Electronic public information newsletter

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The final and possibly less conventional CONTENTS mode mirrors the structure and peculiarities(one might say) strengths of the COW. Users in this mode can move progressively from continent. to nation, and then to actual source of documentation within the database-determining from the table of contents those parts of the document they hope to examine. By electing to survey information on China in this mode, for instance, provides a choice of viewing the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs’ 1987 hTutionul Negotiating Styles, the 1990 CI,4 M’orld Fucthook. the 1989 China: u C’ountr?~ St~d~9. or New Star Publishings’ 1989 Whut 3 Nms in China. Opting for the latter of these, one would locate quickly a lengthy two-part section on “Women in China” and an extensive chapter on Chinese environmental policy. The ENCYCLOPEDIA can give you in cases like this wonderful and timely coverage. Yet all of this varied material comes with rather modest technical requirements. COW is at home both in the Macintosh and IBM worlds, and the company has built appropriate software into the disc for coping in either environment. Installation is easy; and the hardware is common enough. For IBM and/or compatibles, the disc utilizes 640-RAM and requires DOS 3.1 or later. The manufacturers suggest a fixed disk and for images a VGA card. The CD-ROM drive must support the 130-9660 standards. For Mats, the situation is similar. One will need I MB RAM (System 6.04 or greater) and a MAC compatible CD-ROM drive supporting (again) the ISOstandard. Yet neither this technical flexibility of the product nor the enormous amount of information in the database will be able to render COW immune from criticism. Not all of the information is current. The Arcu Handbooks themselves, one must remember, can be hopelessly out of date. A 198 1 or 82 study on Japan-the date of the current Area Hundbook included in the database-may be simply too dated for a great deal of scholarly research. Situations in some part ofthe world have changed so quickly that even a 1990 CI.4 Mhrld Facthook can no longer be an accurate source of data. Moreover, coverage is uneven. Some national questions receive only a cursory analysis in the disc’s holdings. AIDS, for instance, just is not well covered in COW. Apartheid, conversely, receives ample treatment. Also the menu-driven interface employed by the ENCYCLOPEDIA provides ease of use but at the sacrifice of power. You cannot combine indices, for example, or narrow a search by date ofpublication. The three modes of searching discussed earlier are the only way to get around in the database. Even the disc’s printing utility fails to print anything less than full chapters of text. There is no “print screen” command, so one frequently has to print far more than necessary. These concerns combined with the manufacturer’s indefinite plans for an update may give one pause in considering the COW as a purchase. None of these drawbacks should cause anyone to disregard the product. Bureau Development’s COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA has a great deal to offer. The disc’s faults do not overshadow its merits. For quick and broad-based access to geopolitical information. it has few rivals. Users can download full chapters of text and carry on creative geographic comparisons with a mere keystroke. In this sense the disc will serve undergraduate and ready-reference needs handily. No, COW will not satisfy everyone, but the wealth of geopolitical information at the nominal sum of $395.00 makes it an especially good bargain. User-friendly, loaded with data, and backed with excellent telephone technical support, the COW remains one of the more interesting full-text database CD-ROM options available anywhere and is a lot of CD-ROM for the money.

Government

STEVE MCKINZIE Documents Department Dickinson College Carlisle, PA 170 I3 USA

Electronic Public Information Newsletter. Washington: EPIN Publishing, 199 I. ISSN 1057-834X. 24 issues per year. (Order from EPIN Publishing, P.O. Box 21001, Washington, DC 20009. Phone (703) 237-950 1.) $249.00, $130.00 for libraries and public interest groups. Volume I, issue number 1 of Electronic Public Injbrmution Newsletter (EPIN) was published on October 25, I99 I, as, in the words of its editors, “. . a publication dedicated to explaining the policy, practices, politics and technical issues surrounding the transformation of public information to elec-

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tronic form.” Or, in a more idealistic statement of purpose, the publishers present it as “a newsletter in defense of Jefferson’s ideal of an informed citizenry.” Publication of the newsletter was preceded by an opinion survey during July and August of I99 1, to collect the thoughts of some of the leaders of government agencies, public interest groups, and government information users on the problems and opportunities presented by the transition of public information production and publishing into electronic form. The publishers view their mission as “documenting” the debate over issues of government information policy, dissemination of government information in electronic form, free access versus privatization, central government control versus diversification of control, and universal access versus high-volume, but restrictive telecommunications systems. Their purpose in doing this is to support “all interest sectors in their efforts to define and clarify the important issues, design creative alternatives to resolve the profound problems and realize the opportunities presented, and choose the most desirable means to achieve those ends.” Although the emphasis of the newsletter is on the federal level. it also focuses on particular issues at the state and international levels. Generally, EPIN covers the policy issues debate between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government; the operational issues of how government agencies implement technology and information policy; issues of advocacy and reports on the efforts of librarians, library organizations, and library users to influence policy development; and the technical issues by monitoring the impact oftechnological developments and efforts to standardize the forms of electronic information. Over the past four months, EPIN has demonstrated the ability to be very timely, as well as comprehensive, in its coverage. Its frequency of publication, about once every two weeks, accounts for the former attribute. The ability of its editors to stay up to the minute on the happenings in Washington and extend their readers’ awareness to all of the issues that are prominent makes the news in the average issue of about eight pages almost overwhelming in its scope. For example, since it began publication, the newsletter has produced articles on: congressional debate and action covering such things as NREN legislation, Representative Rose’s GPO WIND0 bill, the recent Information Improvement Act of Major Owens, and a rundown of the unfinished information business of the 102d Congress; federal depository libraries in articles on changes to the structure of the Depository Library Council and its relations with the Public Printer, and use of LandSat data in depository libraries in light ofthe Brown bill (HR 36 14): policy debates in updates on the status of such items as OMB’s Circular A- 130: and articles on privatization of public information, new electronic forms of government information, standardization, and the proliferation of federal databases. In addition, EPIN tracks the major players in the process. The newsletter has been good at tracing who is going where and doing what. Readers have been advised that John Merritt was named as Staff Director of the Joint Committee on Printing three days after the announcement was made, and that Tim Sprehe, formerly the director of the OMB Office of Information Resources Administration and author of Circular A- 130, has landed a six-month, $24,500 contract with the General Services administration (GSA) to study the relationship between certain legislative and executive branch agencies involving information policy. Sprehe is now working for himself as Sprehe Information Management Associates of Washington, DC. This kind of information can be very important to readers outside of Washington who are attempting to participate in the political process of information policy development and who have no reliable way of staying within the loop of the cognoscenti within the “Beltway Circle.” As public and private leaders move from one sector to another and intermingle as the “debate” goes on, a “Who’s Who” in Washington can be critical to an outsider trying to understand and follow the politics of the process. If information is power, at this level it is at least essential to understanding political alliances and the objectivity of the results of all the research and studies done for government agencies and decision makers. Each issue of EPIN features an essay or an editorial (which one assumes is written by the publishers, although it is not identified as such) offering opinions on a current issue. Essays have covered such topics as “NREN: ubiquitous networking at gigabite speed, but will the dialogues be any better?“; “Is anyone age’ have a desirable purpose?“; and really planning for the information age?“; “Will the ‘information “Is ALA’s ‘image’ building plan a good way to foster the future of librarianship?” Literally within hours of its release, GPO/2001: Visionfbr a New Millmnium was reported in EPIN and summarized in a feature article. Subsequent issues of EPIN immediately followed up with commentary and criticism of the plan from a variety of the participants in the debate and the opinion of the publishers regarding the dialogue. The coeditors and publishers of EPINare James McDonough and Vigdor Schreibman. McDonough, a graduate of Villanova University, has a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Toronto. He is also editor of Target W’ashing&wz, a newsletter covering the events in the capitol that affect business

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in Puerto Rico, where he established his career in journalism. He is a member of the National Press Club and is accredited by the Radio and Television Galleries of the United State Senate and House of Representatives. Formerly the Washington correspondent for WPAB Radio in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and the newspaper El Mundo, he also worked in Puerto Rico for the Sun J14un Star and as editor of the Spanish language daily El Rcportuo. Vigdor Schreibman holds a master’s degree in legal services with a specialty in telecommunications law from Antioch University. Schreibman has been a leader in public interest advocacy and legal advocacy as a non-lawyer for laymen and small corporations with limited funds to pursue legal redress in the federal court system. He has written on community development planning, and law and society. He is author/editor of EFSU~S on the Constitution and Lqyd Systtwu of’,-lmerican L@ and Governmmt (McLean, VA: Amicas Publishers, 1987-1990. 6 ~01s). Currently. Schreibman is concerned with the transformation of federal government values, institutions, and policies affecting electronic public information. He is engaged in litigation over the security of federal computer systems and the protection of “sensitive information” as it relates to the rights of citizens to personal privacy and unrestricted access to public information. Although the publishers have strong public advocacy backgrounds, they are running a self-financed venture without, as they claim. any ties to or connections with any other organization or interest group. In support of that, EPlN has demonstrated good balance in its coverage and presentation of the opposing points of view in the information debate. Therein, EPIN fills a gap in the field of newsletters covering information issues. It is not connected with any particular political “agenda” as are the news sources of public interest organizations, library associations, information users’ associations, or information industry and trade organizations. So far, all of those various stakeholders have been represented in the pages of EJPIN. Aside from the occasional typos and the incorrect personal name or title of an organization that come with quick production, at this point there is little that can be offered in the way of criticism of EPIN. It is an excellent source for keeping up with the electronic information issues from outside the Beltway. Even though it is pricey for an individual subscriber, it is worth the cost to libraries and interest groups which need to keep their staff and members well informed. JACK SULZER General Reference Section ‘The Pennsylvania State University Libraries The Pennsylvania State University University Park. PA 16802 USA

Electronic Services Networks: A Business and Public Policy Challenge. Edited by Margaret E. GuerinCalvert and Steven S. Wildman. New York: Praeger, 199 1.257~. ISBN O-275-93527-2. LCCN 9 l-4627. $49.95. This most extensive book. a part of the Annenberg Washington Program in Communication Policy Studies (Northwestern University), is a study of Electronic Services Networks (ESNs). In the words of the editors ESNs are “networks ofterminals and central computers or switches linked by any of a variety of telecommunication technologies that are used to process transactions and to facilitate the process of transacting in a variety of ways” (p. xvi). The argument forwarded by the editors and their authors is that ESNs have greatly affected a number of industries and that they have the potential to transform or alter economic relationships. To this end, the various papers presented, based on original conference presentations, attempt to develop some new theories and “empirical frameworks for understanding” (p. xvii). The editors also theorize that each industry relying heavily on ESNs varies substantially, not just due to the structuring of the particular ESN but because of the form of transacting in that industry and the various players involved in such transactions, i.e., consumers; differing industry groupings; and the regulatory structure in which the entire industry exists. Thus, the treatment of different industries is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Taken in toto, the 11 chapters of this book are intended to demonstrate not just the enormous variety and applications of ESNs but also their complexity as far as policy and business strategy issues are concerned. The work is also an attempt to raise further policy issues. The book is divided into two distinct sections. The first part is generally theoretical, representing