Reviews The Global Information Society William J Martin Aslib/Gower Aldershot £32. O0 249 pp ISBN 0 556 07715 9 Does the information society exist? How would we know, and what would its presence portend for the future? Does it matter anyway? These are the questions addressed by William Mar- tin in what is essentially an extended and revised version of his 1988 text The Information Society (London, Aslib). This set of very broad questions could be approached in many ways, from the prosaic to the evangelical, from the visionary to the nit-picking. Martin, appropriately enough for a professor of information manage- ment, takes a cool and academic view. He summarises arguments carefully, gives quotations liberally, and pro- vides copious and well-chosen refer- ences. On the debit side, this gives the book a rather bloodless quality, so that it is difficult to take seriously the claim of the publishers' blurb that it 'presents a new way of looking at society'. The book opens with what are argu- ably its best chapters, on the nature of information and communication themselves, and on definitions and concepts of the information society. Martin succeeds in covering a wide area in a balanced fashion, and with just the right degree of detail, and this part of the book would form an excel- lent introduction for someone new to the topic. Two chapters on the tech- nical background, while competently written, raise doubts common to most treatments of this kind; the material is dated in detail already, some of the references are lacking in technical meat, eg some to newspaper reports, and the balance of topics included seems a little strange in some respects. The next chapter, on the economics of information, sees the author on better form, giving a clear overview of com- plex issues. So far, so good. With some doubts about the technical sections, the first hundred or so pages have summarised and set in clear context a great deal of material. The next four chapters, covering the social impact of informa- tion and communication technologies, the information-based industries, in- formation management, and the con- tent and context of global information flows, attempt to build on this, to give a clear picture of what, if any, sort of information society we have. And here I feel a distinct disappointment. The coverage is still careful and well constructed, but somewhat superficial in content and tone; adequate no doubt for a student seeking back- ground material for an essay, but rather thin for the specialist seeking new insight, or the practitioner seek- ing practical guidance. Perhaps it is expecting too much for the author to attempt to combine all these aspects of such a large topic within one reason- ably sized book. That a reviewer should feel disappointment can be counted a tribute to the expectations raised by the author's mastery of material and lucid style of presenta- tion. As a well-referenced sourcebook, this book will be much appreciated by students of information management, and related subjects, and by their teachers. As a source of new ideas for specialists in these areas, or as a guide for practitioners, it is rather too super- ficial to serve alone. David Bawden City University London, UK Ground Truth: The Social Implica- tions of Geographic Information Sys- tents John Pickles (ed) Guildford Press New York 180pp £30.00 ISBN 0 89862 294 8 The advantages of using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for the analysis of spatial data lies in their ability to link many different datasets to a specific spatial reference. While this provides a very useful computer- ised tool, as recognised by geo- graphers, it also raises important so- cial and ethical issues for society, for example; in terms of personal privacy and surveillance. The recent incor- poration of GIS techniques into main- stream computer packages now means that the results derived from this type of analysis are increasingly having an impact on everyday lives and the need for social analysis of GIS is greater than ever. Ground Truth is described by the publisher as 'the first book to explicitly address the role of Geo- graphic Information Systems in this social context'. The preface states that Ground Truth 'is, first, a book about the trans- formation of data handling and map- ping capabilities over the past two decades and the impact they have had within the discipline of geography. Second, it is a book about the con- stellation of ideas, ideologies and so- cial practices that have emerged with the development of new forms of data handling and spatial representation. Third, it situates GIS as a tool and an approach to geographical information within the wider transformations of capitalism in the late 20th Century.' One main problem that Ground Truth does attempt to redress is the tendency of GIS literature to concen- trate on the technology used to collect and analyse the data rather than on social and theoretical foundations that can be used for the evaluation of this technology. This is a theme that runs throughout the book and can be parti- cularly seen in the chapters by Pickles, Goodchild and Curry. Pickles opening Chapter on 'Repre- sentations in the Electronic Age' assesses the way in which GIS has led to changes in the conceptualisation and representation of geography and establishes the need for critical theory to evaluate GIS in relation to cultural, economic and political ideas. Good- child continues this theme in 'GIS and Geographic Research' by examining the need for social research within the field of geography to increase aware- ness and evaluate both the 'good and evil' possibilities that can arise from the use of GIS. Curry then goes on to discuss the ethical inconsistencies that currently surround GIS. Ground Truth also includes chapters on com- puter innovation, cartography, geo- demographics and global imagery, but these are all seen in a broader social framework and are linked to the mar- ket place and democracy. One of the main conclusions drawn from Ground Truth is the need for 324