<b>Ian Cornelius</b>. <i>Information Policies and Strategies</i>. London: Facet Publishing, 2010. 256p. alk. paper, $99.95 (ISBN 9781856046770). NL015366895.

sciences librarianship. For those who are considering entering the field of health sciences librarianship, this book is worth reading and helps to better define what being a health sciences librarian involves. Overall, this book is definitely a valuable resource for anybody who is interested in learning more about health sciences librarianship.—Judy Ian Cornelius is at once attempting to deliver a theoretical guide to information policies while providing practical examples to help illustrate how these issues impact our everyday lives. It is important to note that he is not speaking only to information professionals but to anyone who might have an interest in how information is managed or controlled. Throughout the book, he attempts to draw the discussion into a broader, systematic analysis of information and the role it plays in contemporary society. He shapes the foundation of his discussion with what amounts to an exploration of how we live in a world that is defined by information. His writing throughout this section is reminiscent of the kind of philosophical writing one might expect from a Marxist historian, but the entire text lacks any indication of supporting references for the conclusions he draws. Despite this omission, he begins with a brief survey of how information has contributed to, and even shaped, our society and uses this position as a backdrop of assumptions for the remainder of the book, attempting to demonstrate how each of the forthcoming areas he investigates influences the way in which we handle information policies. While the first half of the book comes across as a theoretical essay with examples included to aid the reader in following the discussion, the second half goes in the opposite direction by taking practical issues faced by information professionals—cen-sorship, privacy issues, freedom of information , and intellectual property—and enclosing them within his philosophical superstructure. By doing so, Cornelius is clearly drawing the reader furthering into his thesis that multiple external forces are constantly struggling for control of information and each is doing so for its own interest. Even though the examples throughout this second section will be familiar to the majority of professionals, it is the enclosure he builds to dissect these concepts that will likely prove difficult. This pattern continues into the conclusion , which tries to account for the various gaps in previous chapters by examining how information policy is, or is not, handled in other arenas, such as nondemocratic …