814 Book Reviews

Library Trends: Intellectual Freedom, Parts I & II. D. WOODWARD (Issue Ed.). University of Illinois, Urbana (Summer/Fall 1990). $6O/Yr., $18/issue, ISSN 0024-2594.

IntelIectual Freedom, Parts Z & ZZ is a double issue of the periodical Library Trends, and is a memo- rial to its editor Diana Woodward, who died while the work was in progress. A portion of a paper Dr. Woodward presented at a symposium at Rutgers School of Communication, Information and Library Studies in 1989 forms the introduction to this work because Dr. Woodward did not have an opportunity to write a specific introduction. Dr. Woodward’s premise was that instead of respond- ing to moral or ethical issues on the basis of feeling, one could apply methods of ethical reasoning to intellectual freedom issues. She felt that “. . . clear and logical thought must underlie the behav- ior of professionals who purport to have a sense of ethics in regard to their practice.” (p. 2) Her def- inition of intellectual freedom “. . . includes both the right to the intellectual efforts of others and a right to distribute one’s own intellectual efforts.” (p. 3) With intellectual freedom comes conflict with other ethical values. This issue of Library Trends deals with two of those conflicts-intellectual freedom versus privacy protection and intellectual freedom versus paternalistic censorship (informa- tion censoring for the benefit of society or some portion thereof).

Contained in Intellectual Freedom are a series of 12 articles written by various authors, with each article presenting views concerning one aspect of intellectual freedom. Woodward herself wrote the lead article, “A Framework for Deciding Issues in Ethics.” In this article she describes the advantages and disadvantages of two bases of ethical reasoning and intellectual freedom - consequentialism and deontology. She describes consequentialism as making ethics decisions based on the consequences of the decision, whereas deontology is based on rights, duties, and obligations without regard for con- sequences of the actions. She concludes that deontological defense of intellectual freedom is safer than defense on consequentialist grounds. A related article, “Philosophical Issues in Censorship and In- tellectual Freedom” by David V. Ward, occurs later in the work. Ward also discusses both ethical the- ories, outlining the pros and cons of each, and then relates them to some present-day issues, including feminist attacks on the legal availability of pornography, religious objections to Satanic Versus by Salman Rushdie, controversy over National Endowment for the Arts grants for art that some peo- ple view as obscene or offensive, and the removal or banning of books from taxpayer-supported li- braries. Ward concludes that deontological rights-based reasoning is stronger and takes precedence over consequentialist arguments, but both have their place, depending on the situation.

R. Kathleen Molz’s article “Censorship: Current Issues in American Libraries” follows Wood- ward’s, with an exploration of the course of two types of censorship-regulative and constitutive (or existential) - in the 1980s. She defines regulative as acts that regulate the behavior of people based on some orthodoxy (religion, morality, etc.) and constitutive (existential) as monopolistic domina- tion by either the state or the market or an alliance of both. Molz cites recent court cases that show

attempts at existential censorship. Continuing in the vein of censorship, Edward B. Jenkinson wrote his well-documented article “The New Age Rage and Schoolbook Protest” on censorship of school materials. This is an excellent survey of the schoolbook protest movement since the early 197Os, in which Jenkinson cites a very extensive list of court cases relative to school materials censorship, and outlines 40 of the most common types of objections raised about school materials, ranging from re- ligion to secular humanism to morality. Along the same theme of school censorship but with a dif- ferent approach is “Moral Autonomy, Censorship, and the Enlightened Community” by David Weissbord and Paul M&real. Their article cites instances and cases of school library book censor- ship by local school boards. They argue against broad school board discretion in order to allow chil- dren the right to explore alternative ideas not taught in the classroom, and thus develop their moral self-realization. The authors think broader exposure to ideas makes better democratic citizens.

James H. Moor explores the concepts of privacy protection in his article “The Ethics of Privacy Protection.” Moor elaborates on four theories concerning privacy, two of which are legal theories, with the others being philosophical ones. The legal theories include privacy as nonintrusion, mean- ing invading someone’s privacy without the person knowing it has happened, and privacy as freedom to act meaning “the freedom to act in personal matters” (p. 72) and to be protected from “intrusive laws for victimless crimes” (p. 74). The philosophical theories include privacy as control of informa- tion about ourselves, privacy as undocumented personal knowledge (not having undocumented per- sonal information about oneself known by others), and privacy as restricted access. “, . . [Plrivacy is a matter of the restricted access to persons or information about persons” (p. 76). Privacy also means being “. . . protected from intrusion, observation, and surveillance by others” (p. 76). This last theory Moor cites as the most defensible.

Four articles in this work directly concern access to information issues. Patrick Wilson in “Copy- right, Derivative Rights, and the First Amendment” cites the conflict between the First Amendment and the copyright law. The new information technology has enhanced the conflict. He describes the

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copyright law both before and after 1976, the year the copyright law was revised to include deriva- tive rights. Copyright protection for works of fact is the major concern of this author. Nancy L. Ea- ton in “Freedom and Equality of Access to Information: The Lacy Commission Report” discusses the Lacy Commission Report’s impact on librarians and the issues surrounding future access to in- formation, particularly with reference to electronic information technology and to availability of gov- ernment information. Sandra N. Milevski directly addresses the latter issue in her article “Federal Policy-Making and National Security Controls on Information.” She reviews the legislative and ex- ecutive actions of the last three presidencies and the movement toward stricter controls over certain information in the interest of national security. “Resolving Conflicts between Information Owner- ship and Intellectual Freedom” by Yale M. Braunstein reviews the articles by Eaton, Milevski, and Wilson and describes the tension between information ownership and intellectual freedom caused by attempting to balance economic and political interests governing the communication and informa- tion industries.

The last two articles in the work concern library and information science practices that impact intellectual freedom. Mary Biggs in “The Impact of Peer Review on Intellectual Freedom” discusses the history and practice of peer review, particularly as it relates to intellectual freedom. She gener- ally concedes that peer review inhibits innovative and/or nonconforming works or points of view. Charles B. Osburn’s article “Impact of Collection Management Practices on Intellectual Freedom” outlines the principles and practices of collection management and describes its changing nature due particularly to electronic information technology. He sees the potential for a disastrous impact on intellectual freedom.

Intellectual Freedom on the whole has excellent and copious reference citations for its articles. Contributors’ biographies are also included at the end of the issue. No index is included, but as a pe- riodical this work is indexed in a variety of special periodical indexes.

Each publication of Library Trends is intended as an exploration of a single issue of interest to librarians in general. As such it provides a forum for writers on that topic. This work, Intellectual Freedom, follows this format, giving all librarians an opportunity to gain knowledge about various aspects of intellectual freedom from a variety of scholarly writers. 1 found the articles very enlight- ening, particularly in regard to the historical background, current practices, and legal ramifications

of censorship and intellectual freedom.

Carl Sandburg Intermediate School Alexandria. VA

JESSICA FOSTER