Christine L. Borgman.
From Gutenberg to the Global Information Infrastructure: Access to Information in the Networked World.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.
cloth, 340 p., ISBN 0-262-02473-X, US$42.00.
MIT Press: http://mitpress.mit.edu

This book takes a broad perspective, encompassing many aspects of the question of how we access information, and how we can ensure that information continues to be accessible. In order to provide such breadth, the author complements her own research with extensive literature reviews and analyses, drawing upon research and practice in many related fields ranging from computer science and and information policy to psychology and sociology. She thus covers a range of issues covering the spectrum from the technological underpinning of the global information infrastructure to the social and psychological aspects of the ways in which we access and use information.

The component parts of the GII include "computer networks, digital libraries, digital preservation, electronic publishing, information retrieval, human-computer interface design, telecommunications, information-related behaviour [and] information policy" (p. ix). Borgman surveys the progress that has been achieved in each of these elements, while noting that it is necessary also to pay more attention to the way that humans behave in the face of these technologies. Finally, technologies and policies are only viable if people choose to adopt them, so alongside such issues as copyright and privacy, information policy must also be informed by an understanding of the ways in which people choose to access and manipulate information. Efforts to scale up the present-day Internet to an infrastructure for electronic commerce, education, entertainment and communications depend on the interactions between people, technology and content, so the book views the development of the GII as a gradual evolution of these three elements together, making possible both new ways of doing old activities, and a variety of completely new activities.

One important role envisaged for the GII is that of "Global Digital Library", a construct that Borgman proposes to encompass digital libraries that are connected to, and accessible through, a global information infrastructure linking electronic resources around the world. She points out, however, that "In view of the rapid expansion of computer networks, distributed access to information resources, electronic publishing, tele-learning, distance-independent learning, electronic commerce, and related applications of information technologies, much more research on all aspects of digital libraries is needed" (p. 51). Borgman analyses three elements of access to such a network: connectivity, content and usability. Usability is the most problematic of these, as it is limited by the ability of non-specialists to use the technology and the information available. "Information systems continue to be difficult to learn and to use, despite the technological advances of the last two decades" (p. 118). Nonetheless, such an infrastructure would empower people around the world by improving their access to information.

One way in which access can be improved is through the digitization of documents, which allows a digital image of a document to be distributed online to multiple users. So, apart from documents that are "born digital", libraries face the important task of making traditional documents available in digital form. Chapter three contains an interesting discussion of what constitutes a document, and surveys various ways in which electronic documents differ from their conventional counterparts. This is complemented at the end of chapter four by a survey of a variety of new techniques which are being developed to identify characteristics of documents and behaviours and to improve information retrieval and other aspects of document creation and use. Borgman concludes that the real power of technology in electronic publishing may be in new formats for publishing. New genres can be created that provide better searching, sorting and displays, hyperlinks between documents, and links from citations to the full source.

Debates about electronic publishing also range across a number of disciplines, as they "involve the interaction of technological, psychological, sociological, economic, political, and cultural factors that influence how people create, use, seek, and acquire information" (p. 83). Likewise, the change from print to electronic journals depends on a complex relationship between technology, behaviour, and economics: "From a technological perspective, documents are merely 'things' to be manipulated in information systems. From a behavioral perspective, however, documents have a 'social life'" (p. 115).

A theme that is reiterated throughout the book is "the reflexive relationship between human behavior and technology. People use the technologies that are available and adapt them to suit their purposes. Subsequent iterations of technology reflect those adaptations in combination with new capabilities made possible by technological advances" (p. 168). Furthermore, in the chapter titled "Acting Locally, Thinking Globally", Borgman makes the point that "Designers of each digital library must tailor their systems to the identified needs of their target audience" (p. 222), while at the same time recognising that their system will serve as part of a larger entity.

The final chapter considers how we can develop from the present-day Internet to the global information infrastructure. "The first [challenge] lies in scaling the technology, the economics, and the behavior to a network that supports several orders of magnitude more users. The second is to provide access to information in this environment. And the third is to transfer the technology and services to parts of the world with different traditions" (p. 225). Some of the necessary approaches are indicated in the trends for a research agenda for digital libraries that Borgman herself identifies (p. 167). Given the opportunities that computer networks offer for information access, the need for libraries may be questioned. However, libraries play a vital role in information infrastructure, and also fulfill the social role of promoting learning.

Even so, the picture that Borgman paints is of an infrastructure that can be accessed by people in a wide variety of situations for a wide variety of purposes. "Information technologies are converging, computer networks are extending their reach, digital libraries are proliferating, and the user community is growing exponentially. These developments combine to make vastly more information resources available to many more people in many more places" (p. 266).

The challenge that the book sets out is to ensure that the technological challenges are confronted in ways that recognise all the other factors that combine to allow a successful development of the infrastructure. Borgman's book performs a useful service in giving a broad overview of all the kinds of issues that need to be addressed.