The Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin has developed the Russian and East European Network Information Center (REENIC) to serve as a gateway to resources on Russia, the former Soviet states, and East and Central Europe. This material can be accessed by choosing one of the following subcategories from the site: Country Directory, Web Resources, Search REENIC, or K‐12 Teacher Resources.
Using the Country Directory, users can go directly to their country or region of choice by clicking on the links listed. For example, selecting “Bulgaria” will bring them to a separate page where links are arranged by subject. Within the Bulgarian page, users will be able to find links to information servers in Bulgaria and related sources as well as links for topics such as agriculture, communication, history, law, geography, government, and others. Large countries such as Russia will have many more links than smaller countries. The same topics are listed for each country, but some countries may not have links for all of them. In these cases, general links are given instead. Links for regions such as Central Asia or the Baltics are sparse; the user should look at the individual countries instead, if possible.
The Web Resources category allows the user to find current news, databases, subject resources, publications, libraries and archives, discussion lists, Usenet newsgroups, information servers, and general reference tools. The information servers here are numerous, but the site is not very comprehensive for the other eight types of Web resources.
The search function is simple, allowing only keyword searches. After the initial input, users are taken to the results page where more options are available. Boolean options include AND, OR, NOT, and right‐hand truncation. Users can specify results to be plain text or bolded (the search term listed in bold). The bolded result is preferred, since it takes users directly to the section of the page with the desired terms. As with many search engines, results range from useful to irrelevant.
The K‐12 Teacher Resources pages provide elementary, middle and high school teachers with information on resources such as books, films, maps, and curriculum guides. These materials are available for six‐week loans at no charge. This section makes REENIC stand out from other Web sites for Russian and East European studies.
The Web site is easily navigated by scrolling or clicking on links. The REENIC Quick Navigator puts the home page into a top frame, while the bottom frame contains links to the homepage, the Country Directory and the Center’s homepage. This allows users to move around within REENIC and return to the home page or Country Directory with one click of the mouse button.
According to the homepage, REENIC was updated as recently as September 1999. However, it is hard to tell when some of the individual pages were last modified. Dates were not always given. The latest information in the “What’s New on REENIC” page was provided in September 1998. Some links no longer work, which can be frustrating.
For best results, users should start with the Country Directory and use the subjects listed there rather than use the Subject option under Web Resources. The inclusion of the same topics and of general resources within the country pages can be misleading. The teaching resources should be useful for K‐12 teachers. The Russia page is loaded with links, and there is enough information on smaller countries such as Moldova to get the user started. As a starting point for research, REENIC is recommended for academic libraries.
