The Library and Information Professional’s Guide to Plug‐ins and Other Web Browser Tools: Selection, Installation, Troubleshooting

Citation

Peare, T. (2004), "The Library and Information Professional’s Guide to Plug‐ins and Other Web Browser Tools: Selection, Installation, Troubleshooting", Library Review, Vol. 53 No. 1, pp. 66-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530410514810

This is a useful book for the shelves of a beleaguered systems librarian, struggling to resolve the conflict between controlling privileges on public computers and the need for users to access an ever‐increasing variety of resources. While most of the text is derivative and the information available on the Web, it is very useful to have a reference book drawing it together. It is also a book in which systems librarians could find a valuable tip or two if they chanced upon it in a bookshop or on library shelves – a resource sometimes forgotten about!

Heavily illustrated with screen shots, there is a good discussion of about 20 applications (plug‐ins) that users browsing the Internet may need to view or use in a specific format. Examples of Web sites requiring each plug‐in are given with their URLs.

The key to the value of this book is the URLs that are given for the download sites of each application, so that the most current information on release version and system requirements is available over and above the data supplied in the book’s text. Similarly, the examples and the information given under the heading “Library uses” at the end of each section allows the systems librarian to anticipate which plug‐ins are of likely use in the local situation, without having to wait until a request is made by users.

The chapters cover applications by function: Utility, Image and Multimedia tools are covered along with specialised “Maths and science tools”, and the increasingly important accessibility tools for visually impaired users. All the popular applications are covered, including: Acrobat Reader; MS Office viewers; iPIX viewer; MrSID; QuickTime; Shockwave; RealOne; WinAMP as well as some others that will not be so familiar. Mention is made of creating the files using these applications, which gives a starting point for their introduction on local Web sites. A weakness to the book is the all‐too brief chapters at the end on staff tools for librarians and strategies for managing plug‐ins, but perhaps that illustrates that there are no easy answers or quick fixes available for these two topics.

Written by two active librarians the book is a model production with a detailed contents listing, a list of figures, an index and appendices of useful lists that draw together reference information from the text.