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.
Exercises take the user through searching on a subject directory or on a search engine, using truncation, using Boolean logic, and creating bookmarks. A computer disk is also included, which provides additional exercises. Interwoven into the book are more philosophical considerations. Gould spends time dispelling some common myths that everything is on the Web and that everything is instantly findable. The secondary theme is one of evaluation, emphasizing the importance of evaluating the information found rather than accepting everything as truth.