A Hardware and Software Primer for Librarians: What Your Vendor Forgot to Tell You

Citation

Parkes, D. (2000), "A Hardware and Software Primer for Librarians: What Your Vendor Forgot to Tell You", The Electronic Library, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 448-469. https://doi.org/10.1108/el.2000.18.6.448.4

Librarians are amongst the most demanding of IT users. We increasingly require sophisticated state‐of‐the‐art solutions to our problems, we need to adopt IT solutions and embrace new technologies to enable us to carry out our jobs. The task of the librarian is now unimaginable without access to computers. However, many of us cannot articulate our requirements in the language in which our suppliers and IT colleagues communicate, and unless we are careful this could end in farce or tragedy, probably both. This book should go some way towards remedying this communication problem. A Hardware and Software Primer for Librarians, subtitled “What your vendor forgot to tell you”, by Stephen Paling, explains in lay terms the intricacies of computer speak. It is essentially a basic introduction to computing terminology and computing concepts for librarians, although it could be used fruitfully by anyone who wants a practical guide to hardware and software.

Paling has divided this primer into chapters discussing hardware, systems, networks, future developments and purchasing. Each chapter concludes with a useful summary and a glossary and there are clear diagrams (it’s difficult to envisage a nine‐pin male connector, if you don’t know what one is!). The language throughout, despite a predilection for Americanisms, is clear. It manages to make sense of this huge topic and all in such a slim volume. A concise, understandable description of networks and computer viruses in less than 20 pages, for example, is some achievement!I would have liked to have seen more Internet related discussion, but perhaps this would have padded out the book at the expense of clarity. There is no further reading, though there is a small bibliography. A pointer to some of the wealth of introductory information available on the Internet would have been useful. Despite the intimation of the subtitle, major vendors’ Web sites do offer some very useful information; you just have to look for it.

A very welcome addition, it is not eight inches thick, and it would prove very useful for the student or indeed the practitioner who needs to take a quick peek before that next systems meeting.