  We present a versatile and compact electron beam driven source for alkali
metal atoms, which can be implemented in cryostats. With a heat load of less
than 10mW, the heat dissipation normalized to the atoms loaded into the
magneto-optical Trap (MOT), is about a factor 1000 smaller than for a typical
alkali metal dispenser. The measured linear scaling of the MOT loading rate
with electron current observed in the experiments, indicates that electron
stimulated desorption is the corresponding mechanism to release the atoms.
