The Invisible Web: Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can't See

I retired five years ago after thirty years in a very large public library system, and recently found it necessary to return to the trenches for awhile, in a rather smaller system. In that half-decade, of course, the Internet changed drastically and, even though I'm constantly online and intimately familiar with the major search engines (and many of the minor ones), there was a large number of new reference information sources with which I was not at all familiar. So I went looking for professional tools to remedy my ignorance. This is the first book I've seen in the publisher's "CyberAge" series, and medthodologically, it's quite good. As others have noted, the static nature of print-on-paper means rapidly outdated material, but Sherman and Price show you how to attack the problem, so, even though I came across several (unfortunately) extinct databases, I was able to locate several new ones, too. This is a terrific instructional work for reference librarians, and the accompanying web site is near the top of my bookmarks at work.

This WAS a fantastic book. Many of the websites referenced in this book are defunk, deleted, or redirected.This book is from 2001. No new editions, that I know of.There is useful information within, but what may have been enlightening at the beginning of this decade is common knowledge today. Good references. Great book for its time. Well written.But even the books own websites are closed.

This book is excellent. It is filled with information that you cannot get anywhere else about the Web and how to excess all the "hidden 3/4" of the Web hardly anyone knows is there. It is well written and very easy to comprehendI found out about it tru an mail link from, "Search Engine Watch.com". This site is filled daily with great links daily to how the Search Engines work! To me, It is a must have book for anyone that uses the Internet at all!

Not very informative. Mostly a collection of websites that may or may not be of usein finding information, and a lot of commercial sites that use "Free" as a come on.

The author is the unsurpassed guru of InterNet searching, and is explicitly relied upon by other authors engaging in the same work. His website is the mother lode of additional information, which is very helpful. If you have one book on your shelf regarding InterNet resources, this should be it. That said, Mr. Sherman relies heavily upon explanations of the breadth and depth of various resources; these explanations are designed to pique the reader's interest in further self-directed exploration, but may be more than the average searcher might need.

This is an excellent book if you are heavily into the search process. It begins with a basic understanding of the internet, the web and how search engines work. It then proceeds to explain what the 'invisible' or 'deep' web is, how to recognize it and how to deal with the search process of it. It includes a huge section of reference sources on the web.

I read this book in 2001 and it really opened my eyes. Unfortunately, it is impossible to keep up with advances on the internet, and all that information would be outdated for 2012.However, just learning the catch phrase "Invisible Web" will serve you well enough. Do a google search on that term in quotes and you will find dozens of fantastic articles online, providing the updated information and an amazing number of resources and Invisible Web search engines.

Extremely well written. Lots of information about the "invisible web".

Stunning book and must have.