Internet Research: Theory and Practice (review)

Ned L. Fielden has accomplished the task of providing useful and updated information about the Internet. Internet Research is meant as a guide for academic use of the Internet for research. This is a subject that needs to be discussed on a regular basis. Fielden freely admits to the instability of the Internet and has provided a list of references that includes a Website with updated links to all the sites he mentions in the book (www.sfsu.edu/~fielden/internetresearch.htm).

Fielden begins by giving background information about how the Internet works. This has been done in other publications, but Fielden uses language that the nontechnical person can understand. This book provides helpful hints on a number of topics and is useful especially for those librarians who are not used to finding answers from the Internet. One of the more useful parts of the book is the ten-page bibliography. Throughout the book, Fielden provides pictures of sites discussed. He provides the reader not only with sites that have specific information but also with sites that provide a starting point. Some examples are library homepages, newsgroups and mailing lists, the ERIC homepage (www.ericir.syr.edu/), the WWW Virtual Library (www.vlib.org/), and the librarians' favorite, Google (www.google.com). Fielden also reviews proper etiquette for those who use mailing lists and listservs.

The author discusses search strategies in great detail. The discussion is geared more toward students and people who do not regularly use the Internet and other electronic resources. One good thing about this section is that it goes into detail about why certain strategies should be used. He also gives examples of typical reference questions and explains how he picks out keywords to start him on his search.

Fielden compares searching on the Web and searching databases. Librarians doing bibliographic instruction know that students have a hard time with search strategies. Many do not realize that the same tools can be used for searching the Web and searching their library's databases. Fielden does point out the differences between the two resources. Search engines are looking at metadata as well as full-text documents on every search. Users know this difference just by looking at the number of hits retrieved in a search engine versus the number of hits retrieved in a database. Databases look at smaller records in most cases and can be more specialized.

Fielden also has a section that divides the Internet resources by subject. Most of this information is not readily known by all librarians. This section of the book is particularly useful for those who are searching outside their field. He tells the reader which resource to use depending on the subject. He includes both Internet sites and databases. He also provides a lot of helpful Internet sites in this section that can get the user to an answer faster.

Internet Research can be useful for professionals and students. Ned Fielden provides a lot of technical information in language that is easy to understand. The book is organized in a way that helps readers go back to review specific topics when needed. The most useful part of the book is the updated bibliography.