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Compact disk database systems have been proliferating in libraries for the past several years. Producers have promoted them as user‐friendly, self‐instructional systems that require little on‐site assistance for use. Libraries have placed the systems out for use and have sometimes found this assumption questionable. Numerous articles have appeared on planning for these new reference tools, but only a few have presented evaluations of their implementation and impact on librarians and library services (e.g., Lynn and Bacsany, 1989; Schultz and Salomon, 1990; Welsh, 1989; Steffy and Meyer, 1989; Nissley, et al., 1989; LePoer and Mularski, 1989; Nash and Wilson, 1991). Most have used user surveys to garner data on user satisfaction and effectiveness. Such questionnaires have tended to indicate favorable user reaction to the systems and to the relevance to their needs of the retrieved citations (e.g., Pope, 1989; Bleeker, Tjiam, and Volkers, 1988) while others have shown the former but not the latter phenomenon. Nash and Wilson (1991) found that students were satisfied with their searches but that over one‐third retrieved relatively useless or inappropriate citations. They found the undergraduates they surveyed and/or interviewed had problems critically analyzing the results of their searches. Stewart and Olsen (1988) conducted an experimental comparison of ERIC on CD‐ROM (SilverPlatter) and in print form. Subjects using the CD‐ROM outperformed those using the print index in retrieving relevant references for assigned topics. One particularly interesting result showed subjects using CD‐ROM with no prior training outperforming subjects trained to use print indexes. Further, regardless of treatment group membership, 90 percent felt that the CD‐ROMs would yield the greatest number of useful references. Both instructed and uninstructed CD‐ROM groups rated their methods as easier than print indexes.

This paper gives a bibliographical review of the finite element and boundary element parallel processing techniques from the theoretical and application points of view. Topics include: theory – domain decomposition/partitioning, load balancing, parallel solvers/algorithms, parallel mesh generation, adaptive methods, and visualization/graphics; applications – structural mechanics problems, dynamic problems, material/geometrical non‐linear problems, contact problems, fracture mechanics, field problems, coupled problems, sensitivity and optimization, and other problems; hardware and software environments – hardware environments, programming techniques, and software development and presentations. The bibliography at the end of this paper contains 850 references to papers, conference proceedings and theses/dissertations dealing with presented subjects that were published between 1996 and 2002.

In prior articles in both volume 8 (number 4) and volume 10 (numbers 3/4) of Collection Building, bibliographies of U.S. government publications on AIDS were covered. The first bibliography covered both executive branch and legislative branch materials from 1981 to September 1986. The second bibliography covered only legis‐lative materials from 1986 to 1989. This article complements the second bibliography in its coverage of executive branch materials from 1986 to 1989 and also updates the first work. While 1986 to 1989 is the framework, some items inadvertently omitted from the earlier work are included here.

Outlines new database products appearing in the Gale Directory of Databases, a two‐volume work published twice a year. Provides figures for the distribution and percentage of new and newly implemented science, technology and medicine databases including name, vendor and medium. Briefly discusses these by each medium.

Avant‐propos sous les auspices de l'Institut international de Coopération intellectuelle, paraissait en 1934 le t. I, consacré à l'Europe, du Guide international des Archives. Le questionnaire envoyé à tous les États européens comportait sous les points 4 et 6 les questions suivantes: ‘Existe‐t‐il un guide général pour les diverses catégories d'Archives ou des guides particuliers pour l'une ou l'autre d'entre elles?’ et ‘Existe‐t‐il des catalogues imprimés, des publications tant officielles que privées, susceptibles de constituer un instrument complet de référence pour tout ou partie importante des fonds d'archives?’ Les réponses des divers pays à ces questions, malgré leur caractère très inégal, ont fait du Guide international un bon instrument d'information générale sur les Archives. Malheureusement les circonstances ont empêché la publication du volume consacré aux États non européens, tandis que le temps qui s'écoulait tendait à rendre périmés les renseignements fournis sur les Archives européennes.

This is the tenth article on business and law (BSL) databases in a continuing series of articles summarising and commenting on new database products. Two companion articles have appeared, one covering science, technology and medicine (STM) in Online & CDROM Review vol. 21, no. 4 and the other covering social science, humanities, news and general (SSH) in Online & CDROM Review vol. 21, no. 5. The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer‐Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

We have all had experience with the stress caused by an increase in library technology—CD‐ROMs with different user interfaces, online catalogs with different command structures than our CD‐ROMs, and still different protocols for accessing remote databases. Yet, can you imagine the stress that can result from a crash of a local bibliographic and circulation database? I can—because it happened to me.