Coming from a distinguished career in technical services, Johnson delivers an exceptionally well written and much-needed book about what one must do to get one’s library ready for the next frontier: the conversion from a largely print collection to one more heavily oriented toward electronic formats. Because of the intrinsic differences between electronic and print materials, librarians must rethink the way they do things. Included in the chapter on “working across organizational units to acquire and manage e-resources” is a flowchart illustrating the many steps involved in deciding whether to purchase a given electronic item. Let’s use the example of a database. Step one: A reference librarian with expertise in the relevant subject area will conduct a trial of the database. Two: Another staff member, perhaps from technical services, will negotiate the license with the vendor. Three: A systems librarian may be involved in evaluating the product from a technical standpoint. You get the idea: An entire team of staff members, culled from several departments, is required. Ultimately, this means that anyone currently involved in any facet of collection development must start gearing up for what’s ahead. For instance, media selectors face decisions about whether their libraries will continue to offer movies in DVD format, or whether streaming media will soon make DVDs obsolete.

Unfortunately, the softcover edition of this book is an inferior product from a physical standpoint. The 10-point type is too small to be comfortable for most people. To make matters worse, because the book was printed on lightweight bond, the opacity is very poor. Although the softcover edition is not recommended because of these readability problems, libraries should consider adding the e-book to their reference collections