ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


October 1 99 4/59 9

A L E X : A  C a t a l o g u e  o f  
E l e c t r o n i c  T e x t s  o n  t h e  
I n t e r n e t. Access: gopher:// 
rsl.o x .ac.u k :7 0 /ll/lib -co rn / 
h u n te r, g o p h e r to rsl.ox. 
ac.uk, 11. Librarian’s Corner,
5. ALEX.

Y ou’ve seen directories 
of electronic texts before, so 
w hat makes Alex different?
It’s the first directory to tie 
several collections o f e-texts 
together and actually look 
like an OPAC. This am bi­
tious project allows users to 
retrieve the full text of over 900 titles (but not 
serials) from Project Gutenberg, Wiretap, the 
On-line Book Initiative, the Eris system at Vir­
ginia Tech, th e English Server at Carnegie 
Mellon, the online portion of the Oxford Text 
Archive, Project Bartleby at Columbia, and 
Project Runeberg in Sweden. Note that not all 
of the texts are actually available to the searcher; 
I tried to retrieve the Constitution of the United 
States and w as presented with “Sorry Dude, 
we d o n ’t allow off-site access to this server.”

Alex was created by H unter Monroe, an 
economist with some prior experience w ork­
ing with library catalogs. Since its inception, 
several additional “helpers” have signed on. The 
database will be updated weekly.

W hen you first access Alex (bom  July 1994) 
y o u ’ll be p re se n te d  w ith four m enu items:
1) electronic texts alph ab etized  by author,
2) by title, 3) cataloguing Internet resources, 
and 4) an index. The screens are slightly clut­
tered because author’s names conform to LC 
authority headings, including dates (though 
you’re not looking at actual MARC records).

Some headers give a clue as to the size of 
th e file (ex. 507K), b u t m ost do  not. The 
README contains the warning that “m any of 
the files referenced here are large—greater than 
half a Megabyte—and may take you a long time 
to retrieve.” Believe it.

The cataloging m enu option is interesting 
in that it contains a list o f docum ents/reports 
that discuss (what else?) cataloging the Inter­
net. This is an idea catalogers (and others) have 
been discussing ever since they found the cha­

Sara Amato is systems librarian at Willamette Univer­
sity, Salem, Oregon; e-mail: samato@willamette.edu

I n te r n e t
R e v ie w s

Sara Amato, editor

otic Internet, and this is a 
g re a t p la c e  to g e t u p  to 
s p e e d  o n  t h e ir  d is c u s ­
sions.—P aulR . Pival, Chris­
topher Newport University; e- 
mail: ppival@cc.cnu.edu

C E R R O . A ccess: g o - 
p h er://o ly m p .w u -w ie n .a c. 
at:7 0 /ll/.c e rro .in d , gopher 
to  o ly m p .w u -w ie n .a c .a t, 
8. Forschung an der WU/,
5. CERRO: Central European 
Regional Research Organiza­
tion/.

CERRO, the Central European Regional Re­
arch Organization, is sponsored jointly by the 
niversity of Economics and Business Admin­
tration, Vienna, Austria; the Slovak Academy 
f Sciences, Bratislava; and the University of 
orth Carolina at Chapel Hill. Those most likely 
 access this site w ould be business-oriented 

cademics. The avowed intention of CERRO is 
 “stimulate and support regional research” in 
e area of Central Europe.

CERRO is located, via gopher, at olymp.wu- 
ien.ac.at, and additionally at CERRO-L (sub­
ription to listserv@aearn or aearn.edvz.univie. 

c.at).
CERRO makes information available in a 

um ber of fashions and formats, but a major 
mitation for the American librarian is that much 
f the statistical information is only available in 
erm an (and a very scientific/m athem atical 
erman at that) though the information itself 
 of great use to scholars in this field. Addi­
onally, there are archives of scholarly publi­
tions offered under various subheadings as: 

apers, Organizations, Individuals and Confer­
ces, but most of these submenus are arranged 
 that they pull information from the same 

les. There is also information on Hungarian 
lectronic Stocks and Commodities (naturally 
ough, in Hungarian, though most people in­

rested in this type of information could trans­
te the important bits like prices and share 
lumes easily enough), apparently updated 

eekly. CERRO also contains a num ber of news 
urces (Radio Free Europe-Daily News) aimed 
 the Central European market. The most in­
vative resource on the CERRO gopher is a 
ting of individuals interested in Central Eu­
pean economics, business, and life offering

se
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ac.uk
mailto:samato@willamette.edu
mailto:ppival@cc.cnu.edu


6 0 0 /  C&RL News

to share their expertise or looking for contacts 
to further their research aims. This listing (com­
plete with institutional information and e-mail 
addresses) should go a long way tow ard mak­
ing the CERRO gopher a prime source for Cen­
tral European business research activities.—John 
Small, Central Missouri State University; e-mail: 
small@ cmsuvmb.cmsu.edu

E R I C  C l e a r i n g h o u s e  o n  A s s e s s m e n t  a n d  
E v a lu a t io n . Access: gopher://vm sgopher.cua. 
edu:70/llgopher_root_eric_ae% 3a% 5b000000 
%5d, Gopher: gopher.cua.edu /  Special Re­
sources /  ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment 
and Evaluation /Search ERIC. Contact: Larry 
Rudman, (800) go4-eric or eric ae@cua.edu.

This gopher server from Catholic Univer­
sity of America provides exciting and useful 
sites for anyone connected w ith education. 
College and university faculty, librarians, ad­
ministrators, graduate and undergraduate stu­
dents in the field of education will find this 
extrem ely helpful.

The Educational Resources Information Cen­
ter (ERIC) is an information network designed 
to provide users with ready access to educa­
tional literature. It is the largest education da­
tabase in the world and contains nearly one 
million records of indexed and abstracted docu­
ments and journal articles.

Search ERIC is available on the menu of ERIC 
Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation 
gopher server. It contains options for informa­
tion on ERIC and the ERIC Clearinghouses; ex­
planation of ERIC abstracts from RIE and CIJE; 
information on ERIC Digests and the digests 
themselves; and sites available for searching 
ERIC and additional databases. These sites in­
clude Syracuse Library; University of Illinois at 
C ham paign; C alifornia State U niversity at 
Hayward; University of Saskatchewan; CARL; 
Auburn University; Florida State University; and 
Harvard University. The multiple sites allow us­
ers to switch sites conveniently w hen one is 
busy or unavailable. There are plans to add 
more sites as they becom e available.

Libraries without ERIC on CD, tape, or on ­
line will greatly appreciate the availability of 
these sites. Each of the search sites offers its 
ow n m enu containing the ERIC database and, 
in some cases, electronic library catalogs, cam­
pus directories and information, and other bib­
liographic databases. For example, the site at 
Saskatchewan includes the Canadian Education 
Index. Each of the sites has its own format of

search options and strategies. Most allow au­
thor, title, and subject searching with various 
other options such as descriptors, identifiers, 
or dates. All include help screens and some 
even have tutorials. None of them are difficult 
to master although some are more user friendly 
than others. The coordinator of the server has 
designated the Syracuse Library site as the “best” 
and I agree.

The m enu also includes options for infor­
mation on ERIC digests which are reports that 
synthesize information on educational issues. 
The full texts of these digests are available here 
as well. Educational researchers will appreci­
ate the time saved by the availability o f these 
digests.

Search ERIC is well-organized and useful to 
all those involved in education. The ERIC data­
base and digests serve to keep educators up- 
to-date with new  trends and developments in 
the field of education.—Emily S. Chasse, Cen­
tral Connecticut State University, New Britain; 
e-mail: Chasse@ccsua.ctstateu.edu. ■

(ACRL cont. from  page 590)
tions Com m ittee m ust app ro v e the recom ­
mendation, and the president of ACRL makes 
the appointm ent.

If you w ould like to be considered for ap­
pointm ent to an editorial board, contact the 
editor of the editorial board.

Choice acting editor: Fran Graf, Choice, 100 
Riverview Center, Middletown, CT 06457.

College & Research Libraries editor: Glori- 
ana St. Clair, Assistant Dean and Head o f Infor­
mation Access Services, E506 Pattee Library, 
Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 
PA 16802; e-mail: gss@psulias.bitnet.

College & Research Libraries News editor: 
Mary Ellen Davis, C&RL News, ACRL/ALA, 50 
E. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2795; e-mail: 
mary.ellen.davis@ala.org.

New publications editor: Hugh Thompson, 
ACRL/ALA, 50 E. H u ro n  St., C hicago, IL 
60611-2795; e-mail: hugh.thom pson@ ala.org.

Publications in Librarianship editor: Ste­
phen E. Wiberley Jr., University of Illinois at 
Chicago University Library, Chicago, IL 60680; 
e-mail: u30959@ uicvm.uic.edu.

Rare Books & M anuscripts Librarianship 
editor: Sidney E. Berger, University of Cali­
fornia, University Library, P.O. Box 5900, Riv­
ersid e, CA 92517-5900; e-m ail: spcolseb@  
ucrvms.bitnet. ■

mailto:small@cmsuvmb.cmsu.edu
gopher://vmsgopher.cua
gopher://gopher.cua.edu
mailto:ae@cua.edu
mailto:Chasse@ccsua.ctstateu.edu
mailto:mary.ellen.davis@ala.org
mailto:hugh.thompson@ala.org
mailto:u30959@uicvm.uic.edu


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