This is the UK�s Chief Librarians Council�s database developed for public library staff. It allows one to search for books by genre or type, including happy/sad, conventional/weird, funny/serious, romantic/realist, sex/no sex, and types of characters, plots, settings, etc. Each book has a reader comment, sometimes an extract, and the option to search for similar titles. This is useful for libraries and young adult and adult readers.

This is a searchable collection for brief reviews of hundreds of children�s books, that can be browsed by category as well as by author, title, illustrator, reading level, reading interest, or page length. Readers may add their comments on individual books. Some titles include parental notes about awards and/or content.

Jointly managed by a European volunteer team, this new, free database indexes close to 1000 documents in the area of library and information science, all of them downloadable from the site. Users can browse the index by document type (article or conference paper) or conduct a keyword search. Within each category, the documents are organised by journal/series (for example, D-Lib Magazine, Journal of Electronic Publishing). Clicking on a title brings up article lists and then detailed entries. The latter may include title, author name and contact information, month published, and an abstract. All link to the full text in either HTML or pdf formats. This is well worth checking on a regular basis for up-to-date listing of some of the most interesting published papers in information science.

Short reports by experts in the field of education on topics of current interest. Funded by the U. S. Department of Education, but often written by educators and researchers with no direct affiliation with that agency. Typically, each digest is about 1,000 - 1,500 words, and includes a useful, current, bibliography. The database is updated quarterly and contains ca 2,000 such digests as of March 1998. Access available by publication date and by a somewhat simplistic search engine.

Access MCB's University Press' Journals of the Week site at http://www.mcb.co.uk/jotw/ Every week, two different journals will be featured from MCB's extensive portfolio of journal titles allowing you FREE fulltext access to current and past volumes. It's the best way to find out more about individual journals and experience the many benefits of online access - a key part of MCB's comprehensive subscription package.'

The electronic version of American Libraries, the official magazine of the American Library Association. This site includes current material, and an archive of articles back to 1997, plus the index to the print version since 1996. While the emphasis is on news (with weekly updates), the site also includes Karen Schneider's "Internet Librarian" and David Dorman's "Technically Speaking" columns, plus a weekly "Career Leads" feature, listing job advertisements as the arrive at the magazine. While not a substitute for the full magazine, this version does include the ability to receive the news features via email, for ALA members.

The British Library is the national library for the UK, and the site provides information on the range of activities and associated services. Details are given of the collections which are extensive, exhibitions (superbly curated and mounted), and its Digital Library Programme. Services provided include: bibliographic, document supply, patent express, picture library, preservation, reading rooms, reproductions, science & business. After much criticism of its new home, the Library is now well settled into superb, user friendly accommodation. Searching its catalogues is not quite such a user-friendly operation.

This is an online library of post-copyright texts, dictionaries, author biographies and community message boards. All content on Knowledgerush is free, and surfers are encouraged to download, link and freely distribute information. At present more than 400 authors and about 3000 books are available online. Knowledgerush is now creating a catalogue or open directory to help users locate age and reading level appropriate texts for their needs. This site has considerable potential and is well worth watching for further developments. Librarians are encouraged to participate by providing input, assisting with indexing, etc.

The home page of the Library of Congress provides general information about the LC and its services, the reading rooms, catalogues of holdings, thesauri, resources for researchers and librarians, etc. There is also linkage to a site map covering a number of resources of value to information professionals internationally. These include the Center for the Book http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/cfbook, which exists to promote public interest in books, reading, libraries and literacy; Country Studies http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html, which presents studies of countries that provide valuable referenc einformation on national history, society, culture, and 'facts-at-a-glance'; Global Legal Information Network http://lcweb2.loc.gov.law/GLINv1/GLIN.html, which provides a database of laws, regulations and legal resources contributed by national governments from original official texts held in the LC.

A conscientious attempt to provide links to all libraries whose catalogs or other resources are available on the World Wide Web. Part of the Berkeley Digital Library, this site is updated daily, and lists about 2500 sites from all over the world. The sites are searchable by a geographically classified listing, or by keywords. Once at a site, of course, one still must have the appropriate passwords and other information to use the library's site, but at least the search can begin easily. Libweb also provides links to other related sites, such as the Canadian Library Index, Nordic Libraries-Information Servers, and the like. Academic and research libraries are becoming fairly easy to reach on the Web; this site is especially useful for smaller institutions and for public and school libraries.

OCLC stands for the Online Computer Library Center, Inc. which started as a local cataloguing co-operative in the state of Ohio, USA, but which now provides a range of services to libraries around the world including access, collection and technical, the OCLC Forest Press (publishing Dewey), preservation resources, reference, resource sharing. The site carries news of its activities and those of its members, has useful information in the Office of Research pages, OCLC documentation, and contacts and addresses for its activities world-wide. Valuable for practitioners and students. Well designed and easy to navigate.

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