Monarch notes, a series of about 260 literary analyses, will be offered on CD ROM by The Bureau of Electronic Publishing (Parsippany, NJ). [Valerie Rice, SJ Mercury, 8/14.] (I cite these things as a way of tracking the major players in the information industry. Any company publishing "electronic data" is likely to be a useful employer, information source, ally, or customer.) BTW, the company sells CD-ROM drives as well as information discs. Call for their catalog: (800) 828-4766.

Two companies are battling for the digital street-map market. Etak Inc. (Menlo Park, CA), with 250 employees, has digitized 78 metropolitan areas that cover 75% of the U.S. population. Navigation Technologies Corp. (Sunnyvale, CA), with 40 employees, expects to catch up by 1985. Both companies focus on map data itself rather than delivery hardware, but CD-ROM systems are available for automobile navigation and for custom map production. Stanley K. Honey, president of Etak, says that links to electronic Yellow Pages will be an important application. [Mike Langberg, SJ Mercury, 7/22.]

BBS in a Box is a CD with more than 7,000 compressed Mac public-domain and shareware programs archived and indexed by the Arizona Macintosh Users Group. $119 from MacWizards, (602) 892-5454. ($78 from Mac Zone.) [Macworld, 8/91.] (Many other users groups have also compiled such libraries. It's pretty much the same software on all of them, but accessing strategies differ. The really useful archives have superior "deletion" of obsolete software. BMUG's Macintosh CD ROM is one of the best.)

The San Francisco PC Users Group offers a CD-ROM software library, plus member discounts on CD ROM players. (415) 221-9166.

Computer Library (New York, NY) sells a $99 Select Demos CD ROM. It has more than 1,000 PC demo programs, many for products that you would otherwise have trouble finding. About half of the demos are crippled software, the other half are just animated slide shows. (800) 848-1472 x107. [Peter H. Lewis, NY Times. SJ Mercury, 8/25.]

Off-Line CD ROM contains 500MB of "international" software and demos selected by M Macintosh Magazine, MGE Communications srl-00192 Roma, Italy viale delle Milizie 38. $199. [Macworld, 8/91.]

Mac Zone is selling three software discs from Quantum Leap Technology. Giga-Rom ($98) is "the largest collection of Mac software," compacted and indexed with the On Location program. Macademia ($73) contains 7,500 programs and files for instructional use. CD7 ($49) has 15,800 uncompressed files. Mac Zone also carries the Wayzata CD line, including The CD Fun House shareware game disc ($39), CIA World Factbook CD ($78), USA Factbook 1990 ($85), Front Page News ($89), and Down to Earth environmental clip art ($155). (800) 248-0800.

EduCorp claims to sell the largest selection of Mac CD-ROM titles -- over 180. Many contain color art, with varying reproduction rights. Call (800) 843-8497 for information, or (800) 843-9497 to order.