reviews.indd For example, Web resources are men- tioned in all chapters as well as further elucidated in its own chapter. These instances are consistently noted by the authors. The appendix of “Selected Re- sources in Related Disciplines” guides the researcher to general literary resources as well as resources in art, history, social sciences, philosophy, religion, music, sci- ences, medicine, and theatre. The book ends with a useful bibliography and a comprehensive index. An important contribution to the un- derstanding of research methodology in American modernism, this book covers newer research technologies that could not have been included even just a year ago. However, this also exposes a weakness of the book, which, to remain relevant, will need to be updated frequently, as the technologies are likely to continue to change. The volume is clearly writt en and generally has an appropriate level of detail. However, at times, the authors provide more information than would be useful for most researchers, such as providing the names of common online catalog vendors. Nevertheless, library terminology is clearly defined before it is used, and the authors succeed in making the complicated search process easy to follow. Following strategies outlined in this volume allows researchers to avoid common pitfalls with the information resources with which they are already familiar while introducing researchers to resources that they do not even know exist. Most important, the authors observe that an effi cient research methodology can free up the researchers, allowing them to spend more time writing and reflect- ing.—Mary Manning, Adelphi University. Reij o Savolainen. Everyday Information Practices: A Social Phenomenological Perspective. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008. 256p. alk. paper, $55 (ISBN 9780810861114). LC2007-50342. Everyday Information Practices: A Social Phenomenological Perspective by Reijo Savolainen looks at the methods by which Book Reviews 91 people look for information in non–work- related contexts. The author, a professor in the Department of Information Studies at Finland’s University of Tampere, points out that, while the first research into the subject was done in the United States in the 1970s, few books have been writt en on the topic. He goes on to say that a number of articles and conference proceedings discuss specific issues involved with in- formation-seeking behavior of everyday life, yet none address the broader view. Divided into eight chapters, Savolainen begins with an introduction that defines some of the principal concepts of every- day life information practices. Refl exive modernization, for example, is defined as a new modernity characterized by heightened insecurities and risks as well as individualization. Everyday life refers to activities that are viewed as regular, normal, and familiar. Chapter two, “Prac- tice and Information Practice,” attempts to explain the characteristics of everyday information practice. The author first looks at “what is practice?” and then moves on to “action, activity, behavior, habit, or practice?” He attempts to define each of these related concepts before dis- cussing various approaches to everyday information practices, including ideas from Schatzki and Alfred Schutz. Chapter three is devoted to “Concep- tualizing Everyday Information Prac- tices,” looking at information behavior as well as information action and activity. Savolainen then formulates a conceptual framework and model to put the major issues of everyday information practices into a broader context. Less than five pages long, chapter four relates how the author went about conducting an empiri- cal investigation of information practices. He interviewed two groups of people, environmental activists and retirees, in 2005 and 2006. Chapter five discusses the two types of information seeking: seeking orienting information and seeking problem-specific information. The author describes the basic features of both types as well as the 92 College & Research Libraries sources of information. The information sources were categorized into six groups: human sources, broadcast media, printed media, networked, organization, and other. Chapter six expands on the previ- ous chapter to look at the ways in which media credibility and cognitive authority are used in orienting information seeking. The author also discusses the strategies individuals employ to deal with infor- mation overload. Such strategies include filtering and withdrawal. Comments from those interviewed are interspersed throughout the text. Chapter seven deals with the sharing of information as an everyday information practice. The author states that, “in the broadest sense, information sharing may include providing information, receiving information provided by other people, confirming receipt of the information, and confirming that the information is jointly understood.” The work ends with some “concluding remarks” from the author. Each chapter has a list of references at the end, and the work includes several graphs and charts as well as an extensive bibliography and an index. An interest- ing read, librarians of all types will want to peruse this book. Everyday Information Practice is recommended for most library and information studies collections. It is a welcome addition to the field of informa- tion-seeking behaviors.—Nicole Mitchell, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Ann J. Topjon. Carl Larsson: An Annotated Bibliography. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2008. 504p. alk. paper, $135 (ISBN 9781584562108). LC2007- 47169. Ann J. Topjon, Associate Professor and Librarian Emeritus at Whitt ier College, California, spent more than twenty years researching Swedish artist Carl Larsson. Topjon wrote exhibition catalog bibliogra- phies for the 1992 retrospective in Stock- holm and 1997’s “Carl and Karin Larsson: Creators of the Swedish Style” in London and consulted Swedish archives, libraries, and museums to create Carl Larsson: An January 2009 Annotated Bibliography, a well-researched guide to his life and work. Carl Larsson (1853–1919) is best known for his watercolors of domesticity and nature, which “represented the tradi- tions of a peaceful and rural Swedish countryside as well as an uncomplicated existence, an idealized world” in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. One benefit of this modern, mechanizing force was new color reproduction techniques in the 1890s, which brought his eight published albums of art and text into European homes. The German-published Das Haus in der Sonne (The House in the Sun), an amalgamation of three albums, became a 1909 bestseller and Larsson’s first international success. Born into poverty, Larsson worked as a newspaper illustrator and photograph retoucher to support his family. He struggled at the Royal Art Academy in Stockholm and as an artist in Paris, deal- ing with depression and rejection from the art community, until he was finally recognized in the early 1880s. At Grèz- sur-Loing, a Scandinavian artists’ colony outside Paris, he painted breakthrough watercolors, abandoning his earlier oil painting style, and met his wife, artist Karin Bergöö (1859–1928). Larsson and Bergöö had eight children and inherited a house, Lilla Hyttnäs, in the small vil- lage of Sundborn in Dalarna, Sweden. Their lives and art have characterized the image of Sweden at home and abroad to this day. Due to a rainy summer in 1894, making plein air painting impossible, Larsson’s energetic family life became the subject of his warm, bright watercolors of do- mestic comforts, epitomized in his first well-known album Ett Hem (A Home). The “Larsson style” of interior decorating, known for “freshness, light, clear colors, and ‘Swedishness,’” as compared to the dark, dignified Victorian interiors of the time, is the “apotheosis of Swedish design both nationally and internationally.” As well as contributing to design and interior decorating, Larsson was a master of all