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Reviews Practical International Data Management: A guide to working with global names and addresses Graham Rhind Gower Publishing, 2001; hardback; 171pp; £69.50; ISBN 0 566 08405 8
Invaluable
Names and addresses. . .
. . . globally
How much short of perfection?
Some disagreements. . .
406
First and foremost I have to say Ð reluctantly, in face of the outrageous price set by Gower Ð that this is an invaluable book. It should be read, and its lessons thoroughly absorbed, by everyone whose business involves the capture, storage, processing and printing of names and addresses (which includes almost everyone likely to be reading this journal); it should sit permanently on the shelves of everyone who has a professional part to play in determining the methodology of such capture, storage, processing and printing. It is short (making the price even more outrageous) and easy to read. But it is at the same time a work of reference of permanent value. The book's main title suggests that it is about the whole of data management; as the subtitle reveals, it is for the most part concerned with the handling of names and addresses. It is, that is to say, about the single most intellectually challenging and intractable problem in the ®eld of data processing. (If you think that is a large claim, try reading the book before you disagree.) The fundamental problems of name and address handling can almost all be met with in the context of a UK database. What this book additionally reveals is how expansion to take in other countries, other languages and other cultures creates an explosion of complexity, making most of our current methods Ð particularly those based on data collection via the Internet Ð crude, inadequate and counterproductive. The standards suggested by the author will seem to many to be altogether too demanding. There is no shame in settling for less: what is shameful is to have installed a less than perfect system (and perfection, as the author would agree, is in principle impossible) without ®rst understanding the ways in which, and the extent to which, it falls short. The careful reader of this book will ®nish with a clear understanding of the full scope of the global name and address problem and how much of it to deal with. What short cuts to take will than be a matter of rational calculation, rather than the accidental result, as so often now, of carelessness, chauvinism and ignorance. The book is not without fault. The author's subject has four component parts Ð data capture, data storage, data processing and data output or printing. He chooses to approach the subject ®rst from the standpoint of the database Ð that is to say from data storage, and it is from this perspective that the bulk of his book is written. There are two alternative approaches, either of which might seem superior. Either one could approach the four components in the logical sequence in which they are listed above, making life somewhat easier for
& H E N R Y S T E W A R T P U B L I C AT I O N S 1 4 6 3 - 5 1 7 8 . I n t e r a c t i v e M
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