Scout Report for Social Sciences and Business & Economics
Scout Report for Social Sciences
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/socsci/2000/ss-000208.html
Scout Report for Business & Economics
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/bus-econ/2000/be-000210.html
The tenth issues of the third volumes of the Scout Reports for Social Sciences and Business & Economics are available. The In the News section of the Social Sciences Report annotates eight resources on the fragile peace process in Northern Ireland. The Business & Economics Report's In the News section offers eight resources on the recent hacker attacks on major Websites. [MD]
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Military Education and Research Library Network (MERLN)
http://www.ifn.pims.org:8000/
The official Web presence of the military education libraries in the United States and Europe, MERLN links together the holdings and electronic information resources of fourteen libraries, collectively the "largest and most comprehensive collections of military information resources in the world." Users can select a Topic Area (or create a custom topic) or a specific catalog, and then search by title, author, subject heading, or advanced options. The databases are also browseable by author, title, subject, or year. A sample search under title keyword for all libraries for "carpet bombing" produced 74 hits, while "Antietam" produced 266. Hits for each library are listed in a frame on the left-hand side, while basic bibliographic information on each title is listed on the right, with links to more detailed information. Users can repeat previous searches and combine them with other searches using the History option and also save and email selected search returns. Please note that at present the library catalogs for the Marine Corps University Research Center, the Marshall Center, the US Coast Guard Academy, and the US Naval Academy cannot be directly searched from MERLN, but efforts are underway to correct the problem. Users can access the homepages of these libraries, and all of the others linked through MERLN, from the main page. [MD]
[Back to Contents]DoHistory.org [Shockwave, QuickTime, .pdf]
http://www.dohistory.org/
Launched by the Harvard Film Study Center on February 4, DoHistory.org is an experimental interactive site that invites users to piece together the life and world of an "ordinary" person in the past. The person in question is eighteenth-century midwife and healer Martha Ballard, whose diary was the basis for both a Pulitzer Prize winning book and the PBS film A Midwife's Tale. The site features thousands of pages of original documents -- including diaries, letters, maps, court records, town records, account books, and medical texts -- offered as both page images in their original format and in transcription. Also included is a searchable online version of Ballard's entire 27-year diary. Two interactive and in-depth examples ("Martha Ballard and 'Man-Midwife'" and "One Rape. Two Stories.") demonstrate how to "do history," making sense of original documents, building a tale around them, and answering the questions that they raise. Students and other users motivated by these interesting examples can then consult the On Your Own section for some tools, tips, and other resources for their own historical research. Finally, the site offers behind the scenes looks at the book and movie, A Midwife's Tale. While DoHistory is especially useful for students, anyone with an interest in history and the research process will be both entertained and educated by the site. [MD]
[Back to Contents]The EFA 2000 Assessment: Country Reports
http://www.unesco.org/education/efa/wef/countryreports/home.html
Sponsored by the World Education Forum and UNESCO, the Education for All (EFA) 2000 Assessment is an extraordinarily in-depth evaluation of basic education in some 180 countries. The substantial report posted for each country contains data and analysis concerning fundamental issues of education, including statistics on enrollment, literacy, educational levels of teachers, and academic and vocational education; as well as an overall evaluation of early childhood, primary, and secondary instruction; and much more. Eventually, the reports will be listed by region and a search engine will be available; currently though, users must browse by country. More countries's reports are to be added as they are completed. [DC]
[Back to Contents]Virtual Reference Library (VRL)
http://vrl.tpl.toronto.on.ca
This new site from the Toronto Public Library (TPL) offers a host of handpicked and annotated online resources. These are located in the VRL Subject Guide to the Internet (select "Search the Internet"), an index of "about 8,000 - 10,000" sites that can be browsed by subject guide or searched by keyword. While sites produced in Canada are a particular focus, the index contains a large number of international sites. Each of the sites is briefly described, including language used and a Made in Canada flag where appropriate. Top-level subject guides include Arts, Business and Economics, Education, Government, Immigration and Citizenship, and many others. In addition to serving as an Internet gateway, the VRL also hosts a number of the TPL's own collections and indexes, including a digitized version of Toronto City Directories from 1797 to 1900 (up to 1877 now available); Archindont (Architectural Index for Ontario), an index of print articles and books on buildings and architecture in Ontario; and of course, the library's online catalog. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Encyclopedia of Law and Economics
http://encyclo.findlaw.com/index.html
Conceived by the University of Ghent, Belgium, the Encyclopedia of Law and Economics Website is a broad-based collection of resources pertaining to economic and legal issues throughout the world. Showcasing a comprehensive index of searchable bibliographic resources, this site also includes abstracts of recent law and economics reviews. The hefty Law and Economics Web Resources section features working papers, bibliographies, and mailing lists. In addition, the site links to law and economics academic programs, associations, and an array of relevant Websites. [EM]
[Back to Contents]A Compact for Reading & School-Home Links [.pdf]
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/CompactforReading/
Established by legislation, A Compact for Reading is "a written agreement among families, teachers, principals, and students to work together to help improve the reading skills of kindergarten through third grade children." A joint effort of the Education Department, the Corporation for National Service, the Los Angeles Times, and Little Planet Learning, this site offers materials designed to help Compact partners set reading goals and provides 400 learning activities to help children accomplish these goals. The activities are grouped in four "School-Home Links Reading Kits" (one kit for each grade level, kindergarten through third grade) and are designed to be used with the Compact for Reading Guide, a detailed handbook (also available at the site) that guides family-school compact teams through the steps of creating and implementing a Compact for Reading. Each of the four grade-specific kits contains 100 activities, organized by reading and literacy skills appropriate to that grade. Categories with multiple activities feature a pull-down menu, and all of the activities are offered in .pdf format. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Virtual Cultural Library -- UNESCO [.pdf]
http://www2.unesco.org/clt-bv/English/index_eng.htm
This new site from UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) offers the full text of a select collection of works on cultural heritage published by the organization, many of them currently out of print. The content of the Library is divided into two sections: Books and Conventions. At present, the Books section contains eleven titles in English, nine in French, and one in Spanish. A summary, image of the cover, and page total are offered for each book, along with a link to the full text in .pdf format. The Conventions section includes links to the full text of ten conventions in the fields of creativity and copyright and cultural heritage. These are presented in HTML format. These texts are only the initial offering, and UNESCO plans to expand the library based in part on user input. [MD]
[Back to Contents]"Pesticides Industry Sales and Usage: 1996 and 1997 Market Estimates" -- EPA [.pdf, 346K]
http://www.epa.gov/oppbead1/pestsales/
Released on February 2 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Pesticide Programs, this report offers information on pesticide use and sales for 1996 and 1997. Based on EPA registration records, USDA reports, and other sources, the 40-page report covers the economic aspects of the pesticide industry rather than health and environmental aspects. It reveals that overall US use, in pounds of active ingredient, went up slightly less than two percent in 1996 and then declined about one percent in 1997. Also, "the use of herbicides and plant growth regulators declined in 1997 by 10 million pounds; nematicides and fumigant use declined by 15 million pounds; and sulfur and oil use increased by 14 million pounds during the same period." Users can read the full text of the report in HTML or .pdf format at the site, which also offers the report for 1994 and 1995. [MD]
[Back to Contents]The Civil Engineer's Mega Bookmark
http://www.v-biblioteket.lth.se/civil.htm
Hosted by the Civil Engineering Library at Lund University (Sweden), this recently updated metasite boasts links to over 1,000 online resources of interest to civil engineers, many of them annotated. Resources are grouped in nine categories, including Research/ Education, Subject-Based Resources, Civil Engineering Journals, Organisations/ Institutes, and Discussion Forums, among others. The site also offers a guide to finding building codes, regulations, and standards in fifteen countries. Surprisingly, there is no internal search engine, but on the whole, the site is a well-organized and very useful resource for civil engineers and engineering librarians. [MD]
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Budget of the United States Government Fiscal Year 2001 [.pdf, Excel, Lotus123 version 4]
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/index.html
Transmitted to Congress on February 7, 1999, the FY 2000 Budget covers the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2000. At the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) site, users can view the full text of the budget and related documents in .pdf format. The latter include A Citizen's Guide to the Federal Budget (also available in HTML), Analytical Perspectives, supplements, historical tables, and a selection of spreadsheets (in .wk4 or .xls formats). An internal search engine also allows users to locate and download individual sections of documents. Additional resources at the site include budget documents for FY 1995-2000. [MD]
[Back to Contents]"Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign" -- HRW
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/nato/
Press Release
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/02/nato207.htm
Released on Monday, this new 79-page report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) maintains that approximately 500 civilians lost their lives in 90 separate incidents as a result of NATO bombing in Yugoslavia last year. The number of deaths is much higher than admitted by the NATO governments, and much lower than the Yugoslav government's claims. Based on a three-week investigation of 42 sites in Yugoslavia conducted last August, the report concludes that "NATO committed violations of international humanitarian law." It also reveals that "US commanders issued a secret executive order in May 1999 for U.S. forces to cease using cluster bombs," which were responsible for up to 150 civilian deaths by May 13, and that British forces continued to drop cluster bombs after the US forces discontinued their use. The full report is available online in HTML format and is accompanied by three appendices and a photo gallery. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Black History Month
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhm1.html
Infoplease.com has assembled this collection of resources and features to honor Black History Month. Each day in February the site will post a biography of a distinguished individual and a special feature. In addition, the site offers statistics and figures, a Civil Rights Timeline, a reading list of black literature, information about black personalities of note (politics, arts, and sports), quizzes, and a crossword puzzle. While certainly not as scholarly as some other online resources on African-American history, the site has nice breadth and will interest a wide variety of users. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Essentials of Music [RealPlayer]
http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/
A partnership between W.W. Norton & Company and Sony Classical Music, this site offers an accessible but not simplistic introduction to classical music. Built around Sony's Essential Classics music series, the site includes almost 200 excerpts in RealPlayer format. Essentials of Music is composed of three main sections: Eras, Composers, and a Glossary. The first introduces users to the six main periods in classical music history, discussing historical themes, musical context, style, and major composers. The Composers section includes brief biographies and excerpts from the works of almost 70 composers. Finally, the Glossary features 200 terms, many with examples (recordings or pictures). While constructed with obvious commercial intent, the site itself hosts plenty of free content and should appeal to anyone interested in learning about classical music. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Omaha Indian Music -- LOC [RealPlayer]
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/omhhtml/
The latest addition to the Library of Congress (LOC) American Memory Collection features traditional Omaha Indian music from the 1890s and 1980s. The former includes 44 wax cylinder recordings made by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897. The latter includes 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. The site also offers interviews with members of the Omaha tribe, field notes and tape logs made by Center staff during the 1983 pow-wow, and close to 380 photographs from 1983 and 1985. Users can search the site by keyword; browse by music, photographs, spoken word, or events; or listen to the pow-wow audio in sequence. Photos are offered as thumbnails with links to larger images, while recordings are available in both RealPlayer and .wav formats with explanatory notes. The field notes and tape logs are accessed at the bottom of the main page. Additional resources at the site include a select bibliography, a map of the region, an album booklet, and related essays. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!
http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/jen/index.html
Created by Jennifer Hubert, Young Adult Librarian at the Queens Borough Public Library in New York City, and Webmaster Andrew Mutch of Novi, Michigan, this site offers booklists for young adult readers "who need a good read, but are wondering if there's life after Judy Blume and Gary Paulsen." Hubert believes that some adults don't give teens enough credit when it comes to reading tastes, and she aims to introduce them to books that are interesting and demand a little more of them than typical young adult selections. The Reading Rants lists are accessed via a pull-down menu in the lower-right section of the Homepage. Highlights include Boy Meets Book: Best Boy Reads, Riot Grrrrl! Reads, Deadheads and Mosh-pits: Books about being in a band, and Bare Bones: Honest Fiction about Weight and Eating Disorders. New reviews and lists are featured on the home page. Hubert notes that some of the titles listed will be found in the Adult rather than the Young Adult section of the library, but that's exactly the point. A fine site for teen readers, teachers, and librarians. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Robin Flies Again: Letters written by women of Goucher College, class of 1903
http://www.goucher.edu/library/robin/index.htm
Goucher College presents this Web version of a series of round robin letters, kept in volumes that were passed from hand to hand, written by 37 women of the class of 1903. Two volumes dated 1919 and 1937 are available at the Website. The letters speak of many aspects of women's lives during this period of American history: family and children, careers, suffrage, World War I, and the Depression. Women's education is a uniting theme in all of the letters; Sarah Pinsker, one of the site's designers says, "if one thread does wind through nearly all of the letters, it is the overwhelming sense that it was their education -- Goucher, in general, but a women's college in particular -- that helped set them on their way in life. College is the thing which all of them have in common." The letters have been transcribed for the Website so that links to correspondents, photographs, and each writer's biographical page could be created. There are some digital images of handwritten excerpts as well. To read an essay by Pinsker on the significance of the letters, follow the link More about the letters to "'Til Robin Flies Again, the Goucher Class of 1903 and Women's Education". [DS]
[Back to Contents]Historical Nuclear Weapons Test Films [RealPlayer, .mpeg]
http://www.nv.doe.gov/news&pubs/photos&films/testfilms.htm
This site is the product of a recent joint effort between the US Department of Energy and Department of Defense to declassify films on the nuclear weapons program, place them on videotape, and make them publicly available. Taken as a whole, the films document the history of nuclear weapon development in the US, beginning with the first bomb tested at Trinity Site in southeastern New Mexico in July 1945. As the site notes, while portions of these films were previously released, this is the first time the films have ever been edited for declassification and public release. The films are grouped in five sections, with listings giving operation name date, length of film, and format (color or black and white). Clicking on an individual entry for a film brings up a two-paragraph description and short clips in .mpeg and RealPlayer format, the latter offering four connection speed choices. Video purchase information is provided at the site. [MD]
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C4U [Windows 95/98/NT]
http://www.c-4-u.com/
Created by C4U Ltd., this new, free site-minding tool offers a number of options to help users track specific changes on selected Websites. After downloading and installing, users should launch the program and consult the Help menu for an overview and tips. Unlike other site-minders, C4U is located on the users's machines, allowing them to track changes without relying on email notification. Like all minders, C4U works independently, scanning the selected sites and notifying the user of changes such as new links, images, text, or email addresses. Users can also track more specific changes at sites by indicating keywords. C4U can search for changes at specific intervals or on demand, and sites with new content are indicated by a smiling face. Selecting one of the change categories (new links, text, etc.) launches a browser-like window in which the changes are highlighted. C4U can also be integrated into Netscape or Internet Explorer browsers, allowing sites to be added to the C4U list with one button. C4U has obvious potential for monitoring news or what's new sites, but as the makers suggest, it can also be used to track new results to previous search engine queries. While novice users may have some initial difficulties with C4U (reading the Help file before beginning is strongly recommended), experienced internauts, especially those who already use other minding services, will have no difficulty. [MD]
[Back to Contents]Mozilla Milestone 13 (M13)
http://www.mozilla.com/projects/seamonkey/release-notes/
Mozilla (last discussed in the April 2, 1999 Scout Report) is an open-source Web browser, based on the code of Netscape Navigator and designed for standards-compliance, performance, and portability. This version, Milestone 13, is in alpha release. Still a bit quirky given its open-source community design, M13 nonetheless offers a good view of the browser design and provides an opportunity for those interested in searching out bugs or doing some coding. M13 does not yet support Java and still appears to have some compatibility issues with Linux. Download it and join in the bug-hunt, but beware the warnings April 2, 1999 Scout Report the Mozilla team offers. [AF]
[Back to Contents]New AltaVista Search Centers
http://www.altavista.com/
On Monday, the popular search engine AltaVista unveiled three new and improved multimedia search centers for images, video, and MP3/audio files. The new search centers are available by clicking tabs on AltaVista's main search page. Collectively, they search over 30 million documents and quickly display the results as thumbnails (in the case of video and images) with links to the source. The MP3/audio search center boasts more than one million MP3 files; according to AltaVista, this is the Web's largest MP3 library in a single central location. Users can limit their searches by audio, video, or image format and select from Altavista's numerous content partners. Each search center also offers a host of links to related sites, tools, discussion groups, popular searches, and partner sites. [MD]
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"New State of Matter" Created
A New State of Matter -- CERN [QuickTime, AVI, RealPlayer]
http://www.cern.ch/CERN/Announcements/2000/NewStateMatter/
" A new Form of Nuclear Matter" -- AIP
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2000/split/pnu470-1.htm
"'Little Bang' experiment boosts Big Bang theory" -- CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/02/10/primordial.soup.ap/index.html
"'New State of Matter' Recalls Big Bang" -- Washington Post
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/nation/A37508-2000Feb10.html
"New Matter Created in Lab" -- Discovery.com News
http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/20000210/misc_quark.html
"'Little Bang' creates cosmic soup" -- BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_636000/636886.stm
"Lab Hot on Trail of Big Bang Theory" -- Yahoo! Daily News
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000210/sc/understanding_the_universe_6.html
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)
http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/
Yesterday, scientists from 20 different countries working at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, announced that, after years of work, they had created "a new state of matter." In this new state of matter, quarks, the smallest known particles, roam freely instead of being bound up into more complex particles such as protons and neutrons. By smashing heavy lead ions at temperatures 100,000 times as high as those at the sun's center and at energy densities never before reached in laboratory experiments, the scientists claim they have created a form of matter, "quark-gluon" soup or plasma, that has not existed since a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang created the universe. Although the evidence is indirect, since the particles were measured after they returned to a confined state, many believe that this "Little Bang" verifies a key part of the Big Bang theory -- that quarks and gluons existed in a free state before they joined to form the larger particles that make up the atom. CERN is winding down its current research, and the momentum for high-energy science research will transfer to the US, where a new facility in New York, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), is due to begin experiments later this year.
Users interested in learning more about this new discovery should start with the CERN Website, which offers a press release, photos, animations, an archived Webcast, scientific notes, and links to the individual experiments's homepages. The American Institute of Physics (AIP) has posted a short press release on the discovery, and a number of newspapers and online news services have reported in more depth. Finally, users may want to visit the RHIC homepage for a glimpse into the future possibilities of high-energy science. [MD]
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