As the title suggests, this book is aimed at information professionals and also library and information science students. It is designed to provide an overview of vital technologies and advanced topics to keep the information practitioner up to date with current internet developments. It also attempts to analyse the utilisation of the internet in library environments by an in‐depth analysis of applications such as online reference services, digitising collections, portals, personalisation and virtual learning environments.
This is a very ambitious task to undertake, particularly in a book that only has 167 text pages. Unfortunately the task proved too great in this instance. It is divided into two parts – the first part designed to give a clear understanding of technologies such as internet search and web design, the second part covering use within a library environment, though at no point is it made clear where Part 1 ends and Part 2 begins. This leads to a strange situation where the reader is introduced to the intricacies of web page design in Chapter 2, but does not discover the background and history of the internet until Chapter 8!
I feel that the authors really tried to cover too much ground and were unclear about their intended audience. Internet searching, for example, merits no more than six pages, and provides no new information for an information professional. Even then, sad to say, the section has errors; for example, it is suggested that a search for photography not equipment will result in web pages that contain the first term but not the second. This simply results in the engine searching for all three terms. The appropriate search would be photography NOT equipment or photography ‐equipment. This is a really elementary error that surprised me.
Creating, designing and publishing web pages is given two chapters, and is a basic primer on how to go about doing this. Again, I have to wonder at the intended audience for this section, since it is often the case that this task will be undertaken by an organisation's technical department, but even if information professionals are doing this themselves they would surely be better advised to purchase a book (or several!) dedicated to the subject. I think that an overview would have been helpful, together with a discussion and advice on how the information professional should brief a web designer.
I have some sympathy with the authors – having written books on the internet myself, I know how difficult it is to provide timely advice and cover as much as possible in the space available. It is inevitable that useful resources will be ignored, but surely in a section on purchasing products there should be reference to Froogle, for example? Indeed, to write a section on e‐mail and to not reference Google's Gmail system is an odd omission. In fact, the authors do seem to have a clear preference for Yahoo! over Google, while MSN fares even worse. There are many other omissions as well – no reference at all to toolbars, which are becoming an increasingly standard addition to any internet user's armory, and web logs are, in passing, virtually ignored.
Having said that, the book is certainly not without merit. It is very well written and easy to read. The bias is towards the British market, so links to resources and sites demonstrate this, with lots of helpful links. There are many useful little hints and tips and each chapter ends with a selection of references. I particularly liked the way in which the authors introduce a wide variety of different subjects and activities that library professionals should be engaged with, such as chat, instant messaging and video conferencing – all of which are vital to any librarian. There is also a very good overview of networking technologies: although it is unlikely that many librarians will get their hands dirty using these, the authors provide much background to enable information professionals to talk knowledgeably to their technical department. There are also good discussions about e‐mail and conferencing, and a good index.
While the book is a bit of a mixture of subjects, and so cannot go into great depth about individual subjects, the title “companion” is I think appropriate. It is a good back‐up book enabling information professionals to identify areas that are of interest to them, thus allowing them to focus and concentrate on specific areas with either practical work or further reading.
