A Guide to Finding Quality Information on the Internet. Selection and Evaluation Strategies (2nd ed.)

Citation

Landoni, M. (2002), "A Guide to Finding Quality Information on the Internet. Selection and Evaluation Strategies (2nd ed.)", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 57-58. https://doi.org/10.1108/prog.2002.36.1.57.9

This book does exactly what the title says – indeed this is its strength. As a guide it takes readers step by step through the process of searching, finding, assessing, judging and finally using information on the Internet. The author gives plenty of advice on each of these steps and provides a variety of examples and insights taken from her own experience. The author’s clear and accurate description of possible paths, with advice on how to avoid the risk of getting lost and frustrated, is one of the strengths of the book and makes it very informative and pleasant reading.

The introduction starts immediately to give a taste of the style of this book, it leaves little space for rhetoric and instead goes for the clarity of a question‐answer exchange, where the author explains what is the problem in finding information on the Internet. A brief historical background is given before stating for whom her book has been written – that is any Internet user and, in particular, information professionals and students as well as developers of Internet materials. The author suggests how the various chapters could be used on their own by giving a brief description of their content to match a number of user requirements. This is done in order to facilitate consultation, a brief guide to the guide. Then the most intriguing concept in the title, quality, is discussed. In an honest and informative way the author explains the difficulty of defining and assessing such a concept, since there is no objective definition for quality of information. The subject is dealt with properly and clearly, so that readers are left with the awareness of its complexity but also with a possible pragmatic way around it. This is where the book takes very much the distance from the “Internet guru” style and gives readers the confidence of professional advice. There is no promise of miracles but plenty of effective and sensible suggestions with all their openly declared limitations.

After having set the general tone in Chapter 1, the introduction, Chapter 2 describes a variety of tools (search engines, electronic directories, gateways and more) for searching and finding various types of material (described in detail in Chapters 3 and 4) available on the Internet. This is an added bonus for beginners, who are often unaware of the range of choices available. Again the book is explicit and takes readers by the hand, while explaining where and how to start their searches but does this without being pedantic. Chapter 3 is about assessing the quality of an information source and provides a set of useful and practical check‐lists to be completed in Chapter 4, where various examples of types of sources are described and evaluated. Finally, Chapter 5 is where the use of check‐lists is fully explained and a wider range of tools for evaluation is introduced to give readers the possibility of choosing the best for their needs. Examples drawn from the author’s experience in health care are provided to illustrate how to use the various techniques.

As in any good guide there is a final section with a summary of the main advice given, in this case evaluation check‐lists, where readers can find all the sensible check‐lists, properly described in the previous chapters, presented in a clear, easy to consult form for quick reference when on the road. Useful also is the final anthology of relevant Web sites. Great for beginners, and the section on acronyms is in line with the clarity of style of the rest of the book.

There is no explicit explanation as to why the author decided to publish a second edition. Possibly the extremely dynamic nature of the subject is a good enough justification. In fact the second edition covers a new generation of so‐called intelligent search engines (represented by Google) and the huge increase in material of all sorts published on the Internet. References are updated to 2001. The initial acknowledgements give a brief description of what has been kept from the first edition, i.e. the core of the author’s doctoral research, as in Chapters 3 and 4.

In my opinion this is a book that keeps the promise of its title, with great elegance and clarity in style. The result is fresh, pleasant and informative reading for both beginners and advanced users of Internet. By covering all the basics with an interesting personal insight the author achieves the aim of making readers feel much more aware of what can be done for finding quality information on the Internet and ready to go on with their own exploration. Information professionals and Internet developers would find it a relevant and reliable guide, even when considering the ever changing and expanding nature of the information on the Internet.