ACCRI: "Anesthesia and critical care resources on the Internet".

Abstract

Consultant/Specialist Anesthetist; Erasmus University; Pasteurziekenhuis, Oosterhout, The Netherlands;focon@hacktic.nl(O'Connor)Clinical Librarian; Department of Anesthesiology Library; School of Medicine; University of Alabama at Birmingham; Birmingham Alabama;awright@ms.jt.anes.uab.edu(Wright)To the Editor:-We would like to thank Jeffrey M. Cusick, M.D., for his recent review of our World Wide Web (WWW) site. [1]In this response we want to bring readers up to date regarding the status of the site and also provide some background regarding the development of ACCRI, “Anesthesia and Critical Care Resources on the Internet.”In August 1994, one of us (A.J.W.) sent electronic postings to the two anesthesia electronic discussion lists then functioning on the Internet and noted that he was putting together a list of anesthesia resources on the Internet and invited anyone who wished to have a copy to respond. Within 48 h more than 100 requests for the listing had been received. By the end of that month the ACCRI-L@uabdpo.dpo.uab.edulist was established to distribute the updated listing once a week to subscribers. By the end of 1994 the list had grown so large that monthly distribution began.By March 1995, one of us (F.O.) offered to establish a WWW site under the auspices of Professor Wilhelm Erdmann of the Faculty of Anesthesiology, Erasmus University in Rotterdam and based on the monthly listings being distributed on ACCRI-L. The early WWW version of ACCRI began as a collection of related hypertext mark-up language (HTML) files. The rapid growth of ACCRI eventually rendered this method unworkable. By the summer of 1997, the HTML files were replaced by the current version using a database and the PERL scripting language. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for this current version is http://www.eur.nl/cgi-bin/accri.pl. Monthly updates are still distributed on ACCRI-L, as well as announcements of specific resources that might be of interest to anesthesiologists.With the ACCRI WWW site we are attempting to track and organize all anesthesiology, pain, and critical care resources available via the Internet and the WWW. A section of the database is also devoted to relevant electronic products, such as CD-ROMs, that are not available via the Internet. We make no attempt to evaluate or rate these materials but view our work as an effort to make access to them available from a single source with one or more WWW mirror sites that are now in the planning stage.Frank O'Connor, M.D.Consultant/Specialist Anesthetist; Erasmus University; Pasteurziekenhuis, Oosterhout, The Netherlands;focon@hacktic.nlA. J. Wright, M.L.S.Clinical Librarian; Department of Anesthesiology Library; School of Medicine; University of Alabama at Birmingham; Birmingham Alabama;awright@ms.jt.anes.uab.edu(Accepted for publication July 6, 1998.)