When a new edition of a resource is published, one assumes that it has already met with the approval of its users. This must certainly be the case with Cooke’s work, which has been recommended by many since it first appeared. This new edition, fully revised, suggests a range of strategies, developed through empirical research, for selecting and evaluating high quality information resources. Step‐by‐step examples are included on how to evaluate particular types of resources, such as organisational Web sites, mailing lists and newsgroups, full‐text documents, as well as dealing with advertising, sponsorship, and other commercial information.
Cooke cuts through the jargon and offers the reader a pragmatic look at the advantages and disadvantages of different types of search facilities – search engines, subject catalogues and directories, and virtual libraries. New sections have been added in this edition, including the use of search facilities to find quality information. This extends to using Web citations and searching the invisible Web.
Internet resources have traditionally been evaluated using criteria to facilitate the critical appraisal of information. However, this approach is not suited to all Internet users, so a new section has been added on using checklists and rating schemes for numerically evaluating the quality of information. Also considered are the role of metadata in locating quality resources and the “kitemarking” of Internet resources.
The book is set out in five chapters: “Introduction”; “Using search facilities to maximize quality information retrieval”; “Assessing the quality of an information source”; “Evaluating particular types of sources”; “Using checklists, kitemarks and metadata to indicate quality”. The references in each chapter are right up to date and include online access addresses. Topping off a useful resource are some added extras that, in themselves, make this book worth every cent:
compilation of evaluation checklists;
list of Web sites;
glossary;
index.
This comprehensive manual is a practical and easy‐to‐use tool, suitable for beginners and experienced Internet users alike. It should be considered an essential desk reference for librarians and other information professionals, including teachers who might need to filter information; it will help all searchers navigate the Internet more successfully. It should also be of high interest to students needing to evaluate information and to information providers seeking to produce resources for dissemination via the Internet.
