Perhaps Mr Selinger does not consider research and information gathering skills to be "soft", and I want to give him the benefit of the doubt until informed otherwise. In fact, correspondence with him subsequent to an earlier version of this review confirmed this fact, which is good to know. However, new engineers need to be aware of the information resources that serve their profession, and how to use them. In his 2001 article, Mr Rodrigues notes that "Engineering literature is growing exponentially and beginning to move more quickly towards a digital future." In 2005, this is a reality, as publishers are making their indexes and abstracts, for decades available only in print, now available online back to Year 1 of publication. These include Compendex, Inspec, SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts), NTIS, and many others.
If and when Mr Selinger decides to publish a second edition of his very timely and useful book, I hope he decide to include a chapter on research and information gathering skills. Meanwhile, do consider adding this title to your engineering collection. Since first becoming aware of it, I have mentioned the book in every information resources session I teach in mechanical, chemical and materials engineering.
1. Selinger, Carl. 2004. Stuff You Don't Learn in Engineering School. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE Press; Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Interscience.
2. Rodrigues, Ron. 2001. "Industry expectations of the new engineer." Science & Technology Libraries 19(3/4): 179-188.
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