The library has recently introduced three major resources on the web: WebCat, Galileo and the Oxford English Dictionary.
WebCat, the web version of the library catalog EUCLID, presents the features of the text version of EUCLID in an easy to use interface. Most notably, WebCat makes it easier to print and to perform complex searches. One of the significant advantages of moving to WebCat will become more apparent as the number of electronic library resources increases. Ordinarily, a catalog record is a description of an item in a library. Once you locate an entry in the catalog, you write down the call number and go to the shelf to find the actual item. A catalog record in WebCat can link directly to source material. For example, a search for "Atlantic Monthly" under Newspaper/Periodical Titles in WebCat returns a link to the on-line version of the magazine. Although WebCat offers new features, two major resources, OCLC and RLIN, are not yet available in web format. If you use either of these resources, you will still have to rely on the text interface to EUCLID. Both of these resources should be available on the web in the near future.
Galileo, a project begun by the University System of Georgia and Gov. Zell Miller, was initiated to provide a rich set of electronic research resources to public universities. This summer the Woodruff Foundation provided a grant to make these resources available to private colleges and universities. Examples of the more than 100 databases and abstracts offered include ABI/Inform, Arts and Humanities Abstracts, Census Data, Currents Contents, Encyclopedia Britannica and Medline.
The Lewis H. Beck Center for Electronic Collections puts the full text of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) within easy reach of anyone at Emory with access to the web. The web version of the OED allows a great deal of flexibility in searching. Users not only can look up the definition of a word, but also search for a word in a quotation or in the middle of an entry. For example, you can search for "computer" as a headword and find a history of the word computer. Searching for "computer" as an OED entry returns almost any term associated with computing from "bit" to "byte" to "bulletin board."
These resources are accessible from the following web sites:
WebCat/EUCLID: http://www.library.emory.edu/
Galileo: http://www.galileo.peachnet.edu
Oxford English Dictionary: http://chaucer.library.emory.edu:8080/oed.html
Marie Mathews is WebMaster in Computing Resources Services, Information Technology Division.