EXEGY: : The Source for Current World Information

Citation

Chandler, H.E. (1998), "EXEGY: : The Source for Current World Information", New Library World, Vol. 99 No. 1, pp. 45-46. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.1998.99.1.45.1

Imagine a large quick reference collection distilled on to a single CD‐ROM! This is EXEGY ‐ which its publishers describe as “an easy‐to‐use electronic source of current world information”. Produced by a staff of 11 (whose photograph can be enlarged on screen for identification) with assistance from 106 partner libraries, its material is drawn from an impressive range of over 600 quick reference style publications from familiar titles, such as Keesing’s Records of World Events, UNESCO Statistical Yearbook, Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Europa World Yearbook, to other more specialist ones, such as Civil Aircraft on Register, Far Eastern Economic Review, and Africa Research Bulletin. According to ABC‐CLIO’s Web site information, it includes more than 38,000 stories covering world events from the past five years, over 1,000 organisation profiles, 900 biographies of government officials, political leaders, cultural figures and sports personalities, many of which are accompanied by enlargeable captioned photographs, and over 275 documents.

EXEGY certainly lives up to the claim of being easy to use. Its simple opening screen presents you with four specific topic icons by which the material is arranged ‐ countries of the world, sports and games, maps of the world, and an international perspective containing information which transcends national boundaries, such as a summary of the Maastricht Treaty and details of Nobel prize winners. Countries, sports and maps have their own A‐Z index bar and within these topics are up to eight main categories which may be selected by a simple, pull‐down menu ‐ overviews, events, facts and figures, biographies, organisations, documents, flags and maps. Hypertext links in the articles allow you to set up trails, while the “Trail” or “Back Page” icons allow you, conversely, to trace the history of your search, display this on screen and directly select previous pages from the history list. Alternatively, you are spared having to decide on searching a particular section, if you wish, as the “Find” icon, appropriately depicted by a pair of binoculars, allows you to search the whole of EXEGY for a word or phrase. For example, a search for the “Net book agreement”, takes you to the “events” category within Britain to describe the collapse of the NBA in September 1995. A further facility is the glossary to which terms deemed in need of possible clarification within the articles have their hypertext links.

Navigating the pull‐down menu categories is quickly learned. “Overviews” provide a brief summary of a country or sport similar to that found in a standard encyclopaedia. “Events”, listed in reverse chronological order, enables you to scroll through news items in one’s subject of interest, such as Diane Modahl’s four‐year suspension, if, for example, you were searching for material on “drugs and athletics”. From the “facts and figures” category, which includes statistics and other general information about aspects of a country or sport, you can pick up snippets of information such as Australia’s good fortune in having 0 per cent illiteracy, and Afghanistan’s misfortune in having an average male life expectancy of 45 years.Via the various countries’ “documents” we can also access the full text of their constitutions, significant speeches such as Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech and the Downing Street Declaration, national legislation and judicial decisions.

It was when I started scanning the national biographies, however, that I became aware of EXEGY’s American bias. In the issue examined I found only eight biographies of Australian personalities, and 18 from the UK, in dim contrast to some 150 from the USA! It is interesting that the US biographies include personalities from many walks of life, including Whoopee Goldberg and Steven Spielberg whereas the 18 from Britain focus predominantly on political figures and do not even include such celebrities of international acclaim as The Beatles. In fact, the only reference to the “Fab four” are passing references to the banning of “Yellow submarine” in Singapore, to Kurt Cobain’s being a young fan, and to a fashion designer who supplied the Beatles with designer clothes! A similar pattern emerges with “Organisations” and “Documents” as Table I illustrates:

The more I explored EXEGY, however, the clearer it became that this is a publication aimed at, first, the USA and, second, the North American market. For example, Canada, the Caribbean region and the USA have in the countries index additional regional subheadings which lead to “facts and figures” for those localities, while the other countries do not. Also, glancing through the list of source materials, American publications appear to predominate while some well‐known favourites of UK quick reference collections, such as Whitaker’s Almanack and the Directory of British Associations are absent, possibly accounting for the dearth of UK organisations represented in Table I.

With this proviso, and with the future prospect of extended global coverage to match that of the USA, EXEGY would, nevertheless, be quite a useful, user‐friendly addition to the general quick reference collection internationally, and, with its frequency of updates, promises to provide currency. Its numerous internal cross‐references encourage further reading; and its “How to cite” page assists with bibliographic citations which with non‐book materials can often prove problematic.With its captioned 2,000 illustrations, of particular interest when accompanying a biography; and its simplicity of structure with on‐screen help available at each stage, it is without question an attractive product.

Technical specifications

The recommended system requirements are a 486SX‐25 MHz or faster processor with 8MB RAM; a hard drive with at least 4MB free; SVGA monitor, 640 x 480, 256 colours; a double‐speed CD‐ROM drive; and Windows 3.1/MS DOS 5.0 or later, Windows 95.