Information Seeking in the Online Age: : Principles and Practice

Citation

Cullen, R. (1999), "Information Seeking in the Online Age: : Principles and Practice", Asian Libraries, Vol. 8 No. 11, pp. 442-443. https://doi.org/10.1108/al.1999.8.11.442.7

In the hi‐tech era of global information networks the most important skills for any information professional are generic information seeking and retrieval ‐ that is, the ability to analyse an information need (for oneself or a client), identify appropriate online sources, develop a search strategy and evaluate the information retrieved. These are more significant than purely technical skills that will date as fast as the technology they relate to.

This is the key message of Information Seeking in the Online Age, and it is a crucial one for information professionals in the next decade as systems become more user‐friendly and the retrieval of high quality information becomes, paradoxically, more difficult. This volume is a successor to the well‐received and well‐used Online Searching: Principles and Practice (Bowker Saur, London, 1990). In response to a decade of rapid changes in technology, the authors in this updated volume have focused much less on individual technologies, and more on generic information retrieval skills which are applied, through examples, to a range of technology platforms.

After a general overview of the standard information storage and retrieval systems the authors introduce the notion of information‐seeking behaviour and the role that language plays in information seeking. Both of these chapters contain valuable information and are well grounded in research, but they are demanding for the novice reader and might have been better placed later in the volume. The following chapters (Chapters 4‐8) are much more immediately useful; they cover information file structures, searching, browsing and common search interfaces on both the more structured information systems such as OPAC, CD‐ROM and online databases, and the unstructured World Wide Web. This is all critical knowledge for the information professional. Another very useful chapter is Chapter 9 (Information Seeking: Some Practical Issues), which gives excellent advice on identifying the parameters of the search, using Boolean and proximity operators, working out the most effective search strategy, choice of database, etc.

The final chapter, on evaluation, also contains valuable comments and research, but be warned there is a major error (p. 280) in the description of the concepts of precision and recall which one hopes will be corrected as soon as the volume is reprinted. The precision ratio, as defined in most LIS textbooks, does not equal the number of relevant records retrieved from the database/the number of relevant records in the database (this is the recall ratio), but the number of relevant records retrieved from the database/the total number of records retrieved. This error should be corrected in the text if you already own the volume.

Overall, this is a useful textbook and a valuable addition to any professional collection. Although the preface and back cover suggest that the book has value for the non‐professional information seeker or lay person, the contents do not suggest this. On the contrary the volume is a well‐constructed and mainly readable manual for LIS students and for staff seeking to refresh their knowledge. Some of the text is a bit heavy going (largely because of the need to refer to sources and services with confusing acronyms, and to include substantial amounts of research), but this is all important material to be learned and digested by the novice searcher.

The book’s conceptual approach, with a focus on the general principles of information seeking and retrieval makes it especially useful to readers in Asian countries who are having to quickly master a range of information retrieval systems, both local and Western, including the World Wide Web.