Accessing Information:
OVC Resource Center and Other Services

VICTIMS' RESOURCES IN THE INFORMATION AGE
The advent of information technologies, especially the enormous growth of the Internet, has changed the way in which information about crime victims' issues is being made available to researchers, advocates, and practitioners. Today, victims and victim service providers can instantly access an enormous amount of information specific to their needs, including the latest research findings, statistical reports, program descriptions, grant and funding sources, evaluations on victim issues, promising practices, and referrals to professional organizations in the victim-serving community.

For victims and victim service providers, information access begins with the Office for Victims of Crime Resource Center (OVCRC), a component of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS). Established by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), U.S. Department of Justice, OVCRC is your primary source for crime victim information. OVCRC is accessible 24 hours a day through the NCJRS World Wide Web Justice Information Center and Fax-on-Demand where menus provide information and publications from all Office for Justice Program (OJP) agencies—Office for Victims of Crime, National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Bureau of Justice Statistics, and Bureau of Justice Assistance—as well as from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In addition to the Web site, victim assistance professionals can benefit by taking advantage of various online services, such as the Justice Information (JUSTINFO) Electronic Newsletter, e-mail inquiries, the Conference Calender Database, and the Online Ordering Store. NCJRS also has highly trained information specialists to personally answer questions and direct individuals to the best resources available. Furthermore, NCJRS offers allied professionals an opportunity to be placed on their mailing list to receive up-to-date information via the NCJRS Catalog. Together with online services, Fax-on-Demand, and personal assistance, NCJRS and OVCRC can help victim advocates know more to better serve the needs of victims of crime.

ACCESSING NCJRS AND OVCRC ONLINE
To contact NCJRS, call 800-851-3420. NCJRS Online can be accessed in the following ways:

NCJRS World Wide Web Homepage. The homepage provides NCJRS information, and links to other criminal justice resources from around the world. The NCJRS Web page provides information about NCJRS and OJP agencies, grant-funding opportunities, full-text publications, key-word searching of NCJRS publications, access to the NCJRS Abstracts Database, the current NCJRS Catalog, and a topical index. The address for the NCJRS Homepage.

NCJRS Online Ordering System. Publications, videos, and other materials that pertain to criminal justice, juvenile justice, and drug control policy can now be ordered at any time. The online store is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Justice Information (JUSTINFO) Electronic Newsletter. This free, online newsletter is distributed to your Internet e-mail address on the 1st and 15th of each month. JUSTINFO contains information concerning a wide variety of subjects, including news from all Office of Justice Programs (OJP) agencies and the Office of National Drug Control Policy; criminal justice resources on the Internet; criminal justice funding and program information; and announcements about new NCJRS products and services. To subscribe, send an e-mail to <listproc@ncjrs.gov> with the message subscribe justinfo [your name].

E-Mail: Information and Help. Users requiring technical assistance or having specific questions on criminal and juvenile justice topics can send an e-mail to <askncjrs@ncjrs.gov>. To place an order for publications, users may send an e-mail to <puborder@ncjrs.gov>.

OTHER NCJRS ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICES
Fax-on-demand. NCJRS has established a "fax-on-demand" service that allows the user to obtain copies of selected NCJRS documents directly through their own fax machine, using a toll-free telephone number. To access the fax-on-demand menu, simply call 1-800-851-3420, and follow the prompts.

CD-ROM and Online Access to the Abstracts Database. Users with CD-ROM capability can also obtain the NCJRS Abstracts Database on CD-ROM. This disc features citations and abstracts of more than 140,000 criminal justice books, research reports, journal articles, government documents, program descriptions, program evaluations, and training manuals contained in the NCJRS Research and Information Center library collection. The disc also contains search software that supports retrieval, using any combination of words to search individual fields or all fields globally. The disc can be searched using "free text" methods, or in combination with the National Criminal Justice Thesaurus. In addition, the NCJRS Abstracts Database is available on the NCJRS Homepage.

VICTIM-RELATED INTERNET SITES
Crime victims and victim service providers have witnessed a remarkable growth in the amount of information available to them, through the continued development of the Internet—especially the World Wide Web. Now, victim-serving agencies and advocacy organizations have the ability to reach around the corner or around the world with information about new issues, services, and promising practices designed to improve the welfare of victims of all types of crime. In an effort to present the most comprehensive and timely information available through this vast medium, the Office for Victims of Crime has substantially revised its World Wide Web homepage. OVC encourages crime victims and victim service providers alike to visit this comprehensive resource.

Many other agencies and organizations are now providing victim-related information through the World Wide Web. The following is a list of sites on the Web that contain information on selected crime victimization topics. Please note that this list is intended only to provide a sample of available resources, and does not constitute an endorsement of opinions, resources, or statements made therein.

Visit the 2002 National Crime Victims' Rights Week Resource Guide for more up-to-date link listings of Victim-Related Internet Sites for—

Special thanks is extended to Steve Derene, Program Manger for the Office of Crime Victim Services at the Wisconsin Department of Justice, and Promising Strategies and Practices in Using Technology to Benefit Crime Victims, sponsored by the National Center for Victims of Crime with support from the Office for Victims of Crime, U.S. Department of Justice, for providing much of the Web site information included in this section.