REVIEWS

Establishing an Information Center: A Practical Guide.
By Karen Kreizman. Information Services Management Series. East Grinstead: Bowker-Saur, 1999. 256p price not reported hard ISBN 1857392868

Although none of the content in this book should come as a surprise to the practising librarian or information centre manager, it is useful in that it outlines the core skills of the modern information professional in one accessible guide. Establishing an Information Centre provides a very good blueprint for starting a library or information centre from scratch. This book will be especially welcome by those information professionals who work in a corporate or special information centre environment.

Kreizman writes in a style that is accessible and assumes that the reader has never established an information centre from the ground up. While this is a particularly valuable resource for anyone about to embark on a career in information provision, or to anyone charged with the responsibility of setting up a new information centre, it is equally useful as a refresher for experienced information professionals.

Kreizman provides actionable advice in such areas as information audits, strategic planning and collection development as well as marketing the information centre, working with information technology and managing staff. A large number of quality references are used throughout the book, and comprehensive further reading lists are provided at the end of each chapter so that topics of particular interest or importance to the reader can be pursued.

Several interesting case studies are included, outlining the experience of information professionals who have established information centres in a variety of organisations. There are also comprehensive lists (including full address details and URLs) of relevant associations and professional bodies, as well as information providers and vendors. Unfortunately, these lists are of limited use to the Australian reader as they are northern hemisphere-centric.

Overall, Establishing an Information Center is a useful resource for information professionals of all levels of experience, but particularly those who have the responsibility of starting an information centre from scratch.

Bryan Riley
Qantas Information Technology

Frigenti and Comninos have produced a substantial manual based on their particular approach to project management which they term Business Focused Project Management (BFPM), which itself is built around two components: the Wrappers Model and Objective Directed Project Management (ODPM). All of these terms are trademark protected, indicating the book�s origin in the principal work of the authors as training consultants. And indeed the work has the feel of a manual derived from a series of substantial training workshops for managers.

It consists of 13 chapters, two appendices, a glossary, list of acronyms, a bibliography and an index. Following Chapter 1, which is really nothing more than an introduction, Part 1 (The Essential Building Blocks) consists of two chapters on the nature and context of project management - all of which could be treated in perhaps 10 pages. Part 2 (Focusing Projects on the Business) contains four chapters on BFPM, the Wrappers Model, ODPM, project portfolios, etc. These chapters are useful in giving the remaining chapters a context and theoretical framework necessary for successful project management, but there is much here that need not be said, unless project managers in the business sector are less intelligent than one has the right to assume. The core of the work is Part 3 (Objective Directed Project Management), which takes one through the project management process in four chapters, from an introduction to the ODPM process, to project initiation, to project definition, then to project planning, project execution, and project close-out. These are useful chapters, although much generic advice is embedded in the use of ODPM jargon that might convince one of the value of this approach but in fact also tends to obfuscate the essentially logical simplicity of project management. The appendices cover (a) a conference �project� and (b) a series of basic concepts and techniques such as risk management, Gantt charts, critical path analysis, etc. This second appendix is one of the more useful parts of the volume.

Chapter 7.5 (Guidelines to Enhance Success) is indicative of the work�s tendency to the superficial. It consists primarily of four pages of numbered points and four pages of a case study meant to exemplify what project success is all about. It is replete with such hortatory advice as �empower the team with strong project leadership� and �cultivate vigorous debate among core team members� (p. 147). But how one achieves these aims is not discussed, not does the case study clearly exemplify how it might be done. This section, like many others, has the feel of a series of PowerPoint projections rather than detailed analysis and discussion required in a management manual.

Well into this work the authors quote Oberg�s dictum - that project success is defined by the stakeholders - with approval. This highlights the central weaknesses of the work, which assumes that projects and project management are totally customer driven and that they exist entirely within a commercial context. It is at once narrowly arrogant and professionally unethical to assume that projects have no independent integrity, no external criteria by which they can be judged. As a researcher who has �managed� projects for a number of years, I know that project success is judged in at least three ways, the least important being stakeholder assessment of the results. More important is the level to which a project adheres to the canons of successful research and development, and these exist without reference to what the stakeholders may believe - sometimes the most successful r&d activity is one that moves in directions not anticipated or even wanted by the stakeholders. And a third stakeholder-free gauge of success is the downstream applicability or sustainability of the results of applied projects. A project that pleases a stakeholder today but makes no lasting impact on its environment is ephemeral in the extreme and not worth a professional�s commitment.

The 100-item bibliography indicates that many other works are available on project management, and for information professionals I suggest that some of these readily available titles may be more suitably succinct and less flagrantly stakeholder-oriented than Frigenti and Comninos. The central chapters (Part 3) and Appendix B are worth reading, but the complete package is not successful as a project management manual.

G.E. Gorman
Victoria University of Wellington

This work is designed to be a ready reference source for librarians and library patrons. The author specifies that it is not intended as a buying guide but rather a guide to answering the typical questions that come to any reference desk in �medium- to large-sized public and college libraries�. There are over 600 subject headings in the book, with coverage ranging from Abbreviations, Abortion and Abstracts through Wrestling, Zoology and Zoos.

The simple format of the guide is summarised in the contents page: Subject Headings Used, Where to Find What (by Subject). The list of subject headings is a nine-page alphabetical listing of the subject content without page references. Headings in the body of the book are easy to follow because of their clear typeface, and under each heading the recommended books (more than one per topic), not necessarily standard works either, are printed in italics. Descriptions and recommendations for use and relevance accompany each entry.

The relevance of each entry varies. For example Cattle and Cave are two sections that present genuinely international guides, while some general interest topics (for instance Gymnastics, Cults, Criminals) list only US-specific reference works. Other topics are specifically and legally or legislatively US in focus - for example, Bankruptcy, Foreign Relations, Congress, Census, Commodities. Other suggestions are broader in coverage, for instance Popes, Bees and Beekeeping, Best Books, Composers, Death, Debates and Debating.

In other words the book is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of its usefulness and relevance outside the US. It would be useful in tertiary institutions which study the US and its culture or history. It might also be useful in the more general areas for different types of libraries, including school and public libraries. The resource is recommended by the publisher for new library staff to help on reference desk duty, but if the titles recommended are not held in the library, then simple experience would serve just as well.

Deborah A. Cronau
Christian Heritage College

Back to the Books and Journals Index