ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


1 0 6  /  C&RL News

Internet 
Reviews

S a ra  A m a to , e d ito r

R and: A  N o n p ro fit In
stitution Th at Helps 
Im p ro v e  Public Policy 
t h r o u g h  R e s e a r c h  
a n d  A n alysis. Access: 
http://www.rand.org.

T h e  R an d  C o r p o r a tio n  
emerged after World W ar II 
as a nonprofit think tank that 
focused on providing high-
quality, o b jectiv e research 
on national security. In the 
1960s Rand began address­
ing problem s o f dom estic 
policy as well. Its current aim 
is to help policymakers “strengthen the nation’s 
econom y, maintain its security, and improve 
its quality o f life by helping them make choices 
in education, health care, national defense, and 
criminal and civil justice. … ” Another stated 
goal is to serve the public interest by widely 
disseminating research findings to the public. 
This well-designed site is certainly a step in the 
right direction, offering easy, logical access to 
electro n ic docum ents, reports, b o o ks, issue 
papers, briefs, press releases, and mountains 
o f research  w hich has long b een  available, 
though buried, in many university libraries.

The hom epage sports a modest but attrac­
tive image map o f choices, but also provides 
access to a nonimage based index. The Research 
Areas s e le c tio n  g iv es an o v erv iew  o f  th e 
o rg an izatio n ’s research  and program s. T h e 
broad scop e o f the disciplines involved in re­
search include the behavioral sciences; econom ­
ics and statistics; health, education, and w el­
fare; information sciences; international studies; 
management sciences; and technology and ap­
plied sciences.

The subject area bibliographies, available 
here or through the Publications selection on 
the hom epage, are particularly useful. There 
are more than 50 categories such as arms co n ­
trol, environment, Latin America, narcotics co n ­
trol, space technology and planning, urban stud­
ies, and more. Each bibliography can list a 
hundred subcategories, each o f w hich yields 
several citations to reports, including abstracts, 
related documents, those elusive Rand Publi­
cation numbers, and information for purchas­
ing reports.

The Hot Topics selection delivers research 
briefs w hich are policy-oriented summaries of

individual publications and 
include useful graphs. Press 
releases are also available 
h ere. In th e P u b lic a tio n s 
area, one gets a sense o f the 
full array o f documents avail­
able, both full text and in 
cita tio n  form at, a v a ila b le 
electronically or in print.

F in a lly , if y ou  w o u ld  
rather search the database by 
keyword there are two op ­
tio n s : s e a r c h  th e  w h o le  
s erv er fo r fu ll-te x t d o c u ­
ments or search the abstracts 

o f Rand documents. In either case, you get a 
sophisticated search engine that yields good 
searching results.

Rand strives to conduct objective, high-qual­
ity research, investigating perspectives not al­
ways considered elsewhere. It would b e useful 
fo r stu d en ts and s c h o la r s  as w ell as the 
policymakers it is intended to serve. This site is 
also a model for information retrieval via the 
Web. For these two reasons alone, this site is 
worth the visit.— B a r b a r a  Valentine, L in field 
College; bvalen  @calvin. linfield. edu

The League o f C o nservatio n V o te rs . A c
cess: http://www.lcv.org/.

The League o f Conservation Voters (LCV) is the 
nonpartisan political action arm o f the envi­
ronmental movement in the U.S. Founded in 
1970, it brings together representatives from 
several mainstream environmental groups for 
the purposes o f identifying “green” politicians 
through the publication N ation al E n viron m en ­
tal Scorecard, and contributing to the campaigns 
o f those politicians.

The main publications found on LCV’s W eb 
site are the N ation al E n viron m en tal S corecard  
and the Green G uide to the 105th Congress. The 
online editions o f the S corecard range from 1993 
to 1996 and contain an environmental score 
for each U.S. representative and senator based 
on voting records. Each m em ber’s listing in­
cludes his or her score for the current and pre­
vious years, votes on important environmental 
bills, and contact information (including e-mail 
and W eb  ad d resses). Linked to the voting

S ara A m ato is au tom ated systems librarian  a t Central 
W ashington University; sam ato@ tahom a.cw u .edu

http://www.rand.org
http://www.lcv.org/
mailto:samato@tahoma.cwu.edu


February 1 9 9 7  /  10 7

records are descriptions o f the bills, which are 
very useful for anyone researching environmen­
tal legislation. The descriptions, some o f which 
cover riders attached to other bills, also include 
histories o f sponsorship, opposition, and ac­
tions taken. Related to the S corecard  is the 
“Votes” section, which will list the votes taken 
on important environmental issues in the 105th 
Congress. An e-mail update service is also avail­
able for distributing this information.

The G reen G uide profiles all the new mem­
bers o f the 105th Congress. Biographical infor­
mation, election results, endorsem ents from 
environm ental organizations, and an en v i­
ronm ental profile are provided for each  leg ­
islator.

Other information includes links to other 
environmental and political resources, letters 
sent to Congress by the LCV, and an analysis of 
the 1996 elections which mainly focuses on a 
few races w here the LCV was heavily involved, 
describing its contributions to the campaign and 
including Quicktime movies o f sample televi­
sion advertisements.

The site is well-designed overall with a few 
unobtrusive graphics to aid navigation. Users 
without graphics will find the site more diffi­
cult to navigate but still usable. Searching the 
site using the Excite search engine is simple 
and works fairly well. The LCV site, while ob ­
viously useful for educating the voting public, 
also provides a wealth o f information for fac­
ulty or students in environmental studies or 
political scien ce.— DeAnne Luck, Austin P eay 
State University; LuckDL@apsu01. apsu .edu

In tern et M e n ta l H ealth . Access: http://www. 
mentalhealth.com/.

Internet Mental Health was conceived  by a 
Canadian psychiatrist, Dr. Phillip Long, who, 
after a trip to observe Japan’s mental health 
system, felt the need for a global exchange 
of information in the field of mental health. 
The result is this impressive site, which is 
geared towards not only mental health pro­
fessionals, but to students, patients, m en­
tal health support groups, and members 
o f the general public who wish to learn 
more about mental health.

From a technical standpoint, this is a 
well-designed site. Internet Mental Health 
makes good use o f frames, a rarity on the Web. 
Instead o f being an annoying waste o f space, 
the frames on this site add to the ease o f navi­
gation, keeping links to all the other areas o f

the site close at hand. It is also possible to ex­
plore this site with graphics turned off, or to 
access it with a text-based browser such as Lynx.

While this is a very comprehensive site cov­
ering most aspects o f mental health, the au­
thors wisely note that they don’t attempt to cover 
every aspect in this huge field. They have cho­
sen to deal with the 52 most com m on mental 
disorders including: description (American and 
European), diagnosis, treatment, and research 
findings. Also discussed are the 67 most com ­
mon psychiatric drugs including: indications, 
contraindications, warnings, precautions, ad­
verse effects, overdose, dosage, and research 
findings. It is important for the user to be aware 
that the information covering drugs comes from 
Canadian sources, and the author notes that 
there can be differences in indications, dosage 
forms, and warnings for these drugs in other 
countries. U nfortunately, the so u rces from 
which this information is taken are not cited.

While the European disorder descriptions 
are cited from the ICD-10 Classification o f  Men­
tal a n d  B eh a v io u ra l Disorders, the American 
disorder descriptions have no such citations, 
and the user is left wondering about the source 
o f this information. Most o f the descriptions do 
seem  to conform to the DSM IV.

Some o f the more interesting features to be 
found here are the online diagnostic tools. While 
not meant to substitute for professional diag­
nosis, the site offers simple online question­
naires designed to diagnose alcohol depen­
dence and major depressive disorder. Another 
similar program is available to download.

Finally, the full text o f selected articles (the 
H arvard M ental Health Letter and the M edical 
Post are the two most com m on sources) and 
brochures can be found online at Internet Men­
tal Health, making this a very useful resource

for anyone w ho needs quick and authoritative 
information in this broad field.— P a u l R. Pival, 
N ova S o u th ea stern  University; p a u lp @ n su . 
n ov a.ed u  ■

http://www