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Rating: 
Summary: Only Intermittently Useful--Need Fewer Cases, More Can-Do
Review: Evaluation is a necessary, even essential, aspect of library management, an argument this book successfully puts forth. The authors indicate, in the book's introduction, that this is "not strictly speaking a how-to-do-it book so much as a how-it-has-been-done book" and this phrase succinctly sums up the book, as well as pointing to its strengths and weaknesses. The book largely succeeds as an overview of the motives for evaluation and the processes by which it can be carried out. Yet, librarians looking for a more practical guide to the actual steps by which an evaluation project might be carried out will need to look elsewhere.
Organized into six chapters, each devoted to a specific area of evaluation, the book presents a series of case studies, meant to provide specific, individual examples of evaluation projects which have been carried out. Some of these examples are very useful, reflecting a specific, recognized problem, with a step-by-step approach to developing a solution and evaluating that solution. In these instances, the approach to evaluating and solving the problems really could be used, with little change, by other libraries.
In other instances, the case studies are less useful, as a particular solution is put forth, without much in the way of specific supporting evidence that this solution really is the best solution. The solution is assumed to be the best way of solving the problem and the evaluation appears tailored to supporting this assumption.
The book is primarily useful as an introduction to the idea of evaluation, as a means of opening a dialogue on evaluation and the need for it. Experienced librarians will probably find this less useful than new or beginning librarians. It would likely be of particular interest to library and information science students in library management courses.
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