A Librarian's Guide to the Internet: Searching and Evaluating

Like the other books in the Chandos Information Professional series, this is intended as an easy‐to‐read and practical guide for the busy information professional. This one, its author tells us, is aimed at “librarians and other information professionals who have very little experience of working with the Internet”: one must wonder how big a readership this will be, this far into the new millennium.

Written by a public librarian from Thun, in Switzerland, the book certainly achieves the first requirement: it is well‐written, in an informal and fluent style. It is not, however, particularly well‐designed for quick access to information; there are few graphics, or structural elements that would make it useful for reference or quick look‐up, and most pages are simply text. This is a book to be read, not skimmed or looked‐up. There is a short and limited index of topics, supported by an index to Web sites referred to.

With that limitation – if indeed it is such – it seems to me that the author generally succeeds in her aim. This is a useful and helpful basic introduction to the Internet – more specifically the Web – with an emphasis on the kind of serious, professional sites likely to appeal to the librarian, at least in their work guise.

After some introductory pages dealing with very basic concepts, there is a chapter on search strategies. These are not what most readers of this journal would understand by the term; rather they are a set of general heuristics, e.g. “talk to other people who might know a good resource” and “be specific in formulating your search”. While these are all sensible enough, it is hard to think that they would be news to the information professionals at whom this book is aimed. However, there are some useful Internet‐related tips, e.g. on the best use of newsgroups.

The next chapter, the longest in the book, deals with the major search tools: search engines, exemplified by Google; metasearch engines; directories and gateways; and the so‐called “invisible Web” of databases and the like. This is a nice overview, which should be helpful to someone unacquainted with these tools, and might also be a useful “refresher” to those confused by the mélange of tools available. Sensibly, there is no pretence made that reading this material will create a “super searcher”, but it should dispel some fears and misunderstandings.

A chapter on interpretation of results follows, based around a discussion of the “classic” criteria used for evaluation: accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, coverage, access and design. These are clearly stated and discussed, and are complemented by examples of checklists of such length and detail that I doubt anything of the sort would be used in practice by the “busy information professional” who is supposed to be reading the book; still, they act as useful reminders of good practice.

The book concludes with some shorter sections, on keeping up‐to‐date and providing good customer service. There is a section of addresses of recommended sites, organised by Dewey classification. I am dubious about the value of such lists, though all authors, or perhaps publishers, of books of this type seem to feel obliged to provide them. The subjectivity involved in choosing a small number of favourite sites, plus the dynamic nature of the net which will ensure that some are unreachable by the time the book appears, causes obvious problems. Having said that, this list is as sensible as any, and might serve as a starting point for a real beginner.

Müller's sensible advice to the reader who wishes to gain familiarity with the Internet is simply to practise regularly, though she also recommends tutorials and the like. This obvious‐seeming, but eminently sensible, advice typifies this book, which deserves to be recommended to any serious‐minded Internet novice, librarian or not.