Under the Online Hood

THE FAVORED SEARCHING TEXT in LIS programs for over a decade has been Online Retrieval: A Dialogue of Theory and Practice by Geraldine Walker and Joe Janes (Libraries Unlimited). It covers search basics and more advanced techniques, focusing on the Dialog system. Janes is working on a new edition with Carol Barry of Louisiana State University, and the appearance of two new books is welcome.

Suzanne S. Bell's The Librarian's Guide to Online Searching is aimed at LIS students and Greg R. Notess's Teaching Web Search Skills is for instructional librarians. Together they provide a basic picture of modern online searching for generalists, whether LIS students, librarians in need of a refresher, or librarians teaching search skills. Aspiring subject specialists or super searchers will need to supplement these texts with materials from the vendors, such as Introduction to Dialog for Information Professionals (new edition 2005; revised 2006, gep.dialog.com/instruction/ workbook) or "Westlaw User Guides" (west.thomson.com/westlaw/guides).