From: Tom.Hughes, Mass Environmental Library <Thomas.Hughes@state.ma.us>
Subject: RE: Question for Sept 19: What about EPA's info?
The EPA web site is great for finding basic subject matter information, but when you are dealing with a specific environmental issue or looking for a specific publication, it is hit or miss. This especially true for older EPA publications. We are always looking for older EPA publications that are still referenced and used as guidance, but not available in electronic format. I have even run in to a few that are there in old word processing file formats that are a mess. Often when you try to do a search, you get a message that is something like this "OWS-05101: Execution failed due to Oracle error -6550"
The Online Library System is great if you know about it and have time to search it separately. It would be helpful if the EPA system was linked in with regional library systems that public libraries search for everything else. The EPA OLS would also be more useful to researchers if the system had was Z39.50 compliant. For anyone not familiar, Z39.50 is an international metadata standard that allows a compliant browser to search multiple catalogues and databases that are compliant. This means you enter your query in your Z39.50 browser, which is built in to many library catalog search tools or available as a separate piece of software. You select the databases and search. Often I search about 150 academic and government catalogues at once. The results can be downloaded instantly, and used in your catalog, bibliographic software, or copied to you ILL forms.
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