Sorting out the web: approaches to subject access

This introductory text discusses subject approaches to the organization and retrieval of information on the World Wide Web. The author is a well known academic and information professional with a long experience in the field. Within a span of 152 pages she has attempted to cover a number of issues, from traditional library tools for information organization to the features of Web search engines. Consequently, the information and discussions on each topic have been rather brief. There are six chapters in the book. The first chapter provides a very brief introduction to the developments in information technology and its impact on information services and users. Chapter two talks about metadata. Here the author provides a brief introduction to the concepts of metadata and metadata formats. Discussions on topics like HTML, XML, Dublin Core, etc., are very brief and are written in a manner, probably on purpose, suitable for beginners rather than expert information professionals and researchers. The same approach has been taken in other chapters. In chapter three, the author discusses the basic concepts of library classification and tools which follows a brief description of research and project works that have used classification schemes to organize Web information resources. The descriptions again are very brief and do not include any critical or analytical comments.