To simplify the evaluation process, it is helpful to focus on three questions: What? Who? When?

What? represents Content.
The first step in gathering information about the book is to study the content. You can find information about the book in the title, the book overview and the table of contents.

The Title shows you if there is anything in the book about the topic you are looking for.

From the Book overview you can get annotation of the text. Sometimes the overview might be quite declarative. Then the table of contents can help you.

The Table of contents helps to specify the subject matter of the book.

For the final acknowledgement of representativeness of the book it is necesary to read book review(s). The book review gives an overview about opinions of professionals and practitioners in the area.

A lot of information, appointed above, can be found at Google Books (http://books.google.com/)

Who? expects inquiring knowledge about the author and the publisher.

To verify author's qualifications it is advisable to read author's biography and look at his (her) bibliography. It is useful to know if author is a researcher or practitioner in this field, does he/she have written more books or articles on the topic.

Significant is the publisher of the book. Academic publishers, like Sage Publishing Inc., Oxford University press, Wiley and Sons and others, have long traditions of publishing high-level scientific literature. These publishers are authoritative. There are also a lot of books, published by universities or by organizations' publishers. Thus, organization's or university's reputation in scientific community is important as well.

When? means the time of publishing of the book.
The time of publishing is also significant. Recent editions contain often the updated information. If the book has a number of new editions it is useful to look if these are reprints or are these editions updated or edited. Classical texts are reprinted frequently.

Please examine following examples.