This morning, news of a new web-based reference tool (via the U.K.) that
from a quick look/search appears to be of some potential value to many web
users especially in a ready reference situation.
Xrefer.com ( http://www.xrefer.com )
Lead of Release:
"xrefer.com's new reference engine is now live, making over 100,000
individual factual entries from a 19 high-quality reference titles freely
available on the web. This will provide web users with the most
authoritative and comprehensive factual information site seen so far."
What also makes it look very promising is the list of respected publishers
contributing material.
"First release content partners Bloomsbury, Oxford University Press,
Macmillan and Penguin have provided an encyclopedia, dictionaries, a
thesaurus, books of quotations and other reference books for inclusion in
the first release of the site. A further 30 titles are already being
processed for inclusion in the reference engine in the near future."
Full-List of material at:
http://194.130.42.102/publishers.jsp
The search interface is VERY SIMPLE with a single interface box provided.
According to documentation xrefer.com uses a "conceptual searching"
mechanism. Cross-references and adjacency browsing is provided along with
* as a wildcard.
More details at:
http://194.130.42.102/help.jsp
Full-Text of Release at:
http://library.northernlight.com/FA20000526780000113.html
More as it happens.
Cheers,
gary
Gary D. Price, MLIS
George Washington University
Virginia Campus Library
Gelman Library
Ashburn, VA and Washington, D.C.
[log in to unmask]
703-726-8235
703-726-8237 (fax)
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