Jeff Dawson’s Gay & Lesbian Online describes itself as a “travel guide” to the Internet and the World Wide Web for gays and lesbians. Arranged alphabetically, the entries include everything from “law and legal issues,” to “opera” and “square dancing,” to “AIDS” and “breast cancer” (the his and hers of queer health issues). There is even an entry for Canada. Each entry consists of a brief introduction followed by a listing of relevant World Wide Web sites.

This book is basically a user-friendly, queer-specific directory of www addresses. It is an impressive list of Web sites, but little more than that. The introductions to each entry are chatty and informative, but Dawson’s writing rarely rises above a string of gay clichés. The reader will not find any serious commentary on how the Internet has affected gay and lesbian lifestyles. There is no discussion of privacy issues or censorship, matters of particular relevance to the queer Internet user, especially since the passage of the Communications Decency Act in the United States (on February 8 of this year), which aims to regulate “indecency” on the Internet.

To be fair, Dawson claims to be writing a “travel guide” to the Internet, not an essay on the significance of cyberspace to the queer community. Yet Dawson’s guide neglects to mention three important Internet phenomena: electronic mail, not only for personal communications and Internet romance, but also for information sharing and community building through activist mailing lists such as “queerplanet”; gay-related usenet newsgroups, which are user-generated, open forums for discussion and debate, where one can participate actively or just lurk anonymously; and gay-defined channels on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), which allow multiple users to simultaneously engage in “live” keyboard conversation.

The fundamental problem with this guide is beyond Dawson’s control. The Web is a rapidly changing and expanding place, so any guide will necessarily be incomplete and will quickly become obsolete. A published guide such as this one makes very little practical sense except as a rudimentary introduction for the Internet virgin. Given the linkages between Web sites and the sophisticated search tools available on the Web, there is very little in this book that could not be found by a few hours of surfing on one’s own. In fact, this guide would be better off as a Web site, updated regularly with information submitted by users. Such a format would be more comprehensive and more accurate. But it would not sell books.