First you'll need to install an HTTP server. I've used the free Microsoft Personal Web Server with a good deal of success, as well as the servers from Netscape and O'Reilly Associates.

Then the RWP installation proceeds from diskette. The installation will provide a shortcut for the software on the start menu, and you will want to put a copy of this shortcut in your Startup directory so that the server starts automatically when you boot your computer. RWP puts an icon in the taskbar, and a double-click on this icon brings you to the server status and a button for the current properties (see Views 3, 4, and 5).

The server status (View 3) handily provides the total number of requests made, which will reinforce or deconstruct your vanity, depending on the amount of traffic. Server Properties (View 4) allows you to turn off the server and specify a simple or advanced default search. The tab for Contents Properties (View 5) allows one to control the databases provided as well as the Reference List Output Style and the display Sort Order. The Output Style specifies a bibliographical format such as APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.

Display and Exporting

The display is easy to read and use. Some requests: A text-only interface would be useful. In the manual, a discussion of how to design one's own forms for searching the database would helpful. We'd also like some discussion of how to change the graphics. Finally, I think the end-user should be able to request the display style (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.) and the sort order for the displayed matches.

Note that in the display of references, there's a link for exporting the results of a search. You can export in MEDLARS and the RIS Format. The Refer format really must be added as soon as possible--this format is the lingua franca of the Unix world of bibliographical data. If you use Reference Manager 7.0+ or ProCite 3.0+, then a really cool option is to use a special plug-in (provided at the RIS web site) that will move data directly from the remote web-based database into your local database.

Limitations

I'm an EndNote user, and while I'm glad that RIS supports the EndNote database format, the support is a bit peculiar. Note how when using the Chicago B format, RWP seems to omit the comma after the author's name for some records. (No doubt RIS will tell me that I need to massage my data a bit, but frankly I'm sick of such recommendations from bibliographical database purveyors.) I'm also a professor in a Department of English, and it is disheartening to see that the MLA style is not supplied with the product.

A more challenging need, clearly, will be to provide for adding, updating, and deleting records over the web. (This capability is provided by BookEnds for the Macintosh.)

The accompanying User's Guide is terse but clear. While the dialogues for server properties are all quite clear, there must still be an on-line help file for those of us who compulsively lose slender manuals.

Summing Up

RWP seems to work well on my system, which is a 233 mhz Pentium with 92 MB of RAM. The load was negligible for reasonable searches, and I have noticed no evidence that this software conflicts with anything else. So far, it works without a hitch.

Besides the virtues of the product described above, let me also note that a web-based database effectly solves the cross-platform problem. Put your database on a Windows 95+/NT 4.0+ server, and with this software your bibliographical data is available to anyone with a web browser on any platform.

In sum, Reference Web Poster is a fine product and well implemented. I hope that RIS will listen to their customers because this is a product that will surely need to adapt as needs become more complicated and as the web develops as a medium for scholarly exchange.