When I saw the title of this book I was expecting (or perhaps hoping) that it would be a very practical and detailed guide on where to find information, in other words a bibliographical guide to the literature on the lines of the Bowker Saur Information Sources in … series. However, it was not to be. This is a highly academic examination of the whole information‐seeking process which discusses such topics as information‐seeking issues in interdisciplinary fields, the evolution of the field of women’s studies and the building of library services to support its scholars, and the way in which information in the field is sought. Thus there are chapter headings such as “What information is sought in what context by what means: revealing catalysts, perceptions and insights” and “Intrinsic and extrinsic influences on information seeking; the purely personal and the uncontrollable”.
This is not to say that there is no useful (in the purely practical sense) information in it as there are references to a number of sources and many others to papers that consider sources, but these are deeply buried in the text and it is not possible to discover them quickly.
This is a source that would be suited to a PhD student who is interested in the process of information‐seeking and the various influences that can affect this. As a review of (mostly) US research literature in this area, this is thorough and treats many interesting aspects of the topics. However, it is so specialized that it is unlikely to have a wide readership among practitioners and even for library schools it is of marginal interest to most curricula, though it does also provide a useful insight into a variety of research methodologies in this area.
