Business Reference and Services Section. (Brass Notes)

Mental Measurements Yearbook. Norwood, Mass.: SilverPlatter. $803 for CD-ROM; price quotes for online version available, www.silverplatter.com/catalog/ mmyb.htm Requirements: Online: For optimum performance, the Web site should be accessed using Internet Explorer 5.0 or Netscape 4.76. CD-ROM: 486 IBM-compatible PC, 8MB RAM, Windows 3.11/95/98/NT. For Macintosh, MacSPIRS 4.05, memory 8MB recommended, operating environment system 7.5 or higher. After sixty years of distinguished publishing in the twentieth century, the Buros Institute of Mental Measurements, University of Nebraska--Lincoln, has entered the new millennium with the 2001 publication of the fourteenth Mental Measurements Yearbook (MMY) and a choice of formats. Clients may choose either print, Web access, stand-alone CD, or a combination. The CD covers the ninth through the fourteenth yearbooks. Web covers the ninth to the present. Volumes before the ninth edition are still accessible only in print. MMY contains information about and reviews of all English-language standardized tests covering educational skills, personality, vocational aptitude, psychology, and related areas. There are also some tests for Spanish-speaking students in a bilingual program. For each test, MMY provides the name of the test, author, publication information, scoring information, price data, purpose, overview of the test, a description of the test materials, time needed, and one or more reviews of the test. MMY is meant for use by counselors, guidance workers, psychologists, personnel directors, and educators and provides these professionals with availability and evaluative information about commercially produced English-language tests. There is no other product that performs this service in such a universal manner. The fourteenth MMY differs in some respects from its predecessors. While there have never been minimum-quality criteria that tests must meet to be included, now a test must have some documentation about its development and technical properties. There is a list of tests that failed to have this documentation in the print appendixes. Also, the producers have made the decision to no longer include test references in the printed volume. Such references have never been a part of the electronic versions. The current electronic versions of MMY are mounted on the Silver-Platter platform and contain full-text information and reviews as included in the printed MMY. All indexes and appendixes from the printed volumes are included in the electronic versions as well as the number of the printed volume that contains the original test information. An exception is a list of tests that did not make the publication deadline for the print. However, there are some differences between the Web and CD versions, including ease of use. Opening screens give a good indication of ease of use. With little ado, the CD goes right into a search screen without much on it besides a search box and just two other options, Contents or Index. Contents organizes the tests by subject. …