There is a new tool on the U.S. Department of Labor’s Web site. Their interactive elaws site is called Employment Laws Assistance for Workers and Small Businesses. It’s available at

http://www.dol.gov/elaws/ .

A major feature of this site is the “Poster Advisor” which allows businesses to determine what posters they need to display and to download them free from the Internet. Starting at http://www.dol.gov/elaws/Posters.htm , you’re conducted through a series of screens. The first few screens are informative or for disclaimers. After that you’re asked a series of questions. Based on your answers, the Advisor links you to PDF versions of required posters for your workplace. (Black and white or color versions of the posters are both available.) The advisor does not link you to posters that might be required by your state, but they do link you to relevant state departments. The site also links to additional reading for you based on the recommended posters.

Besides the Poster Advisor, the site has 24 other Advisors including representation from the Employment Standards Administration, Mine Safety and Health Administration, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Pension and Welfare Administration, and Veterans’ Employment and training Service.

CNN Goes European
Business Wire: September 21, 2000. CNN Interactive has launched its 14th Web site, CNN.com Europe at http://europe.cnn.com/ . (Complete with annoying pop-up window inviting you to change editions.) This is an English-language site that reports news impacting Europe and is produced and edited from CNN’s new European headquarters in London.

Major features of the new European site include headlines of the main stories impacting Europe, in-depth analysis of major events, and a front page focused on European and world news, weather, business, sports, technology, and entertainment. Coverage is available in several different languages, including Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, and Danish. Note that coverage isn’t exactly the same across all sites; it looks like some but not all coverage overlaps.

Elsevier Science Expands
Elsevier Science is enlarging its electronic archive of science and medical journals. Their current archive extends back to 1995, but the expansion will provide an archive back to volume 1, issue 1 in most journals. The first priority in this expansion will be chemistry and chemical engineering journals. Work has already begun on the core organic and inorganic chemistry journals. The chemistry additions should be completed by December 2001. Check out their press release about the expansion at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000925/elsevier_a.html .

Pursuing the Perfect Printer
If you need to buy a new printer, check out http://www.theprinterdatabase.com . There’s a simple search on the front page that takes you to another set of selections for price (all the prices are in pounds; but it’s fairly easy to pick the appropriate range).

Once you’ve made the selection, you’re presented with a list of printers that match your options. You can request info packs for any or all of these printers. (Note, however, that there’s a bit of a loop in the privacy policy; “In the future if theprinterdatabase.com feel a company is offering a service which is related to you we reserve the right to pass your information to them.” That’s from the privacy policy at http://www.theprinterdatabase.com/privacy.html .

The site also promises independent reviews at a later date, and user reviews now (but there’s not much available.) This might be a good site to look at when it’s a little fuller, or to get info-packs if you don’t mind the privacy policy.

Dow Jones Learns Spanish
Dow Jones Newswires now has a Spanish-language news service focused on coverage of the US and Latin America financial markets. The service, “Dow Jones en Espanol,” selects 80 of the hottest news stories for the day chosen for their relevance to Latin American investors. Check out the press release here: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/000918/ny_dow_jon.html .

Moreover Offers News Search Engine
Moreover.com is offering a news search engine which they say indexes nearly 2,000 sources on the Web, “updated as the news happens.” You can try the search at http://search.iwon.com/commerce/newssearch.jsp?searchfor= .

Use the gray box on the right part of the page and choose the “news articles” radio button, then input your search query. I found several things using this engine that I hadn’t seen before with other news engines. Granted, some of the results are clinkers (I don’t consider the fact that Iron Man magazine got their search engine running as search engine news) but there’s a lot of good stuff here. Unfortunately missing: the ability to sort by date. Worth a look.