"Internet Watch" tracks new and interesting developments in transportation resources on the Internet.

Where to go for More Information

Quick, when you don't have time to find out the latest standard that applies to the application of coal tar epoxies or you need to find out the latest news in optical engineering, how do you find the information efficiently?

If you don't have the books or materials on hand to answer your questions, you can access the web sites of a vast array of on-line organizations, commercial entities, and academic institutions as a quick reference for highway related issues. This column will visit a few of the larger professional and commercial sites. The next "Internet Watch" will take a look at helpful academic sites and links to help your research.

Professional Society Web Sites

The granddaddy of all professional organization web sites is the site of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (http://www.asme.org). This site contains information on codes and standards (the actual codes are not available on-line), news from the field, publications, courses, and a government relations section that reviews weekly news from the Capitol that affects the engineering field.

Another place to stop for information on World Wide Web is http://>www.chemcenter.org / run by the American Chemical Society (http://www.acs.org/). The ChemCenter features on-line editions of Journal of the American Chemical Society, and The Journal of Physical Chemistry. Along with the publications, the database search section allows searches of Chemical Patents Plus and allows "telnetting" (use of the Telnet application) to more than 190 other chemistry databases.

The official International Organization for Standardization (ISO) site (http://www.hike.te.chiba-u.ac.jp/ikeda/ISO/home.html), while not complete, offers the latest ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards. The ISO/IEC Guide 25 (General Requirements for the Competence of Calibration and Testing Laboratories) listserv by Greg Gogates is also available here.

SpieWeb www.spie.org/) is the web site for the International Society for Optical Engineering. SPIE is a non-profit professional society dedicated to advancing research, engineering, and applications in optics, photonics, imaging, and electronics. The SPIE site has on-line publications, new books, e-mail listservers, and optical standards.

Commercial Web Sites

Many commercial organizations also feature research material on-line. The Journal of Protective Coatings and Linings (JPCL) home site (http://www.protectivecoatings.com/) features an archive of all of the articles from 1995 and 1996. In addition, it has a searchable 12-year compilation of all JPCL articles and a selection of current journal articles on-line. The Steel Structures Painting Council, a professional technical association affiliated with the publisher of JPCL, has more information available on-line at http://www.sspc.org/.

The Asphalt Contractor Online (http://www.asphalt.com/index.html) is the home of Home of The Asphalt Contractor magazine. Features on this Web site include information from the Strategic Highway Research Program and sections on paving techniques, plant production, innovations, and safety.

Most of these sites link to other research sites as well. These links are available on the Resource Center page of the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center site. If there are links that you would like to be reviewed by the TFHRC webmaster in future additions of "Internet Watch," please e-mail your suggestions to martha.soneira@fhwa.dot.gov .

Kristin Iden is the webmaster/electronic publishing specialist for the Federal Highway Administration's Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in McLean, Va. She is employed by Avalon Integrated Services Corp. of Arlington, Va.