Searching Smart is particularly effective as an accessible and well-organized model for teaching Web searching. For all of them, it takes the worry and fear out of searching the World Wide Web. While the book has been designed and published for the information training and staff development market, it has much to offer a much wider audience. Information managers would be well advised to invite service staff to recommend this book to information customers. Through a series of bulleted explanations and exercises, the reader progresses from discovering how Web construction impacts searching, to learning the types of search tools available, to analyzing and troubleshooting results.
Instructions are logical and clear.
The book is slim and accessible, with wide margins for notes. This particular title is a workshop on searching techniques for the Web. It begins slowly, with definitions of basic terms such as URL, database, record, field, subject directory, and search engine. Gould then goes on to the nuts and bolts of Web searching, putting together a combination of explanation and hands-on exercises to explain and demonstrate Web searching techniques. Users can use the exercises to do actual searching.