Abstract: Apparatus and method for managing the availability of items using a computer system. The system permits various computers to access databases located at offsite computers to retrieve/transmit preselected information pertaining to the availability of items from/to each accessed database. Categories of items are selected by a user prior to communicating with offsite computers so that only the categories of interest are selected and only data pertaining to those categories is downloaded to the requesting computer or uploaded from a called computer. Once data has been retrieved by the requesting computer, the user can use various parameters to select and display the received information in the selected categories. In addition, the requesting computer can automatically retrieve information from offsite computers at a predetermined time each day of the week.