College and Research Libraries the field of library science." The authors all have library backgrounds and are ac- tive participants in Internet-based projects. We have author Louis Rosenfeld to thank for initiating one of the very first gopher-based subject directories, The Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides, a project he still directs. Peter Morville is managing editor of the Clearinghouse and Joseph Janes is an as- sistant professor in the School of Infor- mation and Library Studies at the Uni- versity of Michigan, and director of the Internet Public Library. The Handbook provides a well-bal- anced approach between the conceptual and the practical in dealing with the in- tegration of Internet resources into our already vast web of print and electronic information resources. Joseph Janes's ini- tial chapter, "Fundamentals of Searching Digital Resources," compares the nature of the networked environment with the familiar digital resources librarians have been using and searching for decades. The lack of standards in the networked environment is one of the most obvious differences, but he also addresses other important issues, such as dynamism, quality, authority, and currency. Janes provides a useful classification scheme that organizes all the current Internet search services into three categories: vir- tual libraries (topical directories of se- lected resources), Internet directories (topical directories of all known re- sources), and search tools (search en- gines), which provide keyword search- ing capability. The three following chapters are "Us- ing the Internet for Reference" by Sara Ryan, reference center coordinator of the Internet Public Library, ''Using the Inter- net for Research" by Peter Morville, and "Online Communities As Tools for Re- search and Reference" by Louis Rosen- feld. The liberal use of screen shots throughout these chapters serves to break up the density of the text. Particularly useful is Morville' s step-by-step walk- Book Reviews 395 through of an exercise in which a librar- ian develops a guide to ecology resources in response to a faculty member's re- quest. This essay is very effective in il- lustrating the systematic use of a variety of tools to identify selected resources for a particular subject. The remaining three chapters focus on the three types of search services: virtual libraries, Internet directories, and search tools. Each chapter begins with an over- view including strengths, weaknesses, and searching tips. At the end of these chapters, specific sites are evaluated us- ing common criteria: scope, volume, searching tips, strengths, weaknesses, and updates. A description, evaluation, and a sample search are provided for each of the forty-four search sites exam- ined in these three chapters. The authors acknowledge the volatility of these sites and refer readers to the Internet Search- ing Center (URL: http:/ I www.lib.umich. edu/ chouse/ searching/ find.html) for the most current information. They encour- age readers to use the center, which they promise will be updated to include new services as they appear, as an Internet companion to the Handbook. The Internet Searcher's Handbook, writ- ten by librarians for librarians, is a most welcome and timely contribution for helping librarians meet the challenge of locating information on the Internet- Barbara A. Burg, Harvard University, Cam- bridge, Massachusetts. Information Science: From the Devel- opment of the Discipline to Social Interaction. Eds. J ohan Olaisen, Erland Munch-Petersen, and Patrick Wilson. Oslo, Norway: Scandinavian Univ. Pr., 1995. 281p. $29.90 paper. (ISBN 82-00-03939-0). This volume presents key papers pre- sented at the Nordic Conference on In- formation Authority and User Knowl- edge at the University of Boras in Swe- den,April27-28, 1993. Designed as a trib- ute to Patrick Wilson, the conference 396 College & Research Libraries brought together scholars from several Nordic countries for the purpose of dis- cussing the current state and future di- rections of information science. Of necessity, this collection includes philosophical examinations of the origins of this ill-defined field and the bound- ary problems between it and related fields. Many of the papers explore the in- creasingly important shift from the ear- lier "storage and retrieval" approach to- ward the current focus on the fluid "situ- ation" of the information seeker in his or her own cognitive and social environ- ments. As such, it conveniently brings to- gether the wide and deep currents of thought on the nature of information and of how individuals seek and process "those differences which make a differ- ence" in their lives. The papers take a variety of approaches to dealing with these questions from a broad point of view to one that has a peculiarly Scandi- navian flavor. Most of the contributions cite sources that are familiar to North American and British readers interested in the subject. Because schools of library science are broadening their scopes from traditional concerns with library pro- cesses and their efficient management to the newer one of better understanding their roles as intermediaries in the pro- cess of connecting information seekers to timely and relevant information, several of the chapters might be use- ful introductory readings for librarians in training. A chapter on Wilson's own seminal contributions to the field looks at his tril- ogy of books-Two Kinds of Po'wer: An Es- say on Bibliographic Control (1968), Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance (1977), and July 1996 Second-Hand Knowledge (1983). These three books, representing decades of thoughtful examination of the nature of information, are seen as a triptych in which the central ideas are elaborated over time as the profession matures and harnesses the new technology to ever- broadening areas of responsibility. Wilson's contributed paper, "The Future of Research in Our Field," illustrates his continued interest in the development of information studies. In it, he predicts that there will become an increasingly distinct separation between the social, behav- ioral, and humanistic studies on the one hand and the technology-based informa- tion science subfield on the other. Departing somewhat from the overall theme of the book, there is a well-done comparative study of the way that three public libraries (in Norway, Hungary, and Sweden) deal with the processes of change in their very dissimilar political, social, and economic environments. Is this book essential reading for today' s reference or acquisition librarian or academic library administrator? Prob- ably not, but it deals with fundamental issues of importance to faculties of schools of information studies as they prepare their students for work in the coming decades, as well as for those members of the profession who have an orientation not toward the library as an institution but, rather, toward meeting the challenges of providing accurate, timely, and relevant information in an uncertain future. Regrettably, the book has no index and the affiliations of the authors are not made explicit-Charles Wm. Conaway, Florida State University, Tallahassee.