This concise guide to the research process states that it is intended for anyone researching a topic, “including academics and students, public and government researchers and researchers in the private sector”. It would undoubtedly be useful to all of these, but it has a quite strongly academic feel to it, and the level is more appropriate to undergraduates and above, than, for example, school students. That said, there is some extremely useful basic material on the use of libraries, explaining the organization of a library, the function of the catalogue, and other aspects of information services such as inter‐lending and document supply.
The author takes the researcher through all the stages of researching a topic, including planning and executing the search, evaluating the results, locating material, keeping records, and bibliographic referencing. She also covers research related topics such as copyright and plagiarism. The emphasis, however, is very much on the search process, with a fairly detailed coverage of information sources related to different subjects and formats. Basic search methods such as the selection of terms, the way in which search software operates, Boolean techniques and citation searching are all covered in some depth. Subsequent stages of research such as the writing of papers are outside the remit of this title.
The book is supplemented by a brief glossary, a fairly substantial bibliography of fundamental sources, and a seven‐page compilation of websites, arranged according to the chapters of the book. The emphasis is very much on starting points for research, with the inclusion of mainly institutional sites and portals and gateways, rather than individual databases or bibliographic services. This has the added advantage that the addresses are potentially stable, always a problem when dealing with digital resources in a print guide.
The book is very well written in a straightforward and clear style. It can be difficult to avoid patronizing the reader when dealing with the basics of information handling, but there is never a hint of this in the text. There is sparing use of graphics, but these also are very clear and well presented, and overall the layout and design of the book are good. The author succeeds in providing an excellent overview of how and where information is recorded and disseminated, so that the reader is enabled to take the methodology and apply it where necessary. A typical user of this book would be a final‐year undergraduate, first‐year postgraduate, or a professional person needing to undertake some systematic and objective research. It is also an ideal handbook for library and information science students needing to get to grips with the subject of information sources. The modest price of the paperback puts it within the range of all of these, and I was pleased to see it already making an appearance in some chain bookshops. It is far more thorough and wide ranging than a number of titles purporting to deal with searching, but more often than not limited to the use of various search engines. I shall certainly recommend it to my own students, both postgraduate library and information science, and undergraduate and research students in a variety of other disciplines.
