nov09b.indd C&RL News November 2009 608 Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public services and collection development at Willamette University, e-mail: jroberts@willamette.edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University, e-mail: cdrost@ willamette.edu I n t e r n e t R e v i e w sJoni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost Europeana. Access: http://www.europeana. eu. Imagine a digital library of the rich cultural heritage of Europe—a multilingual portal to text, images, video, and sound from the col- lections of museums, libraries, and archives. This is Europeana, a prototype European digital library that was launched in Novem- ber 2008. Europeana links users directly to digitized cultural heritage content from all of Europe’s member states. The collection includes 4.6 million digital items contributed by a wide ar- ray of organizations, including national librar- ies and aggregators such as Culture.fr (which provides content from French organizations including the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay). The goal is to have 10 million items available in 2010, when the prototype is expected to become a fully operational service. The search interface is simple yet pow- erful. A single search box provides results in a visually pleasing display. Results can be easily grouped by type (text, images, video, sound) or refi ned by facets (language, country, date, and provider). An advanced search option provides for more precision with fi elded searching. These options for narrowing searches are important in such a large and diverse collection, especially since relevance ranking is not particularly evident in search results. Europeana is a portal, not a consolidated database. An “item details” page provides access to the digitized item by linking to the Web site of the provider. The item details page also displays related content in the left pane. Users who register on the site (My Europe- ana) can tag items, save searches and items, and share content. A visual timeline provides a fun way to browse the rich and diverse content. Later versions of Europeana may include annotation tools and user-contributed content. The greatest challenge facing Europeana is copyright law. Europeana includes mainly digitized books in the public domain; it does not include out-of-print or orphan works that are still protected by copyright. Out-of-print books alone account for about 90 percent of the books in Europe’s national libraries. Differing copyright laws and lack of contri- butions from some member states have also hampered its growth. Europeana is funded by the European Commission, with oversight by the EDL Foun- dation. The commission is currently calling for revisions to copyright legislation to make Europe’s copyright framework more condu- cive to an increasingly digital environment. Even with the current gaps in content, Europeana is a valuable resource for students, researchers, and anyone with an interest in European history and culture.—Lori Robare, University of Oregon, lrobare@uoregon.edu IRIN News. Access: http://www.irinnews.org/. This site provides “humanitarian news and analysis” as reported by the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN). Al- though a part of the UN Offi ce for the Coor- dination of Humanitarian Affairs, the “about” section explains that its “reports do not neces- sarily refl ect the views of the United Nations and its agencies, nor its member states.” The primary regions covered by IRIN are sub- Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. The site is also available in French and Arabic with links to each alternate version provided at the top of the page. The homepage is quite busy and a little overwhelming upon a fi rst look. After explor- ing the site for a few minutes it becomes ap- parent that there is a lot of information here. However, a research-savvy visitor to the site November 2009 609 C&RL News should soon be able to locate the helpful, albeit small and not so obvious, links on the sidebar menu that breakdown how this ag- glomeration is organized. Included here are links for each of the three regions covered, as well as “In Brief,” “Weekly Reports,” “Global Issues,” and “In-Depth Reports.” The “In- Depth Reports,” browseable by date, offers the site’s most thorough and comprehensive analysis of the humanitarian issues being examined. These reports take a humanitarian topic and provide panoramic, journalistic- style coverage for each via several different mediums, such as photo galleries, key docu- ments, audio/video, articles, etc. Another item on the homepage sidebar, “Maps,” leads to a portal to the extremely data-rich GIS maps at ReliefWeb. There are other links of interest, although unfortunately located at the very bottom of the page, to such things as “Interviews,” “Film & TV,” “Radio,” and a “Live News Map,” with recent news stories marked on an interactive world map. The site uses “Themes” as its equivalent to subjects or descriptors, and each article lists several related themes at the bottom (for example: “Education,” “Food Security,” “Confl ict”) to serve as cross-references to additional broadly related content. There is a standard search box for the entire site, as well as an advanced search option that allows users to perform keyword searches and limit results by country, region, type of report, theme, date range, etc. Users can set-up e-mail alerts and subscribe to customizable RSS feeds. Students might fi nd this site helpful when brainstorming research ideas and, in some cases, locating primary sources and hard data pertaining to humanitar- ian issues and topics.—Todd J. Wiebe, Hope College Libraries, wiebe@hope.edu National Institute of Justice. Access: http:// ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/welcome.html. Created in 1969, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is part of the Offi ce of Justice Programs. NIJ is the “research, development, and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice and is dedicated to researching crime control and justice issues.” Links to “Funding,” “Publications,” “Events,” and “Training” at the top of the page provide information on their respective areas plus “Related Content” (often outside of NIJ). Subject information is accessible via “All Topics A–Z” or through various broad subject category links, such as “Corrections,” “Law Enforcement,” and “Issues & Initia- tives.” Within these categories are numerous subtopics, including “Prison Rape,” “Offi cer Stress & Fatigue,” and “Pursuit Management.” The A–Z list provides an alphabetical list of topics, such as “Action Research and Gun Violence Prevention” and “Agroterrorism.” Browsing the A–Z list offers an extensive array of interesting issues, including “Sexual Assault on Campus,” “Iris Recognition Tech- nology,” and “Conducted Energy Devices.” At the time of this review, the featured topic was “New Perspectives in Policing,” a case study in which a fi ctional new police chief was profi led during the fi rst week of her job. The NIJ site allows users to subscribe to various services, such as e-mail alerts and free Web expert chats. One can also subscribe to free publications including the NIJ Journal, Geography and Public Safety Bulletin, and the JUSTINFO electronic newsletter. The center of the homepage provides quick access to a multitude of information about the agency, its services, and publications. One of the most useful features is a link to the NCJRS Abstracts Database, which provides access to summaries of more than 200,000 publications on all aspects of criminal justice. Highlights of the site are featured on the right of the homepage and include NIJ’s popular Crime Scene Guides, which are available online. Pertinent stages for investi- gating various crimes are detailed, and each crime scene provides training materials or an Investigative Guide for download. This is an excellent site providing a wealth of information on crime control and justice is- sues. Highly recommended to professionals and academics.—Karen Evans, Indiana University Northwest, Karen.Evans@indstate.edu