ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 936 / C&RL News ■ October 2001 I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni Robertsand Carol Drost, editors A lte rN e t. Access: http://w w w .altern et.o rg . AlterNet is an online m agazine featuring articles published in alternative and in d ep en ­ d e n t new s sources. First launched in 1998, AlterNet is a project coordinated by the Inde­ p e n d e n t Media Institute, a nonprofit organi­ zation com m itted to “strengthening and su p ­ porting in d ep e n d e n t and alternative journal­ ism a n d to improving the public’s access to in d ep e n d e n t inform ation sources.” AlterNet includes a database o f m ore than 7,000 stories from m ore than 200 sources and is described as a “mix of news, opinion, and investigative journalism on subjects ranging from the environm ent, the drug war, tech­ nology, a n d cultural trends to policy debate, sexual politics, and health issues.” Access to archived articles is free. Recent issues of AlterNet and its articles are displayed on the “Archives” page. However, visitors must use the search engine provided by AlterNet to access previous issues. Keyword search­ ing is the default option offered by AlterNet, a n d controlled vocabulary is not used. O nce a search is executed, a “search tips” option is available. Another interesting AlterNet option is the ability to search “O ther Alt Sites.” A g o o d fea tu re in c lu d e d o n AlterNet, w hich has becom e som ew hat of a standard w ith new s sites, is the option to subscribe to w eekly headlines a n d newsletters. This is an effective tool for users w h o w ant to keep up- to-date on a variety o f sources. The Web site also offers an other standard found in other new s Web sites— discussion forums. Here, users are able to voice their opinions a n d d ebate with oth er users on a variety o f topics. The construction of the Web site m akes it very easy to use. A lthough there is a lot of inform ation presented, the site rem ains eas­ ily n a v ig a b le . T h e b a s ic fo rm a t o f th e m ag a z in e ’s “front p a g e ” stays u n c h a n g e d w e e k to w eek by offering recurring sections, such as “Q uote of the W eek,” “Colum nists,” “The C ontent Files,” “Fact of the W eek,” “Re­ port of the W eek,” and “M ultimedia.” AlterNet is o n e of several resources for alternative a n d in d ep e n d e n t news, b u t its at­ tractive and consistent Web design m akes it m ore efficient to use than m any of the other sites. It is an exceptional tool for keeping up- to-date w ith the alternative side of a hot is- sue.— Colleen Lougen, M o u n t Saint M ary Col­ lege (N.Y.), lougen@ msmc.edu G e n e r a l A c c o u n t in g O f f ic e . Access: http://w w w .g ao .g o v . The General Accounting Office (GAO) is a legislative branch agency w hose primary p u rp o se is to investigate and gather informa­ tion for m em bers of Congress. In canying out its mission, GAO produces a plethora of re ­ ports, studies, and analysis on just abo u t any issue in w hich the federal governm ent is in­ volved. GAO describes itself as the “investigative arm of Congress.” While the agency is in­ volved in form al legal investigations and the form ulation of accounting and auditing stan­ dards for agencies, it is the agency’s investi­ gative w ork that is of prim ary interest to m ost governm ent inform ation users. Assisting Congress in its oversight func­ tion of federal agencies, GAO investigates agencies by exam ining their use of public funds and evaluating program s and services. Congressional com m ittees, and occasionally individual m em bers, generally initiate inves­ tigations. The results o f investigations u su­ ally take the form of reports a n d /o r testim ony before the Congressional comm ittees. While som e reports m ay gather inform ation on a detailed aspect of a particular program , oth- Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian fo r public services and c o lle c tio n d e v e lo p m e n t a t W illa m e tte University, e-mail: jroberts@ willamette.edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian fortechnical services a t W illam ette University, e-mail: cdrost@willamette.edu http://www.alternet.org mailto:lougen@msmc.edu http://www.gao.gov mailto:jroberts@willamette.edu mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu C&RL News ■ October 2001 / 937 ers provide com parative data on similar p ro ­ gram s in b o th th e fed eral a n d state level ag en cies, a n d still o th ers p re s e n t a b ro a d o verview o f a p u b lic policy area. A gricul­ tu re a n d food, civil rights, e d u c atio n , e n ­ ergy, financial m an ag em en t, n a tio n a l d e ­ fense, n a tu ra l reso u rces, a n d justice a n d law e n fo rc e m e n t are just a few o f th e s u b ­ ject a reas c o v e re d by GAO rep o rts. G A O ’s W eb site is n o w th e p rim a ry so u rc e for a ccessin g th e a g e n c y ’s reports. T he site offers daily po stin g s o f n ew ly re ­ le a se d rep o rts, inclu d in g an e-m ail alert service, a n d also has several o p tio n s for searching. The link “Find GAO R ep o rts” leads to a d a ta b a se o f re p o rt abstracts back to 1975- S earches c a n b e p e rfo rm e d by re p o rt num ber, titles, abstracts, ag e n cy /o r- g a n iz a tio n nam es, or su bject term s. A ddi­ tional limits m ay b e p la c e d by d a te or by topical category. Results m ay be so rte d by d ate, title, topic, o r re p o rt num ber. W hen available, d ire c t links to th e full-text r e ­ ports are provided. If the report is not avail­ a b le electronically, a form a p p e a rs so th at th e rep o rt can b e o rd e re d from th e agency. It sh o u ld b e n o te d th at th e full-text rep o rt files, u sually in PDF form at, can b e large a n d m ay take a long tim e to load. O ne draw back of the GAO reports data­ base is the lack of instruction o n how to for­ m at searches. W hen searching for the phrase ta x refund, Y75 hits w ere retrieved. In scan­ ning the list of titles, ta x re fu n d as a phrase was now here to b e found. After som e trial and error, it becam e clear that w ords are au­ tomatically searched with the “or” Boolean operator, unless q u o tatio n m arks are put around the phrase. No explanation of the search engine can be found, and, in fact, a link to online help results in an “un d er con­ struction” message. There is also a link from the “Find GAO Reports” page for searching the full text of reports. The link takes the user to a search screen with the logo, “Search by Inktom i.” Advanced searching and help are offered from this page and searches can be lim ited by “Le­ gal Products,” “Reports Archive,” and “GAO Reports.” Also on the “GAO Reports” page is a link to “Search GAO archives,” w hich takes the user to the GPO Access database and pro­ vides an alternative route for accessing GAO reports. This database provides full-text re­ ports back to 1995. Searches by report num ­ ber, title, full text, and subject terms are avail­ able. As it does with its other databases, the G overnm ent Printing Office provides initial guidance for constructing searches on its main search screen. It also has a “Helpful Hints” docum ent to provide m ore in-depth instruc­ tion on form ulating searches. A link to this docum ent is also provided on the GAO Web site, but w hen checked, the link was broken. Clearly, GAO needs to clean up the bro­ k en and outdated links on its Web site and finish the w ork on its online help docu­ m entation. There needs to be m ore clarifi­ cation on w h e n to use “Find GAO reports” t. and w h e n to use “Search GAO Archives” for full- text searching. It is not clear w hy it is necessary to have two options. However, these criticisms do not detract from the over­ all value of the Web site. W hichever option is used, it is relatively easy to retrieve reports on just about any subject. Besides the GAO reports, the site provides a num ber of other interesting features, such as “Legal Products,” “Other Publications,” and “F raudN et.” T he b re a d th o f co v erag e a n d e a se of u se m akes th e GAO W eb site a n ex cellen t place to search for inform ation about public policy issues a n d th e fed eral g o v ern m en t, no m atter w hat the topic.—Arlene Weible, W ashington State Library, aweible@statelib. wa.gov ■ Reviews for the “Interor Ceviewersrall fnet Reviews” column are sought. M anuscripts should be a p ­ proxim ately 400 w ords and may b e sub­ m itted electronically to editors Joni Rob­ erts (jroberts@willamette.edu) and Carol Drost (cdrost@willamette.edu). Visit http://www.bowdoin.edu/~samato/ IRA/submit/index.html for m ore details. wa.gov mailto:jroberts@willamette.edu mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu http://www.bowdoin.edu/~samato/