Book details of 'Local Area Networking for the Small Library: A How-To-Do-It Manual (How-To-Do-It Manuals for Libraries, No 67)'

Title	Local Area Networking for the Small Library: A How-To-Do-It Manual (How-To-Do-It Manuals for Libraries, No 67)
Author(s)	Norman Howden
ISBN	1555702856
Language	English
Published	July 1997
Publisher	Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc.

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Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
I appreciate the need for introductions to technical topics, written for non-technical audiences. There is a need for librarians in small institutions to find out about entities such as local area networks without going through network engineering programs. This need is not, however, well served by simplifying the topic until all information is lost. This book does touch on a variety of topics that are important to the installation, setup, use, and maintenance of a small LAN. Appendices at the end of the book may save time in designing forms for those who are somewhat familiar with LAN installation and requirements. The coverage, though, does not extend far enough to serve as an adequate guide for implementation. In addition, the text leaves the impression that all of this is just a matter of sticking the bits together and they'll work. Those who take the book at face value may be in for a serious shock when it comes to the actual work and necessary study involved. Howden breezes into the questions surrounding a LAN with an introductory chapter containing no technical information at all. This may be fair enough, but the outline of the planning process for a small network setup is also severely limited, and heavily flawed. Attempting to establish the needs for a network is doomed to failure if you have little or no idea about what a network can, and can't, do. The author's subsequent chapters demonstrate serious shortcomings in technical knowledge. In this 1997 edition Windows NT is not mentioned, despite its expanding position in small, simple networks. The paragraph dedicated to UNIX spells the originator's name correctly, and that's about the last thing it does get right. "System Organization" is described only in terms of directory structures and drive mappings, and even within that limited scope provides almost no information. The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model is seen as some kind of application programming interface, rather than a conceptual framework. (And, excuse me, but who makes the "40486" central processor?) The use of LANs to access centrally stored CD- ROMs is frequently cited as an advantage, but there is no discussion of the memory or disk based buffering that is needed when many people are trying to access the same disk. The chapter on cabling is particularly troubling. There is mention of a need to conserve wiring lengths, but no mention of the specific requirements for maximum (and minimum!) lengths for specific media and systems. Wiring and connector attachments are discussed blithely with no mention of such factors as shielding or the more rigorous needs of category 5 networks. The omission that really upsets this old network refitter, however, is the lack of any mention of the absolute requirement to *label* wiring as it goes in. In fact documentation gets very short shrift overall. The "emergency toolkit" for any small network should include a binder of information including descriptions of the contents, settings, and configuration of each workstation. Another topic that gets a lot of ink is security (and virus protection). However, despite numerous mentions, little solid or practical information is made available. Each chapter has it's own bibliography. The majority of entries are magazine articles with little practical help for the novice network administrator. The books tend to be limited to the specific rather than the general (Novell Netware guides predominate) and in many cases are rather old. Given my own experience with the literature in the field, I was surprised at being able to find only a few of the better general and introductory works that could guide newcomers through the technical maze of network installation. It is difficult to find an introductory network book that can guide the naive user through the complications that are still attendant on this technology. Even given that difficulty, though, this book has remarkably little to recommend it. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1997
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