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Academic libraries are certainly not the only institutions open to visitors. Many museums and public libraries have created exhibitions and special Web pages highlighting environmental issues. The Internet Public LibraryAssociations on the Net's [http://www.ipl.org/ref/AON/] Science andTechnology section contains links to authoritative listings of Earth Sciences associations, as well as Environmental Sciences and Ecology. Florida's Lake County LibrarySystem is a good end-user site, with a diverse set of links to popular environmental/ecology resources designed for educational purposes [http://www.lakeline.lib.fl.us/nature.htm].

The Encyclopedia Smithsonian: Natural History [http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmnh/] contains a section on Environmental Studies: Biodiversity, Global Climate Change, Understanding Ecosystems [http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmnh/ecology.htm], which links to all the separate Smithsonian projects, Web sites, and online exhibitions (e.g., forest biodiversity, tropical rainforests, marine ecology). For a link to science museums on the Net (particularly natural history museums for which you cannot remember the name), try MuseumSpot [http://www.museumspot.com].

Traditional publishers and database vendors specializing in environmental coverage should always be consulted, whether via the Internet or otherwise:

• LexisNexis Environment Universe
[http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/1univ/envir/default.htm] is a subset of its academic offering. Here you can search newspapers and journals, case law and regulatory decisions regarding agriculture; air pollution; energy; toxicology; land use and pollution; water pollution; wildlife/biodiversity; population/sustainable development; global warming; and waste management.

• BNA Environment, Health and Safety Products [http://www.bna.com/products/ens/index.html] includes its famed Environment and Safety Library and 26 other databases, loose-leaf reporter services, newsletters, and guides.

• Croner CCHWebcentre [http://www.environment-centre.net/
cgi-bin/croner/jsp/CronerHomeEnvironmentCentre.do] will not only allow you to review the entire line of Croner/CCH publications in its product catalog, but also access "environmental law, management, and training for U.K. business." Registration is free and customizable to your interests. Information "zones" include air pollution; contaminated land; energy management; environmental management systems; substances in the environment; waste management; and water pollution. New legislation and fines imposed are listed on the home page for easy viewing. An active discussion forum is featured on this as well as other Croner Web Centres.

• Browse the Elsevier Science [http://www.elsevier.com/inca/tree/?key=SSAG] Environmental sciences subject category to find journals, online journals, books and book series, major reference works, dictionaries, newsletters, and electronic products offered by the publisher. If you prefer, you can limit your search to Ecology and conservation or Environmental technology, policy and management.

• If you do not have a subscription to Elsevier's Science Direct [http://www.sciencedirect.com], you can log on as a guest to view the environmental science journals available. These are categorized by subject: ecological modelling (sic), ecology, environmental chemistry, environmental engineering, global and planetary change, health and toxicology, management/monitoring/policy/law, nature/landscape conservation, pollution, waste management/disposal, and water science and technology.

• The ISI Web of Knowledge [http://www.isi.com] includes the searchable databases of Current Contents for both Agriculture, Biology and Environmental Sciences (186 environment/ecology journals]), and Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (218 journals covering earth sciences). I find the journal scope notes from ISI particularly helpful ("The Earth Sciences category includes resources that deal with all aspects of geosciences, including geology, geochemistry, geophysics, mineralogy, meteorology and atmospheric sciences, hydrology, oceanography, petroleum geology, volcanology, seismology, climatology, paleontology, geography, remote sensing, and geodesy."). This section lists journal coverage changes, by title, in the past 12 months.

• Environment and Energy Publishing [http://www.eenews.net/] features its three major publications tracking environmental issues: GreenWire (policies, politics, and the press); Environment and Energy Daily (congressional actions, bills, appropriations, and reports); LandLetter (natural resources weekly report).

• Link to Environment, Conservation, and Ecology Journals through MedBioWorld [http://www.sciencekomm.at/journals/environ.html].

• The Electronic Green Journal [http://egj.lib.uidaho.edu/index.html] "provides peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, news and information on current printed and electronic sources concerning international environmental topics."

• Environmental News Network [http://www.enn.com] serves as an education tool for the public regarding environmental issues. The site attempts to present all sides of a controversial issue in order to stimulate community response.

• Oriented to the general public, E: The Environmental Magazine [http://www.emagazine.com] presents fewer "hard science" stories, but its coverage of pollution, for instance, is often informative.

When searching for books dealing with the environment, don't limit your search to the major publisher Web sites (e.g., Van Nostrand Reinhold, John Wiley, McGraw-Hill, etc.).

• Browse the National Academy Press Web site for titles by Category =Environmental Issues [http://books.nap.edu/v3/makepage.phtml?val1=subject&val2=ev] to view not only NAP publications but others made available full text on this site.

• Kluwer Academic Publishers can also be browsed by Subject = EnvironmentalSciences
[http://www.wkap.nl/home/topics/3/].

• CRC Press
[http://www.crcpress.com/shopping_cart/
categories/categories_products.asp?parent_id=90] has a long list of titles from Lewis Publishers and St. Lucie Press, all devoted to environmental sciences. The general subject listing further breaks down to cover environmental and ecological modelling, environmental engineering, environmental chemistry and toxicology, risk assessment and management, to name but a few topics with extensive lists of titles available. In addition to its book publishing unit, CRC publishes several excellent journals concerning environmental science, including Human and Ecological Risk Assessment and Environmental Claims Journal.

• Government Institutes [http://www.govinst.com] offers training courses on environmental health and safety and publications on such topics as environmental law, pollution prevention, environmental audit protocols, RCRA hazardous waste, toxic substances, underground storage tank management, and environmental management. These directories and reference works include several Guides to the Internet (e.g., Chemical, Environment, Safety and Health), which can be of enormous assistance to those just beginning their research in the field.

• Business and Legal Reports publishes compliance training products, helping employers avoid legal problems. Don't bother subscribing to the Environmental, Health, & Safety e-mail newsletter, but do take a look at the Environmental Product Directory [http://www.blr.com/enviro/index.cfm]: aboveground storage tanks, agricultural waste, asbestos, contingency plans, drinking water, environmental management systems, groundwater, hazardous waste, medical waste, mobile sources, pesticides, pollution prevention, property transfer, risk management programs, solid waste, stormwater, training, transportation, underground storage tanks, wetlands.

To identify electronic journals, start by searching the Electronic Journal Miner
[http://ejournal.coalliance.org/searcher.cfm]. Browse by subject to discover the 116 journals online covering aspects of the environment; search by keyword to uncover 274 journals. (Don't forget to use related terms, such as "earth sciences," when searching by subject.) In a very basic and unstructured search, 71 journals included "environment" in the title, 51 of which were peer-reviewed and 27 free. Ingenta'sSubject Area Resources:Earth and Environmental Sciences [http://www.ingenta.com] segments 342 journal titles into six major categories: ecology, geography, geology, geophysics and geomagnetism, meteorology and climatology, and oceanography.

To keep track of new e-journals, use American NewJour [http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour]. You can always review the entire list (A­Z), presently consisting of 11,578 titles, but regularly checking the "Recent Releases" may be easier to manage. (Today, there are 143 titles listed here, added between 1/27/2002 and 3/13/2002, including Environmental Monitoring andAssessment, Environmental Lawyer, Environmental Conservation, Environmental EducationResearch, Environmental and Resource Economics, Environment, Development and Sustainability. Descriptions for each title are accompanied by links to the publisher's Web site and often directly to the current issue's contents.)

Should you find an article or document you cannot view in full text, contact the CanadaInstitute for Scientific and Technical Information [http://www.nrc.ca/cisti/cisti_e.shtml]. Its comprehensive collection and strategic partnerships have created a reliable and cost-efficient document delivery service.

Enviro-Science e-Print/Pre-Print Service [http://esn.osti.gov/enviroscience.html] is a multi-agency project of the Department of Energy'sEnvironmental Management Science Program. "It uses the Environmental Information Management System to access manuscripts of journal articles and book chapters, conference papers, presentations, posters, and selected technical reports in environmental management science." E-Print partners include the Department of Defense/DTIC and the Environmental Strategic Technologies Certification Program; Department of Energy/OSTI; Environmental Protection Agency/ORD; and the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program.

For those concerned about academic excellence and declining information literacy, you might want to look at the material on the environment available from the Questia library [http://www.questia.com]. The majority of articles retrieved through a simple search appeared a bit dated, but right on target. (There are 1,632 books currently available on the subject through Questia.)

Barbie E. Keiser is an information resources management consultant located in New York City [barbieelene@att.net]