If you are thinking about getting into the field of private investigations, then you may want to read this great introduction to the investigations profession.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigations by Steven Kerry Brown gives you a great overview of all the main areas of private investigating, including: surveillance; tools of the investigation trade; public record databases; people searches and skip tracing; laws and licensing as well as business-related issues for the budding private investigator.

You can read more about the book along with reader reviews at Amazon.com @ The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating.

We all know Google is a great people search; business search and other background and investigative search engine, but the real power in using Google is with all of the tricks that you can use to really zero in on what you are looking for online.

Google Power by Chris Sherman is one of the best, if not the best, non-technical and no-nonsense Google search tip books for skip tracers, private investigators and online researchers on the market. The book has over 400 pages of Google news, tips and tricks for becoming a Google Power User.

Some Google topics covered in the book that are of particular interest to skip tracers and private investigators include entire chapters on the best ways to use Google to find people; searching Google News; conduct business background and corporate records searches; customizing Google to get the most out of your searches and much more.

You can read more about Google Power by Chris Sherman, including customer reviews on Amazon at Google Power on Amazon. You can even buy a cheap used copy of the book for around $10.00 on the Amazon site.

Once again, good luck with all of your web search and people search efforts.

Ambient Findability is a forward-looking ( or, rather,  forward-finding ) new book by Peter Morville that should be required reading for all skip tracers, private investigators and internet research professionals. 

The book discusses the theory and practice of how people find the information they are seeking in an era of information overload and how they sort out the information that is useful for their particular purposes.  With modern communications and publishing, the question isn’t "Is the information out there?", but, rather, "How do I ask the right questions and search the right way to find the information?"

Topics discussed in the book that are of interest in the field of skip tracing and investigations include:

1. Social Networking Sites
2. Global Positioning Systems
3. Mobile Communications
4. Mapping  and Wayfinding
5. People Finding

At only 179 pages, the book is easily readable and understandable, but contains information that is invaluable for skip tracers and investigators.  Learn how others find information and apply these practices in your own searches.  This book should not be viewed as a "how-to" search tutorial, but, rather, a way of seeing the search possibilities that are expanding at a mind-numbing rate.  If you want to think about the future of finding, searching and locating, then this is the book for you.

You can read an interview with the author of Ambient Findability in Business Week at The Impact of "Ambient Findability" .

The book description on Ambient Findability can be read on Amazon.com at Ambient Findability.

And Peter Morville’s blog on the subject can be read at Findability.org.