheless.
Thanks to my reviewers who submitted reviews for this issue. They are: Carolyn Filippelli (University of Arkansas-Fort Smith), Priscilla Finley (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Alexandra Godfrey (Librarian of the Senate of Pennsylvania) and Jennifer Matthews (Rowan University). As always, I want to thank them for bringing this column together.
If you would like to be a reviewer for Against the Grain, please write me at . If you are a publisher and have a book you would like to see reviewed in a future column, please also write me directly. You can also find out more about the Reader’s Roundup here — https://www.squirreldude.com/ atg-readers-roundup .
Happy reading and be nutty! — Corey
Environmental Resource Handbook: A Comprehensive Source Book for Individuals and Professionals. Grey House Publishing, 12th edition, 2023/2024. 978-1-63700-551-4. 1168 pages. $155 Also available online through Grey House Online Databases.
Reviewed by Carolyn Filippelli (Reference Librarian, Boreham Library, University of Arkansas-Fort Smith)
The Environmental Resource Handbook is an authoritative, up-to-date resource for environmental information. With its inclusion of wide-ranging statistics, reports from government agencies and special subject sections, it is an essential reference. Organized for convenience of use, Section One includes the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook and the EPA’s Strategic Plan. In addition to these documents, categories such as Associations and Organizations, Conference & Trade Shows, Consultants, Environmental Law, Research Centers, and Green Products & Services provide an impressive collection of sources.
Section Two includes statistics, tables, and charts on topics such as air and drinking water quality, municipal waste, children’s environmental health, green metro areas, and toxic environmental exposures. Since much of the statistical data provided begin with the 1950s, it may be useful for historical comparisons. The EPA Report on the Environment, information from the United States Department of Agriculture on food crop production, pesticides, and habitats, and the EPA’s Wasted Food Report are eye-opening. Also very informative are the U.S. Census Bureau ’s Environmental Revenue and Expenditures by State and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals. Although many of the government statistics and reports included in this work are also available on the web, their organization in this one volume is a great convenience and a timesaver to those conducting research on these topics.
The thought put into the organization of this work is evident in the three easy-to-use indexes: an Entry Index, a Geographic Index, and a Subject index. In addition, there is a guide to Acronyms & Abbreviations and a Glossary of Environmental Terms. This is the 12th edition of this title, a work that has proven its merit as an important source for environmental information. For a handy and well-organized resource on the environment, do not look further. Current interest in the environment will make this timely volume a popular and frequently consulted item. It would be of use in public and academic libraries as well as in state agencies and other organizations focused on environmental matters.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Kostelecky, Sara R., Lori Townsend, & David A. Hurley (Eds.). Hopeful Visions, Practical Actions: Cultural Humility in Library Work. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2023. 9780838938300, $54.99.
Reviewed by Jennifer Matthews (Head, Collection Services, Rowan University)
Today’s library is often seeking to better understand its patrons. The actions taken by librarians range broadly, encompassing everything from scheduling diverse programming or by determining ways to remove racist bias from old cataloging records. This process can be further strengthened when library staff at all levels participate in ventures that challenge long-held beliefs and practices. One such practice is cultural humility which, as defined by Kostelecky, Townsend, and Hurley, is “the ability to maintain an interpersonal stance that is other oriented in relation not aspects of cultural identity that are most important to the other person, the ability to recognize the context in which interactions occur, and a commitment to redress power imbalances and other structural issues to benefit all parties.” (Hurley, Kostelecky, & Townsend, 20193 quoted p. xv).
In their latest work, the editors provide a framework for cultural humility that gives scope to the authors of the included chapters. This framework reminds readers that cultural humility comes from self-reflection and ongoing growth, remembering the person whose life experience you are trying to improve, and addressing power differentials rather than ignoring them. To best represent this, the book has been divided into four parts: origins, reflective practice, community, and hopeful visions. These sections contain library practitioners working with and experiencing cultural humility in different ways while trying to incorporate it into their daily practice.
For instance, Mark Emmons discussed the intersection of cultural humility and servant leadership in his chapter. If unaware of the definition of servant leadership, it was coined by Robert Greenleaf as “the servant-leader is a servant first…. It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first.” (Greenleaf, 19914 quoted p. 155). Emmons moves from this definition to addressing issues of humility and performance, power and authority, and cultural identity, which leads to how servant leadership and cultural humility can work closely together to make better leaders out of library staff.
In another chapter, Nicholae Cline and Jorge R. L ό pezMcNight challenge readers to consider cultural humility not as a definition but as a theory of change. Cultural humility is a complex and evolving topic that varies for each individual who considers and interacts with it. If librarianship were to consider cultural humility in such a fashion, it would broaden the scope of cultural humility from the field of librarianship to other fields and areas. Perhaps, as the chapter’s authors suggest, this is precisely the type of action this topic necessitates.
Kostelecky, Townsend, and Hurley have curated a thoughtful selection of writings (part chapters and part essays) that make the reader consider the aspects of cultural humility — thoughtful and provoking aspects as well as items that are not standard practice. Cultural humility is yet another framework to assist libraries in continuing to improve their efforts in the equity, diversity, and inclusion space.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this on my desk. (This book is so valuable, that I want my own copy at my desk that I will share with no one.)
Pedley, Paul. Essential Law for Information Professionals. 4th ed. London: Facet Publishing, 2019. 9781783304356, 349 pages. $70.19.
Reviewed by Alexandra Godfrey (Librarian of the Senate of Pennsylvania, Senate of Pennsylvania)
Whether we’re focused on copyright restrictions for faculty in a university or government Right to Know requests, most librarians understand that their work as information professionals coincides somewhere with the law. While we aren’t required to be lawyers, nor even permitted to dole out legal advice, we do understand more or less what we are required to do ethically and professionally, and where we have to draw the line. Post-2000, the information landscape gets even muddier with Freedom of Information Acts and, in the U.S., the Patriot Act. Essential Law, 4th edition, provides an update to a wide-reaching primer on law in general, with specific sections for the information professional and the librarian. With Facet Publishing being an entity of CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals), a library and information association in the United Kingdom, the reference book is largely and almost uniformly concerned with UK law. That makes the text even more sprawling, since it focuses on UK law at large, with the varying and specific carve outs for the different countries within the UK.
Author Paul Pedley is the author of several books on law and information access and has held such prestigious appointments as Head of Research at the Economist Intelligence Unit, library manager at a UK law firm and as a professional in government libraries. He’s authored books on copyright and access and patron and library privacy. While Pedley himself points out that information law is incredibly fast moving, readers should be aware that the book was published in 2019, and that there could be core discrepancies between the publication date and today’s five-year gap.
This reference source could easily be used as a textbook, with the first three chapters on General law and background, Library law and Copyright being especially salient to an information science student. These three chapters give the law of the land, legally, and provide the reader with a sense of UK law in general. Basics like Common Law and Civil Law, the court system and UK sources of law are all covered and should give the student the background information they may remember from secondary school or university. Library law specifically in the UK is very specific and the reader and librarian should certainly be aware of the main laws and acts that rule library land, like those that control local entities and later legal deposits. The almighty copyright rules also get their fair share of content, with basics being rooted in international concepts and decisions like the Berne Convention, UCC Universal Copyright and the TRIPS Convention.
The following thirteen chapters would be best used as a reference. Covering everything from data and patron privacy to licensing and cybersecurity, the average librarian and information professional just cannot account for all the legalities and specializations covered. Better to be aware of their existence in the text and reference as needed. Moreover, the reader should be aware that this is UK specific. Copyright specifically is a beast that many countries have huge variations on and it may just not be a good use of time to be largely aware of the UK’s version of intellectual property protection if it does not apply in your workplace. For those law librarians in the UK and others who work directly with legal professionals and issues, this book would be useful as a primer and reference material. UK law alone as it applies to and contrasts to countries world-wide is certainly interesting, but only to the legal enthusiast. For any of us outside of the UK, it just isn’t worth the dense investment in source material since so much won’t apply. Even personally, as a government law librarian who found the information curious and interesting, I just wouldn’t have a basis of use for it in the United States.
UK Audience | ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
For Librarians in other countries | ATG Reviewer Rating: I’ll use my money elsewhere. (Just not sure this is a useful book for my library or my network.)
Sawtelle, Jennifer, editor. Magill’s Literary Annual 2023: EssayReviews of 150 Outstanding Books Published in the United States During 2022. Ipswich, MA: Salem Press Inc, 2023. ISBN 9781637004753, 780 pages. $210 print, $210 eBook; Institutional access to online archive of 1977-2022 annual volumes is included with purchase.
Reviewed by Priscilla Finley (Humanities Librarian, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
Among the readers’ advisory tools on the market today, Magill’s Literary Annual fills an important niche. Instead of aiming to be comprehensive, the goal of the series, as described in the publisher’s note, is to “cover works that are likely to be of interest to general readers that reflect publishing trends, that add to the careers of authors being taught and researched in literature programs, and that will stand the test of time” (vii). In a climate where partisan-driven book challenges are increasing, a collection like this does important work in helping librarians communicate the context, value and relevance of these books to a wider community of readers, teachers and scholars.
In contrast with capsule reviews available in reader advisory databases like NoveList and Gale’s Books and Authors, the four page essay-reviews in Magill’s Literary Annual build the case for the significance of each selected work by assessing the author’s background and goals and the point of view, focus and methods of the work under discussion. Fiction, poetry, nonfiction, memoir, biography, graphic novels and more are represented, for both adult and YA audiences; care has been taken to select works by members of groups who have historically been underrepresented, including works that have been translated into English. It’s worth noting that this series draws mainly from the catalogs of commercial trade publishers, with only a few selections from small presses or university presses.
Practical features of each entry make it valuable for the day to day work of librarians. A block of reference information at the beginning of each entry includes bibliographic details, type of work, and information about the work’s geographical setting and era when relevant; a capsule summary is included, along with publisher-supplied cover and author photos and a brief author biography including awards. These are all essential material for librarians promoting a work on the shelf or in a display. A list of principal characters or persons discussed communicates elements of each work’s scope and tone as well as being a nice enhancement to improve keyword searches in the online archive.
The thirty reviewers include teachers, literature professors, librarians, scholars, writers and readers from a broad range of academic backgrounds and communities. Their essay-reviews incorporate detailed summaries and assess strengths and challenges that target audiences may encounter when reading the work. They conclude with an analysis of critical assessments in reviews and a bibliography of reviews drawn from newspapers, magazines and web publications.
For example, Emily Turner’s essay-review of Jonathan Escoffery’s short story collection If I Survive You presents details of the ascent of Escoffery’s career and offers commentary on the content and reading experience of interlocked short stories — “not a passive activity but one that requires readers’ attention and willingness to be challenged” (260). She identifies a cohort of other writers exploring Caribbean immigrant experiences and pulls out common themes, and she cites and addresses both compliments and critiques issued in reviews of the work.
Librarians and teachers are likely to tolerate, if not appreciate, the print-centric format of this work. Care has been taken to make the eBook version reader-friendly — for example, an annotated table of contents includes a capsule review of each work and hyperlinks to the essay-review. Consistent formatting of the entries makes the work easy to skim for a particular facet of interest or keyword search. However, if one does not know that this series exists, it is a real challenge to find the volumes in a library catalog or on a list of databases or LibGuide — and this is a real shame. Individual essay-reviews that I spotchecked were not indexed in Book Review Index Plus or other databases and citations to them were not integrated into the central index of leading discovery services. Developing a strategy to expose item-level indexing of each essay-review to library catalogs and databases would be a key improvement to give the reviewers’ hard work the exposure it deserves.
Salem Press offers institutional purchasers access to 46 years worth of previous volumes in online format. Notions of canonicity have shifted intensely since 1977, but a yearbook that reflects commercial publishing trends and highlights works that demonstrate cultural significance through a record of promotion and critique will be an important primary source for future retrospective analysis.
In addition to supporting collection development and reader advisory work, librarians in the unenviable position of needing to defend the contemporary literary landscape and argue for the value of literary work to book review committees, school boards or political grandstanders will benefit from the measure of cultural weight that this work documents.
ATG Reviewer Rating: I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
Endnotes
1. Growcoot, Matt. ChatGPT Used to Write Part of Arizona State Law on Deepfakes. PetaPixel, May 23, 2024. Accessed on May 28, 2024 at https://petapixel. com/2024/05/23/chatgpt-used-to-write-part-of-arizonastate-law-on-deepfakes/
2. Arizona State University Media Relations and Strategic Communications – Experts on Artificial Intelligence. Accessed on May 28, 2024 at https://newsroom.asu.edu/ expert-tags/artificial-intelligence
3. Hurley, D.A., S. R. Kostelecky, and L. Townsend. “Cultural Humility in LiLibraries.” Reference Services Review 47, no. 4 (2019): 544-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-06-20190042
4. Greenleaf, R. K. Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. New York: Paulist Press, 1991.
Guide to the ATG Reviewer Ratings
The ATG Reviewer Rating is being included for each book reviewed. Corey came up with this rating to reflect our collaborative collections and resource sharing means and thinks it will help to classify the importance of these books.
• I need this book on my nightstand. (This book is so good, that I want a copy close at hand when I am in bed.)
• I need this on my desk. (This book is so valuable, that I want my own copy at my desk that I will share with no one.)
• I need this in my library. (I want to be able to get up from my desk and grab this book off the shelf, if it’s not checked out.)
• I need this available somewhere in my shared network. (I probably do not need this book, but it would be nice to get it within three to five days via my network catalog.)
• I’ll use my money elsewhere. (Just not sure this is a useful book for my library or my network.)
