Book reviews / Information Processing and Management 43 (2007) 821–833 827

Still, the candid and realistic look taken at certain managerial as well as sensitive issues along with the many
practical alternatives on how to achieve success and avoid mistakes, makes this work a valuable resource tool
for all ranges of managers in today’s information places.

Librarian I
Rabia Ramlogan
The General Reference and Loans Division,
The Main Library,
The University of the West Indies,
St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago,
West Indies
Tel.: +868 662 2002x3413/2132; fax: +868 662 9238
E-mail address: rramlogan@library.uwi.tt

Available online 7 November 2006

doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2006.09.013

The Craft of Research, 2nd edition (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) (Paperback) by Wayne
C. Booth, Joseph M. Williams, Gregory G. Colomb. Paperback: 336 pages. University of Chicago Press; 2nd
edition. ISBN: 0226065685

The Craft of Research is a really good reference book for both novice and experienced researchers. The
book skillfully addresses several possible reader demographics. First, it is an instruction manual for getting
the novice academic researcher from topic to outline to notes to thesis. Second, for mid-level researchers,
the book illustrates the complex, sometimes illogically process that is research. Finally, for the experienced
researcher, The Craft of Research is a refreshing revisit on how research should be done and what should
be its impact. I liked the book a lot.
The book is packed with information, insight, and knowledge about research, why we do it and how it is
done. The examples actually make sense and contribute greatly to understanding the theoretician aspects of
the text. The book is very well written, with no grammar errors that I keyed in on. The prose is clear, and
the authors insert their own personal experiences in the book, which helps make it a pleasant read.
The book is composed of five sections. First, there is a two chapter section on starting a research project.
Second, a four chapter section deals with planning a research project. Third, the five chapter section on fram-
ing ones argument is very well done. I found it very helpful in working on my research papers. Fourth, a sec-
tion of five chapters addresses the issues of writing. Finally, a one chapter section ends the book with some
potpourri on ethics, teaching research, and sources. The book is 324 pages of text, but it is a quick read.
There were certain chapters that captured my interest. Chapter 2 on connecting with the reader was done
nicely, with the authors highlighting that a research paper should develop a relationship with the reader. Not
rocket science, but something that we researchers often forgot or forego. Chapter 7 addressed the important
issue of making good arguments, outlining reasons, evidence, and relevance. Chapter 11 on warrants was a really
fascinating adventure in the underlying assumptions that ground most research. A difficult topic for researchers,
because we are so ingrained in our fields that we take the assumptions for granted. However, those outside our
field do not. Therefore, we must always be ready to articulate the warrants of our research.
The book does have at least two shortcomings. One, it is tailored for those researchers who publish
academic articles. There are a significant number of researchers for which publishing is not their primary goal.
Certainly The Craft of Research will be of help to them, but not as much as the ‘‘traditional’’ academic
researcher. Two, the lack of familiarity by the authors with (or at least coverage of) the technological aids
available to modern researchers was almost embarrassing. For example, the discussion of note taking and bib-
liography construction with no mention of applications such Endnote is a serious omission. Another example
is Chapter 15, Communicating Evidence Visually, which was a fine presentation at the design level. However,
828 Book reviews / Information Processing and Management 43 (2007) 821–833

the lack of discussion of modern graphing applications (many of which are quite good) called into question
everything the authors were trying to communicate.
These shortcomings aside, this book is now mandatory reading for my research students. I expect to refer to
it frequently myself.

Bernard J. Jansen
College of Information Sciences and Technology,
The Pennsylvania State University,
329F Information Sciences and Technology Building,
University Park,
PA 16802,
USA
Tel.: +1 814 865 6459; fax: +1 814 865 6426
E-mail address: jjansen@acm.org
URLs: http://ist.psu.edu/faculty_pages/jjansen/, http://jimjansen.blogspot.com/

Available online 2 October 2006

doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2006.08.003

Memory Practices in the Sciences, Geoffrey C. Bowker. The MIT Press (2005). xi, 261 pp., $34.95, ISBN: 0-262-
02589-2

How can a stone be regarded as an archive? In her manifesto of 1951, now finally available in English, Briet
(1951, 7; 2006, 10) explained that if a stone is examined as evidence, it is as much a ‘‘document’’ as a text
would be. Hjørland (1997, p. 111) added that a stone, like any other document, would mean different things
to different people, according to their interests and perspectives. Now Geoffrey Bowker puts it nicely: Stones
lead a double life. On the one hand they just do what rocks do, ordinarily just sitting on or in the ground, but,
when examined, they reveal the history of the earth: ‘‘As objects they function in the world, and as archives
they maintain traces of their own past. Thus a rock can be read as an object that constitutes part of the
lithosphere, and equally as a document that contains its own history written into it: striations on the surface
indicate past glaciations, strata indicate complex stories of deposition over time. . .’’ (p. 36).
Memory Practices in the Sciences continues and extends the author’s examination of the cultural and the
technical in the infrastructure and practice of science. The author says (p. 6) that the book is concerned with
how scientists figure their own human and disciplinary past and also the past of whatever they are investigat-
ing, but the content of the book is not easily summarized. It examines endless interplays between complex
issues: time, memory, documentation, infrastructure, culture, and human agendas.
Time is complex, calibrated by events, calibrating events, and can be excluded from theories and closed
systems.
Memory emerges differently in each occasion of recollecting. Bowker is concerned with memory, but he
deals with recording and representation more than remembering and he is interested in the many ways in
which, over time, descriptive documentation fails to support accurate or useful reconstruction of the past.
The word ‘‘archive’’ is very widely used to include all surviving traces of, or concerning, the past. All
archives are highly selective. Leaving traces is a situated rhetorical activity, more or less unsatisfactory for
audiences in other, later situations. Interpretation requires contextualizing knowledge that is often not avail-
able. Yet it is the imperfect archive of traces that alone can speak to us: ‘‘The archive’s jussive force, then,
operates through being invisibly exclusionary’’ (p. 14).
Memory practices use classification and standardization for efficiency and effectiveness. Consequently,
infrastructures filter knowledge of the past. Selective forgetting is a practical necessity and a political force.
Archive, memory, and classification are tightly linked: ‘‘The tools that we have to think about the past with