Review of Internet Primer for Information Professionals: A Basic Guide to Internet Networking Technology, by Elizabeth Lane and Craig Summerhill

Lane and Summerhill chose a difficult task for themselves in their new book, Internet Primer for Information Professionals: A Basic Guide to Internet Networking Technology. The Internet is a growing organism, with new tools, services, and possibilities appearing every day. In introducing the Internet, the authors tried to strike a balance between two views of computing instruction: "the majority of end-users [who] want to perform specific computing operations to aid them with their jobs" and others who "see the development of technical self-sufficiency as a tool for life-long learning." This is not an easy balance to achieve, and since the Internet is constantly changing, the authors often chose to explain how the network works, rather than giving concrete examples about how to use the Internet. The resulting book is not a good place to start learning about the Internet. However, after reading Brendan Kehoe's Zen and the Art of the Internet, Tracy LaQuey's The Internet Companion: A Beginner's Guide to Global Networking, or Ed Krol's The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog, this book can provide more in-depth information.