The Scout Report

September 19, 1997

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project
Computer Science Department, University of Wisconsin

A Project of the InterNIC

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators, the InterNIC's primary audience. However, everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML). Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.

K.I.D.S Report and Scout Report for Science and Engineering
KIDS Report
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/KIDS/current/index.html
Scout Report for Science and Engineering
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/sci-engr/
The first KIDS Report of the 1997/98 school year is available. Produced by fifth grade students at John F. Kennedy Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin, it is entitled Famous Americans, and annotates sites for such luminaries as Jesse Owens, Lucille Ball, and the Grolier Encyclopedia American Presidents resource, among others. The first Scout Report for Science and Engineering is available, annotating 22 sites in the fields of natural and physical science, mathematics and engineering. [JS]
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Handbook of Methods--BLS
http://stats.bls.gov/opub/hom/homhome.htm
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has made available the April 1997 edition of its Handbook of Methods, in both HTML and Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. This 202 page book details the methodology by which BLS "obtains and prepares the economic data it publishes," providing the structural underpinning for such data topics as employment and unemployment, compensation and working conditions, occupational safety and health, productivity and technology, economic growth, and prices and living conditions. As such, it is a crucial information source for economists, statisticians, instructors, librarians, and business analysts. [JS]
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ELECTRONIC JOURNALS: Why?--Journal of Electronic Publishing
http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-01/
University of Michigan Press' Journal of Electronic Publishing has recently released a special issue on electronic publishing that consists of case studies of eight online scholarly journals. Journals covered include ACM's (Association of Computing Machinery) Journal of Experimental Algorithmics, Public Access Computer Systems Review, First Monday, and RSNA EJ, among others. These journals exist in electronic format only; the articles discuss what they portend for the future of scholarly publishing. Interesting sidebar articles include: "Why I Don't Read Electronic Journals," by Peter C. Grenquist (former Executive Director of the Association of American University Presses) and "Of Periodicals and Pork Bellies," by Paul M. Gherman (University Librarian at Vanderbilt University). [JS]
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AIDS Knowledge Base--HIV InSite
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/akb/1997/
HIV InSite
http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu/
The University of California, San Francisco, and San Francisco General Hospital have recently begun to make the 1997 edition of this massive (2000 page) AIDS textbook available at the HIV InSite. At present, fifteen of the 96 chapters in nine major sections are available. The entire 1994 edition is available, with icons pointing from outdated chapters to updated ones. HIV InSite, provided by UCSF, SFGH, and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, is an exhaustive clearinghouse of AIDS related information for practitioners, patients, and others interested in the topic. One of its highlights is Today's News, a summary of daily news stories derived from many sources. [JS]
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1998 On-Line Directory of Law Reviews and Scholarly Legal Periodicals--Anderson Publishing Co.
http://www.andersonpublishing.com/lawschool/directory/
Compiled by Michael H. Hoffheimer, Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi, and made available by Anderson Publishing Company, this no-nonsense directory contains general student-edited law reviews, specialty student-edited law reviews, and non-student edited peer review and trade journals. Each title contains publisher and contact information as well as number of times issued per year (although there are no links to sites). There is an alphabetical index of all publications in the directory (unfortunately not hyperlinked). Users are encouraged to read the explanatory guide to the directory, which explains selection policies and organization of titles. [JS]
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SOLV-DB--NCMS [JavaScript]
http://solvdb.ncms.org/
The National Center for Manufacturing Sciences provides a beta test version of this "one-stop source for solvents data." At the heart of the site is the lookup page, where commercially available solvents can be queried by any of eight variables, including solvent name, Chemical Abstracts Number, chemical category, or synonym. Users can select by nine property ranges or do full text searches. Basic retrieval contains information about the solvent (including formula, CAS number, weight, cost, and boiling and freezing point among others), and there are also detailed sections on physical-chemical data, health and safety data, regulatory data, and environmental fate data. The real power of this site lies in the fact that most of the searchable interfaces are really gigantic pull down menus. Unfortunately, most variable explanations are produced via JavaScript rather than HTML or text interface. Nevertheless, this is a powerful and flexible database that contains a great deal of easily accessible information. [JS]
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Project Primary
http://www.owu.edu/~mggrote/pp/
This site, provided by Ohio Wesleyan University, is a collaborative effort between professors in six departments at the university and K-3 teachers in three Ohio counties to "produce hands-on activities for the teaching of science." Activities in Botany, Chemistry, Children's Literature, Geology, Physics, and Zoology, are simply explained and designed to engage children's curiosity and to help them learn. The philosophy of the site is explained in the Constructivism section. [JS]
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PSYCHOHISTORY--Historical Motivation Utilizing Psychoanalytic Principles Mailing List
PSYCHOHISTORY is a forum intended as a resource for individuals studying or doing research in the field of psychohistory, defined as the study of historical motivation utilizing psychoanalytic principles. The basic purpose of the list is to serve as a forum for scholarly discussions and as a clearinghouse for the distribution of information. Subscribers are encouraged to post questions, comments, or announcements of interest to individuals working in psychohistory. Appropriate postings might pertain to work currently in progress, the development of course materials, bibliographic material of interest to researchers, and useful Internet resources. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
LISTSERV@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE PSYCHOHISTORY yourfirstname yourlastname
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National Museum of American History--Smithsonian Institution
http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/nmah/
The Smithsonian Institution has recently created a homepage for the National Museum of American History. The site's five main sections include: Virtual Exhibitions, currently hosting exhibits on American Wine; the history of Tool Chests; World War II Home Front Posters; and a Centennial Salute to Cinema. Not Just for Kids features web versions of hands-on activities from the museum. Visitors can go to the Music Room for information on American music resources, consult an illustrated Timeline for links to information on highlighted events, and guess the identity of a pictured invention in the What Is It? section. General visitor information and teaching resources are offered, and the Collections, Scholarship, and Research, section contains contact information for scholars and students who wish to use the Museum's archival resources. [MD]
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Official Documents--The Stationery Office--UK
http://www.official-documents.co.uk/
Less graphical entrance:
http://www.official-documents.co.uk/menu/ukpinf.htm
The Stationery Office of the UK provides one-stop shopping for selected UK government publications. Stationery Office publications are available by date, title, or government department. There is also a selected list of publications available from other government departments. As it grows, this site should become a major repository of UK government documents. Note the difference between The Stationery Office and Her Majesty's Stationery Office (there is a link at the site). [JS]
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Internet Country Guides--INCORE
http://www.incore.ulst.ac.uk/cds/countries/index.html
The Initiative on Conflict Resolution and Ethnicity, a joint initiative of the University of Ulster and the United Nations University, has recently updated its Internet Country Guides for India and Pakistan and added one for Kashmir. At present, there are eighteen guides available for conflict hot spots in Africa, Europe, and Asia. These guides are selective, briefly annotated hot lists for news, maps, mailing lists, and general resources about each country. The power of this site is the easy access it provides to much information on these countries. [JS]
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Culturekiosque [frames]
http://www.culturekiosque.com/
Culturekisoque, provided by Culturekiosque Ltd., is an ezine with a decided European flavor, that contains "news, features, criticism, and interviews" on jazz, opera, classical music, art and archeology, dance, food, technology, and "nouveau." Visitors can appreciate its breadth of coverage of the cultural scene, and its impressive list of authors, who include Roswitha Erbsloh (art critic of Die Welt), Mike Zwerin (jazz and rock critic of the International Herald Tribune), Joseph E. Romero (feature writer for Le Monde), and Joel Kasow (opera critic for Opera), among others. Note that articles may be available in English, French, German, or any combination of the three. [JS]
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Trivial Pursuit
http://www.trivialpursuit.com/
Less graphical entrance:
http://www.trivialpursuit.com/htdocs/home1.html
Hasbro, Inc., makers of the Trivial Pursuit board game, in a dual celebration of the game's fifteenth anniversary and the release of the new Genus IV edition, is making a selection of its over 4,800 questions available for play via the web. Play rules are a simplification of the board game, and questions are available in six categories at three levels: Brain Stem Only, Frontal Lobe, and Calling All Neurons. A correctly answered question in one category means that the user must choose a different category for the next question. This is an imaginative sales pitch for a commercial board game. [JS]
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Org-Marketing--Marketing for Non-Profit Organizations Mailing List
Discussion Archive
http://www.amic.com/htmlforums/Org-Marketing/
Org-Marketing exists to foster communication on the subject of marketing for non-profit and not-for profit organizations. A necessarily partial list of topics which might be discussed on Org-Marketing would include PSA's, low (or no) budget marketing, promotion and advertising, surveys, service quality, marketing planning for non-profits, positioning, market models, relationship marketing, database marketing, and marketing ethics. Archives of the discussion are available at the above URL. [JS]

To subscribe send email to:
listserv@amic.com
In the body of the message type:
SUBSCRIBE Org-Marketing
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Andover News--IT News
http://www.andovernews.com
The Andover Network, "a collection of Internet technology and software sites," provides daily IT news in nine subjects, including AppleWatch, HardwareWatch, Internet-Watch, JavaWatch, and MicrosoftWatch, among others. Sources include InfoWorld, Computer News Daily, Interactive Week, Wired, Techwire, and ZDNNews, among others. The key to this site is the way it repackages and organizes already existing news, allowing the user to follow all aspects of IT news from one place. [JS]
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ToolVox--A Free Streaming Audio Plug-in and Tool
http://www.voxware.com/
Download area:
http://www.voxware.com/download.htm
ToolVox, provided by Voxware, Inc., offers a simple, effective way to create and listen to streaming audio without using an excessive amount of bandwith or an audio server. The free package comes with both the player (a browser plug-in) and ToolVox Encoder. The plug-in is available for IRIX, HP-UX, Macintosh, Solaris 2.5, and Windows 3.1/95/NT. The encoder is available for Macintosh and Windows 3.1/95/NT. Creating a sound file with the ToolVox Encoder is as simple as clicking on "record." The sounds are initially recorded as AIFF/WAV files and are later compressed into VOX files with a compression ratio of up to 53:1. Note that testing did reveal a detectable change in sound quality after the file was compressed. Documentation on how to use ToolVox, add VOX audio files to a web page, and configure a server to serve the files is included in the download. [TB]
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Northern Light
http://www.northernlight.com/
Northern Light adds a new wrinkle to Internet search indexes by way of its organization of retrieved results. Any search will retrieve "best documents" on the right side of the screen, along with a set of "custom search folders," (subject, type, source, or language) on the left side of the screen, to help users retrieve relevant items. Click on any of these folders, and a set of sub-folders will be opened. These folders are generated on the fly, rather than being part of a created hierarchy. Of course, the actual relevance of retrieved items for this, as for any large search index, depends on the ability of the searcher to narrow the search by use of Boolean tools. Also, as with any other large search index, there is no filtering for information quality. At present, Northern Light supports Boolean OR/NOT/MUST(+)/MUST NOT(-) and phrase searching. In addition to searching the web, users can search a database of information contained in journals, books, magazines, and newswires (this premium service will be fee-based after early October). [JS]
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Volume 1, Number 21: The Scout Report for September 16, 1994
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/archive/9-16-94.html
Quest Project--NASA K-12 Internet Initiative
http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/
National HPCC Software Exchange
http://www.nhse.org/
When the National Aeronautics and Space Adiminstration's Quest Project was originally annotated, its purpose was "to provide support and services for schools, teachers and students to fully utilize the Internet." Today it fulfills that mission via interactive chats with NASA scientists, interactive projects that stress dialog between students and NASA scientists, and information on how to bring the Internet into the classroom. It plans interactive projects on NeurOn (the NeuroLab Space Shuttle Mission), and NASA's aeronautics mission in the near future, and has a project on Women of NASA that is presently available. The National HPPC (High Performance Computing and Communications) Software Exchange was designed to be a "distributed collection of software, documents, data, and information of interest to the high performance and parallel computing community." It features software repositories for mathematical software, parallel tools, and chemistry software. Software is described, along with connections to download sites. Selected reviews and other literature are available. Recently the site has added Repository in a Box (RIB), a software package for "setting up and maintaining software repositories." NHSE has twelve participating US government agencies at this time. [JS]
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1994-1997. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The InterNIC provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation: NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the National Science Foundation, AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.

The Scout Report (ISSN 1092-3861) is published weekly by Internet Scout

Susan Calcari
Jack Solock
Jeannine Ramsey
Teri Boomsma
Michael de Nie
David Flaspohler
Aimee D. Glassel
Kathryn Harris
Matthew Livesey
Thiam Hee Ng
Amy Tracy Wells
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The Scout Report - September 19, 1997

The Scout Report

September 19, 1997

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