Tales from the Teche - new web resources

I recently saw 2 new web resources. The first is the much anticipated Online Judaica Responsa from Bar Ilan . Their preview/trial version is available at http://www.responsa.co.il/

You can search this version, but you cannot save or print the results without paying for it. The search screens are a little simpler than the CD version and not quite as powerful/flexible. The wording is a little misleading too. What they call "Simple search" is actually a phrase search. When I did a search for Adam Havah (in Hebrew characters - use the online keyboard if you don't have Hebrew on your computer) I found only 4 'hits' That's because it only found the two words next to each other. You have to go to the "advanced search" to find the two words near each other. The help screens have good examples of using the various wild card searches and the boolean options (using ve-gam (and); o (or); velo (and not)).

The Library is looking into subscription information. In the meantime, try out the online trial version, and continue to use the CD-ROMs version in the libraries.

The other interesting Internet site I saw is a map of Israel at http://www.eyeonisrael.com/Israel-touring-map.html

You can click on a sector of the map to get more details. There are also historical maps and descriptions as well as rainfall, temperature, and geographical maps.

Happy clicking!
Sheryl