Like many readers, I have grown somewhat skeptical regarding the plethora of management and leadership books on the market today. How much value can there be in all this personal philosophy? Seems like everyone wants to be a guru in some form or fashion. --------------- Seems like an increasing number of what I call "Kumbaya" books have come onto the market lately -- books promoting the touchy, feely side of leadership. Sidney E. Fuchs Director of Professional Services, IBM, Software Group

Sidney E. Fuchs’s citations describing the situation colorfully. The question is, how to get an overview of all this material and find out, which of it is reliable and usable.

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

What? represents the 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.

Title shows us if there is anything in the book about the topic we are looking for.

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

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

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

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

Who? expects inquiring knowledge about the author and publisher.

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

It is significant to look at 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 lots of books, published by universities or by organizations' publishers. Therefore organization's or university's reputation in scientific community is also important.

When? means time of publishing the book.

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, are they reprints or are these editions updated or edited. Classical texts are reprinted frequently.

Please examine following examples.