In the January issue of Information Outlook, the resources available from SLA's Information Resources Center were summarized, and I hope that you have been able to make use of them. Here, I am going to discuss in more detail the Electronic Information Packets (EIPs), which I like to think are the jewels in the virtual crown. EIPs are electronically developed bibliographies on library related topics, that now include citations of articles, monographs, and Web sites on various subjects of current interest. There are now twenty-five of these, as listed on this page and on our Web page at http://www.sla.org/membership/irc/eip.html. They are certainly one of the most fun resources which the IRC staff produce for our members. I should point out that the EIP index Web page includes various reference lists, as well as the electronically developed bibliographies.

Our largest EIP is the one on the Internet, which is currently nine pages long. The books and articles listed cover many aspects of the Internet, including security, research, search engines, metadata, and the World Wide Web. Twenty-seven of the articles are linked to Web sites with abstracts or full text versions of the article. The site will soon have to be split into separate sites, probably covering the subjects mentioned above. I find the Web sites in the Internet EIP particularly helpful. "Writing for the Web: A Primer for Librarians," by Eric H. Schnell, has some useful hints, and is not too technical. Greg Notess' article, "Compare Search Engine Features, Size, and Strategies," not only takes you through the relative merits of the search engines, but also gives statistics, definitions, and a bibliography. The ever present problem of evaluating information on the Web is dealt with in Hope Tillman's "Evaluating Quality on the Net." The great thing about Web links is that in addition to the subject matter given in the citation title, you get a plethora of other links that you can chose at your will.

In the Knowledge Management (KM) EIP, nearly 40 percent of the articles are linked to full text or abstracts, and there are over twenty links to other KM related Web sites. The Web site links are in the forms of articles, journals, forums, papers and case studies. In David Skyrme's "Overview of Knowledge Management" at http://www.skyrme.com/km.htm, he makes the perhaps obvious, but important, comment that you must concentrate on "Vital Knowledge--You need to focus; you don't have unlimited resources." Just filling your Intranet or Knowledge Management system with tons of information does not automatically create knowledge. The World Wide Web Virtual Library at http://www.brint.com/km/ is allegedly the largest collection of knowledge management literature, and is certainly worth a visit. At the end of the EIP, there are links to Knowledge Management software sites, which members have found to be most useful.

With so many excellent and diverse articles and other resources about the information industry being made available it has become a major problem deciding into which EIP to file them. The new General Library Topics EIP was the answer. It lists a number of articles on the future of the library profession, but also includes articles on prison libraries, gray literature, and resource sharing. One of its Web links takes us to "Digital Drucker" at http://www.dgsys.com/~tristan/technodrucker.html, a must for devotees of the great management guru, Peter Drucker. The "Librarians' Online Warehouse" at http://www.libsonline.com/main.htm is a useful site of library related companies that can be searched by subject. The NUA Internet Surveys site at http://www.nua.ie/surveys/index.cgi includes tables and graphs of Internet usage, articles, and discussion groups. The European Union and Japanese Web sites listed are general information sites, search engines, and directories.

As mentioned, the EIPs index page also includes reference lists, such as Contacts for Book/Journal Donations, which lists Web sites, listservs, and organizations that accept books and journals for donation to third world and emerging nations. The lists of International Special Library Associations, Library Related Organizations, Placement and Executive Search Firms, and Training Organizations are self-explanatory. They do not hold themselves out to be complete lists, and we are always happy to hear about useful additions. $