University Times

Pitt’s Center for Metropolitan Studies has launched an online database of reference materials — the Interactive Bibliography on Metropolitan Regionalism — that allows users not only to search its contents but also to add entries.

The database includes papers published in scholarly journals as well as citations of newspaper articles and online news sites. Database administrators anticipate that entries from radio broadcasts, national television network news shows and cable news programs all could be included.

The entries that are proposed by researchers and practitioners to fill in gaps and expand the database’s scope are reviewed for accuracy, style and grammar by the center staff and student assistants before those entries become permanent.

David Y. Miller, director of the center and a faculty member in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, worked with graduate student volunteers to develop a classification system for the database’s resources. Once each resource was classified, a brief summary of the reference was added.

The database currently has 200 completed references, with more being added weekly. Miller and his team of graduate students hope that the number will triple over the next year, with users contributing their own proposed entries.

To access the database, go to www.metrostudies.pitt.edu/Projects/InteractiveBibliographyonMetropolitanRegionali/tabid/1430/Default.aspx .