Innovation through Technical and Scientific Information: Government and Industry Cooperation by Steven Ballard, et al

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1128 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Innovation through Technical and Scientific Information: Government and Industry Cooperation. By Steven Ballard, Thomas E. James, Jr., Timothy I. Adams, Michael D. Devine, Lani L. Malysa, and Mark Meo. Westport, Conn.: Quorum (Greenwood), 1989. Pp. 198; tables, references, index. $42.95. Information is precious. Scientific and technical information (STI) inspires companies’ growth and, in aggregate, the nation’s economy. But the problem with STI is finding what you need when you need it, when you are not sure what that is in a sea of scattered and poorly labeled reports and data and experts. How can the federal govern­ ment help? Innovation through Technical and Scientific Information is a thin, disappointing, and dull effort to review federal policies regard­ ing STI and its use of innovation. While Steven Ballard and his coauthors are experienced students of science policy, STI is not their held of expertise, and they bring little fresh insight to the area. The result is a macro-level, bureaucratic review that describes program­ matic missions and structures without dipping into the nitty-gritty. The book would have been strengthened greatly by the addition of some thorough case studies or research. What you learn is that research and development (R&D) is complex, STI is important, and people are crucial. Foreign access to STI is disquieting but hard to avoid. Defense R&D spending is probably wasteful. The language is turgid and bureaucratic: “Given the diverse goals, organizational complexity, and institutional fragmentation within the R&D commu­ nity, however, no single policy or program has consciously provided a broad basis upon which a comprehensive or centralized management plan for innovation can be developed” (p. 51). Although the book purports to be studious, and the authors apparently interviewed federal and industry people for the original study, it comes off as thinly researched, an extended editorial whose opinions on revving up STI use—however valid—are not backed by any substantive research or analysis. (The volume is the published dregs of a study sponsored by the National Science Foundation in the heyday of promoting government-industry-university technology transfer; not all of the original study team was involved in this publication.) The authors prescribe, with bureaucratic fervor atypical of aca­ demic researchers, centralizing science (e.g., in a Department of Science and Technology), centralizing STI policy, and reshaping peer review around industrial priorities. They ignore a vast array of important policies and informal information flows, such as industry’s hiring of science and engineering students subsidized by federal research and education funds. They also ignore the most important part of any ostensibly nation-saving federal program: implementa­ tion. The concept of an Engineering Research Center (ERC) may be wonderful, but the implementation is even more important. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1129 The good points? The book summarizes major STI issues, and the rationales and goals of programs such as ERCs and Small Business Innovation Research. There is a nice, simple discussion of the recent (1960—85) evolution of federal STI thinking: from deterministic, supply-side “produce STI and industry will flourish” (an “appropri­ ability” strategy) to realization that you have to work actively to get the right information to the right place (“dissemination”) to the current stewpot strategy that mixes people and organizations to create attrac­ tive rendezvous for the information hungry (“knowledge utilization”). But the easily digestible STI overview camouflages a hidden danger for the novice reader: the authors’ weakly supported opinions, scattered gospel-like throughout the text. The net effect feels suspi­ ciously like an unquestioned Reagan administration platform for industrializing, privatizing, and consolidating (for efficiency, of course) science and STI. Overall, for the professional, the content is not worth the slog. In comparison, a book like U.S. Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Policies: Views and Perspectives, edited by Charles R. McClure and Peter Hernon (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1989), offers much richer, balanced, and useful analyses. Lisa C. Heinz Ms. Heinz studies emerging science and technology issues at J. F. Coates, Inc., a Washington, D.C., firm dedicated to the study of the future. Owning Scientific and Technical Information: Value and Ethical Issues. Edited by Vivian Weil and John W. Snapper. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University...