Tailored Internet tools

  Try searching the Internet lately for information on any environmental topic more common than "feeding patterns of mudminows" and you'll likely be overwhelmed by the number of "hits" the Search Engines come up with. The sheer volume of electronic information can be baffling and many of the sources are only marginally relevant. To meet the needs of those specifically interested in the region's environmental issues, the REC has launched a "friendly ghost" to help narrow the search. The EnviroPhantom is a Yahoo-like search/indexing robot which crawls the Internet sites dedicated to environmental issues in Central and Eastern Europe.

  Should you want to delve deeper into the info-maelstrom, REC also maintains the EnviroDirectory, which is an information database of more than 500 environment-related Internet sites at http://www.rec.org/REC/Databases/EnviroDirectory/.