C&RL News July/August 2015 402

Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public 
services and collection development at Willamette 
University, email: jroberts@willamette.edu, and Carol 
A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical 
ser vices at Willamette University, email: cdrost@
willamette.edu 

I n t e r n e t  R e v i e w sJoni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost

Ceres. Access: http://www.ceres.org.
Ceres is “a nonprofit organization advocat-

ing for sustainability leadership” by mobilizing 
“a powerful network of investors, companies 
and public interest groups to accelerate and 
expand the adoption of sustainable business 
practices and solutions to build a healthy 
global economy.” Ceres was founded in 1989 
by a small group of investors in response to 
the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The organization 
produces research and tools on a range of 
sustainability issues, such as global water risks 
and clean energy. Appropriately, Ceres shares 
its unusual name with the Roman goddess of 
agriculture.

This well organized site provides menu 
choices at the top of the page in seven major 
categories: “About Us,” “Issues,” “Investor Net-
work,” “Company Network,” “Industry Initia-
tives,” “Resources,” and “Support Us.” “About 
Us” offers information about the organization, 
including the mission and vision, staff, and 
Board of Directors, accomplishments and 
awards, financials, news releases, and history. 
“Issues” contains a huge amount of informa-
tion, including reports, strategies and solutions, 
and resources for the following sustainability 
issues: “Clean Trillion” (a clean energy initia-
tive), “Carbon Asset Risk,” “Climate Change,” 
“Energy,” “Water,” and “Supply Chains.” The 
Ceres reports are a key feature of this site 
and contain a wealth of information to guide 
and inform companies, investors, and public 
interest groups. 

The “Investor Network” and “Company 
Network” pages provide information about 
how Ceres works with investors and com-
panies to create a more sustainable global 
economy. “Industry Initiatives” provides details 
and resources about Ceres and its involvement 

in the following key industries: electric power, 
insurance, oil and gas, transportation, footwear 
and apparel, banking and finance, and water 
infrastructure. “Resources” provides access to 
all of the reports, podcasts, and videos, that Ce-
res produces from 2002 to the present. These 
resources are organized by data and by topic. 

The site is well organized and easy to use. 
Social media links are prominently displayed 
on the website, and RSS news feeds are 
available. An advanced search option allows 
searching by tags, item types, and author. A 
useful feature of the site is the “Sign up for 
e-mail updates,” which includes the Ceres 
monthly newsletter, conference and report up-
dates, and sustainability-related news releases. 

Ceres is a recommended resource for 
anyone interested in how corporate activities 
impact the environment and ways to transform 
them into sustainable business practices.—
Colleen Lougen, SUNY-New Paltz, lougenc@
newpaltz.edu

International Center for Research on Women. 
Access: http://www.icrw.org.
Founded in 1976, the International Center 

for Research on Women (ICRW) is a research 
and advocacy organization. With a particular 
focus on economic and health issues affecting 
women and girls in developing countries, the 
ICRW website provides research resources, 
practical manuals, and guides. The site gives 
extensive information about ICRW’s history, 
financials, and leadership. Its Leadership 
Council includes a prestigious selection of 
women and men, including such luminar-
ies as Cherie Blair, Amartya Sen, and Nina 
Totenberg. 

Using the site’s search bar or navigating via 
clearly defined menus, visitors to the site may 
search across all content or focus immediately 
on a specific topic. While the site’s search tips 
promise advanced search options for refining 
a search, no such options are available. Thus 
basic and advanced searches only allow for 
keyword searching.



July/August 2015 403 C&RL News

The “What We Do” menu guides users to 
topic pages covering an array of issues includ-
ing economic empowerment, food security, 
women and technology, violence against 
women, population and reproductive health, 
and HIV/AIDS. Each topic page features rel-
evant projects, links to partner organizations, 
publications, and news including multimedia. 
Some main topic pages also act as a doorway 
for exploring more specific subtopics like 
child marriage, property rights, and enterprise 
development.

Publications of the organization range 
from policy briefs to longer reports. The list of 
international experts who contribute to these 
publications have impressive professional 
and educational backgrounds. All publica-
tions are open access and available as PDF 
downloads. Unlike the site’s main search, the 
search specific to publications has options to 
filter by subject, region, or publication type. 
Users may also view a list of titles that are 
peer-reviewed.

ICRW publications geared more towards 
an audience of practitioners include training 
manuals, guides, and toolkits. Although it does 
not provide funding, ICRW lends expertise to 
other organizations in the areas of capacity 
building and evaluation. These nonacademic 
resources may also be useful to undergraduate 
and graduate students for practical coursework 
or workshops.

For students and faculty interested in is-
sues affecting women and girls in developing 
countries, this site provides research materials, 
practical guides, and kits. The ICRW site is par-
ticularly recommended to graduate students 
who are interested in exploring real-world 
projects and cases.—Ann Flower, Middlebury 
Institute of International Studies at Monterey, 
aflower@miis.edu 

Public Religion Research Institute. Access: 
http://publicreligion.org/.
Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) 

was founded in 2009 as a nonpartisan orga-
nization that conducts qualitative research 
and public opinion polls on the intersection 
of religion, values, and public life. PRRI’s staff 

and Board of Directors consist of credentialed 
scholars and other academic professionals 
from a wide array of reputable academic 
institutions. PRRI also maintains a roster of 
affiliated scholars that serve a two-year ap-
pointment and contribute to the site. 

PRRI has a research section that aggregates 
recently published PRRI scholarly articles, fact 
sheets, surveys, and popular research, as well 
as a section devoted to tracking book chapters, 
articles, and other work in the field. Entries 
in the aforementioned sections summarize 
the work in an abstract-like fashion, and the 
majority of entries include a link to the full text. 
When full text is not available, PRRI includes a 
link to the publisher’s website where the full 
text can be accessed or purchased. 

Overall the site is well designed and allows 
those interested in public religion research 
to stay current in the field through a variety 
of methods. For example, the site includes 
common social media services like Twitter, 
Facebook, RSS access, a blog, as well as an 
e-mail newsletter subscription. 

The standout feature of the site is the 
interactive American Values Atlas (AVA). AVA 
combines annual PRRI survey data with a rich 
interactive mapping system, which allows the 
user to explore the similarities and differences 
between America’s political, religious, and 
demographic groups. For those not wanting 
to manipulate and customize the data in the 
map display, AVA also offers a highlight sec-
tion that summarizes popular trends in AVA 
data for the year. Lastly, AVA includes a state 
profiles section that allows the user to click on 
a given state and see a snapshot profile. Data 
in the profiles section includes party affiliation, 
political ideology, religious tradition, “cultural 
conservatism,” and more. 

The PRRI site is a must for scholars, the 
media, policy makers, clergy, and those in-
terested in the intersection of religion, values, 
and public life. Given the excellent site design 
and ease of use, it also has application for col-
lege and high school students. Recommended 
as a resource for both academic and public 
libraries.—Brad Matthies, Casper College, 
bmatthies@caspercollege.edu