ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries New Technology •INFORONICS now offers updated literature de­ scribing D B-ED IT, software th a t helps to create and revise online catalogs. D B -E D IT : The On-line Editorial Assistant describes the feature, w hich is available as p a rt of ILIAS, Inforonics’ L ibrary Au­ tom ation Service th a t starts w ith cataloging data and produces online and printed products. For a copy, contact N ancy D ennis, C oordinator, L i­ brary Services, Inforonics, In c ., 550 N ew tow n Road, Littleton, MA 01460; (617) 486-8976. • Kurzweil C omputer Products, Cam bridge, Massachusetts, has developed an advanced version of th e Kurzweil Reading M achine for the blind. The new Series 200 incorporates recent technologi­ cal advances th a t bring the m achine, which reads printed m aterial out loud, closer to the reading and speech capabilities of humans. T he new machine voice is more pleasant and easier to get used to. New software offering more powerful character recognition allows the machine to scan successfully the low-quality p rin t characteristic of m any photo­ copies, paperbacks, and periodicals. The Series 200 capabilities are being m ade available to current reading machine owners. By November 1982 the Kurzweil Reading M achine was in use in approxi­ m ately 300 libraries, schools, and employment and rehabilitation settings. An additional 200 machines are being aw arded to colleges and universities by Xerox in a year-long corporate contributions pro­ gram which began in July 1982. • T he T exas C ollege of O steopathic M e d i­ c in e ’s Health Sciences L ibrary, F ort W orth, in­ stalled a Rapicom 6350T/6300R digital facsimile netw ork in May 1982 th a t provides clinicians w ith im m ediate long-distance access to medical refer­ ence sources. T he product configuration perm its si­ multaneous transmission of hard copy inform ation over standard telephone lines at speeds approach­ ing 15 seconds per page. T he college placed com­ patible Rapicom 1000 transceivers at several of its affiliated hospitals—Stevens Park Hospital in D al­ las, D allas-Fort W orth Medical C enter in G rand Prairie, and Carswell Air Force Base in W est F ort W orth. The digital facsimile devices can receive in­ form ation autom atically, elim inating the need for hospital staff to operate the machine. Both printed and handw ritten m aterial can be transm itted, in ­ cluding journal articles, charts, diagram s, com­ puter printouts, and memos. D uring the first two m onths of operation th e TCO M L ibrary netw ork ex ceed ed 1,000 d o c u m e n t tra n sm issio n s p e r m onth. •T h e W ashington L ibrary Network (WLN) and the C alifornia L ibrary Authority for Sys­ tems and Services (CLASS) have signed an agree­ m en t m aking CLASS th e exclusive bro k er for W L N ’s retrospective conversion services in C alifor­ nia, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. T he service com­ plem ents the RLIN shared cataloging services of­ fered by CLASS. W L N will accept tapes w ith form atted search argum ents w hich will then be m atched against the W LN bibliographic database. Libraries also have the option to access W LN d i­ rectly via Telenet to key search argum ents into a file stored on the W LN com puter for later batch m atching. W LN also expects to have the capability to accept floppy disc in the future, w hich will allow libraries to create search argum ents on an in-house m icrocom puter. Publications NOTICES •T h e 5th edition of Annual Statistics o f Medical School Libraries in the United States and Canada (1981-82) may be ordered from the Houston Acad­ emy of Medicine-Texas Medical C enter L ibrary, 1133 M .D. Anderson B oulevard, Houston, TX 77030. Members of the Association of Academic H ealth Sciences L ibrary Directors will be billed $40 per copy; non-members should send $65 and a self-addressed mailing label to the HAM-TMC li­ brary. •A Bibliography o f Loyalist Source Materials in Archives in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, com piled by the P ro g ram for L oyalist Studies and Publications in association w ith the American A ntiquarian Society, is now available from Meckler Publishing, W estport, Connecticut, for $115. T he compilation provides an indispensi- ble tool for those involved in the study of the Amer­ ican R evolution or engaged in genealogical re­ search. Much of the m aterial has been taken from the Proceedings o f the AAS betw een 1972 and 1980, but archival findings from English and Irish sources have not been published previously. •Biotechnology: An Annotated Bibliography o f Selected References (8 pages, Fall 1982) has been published as num ber 10 in the University of Cen­ tral Florida’s L ibrary Bibliography Series. The m a­ jor focus of the articles listed is in the field of genetic 18 / C&R L News