Launched in March 2004, the GESource World Guide provides access to a wealth of information on over 270 countries and territories. GESource, the parent site of World Guide, is the geography and environment hub of the Resource Discovery Network, a site that brings together resources in various subject categories that are selected, indexed and described by specialists from over seventy educational and research organisations in the UK (including Oxford and Cambridge universities and the British Library).
The primary arrangement of information in the World Guide is by country. The individual entries can be accessed through a drop‐down menu listing all of the countries and territories by name or by keyword search (simple searches only, no Boolean or phrase search capability). Each entry is divided into six main sections: Country Profile, Demographics, Geography/Maps, Articles, Satellite Images, and Internet Links. The Country Profile consists of a brief overview of the country's history, some general geographic and statistical information (capital, population, land area, boundaries, time zone, currency, gross domestic product, climate, etc.), a colour image of the country's flag, image links to the country, and interactive regional maps that appear in the Geography/Maps section. The Geography/Maps section also lists such statistics as elevations, physical features, hazards, and environmental issues. The Demographics section breaks down the population by ethnic group, language spoken, age, gender, life expectancy, fertility, and mortality. The country data and maps on the site come in large part from the CIA World Factbook.
There are only a few articles in World Guide so far (27, as of July 2004) so the article section for many of the countries listed is empty. However, the articles that appear on the site are full text and include images and references. Every country listed has at least one satellite image and some have many more (there are over 300 images for the USA). Credit is given for each image and article, most coming from a range of NASA sites. The Internet resources section consists of a list of links (these also vary quite a lot in number from country to country) that take users to a GESource record that resembles what one would find in a citation database – including an abstract, keywords, subject headings, publication information, etc. – and a link to the actual resource.
In addition to the country listings, the complete collection of maps and satellite photos (including a selection of scrollable city images) are available by region and subject. World Guide also includes a series of fact sheets featuring various geographical rankings (highest mountains, largest lakes, extreme weather, etc.) with links to satellite images and related GESource resources. Another nice addition is the handy data comparison tool that allows users to compare the demographic and statistical data from two countries of their choice against data provided for the world as a whole.
The World Guide site is well laid out and easy to navigate. The maps and images are clear and readable and load quickly. The only instance where users might get confused is when clicking on one of the Internet resources; one may end up at the GESource site with no link back to World Guide other than the “back” button on the web browser. I would prefer to have the internet resource links automatically open a new window instead; this happens when clicking on the web links from within the Internet resource records. World Guide is worthy of bookmarking as a quick statistical reference for anyone interested in world geography and the environment.
