Thomas H.P. Gould. Do We Still Need Peer Review? Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2013, 175p. paperback, alk. paper, $60 (ISBN: 9780810885745). LC 2012-021731

providing such a panoramic view of the practice of teaching to distance learners, Niedorf must discuss many of these topics only lightly. I was often left wishing that Niedorf would offer more than a cursory analysis and go deeper into the subject matter. For that reason, I think the book would be of greatest use to those who are brand-new to the practice of teaching distance students. They should be able to get an overarching view of what the process of preparing for a class is like and how to manage the class once it is underway.— Peer review is used extensively in many professional fields including most academic disciplines, scientific and medical research, and even in computer software development. Peer review uses independent and, in many cases, anonymous reviewers in an attempt to obtain an unbi-ased evaluation of a work or performance by others in the same field or profession. A work or performance that has undergone the peer review process is considered to have met the gold standard of quality. The role of the peer review process in scholarly communications is to foster research and intellectual progress by either reaffirming existing theories or by supporting new ideas that are built on commonly accepted methodologies and reasoning. However, new and emerging Internet technologies are not only changing the way that people interact, but also how scholars can communicate their theories and ideas using more direct routes to publication. Although the use of the Internet can expedite scholarly communications , it can also bypass the traditional formal publication and, therefore, the peer review process. The ability of the peer review system to adapt to the changing technological landscape is addressed in Do We Still Need Peer Review? by Thomas H.P. Gould. Gould is an associate professor of Mass Communications in the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Kansas State University. This book would be of interest to academics interested in the evolution of the peer review process in the publication of scholarly communications. In this book, Gould provides an argument for change in the peer review system in the face of a technological environment. Gould argues that, without an immediate effort by scholars to institute reform, the future of peer review is uncertain. Gould argues that, as new technology provides authors with a direct, unsupervised route to publication, the peer review situation is nearing a tipping point, beyond …