Whether it's getting background information for curriculum, finding specifics to explain a particular lesson, or preparing a report for a meeting or an after-school course, teachers put a premium on research tools that can home in on the needs of the moment.

The Internet and the web have dramatically expanded the information resources available to those with online access. But whether all this info seems like a gold mine or wasteland often depends on finding the right guide. One of the most comprehensive and flexible online guides for educators is "AskEric": http://ericir.syr.edu.

ERIC, an acronym for Educational Resources Information Center, is a federally funded information clearinghouse. Researchers and college students know it as an indispensable academic tool providing annotated listings and abstracts of education research, studies, and papers. The ERIC database, now available and searchable online, directs users to voluminous full-text documents, typically available on microfiche in about 1,000 libraries across the country. (It is also now possible to have many ERIC documents sent to users in printed or electronic versions for relatively modest fees.) The main ERIC site is located at http://www.aspensys.com/eric/index.html.

"AskEric" is a more user-friendly spin-off of the ERIC system developed by the Department of Education and Syracuse University in 1992. It describes itself as "a personalized, Internet-based service providing education information to teachers, librarians, counselors, administrators, parents."

The AskEric service has several parts, but the most valuable are the Question and Answer service and the Virtual Library.