Scout Report for Social Sciences and Business & Economics
Scout Report for Social Sciences
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/socsci/2000/ss-001031.html
Scout Report for Business & Economics
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/bus-econ/2000/be-001102.html
The fifth issues of the fourth 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 Nader's impact on Tuesday's election. The Business & Economics Report's In the News section offers seven resources on the recent settlement between the SEC and the fifteen-year-old accused of fraud for Internet stock manipulation. [TK]
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How Much Information? [.pdf]
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/how-much-info/
Suffering from information overload? According to this new study from the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley, "the world's total yearly production of print, film, optical, and magnetic content would require roughly 1.5 billion gigabytes of storage." Magnetic storage is by far the most common medium for storing information, accounting for an estimated 635,660 to 1,693,000 terabytes per year. Print documents only accounted for 0.003 percent of the total yearly production of content. The study is divided into content types, including Internet, magnetic, broadcast, phone, and mail. For each medium, the report offers a detailed chart of information types and the estimated amount of information produced yearly. The report includes a concise introduction and executive summary and links to myriad current articles from reputable publications and agencies. [EM]
[Back to Contents]RAND Report: Improving Student Achievement: What NAEP State Test Scores Tell Us
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR924/
Press Release:
http://www.rand.org/hot/Press/naepscores.html
This report from the RAND organization analyzes results from the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) state test scores of 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1996. The report is unique in offering comparative data on similar student demographics across states, allowing the authors to examine the impact of state educational reforms on comparable populations. The results show that some states are doing much better than others with similar populations. For instance, states such as Texas and North Carolina showed remarkable gains in scores of minority and disadvantaged students, while states such as California and Louisiana did not. The authors conclude that "the most efficient and effective use of education dollars is to target states with higher proportions of minority and disadvantaged students with funding for lower pupil-teacher ratios, more widespread prekindergarten efforts, and more adequate teaching resources." Teacher salaries did not seem to be a key factor in test score improvements, though the authors suggest this may be a result of the fact that current salary structures do not differentiate between high- and low-quality teachers. For more Websites on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, including recent data, search the Scout Report Signpost: keyword, NAEP. [DC]
[Back to Contents]Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial -- Cornell
http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/
Preservation Management of Digital Materials -- JISC [.pdf, 152 pages]
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/preservation/workbook/
The World Wide Web gives us an unprecedented opportunity to provide people around the globe with access to significant historical and cultural works. However, the Web, by its very nature, requires those works to be in some electronically transmittable form before they can be made available, and most historical documents, by their very nature, are in a form well-removed from the computerized world of today. So how can this gap be bridged? And once a bridge is built, how can we be assured that it will stand over the decades and centuries to come? Two recent publications each attempt to address these questions in their own fashion: Moving Theory into Practice: Digital Imaging Tutorial, published by the Cornell University Library Department of Preservation and Conservation, provides a comprehensive overview of the issues involved in translating photos and documents into electronic form. This online tutorial explains the various steps, the technology behind them and some of the organizational challenges that they present. Preservation Management of Digital Materials, published by the UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), provides in-depth coverage of the procedures and issues encountered in the course of creating and storing digital documents. Both publications provide easily-accessible information that should be of increasing interest to anyone involved with digital publication and archiving of existing works. [EA]
[Back to Contents]The Christian Anfinsen Papers -- NLM [.pdf]
http://www.profiles.nlm.nih.gov/KK/
The latest entry from the National Library of Medicine's Profiles in Science series (last mentioned in the May 5, 2000 Scout Report) was just posted this week. One of three scientists to share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1972 for his work on the composition of proteins, Anfinsen later turned to research on interferon, helping to enable the relatively easy production of the protein for use in anti-viral drugs. The Profiles in Science exhibit gives an overview of the periods of Anfinsen's work, with documents and photographs for each section available from the top of the page. The documents are also accessible off of the front page via alphabetical or chronological listings or through a search interface that lets users search either the documents themselves or the metadata, the data about the documents. [TK]
[Back to Contents]National Library of Australia's Federation Gateway
http://www.nla.gov.au/guides/federation/index.html
Covering the history of Australia's Federation period, this National Library of Australia site includes both primary and secondary research resources. The site has a concise chronology section with several valuable embedded links and a resources section that helps users find online information about the period as well as giving recommendations for text, maps, film and other resources. The exhibition section (which is still under construction) promises to be populated in the near future with two exhibits -- Federation: A Slice of Life, an exploration of the period which includes sections entitled The Medical Experience, Fashion, and Invitations & Events, and a second exhibit, Belonging, created by the State Library of Victoria, State Library of New South Wales, National Archives of Australia, and the National Library of Australia. The section of the site called people includes biographical materials and photos because . . . "Federation was brought about by the efforts of many people -- politicians, poets, journalists, workers -- despite the opposition of an articulate minority." A very useful links section rounds out the site nicely. [REB]
[Back to Contents]New Additions to ERIC Digests Database
http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/index/2000-10-25.html
ERIC Digests Index Page
http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/index/
The latest update to the ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) Digest database (last described in the September 1, 2000 Scout Report) features 41 full-text short reports aimed at education professionals and the broader education community. Each report includes an overview of an education topic of current interest and offers references for further information. Sample titles include "XML: A Language To Manage the World Wide Web," "Teaching American Indian and Alaska Native Languages in the Schools: What Has Been Learned," "Gateways to Democracy: Six Urban Community College Systems," and "Conferencias de padres-educadores: Sugerencias para los padres (Parent-Teacher Conferences: Suggestions for Parents)." Users can search the entire ERIC Digests database from the index page. ERIC, part of the National Library of Education (NLE), is a nationwide education information system sponsored by the US Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). [TK]
[Back to Contents]Institute of Physics free online journals [.pdf, PostScript, .gzip]
http://www.iop.org/free2000/
From now until December 22, 2000, the Institute of Physics Publishing is allowing free access to 31 electronic journals. Users must first register and create a user name and password, then they may access full-text articles, abstracts, and references from a range of journals (current and back issues) including the Journal of Turbulence,Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering,Plasma Sources Science and Technology, and more. [TK]
[Back to Contents]Metrology Forum
http://metrologyforum.tm.agilent.com/
Equipment calibration issues are the name of the game here at the Metrology Forum Website. Topics addressed range from "the adjustment dilemma" to terminology (for example "calibration" vs. "verification") to worldwide calibration standards. The site is sponsored by Agilent Technologies, a company that provides the semiconductor, electronics, communications, and related industries with testing solutions for test instruments, systems, equipment and monitoring tools. Metrology Forum offers links to useful articles, downloadable calculation software, current metrology news and events, and to metrological societies's pages. Particularly illuminating are the terminology sections, for instance the What do Specifications Mean page illustrates the differences between terms like precision, accuracy, and resolution using a dartboard example. The Just for Fun page includes silly metrology-related poems and jokes that are sure to delight calibrators everywhere. This is an informative, thorough site providing a variety of resources in the field of metrology. [HCS]
[Back to Contents]Canadian Subject Headings (CSH) on the Web
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/cshweb/index-e.htm
CSH on the Web will be of interest to catalogers or other library professionals who are interested in providing subject access to Canadian materials. Created by the National Library of Canada (NLC), CSH on the Web is an online version of NLC's Canadian Subject Headings, the complement to Library of Congress Subject Headings that focuses specifically on Canadian topics. This Web version offers a freely searchable database of about 6,000 subject headings, representing the entirety of the third edition of the printed version, as well as its revisions through numerous supplements. In addition to providing full subject authority records in both thesaurus and MARC21 display formats, CSH on the Web also includes access to a .pdf version of the CSH Lists of Subdivisions. The entire site is available, of course, in either English or French, and is kept current with monthly updates. [SW]
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Anatomy of An Exhibition -- NGA [QuickTime]
http://www.nga.gov/feature/nouveau/nouveau.htm
This new Website from the National Gallery of Art (NGA) provides not only a tour of a current exhibition, Art Nouveau, 1890 - 1914, but also a behind-the-scenes look at making the exhibition, a process that began in 1994 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. There is a 24-photo essay on the recreation of the Riemerschmid Frieze, created for 1900 World's Fair in Paris, where Art Nouveau first achieved prominence. The three-dimensional plaster frieze was destroyed when the Fair closed; it was recreated using silk-screen printing for the exhibition. Visitors will also find a photo essay on the use of maquettes in exhibit design, two conversations with curators, and timelines of both exhibition production and the Art Nouveau style. A time lapse QuickTime movie, condensing three months of exhibit construction into a brief clip, would not go beyond the "before" image when we visited. [DS]
[Back to Contents]Access America for Students
http://www.students.gov
Access America for Students, also referred to as students.gov, is a clearinghouse of government information pertinent to students in high school or higher education. This directory is organized by categories, including plan your education, pay for your education, taxes, and career development. Each category links to related government agencies, programs, and informative resources. Fast Links, located on the left side of the screen, provides one-click access to the appropriate places to register to vote, reserve a campsite, get a passport, or change your address, among other important services and information. Students.gov is sponsored by the Department of Education and is part of the Access America program which offers special interest portals for other types of government information. [EM]
[Back to Contents]Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2000 [.pdf]
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001017
The annual report from the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics presents data on crime in schools and aggregates information from a variety of sources: the National Crime Victimization Survey (1992-98); the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (1989, 1995, and 1999); the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (1993, 1995, and 1997); and the School and Staffing Survey (1993-94). The 1999 report was reviewed in the October 1, 1999 Scout Report. [REB]
[Back to Contents]Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World -- NYPL
http://www.nypl.org/utopia/
From the front page of this New York Public Library (NYPL) exhibit, users can access three sections: Exhibition, Programming, and Resources. The Exhibition itself offers sample representations of ideal societies arranged in four main sections, beginning with Sources (ancient, medieval, and biblical utopias), ranging through Other Worlds (More to the Enlightenment) and Utopia in History (the revolutionary age through the nineteenth century), and finishing with Dreams and Nightmares (twentieth-century utopias and dystopias). To the left of each image are options to read more about or print the item (and, in some cases, an option to enlarge). The latter two sections offer a number of resources for those looking beyond the exhibit for more information. Programming lists related events scheduled throughout New York, and Resources offers annotated bibliographies and numerous links to related sites. A useful site for both the scholar and those with a general interest. [TK]
[Back to Contents]Political Ad Critic [QuickTime]
http://political.adcritic.com/
Brought to you by the folks at Adcritic.com, this Website features sixteen 30-second spots from the Presidential primary and general elections campaign. Political Ad Critic lists a "top ten," with Ralph Nader's hip parody ("The Truth: Priceless") of the popular MasterCard commercials awarded number one, and posts new ads from the campaign each week. Currently, there are four commercials from the Gore campaign posted here -- one of which has Gore speaking Spanish -- and six from Bush's camp, including the now-infamous "bureaucRATS" spot. (The QuickTime control bar allows users to advance frame by frame so they can judge for themselves the commercial's disputed subliminal content.) Commercials from the Libertarian party candidate Harry Browne, and primary contenders John McCain and Bill Bradley round out the Website. May the best commercial win. [DC]
[Back to Contents]Graphic Witness: visual arts and social commentary
http://graphicwitness.org/ineye/index2.htm
Graphic Witness is "a site dedicated to social commentary through graphic imagery by artists working from the turn of the 20th Century to the present, with related bibliographic/ biographic data." The site divides artists into those who have been actively creating work before 1950 or since -- each of these two areas of the site lists links to artists's work, sometimes on the Graphic Witness site and sometimes off-site. A separate set of pages titled Tusche, Tone and Stone explores the evolution of news story illustrations. The easy-to-use bibliography pages list applicable reference books -- with anthologies listed by author and also a list of books arranged by artist. A set of links to related sites helps point users to resources of a political and social nature as well as to sites about graphic illustrations. [REB]
[Back to Contents]Censored: Wielding the Red Pen
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/censored/
This latest online exhibit from the Special Collections Digital Center at the University of Virginia Library (last mentioned in the November 29, 1999 Scout Report) focuses on "books, films, music, and works of art [that] have been suppressed, altered, expurgated, bleeped, blackened, cut, burned, or bowdlerized." Users move through the exhibit's nineteen main sections via a drop-down menu that spans topics from the bowdlerization of the classics to Margaret Sanger's opposition to laws governing birth control. According to the curators, the exhibit is designed to raise questions rather than to condemn censors, and perhaps in the service of that mission, the pages here range over a large number of censorship instances and issues without going into great depth about any one in particular. Despite our difficulty with the images (we could not enlarge some images from their thumbnails, and some images are not yet in place on the site, due to copyright and intellectual property issues), the exhibit is interesting and worth a visit. [TK]
[Back to Contents]World Time Server
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
This handy site gives times for locations worldwide. Users click on a location on the left-hand side of the screen, and the current time at that location, together with a graphic showing the area of the world, appears on the right. Users can opt to list locations by country or city, and the list is searchable. Perhaps most convenient for those making international conference calls or similarly time-fraught arrangements is the Future Event Planner function, which allows users to enter a location and a future date and time, and then a second location so that they can see, for example, what time it will be in Bangladesh when it is nine a.m. next Thursday in Denver. [TK]
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Mojo Nation [Linux, Windows 98/ME/NT/2000]
http://www.mojonation.com
You may be in love with Napster and Gnutella, or you may feel that they are evil incarnate, but in either case it's hard to ignore their impact on the Internet world. However, both harbor a serious flaw: they have no provision to help insure some balance between those who are providing resources (i.e., offering files for download) and those who are consuming resources. This problem, a particular case of what biologist Garrett Hardin called "the tragedy of the commons," has already reared its head on both services, resulting in slower and slower download speeds, server crashes, and a general decrease in usability. Of course, as with any problem on the Internet people are working on a solution, and one company, Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow, has come up with a new alternative, Mojo Nation. Mojo Nation provides more or less the same set of capabilities that Napster and Gnutella provide, but with an added twist: those who are uploading files (actually those providing network resources for uploading files) are awarded "mojo," and those who are downloading files are required to contribute "mojo." This ad hoc system of currency recognizes that network storage and bandwidth are a big part of the cost of such a service, and thereby effectively eliminates the problem of freeloaders who consume endless bandwidth downloading files without giving anything back to the community as a whole. Will this ultimately solve the problem? It's hard to tell, but with its micropayment system, in its own way Mojo Nation does push the bounds of e-commerce a little bit further, and in the end that may prove to be a much more significant contribution than providing yet another new way to swap MP3 files. Mojo Nation software is available for Linux and Windows 98, ME, NT, and 2000. Macintosh support is likely to be added once OS X is released. [EA]
[Back to Contents]Type Parser 1.1 [.zip, Windows 95/98/2000, 383K]
http://www.xarka.com/freeware/
Download
http://www.xarka.com/download/typpar11.zip
This handy utility helps users who want to get more information on the usage of their drives. With Type Parser, users can discover wasted drive space, the types of files responsible, and where they reside. The options menu allows users to specify whether they wish to calculate cluster size or directory data and what size files they wish to analyze. A good way to discover long forgotten files and recover some of that seemingly ever-elusive disk space. [TK]
[Back to Contents]Wireless Web Special Report -- Scientific American
http://www.sciam.com/2000/1000issue/1000quicksummary.html
This special report posted last month by Scientific American consists of a series of articles on "the latest and greatest technomarvel, the wireless Web." The featured articles cover the challenges and achievements particular to wireless technology. After a brief introduction, the special report leads off with "The Internet in Your Hands," which discusses the push for faster speeds and new software and hardware to enable handheld devices to handle more and more different kinds of data. "The Promise and the Perils of WAP" gives the pros and cons of the Wireless Application Protocol, while "The Future Is Here. Or Is It?" is largely skeptical of Web phones. The final article, "The Third-Generation Gap," focuses on the array of technologies all falling under the rubric of third-generation, so called 3G, wireless systems. With clickable sidebars and copious hyperlinks leading to off-site explications of key terms and concepts, this special report is ideal for readers who want to learn more about wireless technology. [TK]
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LAPD to be Policed
"Outside Supervision of LAPD Approved" -- AP (via YahooNews!)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001103/us/lapd_consent_decree_2.html
"Defense in Los Angeles police corruption trial to finish Friday" -- CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2000/LAW/11/03/lapd.trial/index.html
"One Bad Cop" -- New York Times Magazine [free registration required]
http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001001mag-lapd.html
"Rampart Area Corruption Incident" -- LAPD Board of Inquiry [.pdf, 362p.]
http://www.lapdonline.org/pdf_files/pc/boi_pub.pdf
"An Independent Analysis of the Los Angeles Police Department's Board of Inquiry Report on the Rampart Scandal"
http://www.usc.edu/dept/law/faculty/chemerinsky/rampart_finalrep.html
LAPD Homepage
http://www.lapdonline.org/index.htm
U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/
"Cochran takes case of actor killed by officer" -- Mercury News
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/local/docs/costume01.htm
Yesterday, the mayor of Los Angeles, Richard Riordan, reluctantly agreed to allow an outside monitor to oversee the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) for the next five years rather than face the federal civil rights lawsuit threatened by the Department of Justice (DoJ). The consent decree is the latest development in what has come to be known as "the Rampart scandal," a corruption scandal that came to light last September when officer Rafael Perez gave testimony against the police as part of a plea bargain. Since then, more than 100 criminal convictions have been overturned, thousands more are still being looked at, and over 70 police officers are being investigated. The first corruption trial against four LAPD officers may draw to a close as early as next week, and meanwhile, some have raised new criticism against the department after the recent fatal shooting of actor Anthony Lee at a Halloween party.
AP (via YahooNews!) and CNN cover the latest news, with the former reporting on yesterday's agreement between the city and the Justice Department and the latter reviewing the progress of the trial of the four officers charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and false arrest. The New York Times Magazine's lengthy article from last month, "One Bad Cop," gives the background on the Rampart scandal and Rafael Perez's career and testimony. On March 1, the LAPD Board of Inquiry (BOI) released the results of its investigation, "Rampart Area Corruption Incident." The report determines that "the Rampart corruption incident occurred because a few individuals decided to engage in blatant misconduct and, in some cases, criminal behavior." Nonetheless, the BOI recommended 108 changes to departmental policy and procedure (see the March 10, 2000 Scout Report for a full description of the report). In turn, the Police Protective League commissioned an analysis of the BOI report in which University of Southern California law professor Erwin Chemerinsky argues that the BOI minimizes the issues it was tasked to address and "fails to recognize that the central problem is the culture of the Los Angeles Police Department." The LAPD and the DoJ Websites offer extensive coverage of their activities above and beyond the Rampart scandal. Finally, the Mercury News reports that Johnnie Cochran is representing Anthony Lee's family in their case against the LAPD. [TK]
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