"The information world has undergone drastic changes since the
publication of the 3rd edition of The Oxford Guide to Library Research
in 2005, and Thomas Mann, a veteran reference librarian at the Library
of Congress, has extensively revised his text to reflect those changes.
This book will answer two basic questions: First, what is the extent of
the significant research resources you will you miss if you confine your
research entirely, or even primarily, to sources available on the open
Internet? Second, if you are trying to get a reasonably good overview of
the literature on a particular topic, rather than just "something
quickly" on it, what are the several alternative methods of subject
searching--which are not available on the Web--that are usually much
more efficient for that purpose than typing keywords into a blank search
box, with the results displayed by relevance-ranking computer
algorithms? This book shows researchers how to do comprehensive research
on any topic. It explains the variety of search mechanisms available,
so that the researcher can have the reasonable confidence that s/he has
not overlooked something important. This includes not just lists of
resources, but discussions of the ways to search within them: how to
find the best search terms, how to combine the terms, and how to make
the databases (and other sources) show relevant material even when you
don't know how to specify the best search terms in advance. The book's
overall structuring by nine methods of searching that are applicable in
any subject area, rather than by subjects or by types of literature, is
unique among guides to research. Also unique is the range and variety of
concrete examples of what to do--and of what not to do. The book is not
"about" the Internet: it is about the best alternatives to the
Internet--the sources that are not on the open Web to begin with, that
can be found only through research libraries and that are more than ever
necessary for any kind of substantive scholarly research. More than any
other research guide available, this book directly addresses and
provides solutions to the serious problems outlined in recent studies
documenting the profound lack of research skills possessed by today's
"digital natives.""--