Stuart Ferguson & Rodney Hebels. Computers for librarians: an introduction to systems and applications. 2^nd ed. Wagga Wagga, NSW: Charles Sturt University Centre for Information Studies, 1998. 270 pp. $A?. soft cover. ISBN 0 949060 44 5.

The series of occasional monographs from the Centre for Information Studies has enhanced the resources for library education in Australia. This addition to the series, is a second edition of the monograph published five years previously as Computers for Australian Librarians. I'm glad to see the change in title. With the earlier title, I wasn't sure whether to infer that there was something elite about the Australian species of librarian, or that another text in the …for dummies genre was warranted.

The authors point out that this revision, in contrast to standard texts, adopts a top-down approach, beginning with applications in order to build a sense of what computers do, before moving to the enabling technology. The approach is a useful one for an audience that needs computer literacy not as an end in itself, but a means to understand better the library applications framework.

The applications are characterised as: the Internet; databases; catalogues; and library management systems (acquisitions, circulation, serials and the like). The enabling technology chapters deal with computer systems, and with networking. There are also chapters on generic software (such as spreadsheets), and on systems development with particular reference to the library environment.

The digital library concept is mentioned in the first chapter, and in a sense much of the applications material is about digital libraries. However the text would have benefitted from inclusion of material explicitly on digital libraries. For example, a section on digitisation projects would have been welcome.

Nevertheless, the scope is wide, so much so, that the work cannot hope to be more than a compendium of facts accompanied by jumping off points for further instruction. It serves this purpose well.

The text is organised for instructional use with chapters stating learning objectives, review questions with answers, and further references (both print and online). In fact it leaves a strong impression of being an embellishment derived from the bullet points of lecture notes. There is not a great deal of linking verbiage.

In addition to a useful index it also contains a glossary, though the index and glossary aren't linked. The book is undoubtedly a serviceable text and is recommended for class use, despite leaving an uneasy feeling of being discontinuous narrative.

Michael Middleton, QUT