Authors Stephen Londergan and Pat Freeland begin by examining Notes's electronic mail features. They show how to read, reply to, forward, and format messages but assume that all the more advanced stuff--like setting up a connection to a mail server--has been taken care of by an administrator. (Likewise, all the Domino server-side information falls outside this book's scope.)

Readers learn how to tailor the Notes interface by manipulating panes, organizing their mail databases, establishing an address book, and creating mail-sorting rules. Calendar features come next, with discussion of creating events, finding open times with Scheduler, and reserving resources. The authors employ fewer stepped procedures than most Dummies books use, opting instead for extra prose and lists of options. This approach suits Notes's interface, which in most cases provides many ways to accomplish the same thing.

Lotus Notes R5 for Dummies gives adequate attention to using databases in all their forms. This book explains the process of reading and contributing to discussions and understanding forms, text formatting, welcome pages, and other fancy interface elements as they go. --David Wall