complete, balanced, and more fully satisfying meal. Smith is a well-known privacyauthor and activist. He organized his book by time and themes, which allows for aneffective presentation of a complex subject. For the early colonial period, the theme isWatchfulness. In the late 18th century, Smith’s theme is Mistrust. The expansion of theU.S. during the 19th century is represented by a chapter on Space and one on Curiosity.Other chapters focus on wiretaps, sex, numbers (as in Social Security Numbers),databanks, and cyberspace. Smith does not shoehorn his themes strictly, but he lets themoverlap freely and naturally.

One of the many interesting tidbits in the book identifies the 19th century AmericanPresident who was a strong privacy advocate. The surprising answer is James Garfield, whowas chairman of a House committee on the Census and advocated more confidentialityprotections. Garfield also spoke out about the need for confidentiality in telegrams. Since hewas killed by an assassin a few months after the 1880 election, we will never know if hisprivacy interest might have made a difference.

The book is one of the best on privacy in recent years, and it strikes a good balancebetween the popular and the academic. Smith’s presentation gives the reader a sense of howtechnology, government, and other factors shaped American’s interest in and perception ofprivacy. The book incorporates history, technology, architecture, sociology, philosophy, andlaw. Smith is a privacy advocate, but his presentation and analysis are generally balanced andeven-handed. He admits that American views on privacy are ambivalent, and he documentsall sides. The reader of this book will walk away with an enjoyable and informative lessonin America’s love/hate relationship with privacy.

Robert GellmanPrivacy and Information Policy Consultant

419 Fifth Street SEWashington, DC 20003

Our Virtual World: The Transformation of Work, Play and Life via TechnologyLaku Chidambaram and Ilze Zigurs. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, 2001. $74.95.ISBN: 1878289926

Our Virtual World focuses on the changes technology has brought to everyday life,providing an intriguing look at the many ways technology is effecting work, play and lifefor individuals, organizations and society as a whole. The book analyzes how our worldis becoming increasingly more virtual, including the evolution of e-mail as a standard(and often preferred) way to communicate with others and the increasingly commonplaceuses of telecommuting and shopping online, and discusses the impacts of these shifts inthe various arenas of life. The book’s 14 chapters, including an introduction andconclusion by the editors, present a collection of writings by 20 authors on many aspectsof technology and the impact of technology. The book is organized into four sections.

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The first section provides an introduction and an overview of technological issueseffecting virtual society; the second covers work-related topics including socializationand communication; the third discusses play and online recreation; and the fourthdiscusses life issues such as politics, identity and achieving value and trust. In addition,there is a simple index to major concepts such as electronic books, social environmentand tele-medicine. Also, there is a section that contains short biographical entries foreach contributing author. Of the 20 authors,18 are currently working in or associatedwith academia, either as professors or as Ph.D. students.

Topics covered include online education, geographically diverse workers performingtogether in virtual teams, online communication issues, and establishing identity withinonline communities. Chapters focus on specific topics within the broader themes of eachsection, such as Ramesh Venkataraman’s “Online Poker and the Individuals Who Play It” inthe “play and online recreation” section which explores the evolution of an IRC poker listfrom online communication to annual face-to-face meetings and competitions, or Jo AnnOravec’s “Online Recreation and Play in Organizational Life: the Internet as Virtual Con-tested Terrain” which discusses workplace use of the Internet for personal reasons. Politicalissues are covered within Jennifer Petersen’s “Citizens and Spokesmen: Politics and PersonalExpression on the Web.”

Each chapter is relatively self-contained and can be read and understood alone withoutneeding to read the entire text. This allows readers to read only those areas that interest them.For instance, someone interested in the effects of Internet recreation on business can readonly chapter 8 (“Online Recreation and Play in Organizational Life”) and glean the infor-mation they need. On the other hand, many of the issues involved with technology mergebetween the areas of work, play and life. For instance, the chapter on Internet recreation andbusiness (chapter 8) is located in the section on play, but it could also be located in thesection on work. Thus, someone with a business focus may find interesting ideas in chaptersthroughout the entire text. The introduction and conclusion provide some necessary cohesionbetween the chapters. The introduction lays out the intent and organization of the text andprovides short summaries of each chapter. The conclusion is very useful because it describesthe major concepts and conclusions from each chapter in terms of five common themes:transformation of structures, physical versus virtual communities, something old and some-thing new, simplicity succeeds, and finally, gains and losses of the transformation. These fewpages nicely synthesize the variety of issues and ideas from all of the areas. As a whole, thisbook provides a very clear view of many issues involved with technology and our changingsociety. The text is approachable, easy to read, avoids technical jargon and can be read insections. It includes a variety of topics and a variety of styles; some of the articles areresearch-driven (including surveys and interviews), while some are simply observation andexperience. Consequently, Our Virtual Worldwill be of interest to a wide-range of people,from teachers and students to casual readers and possibly policy-makers. Given this wideaudience, this book will probably be of interest to many libraries including public andacademic.

Nicole CampbellReference Librarian,

262 Book Reviews / Government Information Quarterly 18 (2001) 257–264

Washington State University Vancouver,14204 NE Salmon Creek Ave.,

Vancouver, WA. 98686-9600,campbell@vancouver.wsu.edu.

State Administrative Law Bibliography: Print and Electronic SourcesBy Cheryl Rae Nyberg. Twin Falls, Idaho: Carol Boast and Cheryl Rae Nyberg, 2000.xxvii, 597 pages. $250.00 (cloth) ISBN 1889194042.

State Administrative Law Bibliography: Print and Electronic Sources, in its first edition,is a compilation of state administrative agency legal resources (administrative codes, regis-ters, decisions, opinions). This is the first work that has attempted to accomplish this in acomprehensive fashion due to the nature of state documents: irregularly published in limitedquantities and not generally found far from their point of provenance, and not usuallyreprinted and indexed by commercial publishers. Also, comprehensive collections do notexist. Several publishers do make select materials available, such as Commerce ClearingHouse, Inc. which produces tax-related materials in its state tax reporters, or LEXIS-NEXISand Westlaw, which include several databases of state administrative decisions. This workis therefore based upon the contributions of catalogers, agency officials and employees, localauthors and commercial publishers. The sources that the author cites as those consulted tocompile this work include theMonthly Checklist of State Publications, Annual State Bibli-ography Series, legal research and other directories and guides. Bibliographic utilities, onlinecatalogs, Web sites, etc. were also used. The author, who is also the primary author of theSubject Compilations of State Lawsseries, plans to revise theState Administrative LawBibliographyevery five years.

Beginning with the introduction, the volume is then organized by state and by subject.There is a List of Main Subject Headings and then a Multi-State listing of resources.Following are the 50 states, also including entries for the District of Columbia, AmericanSamoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The statesand their entries are identified with postal code abbreviations. There are 58 possible subjectheadings which include: Administrative Codes, Agriculture, Attorney General, CampaignFinance, Civil Rights, Consumer Protection, Corrections, Education, Environment, Environ-ment, Ethics, Executive Orders, Government Finance, Health Care, Labor Relations, MotorVehicles, Municipalities, Occupational Safety and Health, Procurement, Public Employees,Real Estate, Securities, Taxation, Transportation, Unemployment, Utilities, Welfare, Work-ers’ Compensation. Descriptions of the subject categories as to what they cover are includedin the Introduction. The entries include a bibliographic description and an annotation, alsodescribed in the Introduction. The annotation describes the content (type of legal resource),treatment (full-text of all opinions), time period covered, previous and later titles.

All publication formats are included (print, film, online databases, disk, Web sites). Thereare more than 3,200 entries or records describing the published administrative codes,registers, decisions and opinions of administrative agencies. Most of the entries are decisions

263Book Reviews / Government Information Quarterly 18 (2001) 257–264