Engineering, library team up

A joint effort between two Mississippi State units is allowing expansion of technical resources for university faculty and students.

The College of Engineering and Mitchell Memorial Library have cooperated to acquire electronic databases that Internet users may access from computers at the library, their offices or home, said Dean of Libraries Frances Coleman.

"Among the databases we've been able to acquire is Compendex Web," Coleman said. "It is the Internet version of Engineering Index, the world's premier source of engineering abstracts." The database adds about 220,000 abstracts yearly from more than 2,600 engineering journals, conferences and reports, she said. It covers all fields of engineering.

Compendex can be accessed from the library's World Wide Web page at http://www.msstate.edu/Library. Select the "electronic resources" menu option.

Reviewing new databases acquired by the College of Engineering and Mitchell Memorial Library are (l-r) engineering Dean Wayne Bennett, libraries Dean Frances Coleman, Charles F. Trense, a consultant with Information Handling Services, and Suzy Turner, head of library public services.

Other new resources will benefit faculty and students across the university, said engineering dean Wayne Bennett. "This collaboration has allowed us to acquire information that wouldn't be possible otherwise," he noted. "Colleagues in other colleges such as Arts and Sciences and Agriculture and Life Sciences will have access to catalogs and to data on literally millions of products."

New resources include Vendor Catalogs, the largest collection of industrial catalogs known, and The Worldwide Standards Service, a resource for 150,000 standards from more than 400 organizations. Both are available on CD-ROM and are updated frequently.

"As we forge relationships with industries, these resources also will be of value to them," Bennett said.

The college and library also are providing the Applied Science and Technology Index, which covers more than 350 international, English-language periodicals for engineering, mathematics, physics and computer technology.

Finally, Microcomputer Abstracts will provide information from more than 75 popular magazines and professional journals on microcomputing in businesses, education, industry, and the home. Both can be accessed at http://www.ref.oclc.org:2000.