The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies of the High‐Tech Reference Desk

Citation

Raward, R. (2003), "The Librarian's Internet Survival Guide: Strategies of the High‐Tech Reference Desk", Online Information Review, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 366-366. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684520310502342

This Guide is a useful and “user‐friendly” instructional guide, especially written for librarians concerned with how they can get the most out of computer search engines, how to find people and public records with a minimum of fuss, tracking down both current and dated news, cyber‐shopping, web‐based email, creating web pages, computer troubleshooting, and most importantly addresses “survival” issues. Although written and especially recommended for the unique needs and problems of a librarian, this very practical primer can also come in handy for any lay user still adjusting to the onset of the information age and what school and community libraries can offer them.

Subscribers to Searcher magazine may recognise the chapters in this book as a collection of “Internet Express” columns about useful web sites and related advice on a wide range of topics. The author, McDermott personalises her resource annotations with comments on some of the authors and compilers as well as her saucy summaries of the content. As the editor comments: McDermott “writes with a lively wit and a contemporary twist and has a born hunter's sense of how to discover sources for every topic, combined with a great librarian's intense, persistent focus on what clients want and need”.

The book is divided into two parts. Part One, (Chapters 1‐9), “Ready reference on the Web: resources for patrons” looks at a variety of resources that cover searching and meta‐searching on the Web and deep web search engines that look for non‐HTML formatted material, and specific sites that monitor and provide news about search engines. Subsequent chapters provide suggestions for finding people, news and current events, quality reference resources, and fun and safety sites for kids. Chapter six provides access to free full‐text resources and federal government information, and chapter seven arms users with basic health and medical information online. Further chapters discuss minding your money on the Web and provides links to sites that provide basic financial advice and advice on cyber‐shopping.

Part two, (Chapters 10‐15), “The librarian as information technician: working with the medium and the machines” is aimed at the librarian at the reference desk. As librarians are responsible for offering access to electronic information their duty entails teaching the Internet to patrons, so this section offers practical advice on managing web‐based e‐mail wisely, tips for teaching the Internet, making and maintaining web pages, accessibility for the disabled user, computer troubleshooting and keeping up with changes on the Web.

In summary, this useful guide features troubleshooting tips and advice, web resources for answering reference questions and strategies for managing information and keeping current. In addition to helping librarians make the most of web tools and resources the book covers a full range of important issues including Internet training, privacy, child safety, helping patrons with special needs and building library web pages. Librarians preparing sets of topical reference pages for their own libraries will find many useful suggestions among the numerous web resources recommended here and library science students would find this book a useful source of reference.