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ONE of my picks is the open access TeiTorism Knowledge Base (TKB) from the national Memorial Institute for the Prevention ofTenorism (MIPT). It superbly integrates and makes accessible a variety of different database types related to teixorism and teiTorists. [For mow information, see "Libraiies in the War on Terroiism," by Brad Robison and Gieta E. Marlatt, in the September/October 2006 issue of ONLINE. -Ed.] The other pick is also related to teiTorism It is the International security and Counter-TeiTorism Reference Center (ISCTRQ from EBSCO-which happens to be freely available also through MIPT for personal, noncommercial use.
The pan section follows up and discusses briefly the changes (if any) to databases that were panned earlier, such as the ASIS&T Digital Library from Wiley InterScience, Microsoft's Windows Live Academic, the BL Direct service from The British Library, and VNU's Information World Review Archive-all of which share the lethal mix of indifference, ignorance, and incompetence.
the picks
TERRORISM KNOWLEDGE BASE
I don't like the term "knowledgebase"-its aura is too puffery for my taste-but in this case it is justified. The TeiTorism Knowledge Base (www.tkb.org <http://www.tkb.org>) was created from databases and print sources of several intelligence agencies and other government departments, certainly not the dream job of a systems analyst. The integrated knowledgebase has six major sections with different access options.
It covers all types of tenoiism in eveiy comer of the world-from neo-Nazis in Oregon and white supremacists in Louisiana; from Conscientious Arsonists and Indomitable Marxists in Greece to the bellicose Peace Conquerors in Australia; from pro-lifers in the Army of God in Alabama to the Kahaneists in Israel; from the mujahedeens (mujahideens or mujahids if you prefer), talibans, and jihadists to innumerable terrorist groups with names often stalling with Al- or Abu- that are present from Algeria to Chechnya and Western Sahara to Yemen.
A number of other top-notch reference sources on terrorism, licensed from Cengage Gale, are shown on the eBooks/Journal section on the front page of the Terrorism Information Center of MIPT (www.teiTorisminfo.mipt.org).
TKB presents its information with the same sophistication and elegance that characterizes the whole site-probably to contrast the depressing darkness exuding from the reports and statistics of fatalities and injuries caused by such ultraviolent groups. The records (called profiles) are not only...