Online Community Information; Creating a Nexus at your library

Citation

Freeman, M. (2002), "Online Community Information; Creating a Nexus at your library", New Library World, Vol. 103 No. 10, pp. 416-416. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2002.103.10.416.4

Hmm. “Nexus” eh? – it all sounds a bit “Bladerunner” to me, it can only be American! Despite the off‐putting title this is a useful and relevant book for all librarians involved in community librarianship and helping users in public libraries harness the vast power and potential of the Internet to provide them with community information in the widest sense.

The book centres around the results of a major piece of qualitative research carried out in the USA two years ago. This research covered such areas as “help seeking in an electronic world”, and the role of the public library in helping citizens obtain community information over the Internet. There is a good, practical focus on why people use the Internet for community information and on the general public’s online information behaviour and information‐finding strategies. There is some good information on barriers to Internet success, such as “dead links” and information overload and the various strategies libraries can use to overcome these obstacles. The benefits of community information and of using community networks are explained well, with good exemplars of “best practice” given and explained.

A well‐informed citizenry is the bedrock of democracy and librarians should be proud of the central role they are playing in nurturing and developing information provision for the community. All in all, an interesting and timely book, well produced and with, of course, a very strong American context.