Europe in Bits & Bytes

Tom Kilton (IU) described Harrassowitz' "New Monographs" database as follows: The Otto Harrassowitz web site has been providing lists of recently published monographs published since January, 1996 across all subjects . The "New Monographs Database," accessible by a click on "Electronic Services," provides current listings of all new monographs selected by Harrassowitz bibliographers which can be delimited by year, month, and date. Using the expert search option, searching can be done by author, title, subject, publication type, and LC Classification number. One can choose from 59 subject areas, such as German literature, agriculture, Jewish studies, Latin American studies, or linguistics. The searcher can further delimit by price as well as by publication types (there are over 50 of these also, such as biography, Festschrift, dissertation, and commentary). The number of titles available is reflected in a search delimited to the subject "German literature" for all publications entered into the database from March 1 - April 1, 1998. The results yielded 150 titles. This database is certainly a welcome assist to selectors, and it furthermore complements the free online version of Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher available at http://www.buchhandel.de. Both have similar simple and complex search options, and by checking boxes next to desired titles, a selector can efficiently and rapidly create desiderata lists of only those selected titles. It is hoped that other European vendors will follow suit in providing collection development databases as helpful as these two.

European Records in RLIN

At the end of February RLG added the first file of current cataloging records from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) to the RLIN Books file. The initial set of 49,409 BNF records represent monographs cataloged since January 1997, with 90% describing items that are unique to the Research Libraries Bibliographic Database. Records from the BNF (library identifier FRBG) are available through the RLIN library and archival support system, Eureka (telnet and Web versions), or Zephyr, RLG's Z39.50 service. The BNF is sending updates monthly, of approximately 45,000 records a year.

Resources from All Over

The Goethe-Institut Library New York has added two new resources to its web page, a CD-ROM Directory and a list of periodicals about German speaking countries in English and German. They can be found at URL: http://www.goethe.de/uk/ney/enibib.htm.

Charles Fineman (MH) commented: I would like to mention the web site put up by our vendor in Nuuk, Atuagkat, which can supply both books printed in Greenland and books from southern Denmark pertaining to Greenland and the Arctic. The web site's address is URL: http://www.atuagkat.gl. The very knowledgeable manager of Atuagkat is Inger Hauge; the e-mail address is: .

Charles Spetland (MnU) relayed information from H-Skand about the Swedish Historical Bibliography, available through Libris from the Swedish Royal Library: The printed editions of Swedish Historical Bibliography covers the years 1771-1976. The continuation of this work, i.e. references to material printed 1977 and later, is now available on the Internet free of charge. The bibliography is continually updated with new material. Material printed in the 1990s is especially covered, but certain journals like Historisk tidskrift are covered for the whole period 1977-1997. Search the English version of the bibliography at URL: . Search the Swedish version at: URL: http://www.libris.kb.se/svensk. historisk.bibliografi.html.

Richard Parker, University of Warwick Library, pointed to a source of information about collection strengths of German libraries: The Webis web page gives information on subject strengths of German academic libraries, based on the system of devolved subject responsibilities set up by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. You can search it by broad subject area, region, library name or DFG subject keyword. URL: http://webis.sub.uni-hamburg.de/.

R. R. Neuswanger (DLC) forwarded news from Peter C. Gorman (WU) of a new web resource for Icelandic studies: The University of Wisconsin-Madison General Library System is pleased to announce their publication of a new resource available through the World Wide Web: Jonas Hallgrimsson, Selected Poetry and Prose, translated and edited by Professor Dick Ringler of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Departments of English and Scandinavian Studies. The technical design and implementation were performed by Peter C. Gorman of the library's Automation Services Division. Jonas is generally acknowledged to be the most important and influential Icelandic poet of modern times. In addition he has a secure place in the annals of Icelandic science and of his country's cultural and political history.

Ann Snoeyenbos suggested the following web pages for social science links: Links to Euro resources at the Institute on Western Europe at Columbia University URL: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/sipa/REGIONAL/WE/iwe.html; Institute of European Affairs in Ireland URL: http://www.connect.ie/users/iea/igclinks.htm; Radio France International (RFI); URL: http://www.rfi.fr/index.html.

Mike McCaffrey (IEN) pointed to an important source of European security information: The Western European Union Institute for Security Studies' Chaillot Papers (important but hardly anyone has a full run) are now on the web in full text, going right back to the beginning.URL: http://www.weu.int/institute/chail_uk.htm.

Jim Campbell (VU) noted: The second edition of the "Zeitschriftendatenbank: Elektronische Zeitschriften," which lists 155 electronic journals, was mounted in February, 1998 at URL: http://www.dbi-berlin.de/de/ibas/zdb/t_ejour1.htm.

Collection Development Aids

The Library of Congress maintains a web site entitled "Collection Development and the Internet," which may also be useful to bibliographers in other research libraries. Sections include Academic and Library-Related Listservs; Collection Development Sites; Review Sources; Publishers, Vendors, and Bookstores; Online Catalogs, and Survey of the Literature. Review URL: http://lcweb.loc.gov/acq/colldev/handbook. html#academic

There are two British sites that provide access to research library OPACs in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Ann Snoeyenbos pointed to COPAC, an online union catalog of UK research libraries, URL: http://copac.ac.uk/copac/ F. Ayres, University of Bradford, described BOPAC2: BOPAC2 (Bradford OPAC 2) is a product of a British Library funded research project that is now publicly available. BOPAC2 is a Web interface to a number of library catalogs. You select which catalog or catalogs you want to query, enter your search terms on a form and the catalogs are searched using the Z39.50 protocol. The results can then be seen in a Java applet. The BOPAC2 system can be reached from the project homepage at URL: http://www.comp.brad.ac.uk/research/database/bopac2.html. More information about European Z39.50 applications is at: URL: http://ukoln.bath.ac.uk/z3950/.

Web Sites by WESS Members

Fred Jenkins (ODaU) noted: Those of you who missed Blake Landor's informative presentation on Internet sites of classical interest at the Midwinter WESS Classical, Medieval & Renaissance DG meeting can find his handouts in electronic form at URL: http://nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu/~blaland/cmr.html.

New CD-ROMs

WESS Connections