With more and more people using the Internet as a business resource, the focus of activity is shifting from simple awareness raising and "how do I connect?" towards helping existing users exploit this vast resource effectively.

It doesn't take very long using the World Wide Web regularly to build up a portfolio of useful sites and to become familiar with the basic search tools.

However, the web is huge, so how do you keep abreast of new developments, and make effective inroads into unfamiliar areas or extend your skills?

One way is to use the expert help which is readily available.

One example of this is an electronic journal which can be found on the web or e-mailed to you every two weeks. "Free Pint" (http://www.freepint.co.uk) is a free journal edited by experienced information specialist William Hann, which is designed to address some of those issues.

As well as the usual letters, snippets and adverts. Free Pint has two main sections. "Tips & techniques" is just what you would expect, a summary of ways of getting the best out of different aspects of the web.

The latest issue looked at travel and tourism resources for example.

Written by experienced practitioners, this section highlights and reviews relevant sites; offers shortcuts; and generally provides an excellent overview of the subject under consideration.

The feature article does much the same but in more depth. The latest article looked at how search engines register and index individual sites. Others have covered subject areas such as engineering or the food industry in great detail.

Although produced by information specialists primarily for information specialists, Free Pint is an accessible and hugely useful tool which anybody could use ton extend their Internet expertise.

Paul Twiddy is information manager at Business Link Bradford & District.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.