Book details of 'The Little Black Book: Mail Bonding With Osi Directory Services (Prentice Hall Series in Innovative Technology)'

Title	The Little Black Book: Mail Bonding With Osi Directory Services (Prentice Hall Series in Innovative Technology)
Author(s)	Marshall T. Rose
ISBN	0136832105
Language	English
Published	September 1991
Publisher	Prentice Hall

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Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
[soap...] A "little black book" is, of course, a reference to a phone book, or list: some means of looking up contact information for a specific individual, or a select group. New users on the Internet always want to know how to find other people, and Internet guides always have to answer the question the same way: there is *no* directory of Internet users. They then go on to explain the partial and limited tools for attempting to access Internet contact information: finger, whois, X.500, knowbot and the like. Often the White Pages of Performance Systems International (PSI) rates a mention. I have to search for rather a lot of names, since I try to send a draft of each review to the author and/or publisher--if I can find an address. My searches have found the greatest success with the Usenet-addresses database at MIT, and a similar system on Vancouver's local MindLink. Indeed, I become quite suspicious of the author of a technical work if I *can't* find an address there (particularly for Internet guides). None of these systems, however, is complete, and even an exhaustive (and exhausting) compilation of the results of all of them often fails. [...soap] All of which is to say that, almost exclusive of the content, Rose's book *is* important simply because of the topic. This is an enormous task that has been left, at best, partially done. Rose uses the PSI model of directory services and the work of PSI in implementing the White Pages system to guide the discussion. He notes the theory and primary work in the field, as well as the enormous technical, social and political problems to be faced in designing and building a useful internetworked directory. [soap...] As a high-volume user of directory services, I found the book to be lacking in one specific area. The technical problems, and current technical solutions, involved with directory services have very little to do with the user's task in trying to find contact information. In the first place, the best technical solution is to have directory services administered at the machine level, with access to the user information already stored there. This leads to a machine, network and organizational structure to the directory, and to access. I find this to be a failing in the PSI White Pages, which work most effectively when you can associate the search with an organization. In the current, chaotic, Internet environment, this is not always pertinent. In searching for authors, I very often have no idea what country they may be from, let alone what employer or access provider. A second factor lies with the databases discussed, which seem to implicitly assume that certain fields can be key. While most Internet users probably have only a single email address, most of the active people that I know have several. I also have at least seven telephone numbers that I might want associated with my contact information (and I *don't* have either a cellular phone or pager). Like genealogical research, the problem is much more complex than at first glance. [...soap] For those who would make a name for themselves on the net, directory services would be an excellent, though difficult, choice. This is the place to start. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1994
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