ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


768 / C&RL News ■  October 1999

I n t e r n e t  R e v i e w s Sara Amato, editor

G EM  th e  G a t e w a y  t o  E d u c a t io n a l
M aterials. Access: http://w w w .gem info.
org.
Educators o f all levels and students study­

ng education will be interested in using GEM,
the G atew ay to Edu­
cational Materials. Li­
brarians interested in
the developm ents of
c a ta lo g in g  th e  Web
sh o u ld  also lo o k  at
this resource.

Begun in 1996 and
sponsored by the Na­

ional Library o f Education an d  U.S. D epart­
ent o f Education, GEM is a joint project led

y Michael Eisenberg, director of the ERIC
learinghouse, along w ith Stuart Sutton and
uth Small of Syracuse University’s School o f

nformation Studies.
Eisenberg says “The project’s goal is to

rovide a new  set o f tools to get information
nto the hands o f educators quickly and eas­
ly so children can learn.” GEM accom plishes
his easily and is gaining strength w ith each
d d i t i o n a l  r e - ______________________
ource.

GEM is a con­
ortium  effort to collect, catalog, and upload
ducational materials from governm ent, no n ­
rofit, an d  comm ercial sites into a one-stop
earchable GEM Gateway for educators. As
f August 1999, the GEM Consortium included
13 organizations an d  13 individuals.

GEM included over 6,000 Internet educa­
ional resources divided into 18 resource
ypes from 40 collections. GEM is searchable
sing the PLWeb, a product d eveloped by
ersonal Library Software (Ask ERIC also uses

his software). It is brow sable by b o th  key­
ord and subject lists, w ith help available
n  each search page.

Comm ents and feedback can be  sent via a
Tell us w hat you think” button located on
any o f the GEM Web pages. Materials are

ccepted from individuals by the GEM Ad­
inistrative G roup based  on GEM criteria of

uthoritativeness, significance and availabil­

 
 

i  

 
 
 
 

 

t
m  
b  
C  
R  
I

 
p  
i
i  
t  
a
s U
s  
e
p  
s  
o  
1

t  
t  
u  
P  
t
w  
o

 
“  
m  
a
m  
a

S

ity, an d  then cataloged by the resource cre­
or using GEMCat tools located u n d er the 
orkbench section o f the Web site.
Cataloging an d  searching is enhanced by 

e use o f the GEM profile, w hich is a D ublin 
ore based, m etadata elem ent set w ith an 

at

h
C
ad d ed  15 elem ents designed by GEM. GEM 
designers have also added six sets o f con­
rolled vocabularies to w ork w ith these ele­

ents. The en d  result is a virtual catalog of 
educational resources that teachers can search 

y traditional access points as w ell as stu­
dent grade level, special needs, and other 
criteria.

C onsortium  m em bers include th e GEM 
Users Group; organizations that use and pro­

ote GEM an d  the GEM Collection Holders; 
and organizations that have collections that 
are or will be ad d ed  to the GEM Gateway. 

o participate in the GEM Consortium, inter­
ested organizations can contact GEM using 
the application form located under GEM’s par­
ticipation page at w ww.geminfo.org/Partici- 
pation/index.htm l.— M ary MacDonald, Uni­
versity o f  R hode Island, m arymac@ uri.edu

atent and Trademark Office

USPTO W eb Patent D atabases. Access: 
http ://u sp to .g o v / patft/index.html.
Thom as Edison, America’s Father o f In­

ention, could have used the U.S. Patent and 
rademark Office (USPTO) Web Patent Data­

bases in formulating the ideas for one his 1,093 
patents. The USPTO now  offers free Web ac­
cess to full-text and bibliographic patent data­

ases for all searchers and inventors.
In 1997 alone, there w ere 237,045 Edison 

annabes w ho applied for patents. This in­
cluded many professors and academ ics w ho 

anted to patent their “new  and useful p ro ­
ess, m achine, m anufacture, o r com position 
f matter, o r any new  and useful im prove­

m ent thereof.” The U.S. Patent D atabases are

ara A m a to  is e le c tro n ic  services a n d  W e b  d e v e lo p m e n t 
librarian a t B o w doin College, e-m ail:sam ato@ bowdoin.edu

W

t

t
m

b

m

T

 P

v
T

b

w

w
c
o

S

http://www.geminfo
http://www.geminfo.org/Partici-pation/index.html.%e2%80%94Mary
http://www.geminfo.org/Partici-pation/index.html.%e2%80%94Mary
mailto:marymac@uri.edu
http://uspto.gov/
mailto:samato@bowdoin.edu


C&RL News ■  October 1999 /  769

useful in determ in­
ing w hether som e­
th in g  h a s a lre a d y  
been  invented and if o n e ’s idea is w orth pur
suing. It is also useful in exploring inform a
tion contained in patents relating to o n e ’s field
o f endeavor.

There are tw o sections of the U.S. Paten
Database, although they cover the sam e paten
information w ith com parable search options
T h e  B ib lio g r a p h ic  D a ta b a s e  a t h t t p : /
1 2 8 .1 0 9 .1 7 9 .2 3 / a c c e s s / s e a r c h - b o o l ,
html offers a rapid search o f patent front page
including all bibliographic data as well as an
abstract and brief description o f the p atent’
contents.

T he Full-Text D atabase section at h ttp :/
164.195.100.11/netahtm l/search-adv.htm  of
fers a m ore th orough search o f th e full tex
o f U.S. patents w ith all o f the text w ords in
the paten t being searchable. It includes al
b ib lio g ra p h ic  d a ta  as w ell, s u c h  as th e
in v e n t o r ’s n a m e , th e  p a t e n t ’s title , th e
assignee’s nam e, abstract, the full description
of the invention, an d  the claims. This data
base also offers som e full-text im ages, al
though I did no t find any patents w ith im
ages available.

The databases are easy to use w ith plenty
o f b a c k g ro u n d  inform ation a n d  FAQs fo
p eo p le w h o  are n ew  to th e patenting p ro
cess. It is th e perfect place for prelim inary
searches for inventors. However, the site doe
link to paten t law yers an d  p aten t depository
libraries for m ore in-depth assistance an d  le
gal inform ation.— G entry Holbert, Universit
o f  S o u th  A la b a m a  B io m e d ic a l L ib ra ry
gbolbert@ jaguarl. usouthal.edu

P u b lis h e rs ’ C a t a lo g u e s  H om e P age
Access: http://w w w .lights.com /publisher/
This site provides access points, organized

by country, to publishers’ hom epages. Fo
exam ple, clicking o n  the hyperlink labeled
“Russia” will take th e u ser to  a list of publish
ers b ased  in Russia.

D eveloped an d  m aintained by Peter Scot
o f N orthern Lights Internet Solutions, rep re
sented publishers in each  country are thos
that choose to  participate in the directory and
have registered. T hus in the exam ple o f Rus
sian publishers, th e  list (as of August 1999
held th e nam es o f 12 publishing com panies
a list that did not include the important presse

operating out of 
Russian sc h o l­
arly academ ies. 

­ T he publishers of th e U nited States, Britain, 
­ an d  the W estern E uropean countries are well 
 represented. Because the links are maintained 

by the active cooperation o f the publishers, 
t not all o f th e links are accurate.
t T h e s ite ’s in d e x  o f c o u n trie s is o v e r­
. w helm ed by the addition o f advertisem ents, 
/  w hich include three search engines sponsored 
 by com m ercial vendors. T he graphical layout 
s is visually noisy and a first-time user may over­
 look the real value o f th e site. A link to this 

s site is provided by th e invaluable Acqweb 
s i te  ( h t t p : / / w w w . li b r a r y .V a n d e rb ilt, 

/ edu/law /acqs/acqs.htm l), w hich is a site w ith 
­ a b ro ad er com pass established for librarians 
t w ith collection developm ent responsibilities.
 The strength o f the Publishers’ Catalogues 

l Home Page is the organization o f publishers 
 by country, giving access to catalogs o n  an 
 international level. The most significant limita­
 tion of the site is in the w eak representation of 

­ academic presses in countries outside of the 
­ W e s te rn  in d u s tr i a li z e d  c o m m u n ity . 
­ — Sara Rutter, University o f  Michigan, sara@ 

um ich.edu ■
 

r ( “Libraries as gatew ays … c o n tin u e d  fr o m  
­ p a g e 733)
 m ain library, w ith four levels underground 

s an d  three levels above ground. It w as inter­
 esting to note that the Thai governm ent plans 

­ to free all universities o f state control within 
y th e next five years. It w as also interesting to 
, note that the library w as very heavily used, 

that it had very few  com puters (although it 
has a new  autom ated library system  an d  sev­

. eral Internet connections), and that the elec­
. tronic resources are still scarce.
 B angkok is an exciting an d  interesting city 

r w ith m ore than 10 million inhabitants. The 
 traffic is a nightmare, but th e p eo p le seem  to 

­ have ad ap ted  to it. T he food is w onderfully 
delicious a n d  th ere are m any restaurants. 

t Shopping is plentiful an d  bargaining is the 
­ acceptable w ay o f doing business. T he city 
e is alive for 24 hours every day.

 It is a city of contrasts— beautiful flowers 
­ and palaces and enorm ous traffic jams and 
) trem endous poverty. The m ost m em orable 
, impression I have is that the people are very 
s gracious, polite, patient, and highly likeable. ■

usouthal.edu
http://www.lights.com/publisher/
umich.edu


770 / C&RL News ■  October 1999