ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL News ■ March 1998/201 I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Sara Amato, editor A m e r i c a n D i r e c t o r y A s s i s t a n c e . Access: http://www. a b ii. com/ Am erican Directory Assistance is o n e o f the free services offered at the American Busi­ ness Inform ation (A BI) Web site, a publicly- held com pany in business for 25 years that d evelops products to service the business and m arketing com m unities. They produce a series o f directories on CD-ROM for both personal and business use. T heir databases are com piled from many sou rces including 5 ,2 0 0 Y ello w P ages and B u s in es s W hite Pages; annual reports; SEC inform ation; fed­ eral, state, and municipal governm ent data, as w ell as b u sin e ss m ag azin es and n ew s­ letters. W ith regard to cu rren cy and a c c u ­ racy, th ey rep ort that e a c h b u sin e ss list­ ing is verified w ith 16 m illion p h o n e calls a y e a r from s ta ff w h o u p date and verify in fo rm a tio n o n a c o n tin u o u s , re a l-tim e b asis. A BI’s free directories are designed for stu­ dents, businesses, public users, and p oten ­ tial buyers o f their products to do every­ t h i n g fr o m d ir e c t m a il a d v e r t is in g , telem arketing, planning a vacation, or track­ ing dow n people w ho ow e you m oney. Aca­ dem ic users will find this tool useful for basic quick directory assistan ce. You m ust first s elect either the “bu sin ess” or “p e o p le ” di­ rectory to con du ct your search. T he p eop le, or residential, directory assistance is actu­ ally a database product o f “Database America C om panies”— a m arketing inform ation com ­ pany that m erged with ABI in 1996. T he peop le directory is sim ple and direct, fea­ turing a search form screen w here you can enter either a nam e or a num ber and pull up the full nam e, address, and p h on e num­ ber. It autom atically truncates a nam e and will search the entire country or you can limit the search by state and city. T h e re­ verse directory feature is useful and not avail­ ab le on many other directory sites. T h e free A m erican D irectory serv ice for fin d in g b u s in e ss e s is clu n k y and c u m b er­ s o m e fo r d o in g any real b u sin ess m ark et­ ing ty p e o f re s e a rch , a lth o u g h you can s e a r c h by industry ty p e an d lim it b y a g eo g ra p h ic area, b e it a city, state, o r zip c o d e and get a listing o f business addresses and p h o n e nu m bers. H ow ever, in ord er to perform this ty p e o f s u b je c t sea rch , you m ust se le c t the lin k to “y ellow p a g e s ” or “sales lead s and m ailin g lists” at th e b o t­ tom o f the scre e n . This latter link o ffers a m ore c o m p le x sea rch en g in e and the a b il­ ity to sea rch by SIC c o d e , m ajor industry grou p , o r y ello w p ag e h ead in gs and th en lim it b y city, state, zip c o d e , or M etrop oli­ tan Area (MSA). T h is w ould p erm it o n e to lo ca te, say, all th e W eb d esig n c o m p a n ies in y o u r tow n o r zip c o d e area to eith er h ire a d esig n er o r apply fo r a jo b . This typ e o f sea rch tak es m any step s, but you do finally g et a results list. For a charge o f $3.00 they will let you then dow nload a com pany profile o f any o f the business you select. A search for Web design businesses in the New York city area netted 91 hits and a charge o f $ 4 5 .5 0 to dow nload the w hole list. A similar search o f another directory W eb site, Big Yellow, (h ttp :/ / w w w l.bigy ellow .com / ) n etted 14 h its, a ll fr e e w ith d ir e c t lin k s to e a c h com pany’s Web page. W hen doing a simple, straightforward search for the num ber and address o f a particular com pany, however, you are required to enter both the nam e o f the com pany and the state— w hich is fine if you know w here the com pany is located. If not, you are out o f luck. T here other direc­ tory sites that do offer this useful feature, including Sw itchboard (review ed n ex t).— Lucinda R. Zoe, Baruch College; lrzbb@cunyvm. cuny.edu Sara Amato is automated systems librarian at Central Washington University;samato@tahoma. cwu. edu http://www http://wwwl.bigyellow.com/ 202 / C&RL News ■ March 1998 S w i t c h b o a r d . A ccess: h ttp :/ / w w w . switchboarcl.com/ Switchboard provides a sim pler interface and a few m ore alternative features. This free residential and business directory service has b e e n on the W eb sin ce 1996, offering ac­ cess to databases provided by the ABI com ­ pany n o ted earlier. This site d oes offers a nu m ber o f additional features, such as the Sw itchboard. ability to search for W eb sites and e-m ail ad dresses, apply for a free e-m ail accoun t, and sen d flow ers or a card to anyone you c h o o se with a few click s o f th e m ou se and a valid VISA card. H owever, a nu m ber o f search es for e-m ail ad dresses cam e up with zero hits, so this part o f the service isn ’t c om ­ preh en sive by any m eans. T h e business di­ rectory d oes allow for search in g by c o m ­ pany nam e without having to enter a state, w hich is useful, and it d oes perm it search es by m ajor p redefin ed categ ory that can then b e lim ited by geog rap hic area. H owever, it isn ’t as sop histicated as the A m erican B usi­ ness D irectory’s hom esite as far as b re a k ­ dow n by zip cod es, MSA, or SIC cod es. Sw itchboard offers a single site for find­ ing friends, family, and c olleag u es n ation­ w ide on the Internet w hile protecting their privacy. Regarding privacy, they allow us­ ers to d elete their entry if they w ant and they do not allow for reverse look -ups. An­ o th er un iqu e feature o f this site is the abil­ ity o f users to register with the service and update their ow n entry with additional in­ form ation such as FAX num ber, h o b b ies, e- mail address, etc. Academic users would find either o f these sites useful for basic phone direc­ tory services, and clever and patient business stu­ dents could make use o f the more advanced fea­ tures o f the ABI site.— Lucinda R. Zoe, Baruch College; lrzbb@cunyvm.cuny.edu N A R A A r c h iv a l I n f o r m a t i o n L o c a t o r (N A IL ) Access: http://www.nara.gov/ nara/nail.html T h e National Archives and R ecords Admin­ istration is a vast storeh ou se o f inform ation holding about 2 1.5 m illion cu b ic fe e t o f te x ­ tual m aterial and a huge am ou nt o f infor­ m ation in multiple form ats. Until recently, this was housed in 33 separate facilities such as Presidential Libraries and regional archives, but a prototype W eb-based service has ap­ peared. A new Web-site unifies all o f these collections in on e location, allowing the user to search all or selected repositories. T he con­ cep t o f accessing all o f this information from o n e ’s desktop is rather exciting, and the first steps have been taken to m ake this a reality. NAIL (NARA Archival Inform ation Loca­ tor) is a search ab le database o f m ore than 2 0 ,0 0 0 item s vital to th o se studying U.S. his­ tory o r gen ealogy . Although this is a tiny portion o f the available records, this pilot p ro ject holds great prom ise for the future o f ac ce s s to this material. T h e heart o f this ser­ vice is a search en g in e that allow s o n e to search the entire available holdings. For th o se o f you w ho are familiar with Silverplatter’s ERL front-end, this search e n ­ gine lo ok s very similar, although it’s cus­ tom ized for NARA. T h e u ser is offered the fam iliar form s for entering keyw ords and the use o f a full b o o le a n search . It is also possible to specify the types o f materials de­ sired (from sound clips, to text, to still photo­ graphs), as well as the location o f the material and the description level (from record group to item). Doing a quick search on “Custer” turned up a list o f sound recordings, textual records, and films held at various locations. The most exciting feature o f this service is that a few o f the items have been made available online, and it was possible to see som e o f the still photos on my screen. T he NARA plan is to make much more o f this database instantly available as developm ent continues. For librarians, this type o f W eb service cou ld b e a big step forw ard in term s o f ac­ c ess to rem ote c ollectio n s and the ability to help patrons with an interest in un iqu e his­ to rica l d o cu m en ts. T h e s e a r c h e n g in e is quick, flex ible, and intuitive, and the record display includes titles and b rief descriptions. It is also possible to view full detailed records at the click o f a button. W ith th e ad d itio n o f m ore rec o rd s and o n lin e d o cu m en ts, as w ell as th e e v en tu al in c lu sio n o f g e n e a lo g ic a l reco rd s, th e jo b o f b o th th e lib rarian and th e re s e a rc h e r sh o u ld b e m ad e sig n ifica n tly easier. T h is p r o je c t is o f f to a g reat start an d is a fin e e x a m p le o f th e In te rn e t at its m ost u s e ­ f u l.— Doug Horne, University o f Guelph; dborne@uoguelph.ca ■ http://www mailto:lrzhb@cunyvm.cuny.edu http://www.nara.gov/ mailto:dborne@uoguelph.ca