International Documents Catalog

Bernan/UNIPUB has recently put information about international documents on the Internet via its "Government Publications Network". To get there:

telnet kraus.com

login: gpn

If this is your first time accessing the GPN, you'll be asked if you wish to sign onto the Network, your street/snail mail address, your telephone number, your fax number, your e-mail address, your user name-- if you have a hyphenated last name, as I do, omit the hyphen--so I enter llouisjacques instead of llouis-jacques, and your password (this is a password you're creating just for use in accessing the Government Publications Network in the future, not your real password). Unlike the user name which must be all alphabetic characters, the password can be alpha-numeric and not to exceed 8 characters as in soccer94 (ah, a chance to be creative!)

Once you've signed on, you're asked if you wish to enter the Government Publications Network now. Once there, this is what you'll see:

look options find expand shrink restore quit help comment HELP (look): View topic, select with up/down arrows, ENTER to view, ESC returns

Government Publications Network -- A Service of Bernan/UNIPUB GPNetwork Information and News + European Communities Official Publications + HMSO -- The British Government Publisher + Intergovernmental Publications + U.S. Government Sales Publications + U.S. Depository Library Information + New Book Announcements + Ordering from Bernan/UNIPUB #

(The "Intergovernmental Publications" section has information about the availability of documents from Asian Productivity Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, International Atomic Energy Agency, International Development Research Centre, International Labour Organisation, International Monetary Fund, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations, UNESCO, United Nations University Press, World Bank, and World Tourism Organization)

Information found includes author, title, publisher, ISBN/ISSN, publication date, UNIPUB Order number, UNIPUB price, and a description of the publication. A few items I found while learning this database-- _World Labour Report_ volume 6 "Status of Slavery in the World" (1993) and _European Union: Selected Instruments from the Treaties_ (1993).

Some notes on using the GPN: the HELP line tells you what each command does; some of the commands for moving around don't work on some computers--for instance, if the up and down arrow keys don't work, try and the first letter of the entry you're interested in getting to; "outline" is same as "main menu"; and you can always use q to quit. For more information about the Government Publications Network, contact Jeff Steinman (jsteinmn@bernan.kraus.com) or Michael Lewis (michael@kraus.com or query@kraus.com). They're very nice and helpful!

Some of the benefits to this service I see right off--currency of information, ability to do keyword and boolean searches for needed publications, no need to get, keep, or try to track down hardcopy/print catalog or publication notices, it's "free", and it's available at all times and anywhere you have Internet access. Thank you, Bernan/UNIPUB!

Adios, Lyo.

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----------------------------- Art McGee [amcgee@netcom.com]

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