Opening Michael P. Sauers' Searching 2.0 provided me with a great sense of nostalgia, and that is not such a bad thing.
Sauers opens his Chapter 1, What is Web 2.0? with a flashback to “the state of libraries and the internet in the year 2000.” That, in itself, provides a revealing statement on the changes and technological progress that has been made in just nine years. My nostalgia, however, was embedded in a time earlier than the year 2000 and was sparked by the format of Sauers' book. The book's chapters are presented through the extensive use of black and white screen shot illustrations of a vast myriad of, primarily, Web 2.0 search technologies. I was reminded of the works of earlier internet authors such as Paul Gilster and his The Internet Navigator (1993) or 1994's Finding it on the internet: the Essential Guide to Archie, Veronica, Gopher, WAIS, WWW, and Other Search and Browsing Tools (remember some of those?). Where Gilster's books were squarely aimed at bringing “a measure of order to (the) chaotic situation” that was the internet in the early 1990s, Sauers' work, as is evident from its title, is focused on elucidating search techniques primarily in a Web 2.0 environment. And, within the obvious limitations of writing such a book, Sauers succeeds.
First, the limitations. By its very nature, and as Sauers suggests early in the work, the web is rapidly evolving. Such rapidity, while advantageous to the web user as evolution generally implies improvement (although not always), provides a challenge to authors of such works to maintain currency and relevance in their writings. This is recognized by Sauers who has created a web page containing errata for the book. While published in 2009, and most likely primarily written in 2008, this review is being written at the very end of the book's publication year, a very long time in this digital age. As an example, Microsoft's Live Search (dealt with at length in the book) is now Bing with a different search page from that presented in the book. Perhaps by the time this review reaches press, it may have changed again, such is the volatility of the web! Such changes, from the slight to the more extreme, will dictate a limited shelf life for the book, much like the previously mentioned works of Gilster. Notwithstanding that, given the target audience of the book (librarians), such modifications should be well within the reader's ability to accommodate these and adapt as necessary. A second, only minor, irritation is the low resolution screen shots, many of which have been reduced to a size that renders them difficult to decipher, at least for this pair of aging eyes.
Those aside, there is a great deal to commend Sauers' book, not least of which is its incredible attention to detail and its ability to cover the (seemingly) obvious to the truly revelatory. For example, while every librarian is aware of searching Google, and Wikipedia, Sauers provides an array of strategies for these that could only be known to a thoroughly expert searcher. For example, he describes using Google shortcuts to find: results to mathematical formulae; measurement conversions; currency conversions; definitions; movie reviews; phone numbers; UPS and FedEx numbers; stock information; and, weather. I knew the existence of some of those but not all. Numerous examples of this nature appear throughout the book but particularly illuminating for this reader was the chapter dealing with searching the past through Google Cache, the Wayback Machine and Wikipedia Page Histories. Not content with describing the current state of play, Sauers' concluding chapter questions a possible future for searching through data visualization, examples of which we are now starting to encounter and which leads me to believe that this will not be the final word on Web searching from Sauers.
This book is best read while using the web, enabling the reader to actively engage in the examples and techniques provided throughout the book and to eliminate the previously mentioned irritation of screen shot size. To enable the reader to confirm what they have read and reinforce their learning, there are end of chapter exercises for all of the relevant chapters. These exercises are practical and reflective of the preceding dialogue and could readily be used, or easily adapted, by librarians conducting similar tutorials with their own users.
Written in the first person, the book provides an almost tutorial style interaction between the author and reader, an interaction enhanced through the use of personable and accessible language: don't worry about it right now (p. 1); That's my defense and I'm sticking to it (p. 139); Sounds like a great idea to me (p. 253) and so on. This style facilitates a relaxed, confidence‐inducing relationship between the author and reader and sets an overall agreeable, indeed comfortable, tone for the book.
Sauers' book, while aimed at librarians, could easily be appreciated by the everyday web searcher, although the volume of detail is most likely to appeal to librarians and other information specialists. More specifically, reference librarians and in particular librarians involved in teaching information and searching skills will find this book to be of tremendous value. Additionally, any library embarking on an extensive program of teaching its staff about Web 2.0 searching techniques will find all that is needed within the books 337 pages.
I know that in years to come, future books of this style will once again invoke in me a sense of nostalgia for Sauers' book and this era of the internet, and I'm sure, that will not be such a bad thing.
