Briefly Noted

Digital Libraries and Information Access: Research Perspectives, ed. G. G. Chowdhury and Schubert Foo. Chicago: Neal-Schuman, 2013. 256 pages. $99.95 (ISBN 978-1-55570-914-3)

As described by editors G. G. Chowdhury and Schubert Foo in the opening chapter, digital libraries have now been with us for decades. Research on digital libraries has gone through many stages, starting with an early concentration on management and access systems, then shifting focus to user needs and perspectives, and more recently to the role of social networking and the importance of metadata, information that describes, locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, and manage data resources. In bringing together nineteen experts on digital libraries, Chowdhury and Foo have chosen to focus this collection on “key areas of research in information access and interactions in digital libraries,” though the collection does touch on most other areas as well. The chapters are richly supplemented with tables, images, and lengthy bibliographies. Digital Libraries and Information Access would serve well as a textbook in library and information science programs, or for librarians and administrators who want to bring themselves up to date on research in digital libraries. (FR)

Getting Started with Evaluation, Peter Hernon, Robert E. Dugan, and Joseph R. Matthews. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2014. 256 pages. $65.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1195-2)

Getting Started with Evaluation is a primer on evaluation that aids librarians and administrators in assessing and improving service quality, justifying expenditures for outside stakeholders, and planning for the future in today’s turbulent fiscal and operational environment. Prolific authors Peter Hernon, Robert E. Dugan, and Joseph R. Matthews provide a comprehensive framework in relatively short, practical chapters that include tables, figures, and text boxes for ease of use. Each chapter ends with exercises that encourage the reader to actively enter the evaluation process. (Answers to the exercises are provided at the end of the book.) Beginning with a discussion of evaluation and traditional library metrics, Getting Started with Evaluation proceeds to explicate the steps necessary to evaluate internally for planning purposes, to assess externally for stakeholders, and then to measure service, service quality, return on investment, and the value provided by a library. The penultimate chapter focuses on how to communicate results for maximum impact. Coming from three authors with extensive experience in evaluation and assessment, Getting Started with Evaluation offers a quick entry into this challenging and essential managerial responsibility. (FR)

Regulating the Web: Network Neutrality and the Fate of the Open Internet, ed. Zack Stiegler. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013. 266 pages. $90.00 (ISBN 978-0-7391-7868-3)

Network neutrality is an important principle of Internet governance that libraries strongly support. Regulating the Web: Network Neutrality and the Fate of the Open Internet is a collection written by fifteen academics, lawyers, and activists who approach network neutrality from multiple perspectives. Regulating the Web’s first part, Background and Principles, provides a broad history of the legal and social framework for today’s debates, including the origins of telegraph and telephone regulation and the shifting meaning of network neutrality. Part two introduces discussions of markets and ideology in the formulation of Federal Communications Commission policy. The final parts add social and cultural perspectives before ending in several chapters that consider current and future directions for action in pursuing an open and ultimately democratic Internet. Regulating the Web should appeal to librarians and media activists who wish to educate themselves for advocacy in an area of great importance to the future of libraries. (FR)

Bringing the Arts into the Library, ed. Carol Smallwood. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2014. 248 pages. $50.00 (ISBN 978-0-8389-1175-4)

As the digital revolution changes the nature of books and information access, libraries have come to see the importance of broadening their role in the community as critical to their continued thriving and, in some cases, their very survival. While formerly books on shelves and expert knowledge of books was enough to win support, libraries are now moving beyond literary culture to include the visual, performing, and hybrid arts in their exhibitions and programming. In Bringing the Arts into the Library, editor...