The main strength of this book is in the historical perspective it offers. The authors give a broad, national overview of the public library as an institution, its governance and funding, and U.S. national information policy generally. This historical, research based approach makes for somewhat dense reading, but also makes the book a valuable resource.

The main drawback of Civic space/cyberspace is that the authors really do not provide much detail about the site visits to 22 libraries and other institutions which also shaped their thinking on the subject.

I found it frustrating that the book's generally postive comments about the future of public libraries and the ways that they are adapting to information technology were second guessed by the very last paragraphs of the book.

I would recommend this book mainly for librarians, library school students, or those significantly involved with public libraries in some way.