I have been around a long time as a librarian, but my impression is that this series (going back to its Butterworth days) has been around even longer. Its various volumes have always seemed to be there throughout my career – and very welcome they have been. It is supposed to be so much easier now: just click on a search engine and out all your information pops. If only: the basic structure underlying many disciplines is as complex today as it ever was, and perhaps even more so as we move into the age of the open access archive. All of which is a roundabout way of saying that this, and similar volumes, have for many years defined the structure of their subjects' literatures (or information) and are just as vital today as they have ever been: perhaps even more vital in an age where users find so much information so easily, but without understanding its provenance, structure or relevance.
Engineering sits between two cultures: an ultimately severely practical applied discipline which must still rest on fundamental research, both pure and applied. Martin Ward's excellently clear and informative opening chapter, Information and the Engineer admirably sets this scene. A series of specialist contributors then provide 12 chapters on each of the major information sources: journals (and electronic journals), reports, product information, patents among the primary literature; abstracts, indexes, bibliographies and reference works among the secondary. Chapters on electronic full text services and on internet resources ensure we are anchored in the twenty‐first century and take us at least into the shorter term future of engineering information.
That is almost half the book. The rest comprises 14 chapters on the literature and sources for specialist areas of engineering: aerospace and defence, civil engineering, manufacturing engineering and others down to occupational safety and health and petroleum and offshore engineering.
The result is what continues to be a standard work for anyone concerned with engineering, whether as information provider, information seeker, or engineer; and many others besides, for this book will assist anybody with any information need relating to any branch of the subject. There are many well‐known names among the contributors, not least that of the co‐editor Roderick MacLeod for his pioneering work as manager of the EEVL portal service (the internet guide to engineering, mathematics and computing). One of the features of this series is – no disrespect meant to academic colleagues – that it has always been the work of practitioners in their various subjects. This gives each new edition not just authority, but a practicality and a currency that makes the series so pre‐eminent.
Each chapter, especially the subject chapters, is fully referenced so that the work serves as a structured guide to the significant literature or information sources, in addition to the narrative discussions of information structure. Increasingly those sources are online (as reflected in EEVL itself) and all are referenced here. The scope is primarily English‐language and European as well as American and international sources, so the coverage is comprehensive of everything significant in each field. Major information bodies of all kinds are identified and their importance and activities (and publications) discussed and referenced, usually with at least short notes on coverage and significance. Each chapter also presents a bibliography of major monographs and textbooks in the subject under discussion. This is a big book, as it needs to be to do its subject the justice it here receives, but a comprehensive index complements the logical structure of the work to make its contents readily accessible.
This is one of those works it is difficult to praise too highly, and I have no doubt I would say the same about others in the series (indeed have said in the past). Comprehensive, severely practical yet founded on a logical structure and the sum of a wide array and great depth of specialist knowledge and skill, this really is one of those books that belongs anywhere that engineering is studied, practiced, or even just noticed. Its value in terms of time and effort saved for other practitioners is incalculable and goes way beyond its published price.
