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From today engineers have a new gateway to resources on the Internet. The Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library is intended to solve one of the main problems facing Internet users - locating useful resources from the millions available.

Two EEVL services - a newsgroup archive and an offshore engineering information service - have been running successfully since the early summer. Now EEVL's main service, a searchable database of high-quality networked resources in engineering subjects, will be freely available to anyone anywhere in the world with an Internet connection and a World Wide Web browser. The database contains descriptions and links to more than 1,250 Internet resources in engineering. The interface allows the user to search or browse for engineering resources by title, keyword, or subject. The database is actively managed by a team of engineering information specialists, with headquarters at Heriot-Watt University library in Edinburgh. Resource descriptions and links are checked regularly.

Resources in the EEVL database include Web sites for electronic journals and newsletters, engineering companies, professional societies and institutions, engineering departments within higher education, government sources, email lists, resource guides and directories, research centres, recruitment services and engineering software.

Roddy MacLeod, senior faculty librarian at Heriot-Watt and one of the project managers, said that "EEVL will become the first port of call for anyone looking for engineering information on the Internet."

EEVL is funded through the Electronic Libraries programme, managed by the Joint Information Systems Committee on behalf of the higher education funding councils. The project lead sites are Heriot-Watt library and the university's Institute for Computer Based Learning. Partner sites are the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, Cambridge University, Imperial College London, Nottingham Trent University and the Institution of Electrical Engineers. EEVL is at eevl.ac.uk/