The Scout Report - November 24, 2000

Scout Report for Science & Engineering
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/sci-eng/2000/se-001122.html
Volume 4, Number 7 of the Scout Report for Science & Engineering is available. The In the News section annotates nine resources on the shutdown of the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP) at the Swiss-based European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN). [MD]
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PrePRINT Alerts
http://preprints.osti.gov/alertmain.shtml
PrePRINT Network
http://www.osti.gov/preprints/
The PrePRINT Network, a service of the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Scientific and Technical Information (described in the February 4, 2000 Scout Report), has announced a new feature, PrePRINT Alerts. After registering, users can create one or more personalized search profiles and automatically receive notifications of new preprint information fitting that profile. Subscribers will also be alerted when new preprint servers are added to the network (there are currently 1,500 servers offering access to over 340,000 preprints). [MD]
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Encyclopedia Astronautica
http://www.rocketry.com/mwade/spaceflt.htm
Russian Mirror
http://www.friends-partners.ru/partners/mwade/spaceflt.htm
Sponsored by Friends and Partners in Space and edited by Mark Wade, this site is a bit hard on the eyes, but it has few peers in terms of the sheer mountains of material it offers on spaceflight by all nations of the world. There is so much here that it is hard to decide where to begin. The main page offers a long list of highlights and new additions, most of them generously illustrated. The site may be browsed alphabetically, browsed by topic, or searched by keyword. In addition to the myriad encyclopedia entries, there are hundreds if not thousands of images, a lengthy collection of articles, a long list of references, statistics, and a spaceflight chronology. Again, the site would benefit from a reorganization and redesign, but anyone with a professional or personal interest in spaceflight will undoubtedly enjoy a visit. [MD]
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The British Geological Survey Lexicon of Named Rock Units
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/lexicon/lexicon.html
Users can search this database of British rock units by rock unit, preferred map code, maximum age of rock unit, and database status code (described at site) and retrieve information about which British Geological Survey (BGS) maps and publications cover those units. For example, a search for Stockdale Group and Ashgil leads to a record citing the lithology, upper and lower boundary definitions, unit thickness, geographic extent, parent unit, previous name, stratotype, and bibliographic reference for the Paleozoic Stockdale Group of Northern England. The Lexicon is intended foremost as a reference source and dictionary for the use of BGS geoscientists, but the basic information on the stratigraphical framework and rock terminology of the UK is useful for non-BGS geologists visiting the site. [HCS]
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Australian Museum Fish Site [Windows Media Player]
http://www.austmus.gov.au/fishes/
Recently redesigned, the Australian Museum Fish Site contains a host of resources for researchers, students, and interested visitors. The heart of the site is the Find a Fish section, a collection of hundreds of fact sheets on fish, sorted by common or scientific name. Each fact sheet includes a quick overview, one or more images, and suggestions for further reading. Visitors can also identify fish pictorially using the Identify a Fish section, which links back to the fact sheets. Other offerings include further information on the Museum's fish department, a student section, some short underwater movies, related links, a FAQ, and an internal search engine. [MD]
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An Analytic Bibliography of On-Line Neo-Latin Texts
http://eee.uci.edu/~papyri/homepage/nltexts.html
Created and maintained by Dana F. Sutton, Professor of Classics at the University of California, this straightforward metasite currently links to 549 free Neo-Latin electronic texts written during the Renaissance and later. The list is browsed alphabetically. Each entry includes author, title, URL, source site, and notes (usually download formats). [MD]
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winefiles.org: the database for wine professionals and wine lovers
http://www.winefiles.org/
Produced by the Sonoma County Wine Library, this site offers access to its collection of articles on wine, wine making, grape growing, wine business, and the history of wine, collected and organized over the years to answer and anticipate the questions of its users. In addition, the site also indexes Charles Sullivan's Wine History Files, which contain over 30,000 citations of primary sources related to California's wine history. Both databases may be searched by keyword or by an extensive advanced search form. The Wine Files focuses on sources published since 1988, primarily on California. Entries include author, publication, an abstract, subject, business, person, place name, and record number. Some of the items link to the full text off-site. Others are available from the library via interlibrary loan. The Sullivan files contain "citations mainly to the trade journals, government publications and newspaper literature dealing with the business and technology of grape growing and wine making in California from 1849 through 1999." Search returns include description, topic, region, era, theme, and record number. Many of these items are not held at the Sonoma County Wine Library or may be archival materials and not available for loan. Information on accessing these items is available at the site. [MD]
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American Studies Recommendations
http://twist.lib.uiowa.edu/rhorwitz/
Created and maintained by Richard P. Horwitz of the University of Iowa, this metapage offers a well-organized collection of select (unannotated) links for American Studies. The site has a nice clean design, with the links grouped by category (Material Culture, Religion, History, Jobs, etc.) and accessed via tabs at the top of the page. Horwitz has also posted the full text of a number of his articles on American Studies. The selectiveness of the site and its easy-to-use design make this an excellent starting point for anyone searching for online resources for American Studies and related topics. [MD]
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A Survivor's Guide for Presidential Nominees [.pdf]
http://www.appointee.brookings.org/sg/toc.htm
The Presidential Appointee Initiative
http://www.appointee.brookings.org/
A collaborative effort between the Brookings Institution Presidential Appointee Initiative and The Council for Excellence in Government, this full-text handbook may be interesting and useful to readers even if they didn't just get the nod to head up the Treasury. Available in both HTML and .pdf format, the guide offers practical advice "on everything from filling out forms to handling the media." Other topics covered include financial disclosure, key people and offices, ethical and legal considerations, navigating the Senate, moving to Washington, and life after office. [MD]
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Connecticut History Online
http://www.lib.uconn.edu/cho/
The Connecticut Historical Society, Mystic Seaport, and the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut have combined efforts to create this site, the first step in the creation of a major online archive of Connecticut historical images, due to be completed in the summer of 2001. At present, the pilot site offers over 1,200 images, searchable by keyword, advanced search, or by collection. Visitors can also search within five categories (Diversity, Lifestyle, Environment, Livelihood, and Infrastructure) and browse the entire collection by subject, title, or creator. Search returns include a photo title, date, and a small image (annoyingly not a thumbnail). Users must call up the full record and select the view image link to display the images (available in one size only). The site is worth a visit for anyone interested in Connecticut history or digital image archives. [MD]
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HiCitizen.com [.pdf]
http://www.hicitizen.com
Recently launched by Imagitas, this site is designed as a one-stop source for government forms and information for consumers. Considerably more user-friendly than FirstGov (see the September 22, 2000 Scout Report), the site is organized by topic (Auto, Business, Moving & Mail, Military & Veterans, etc.) and searchable by keyword. For relatively straightforward information or documents, such as a form for registering a new car, an application for a social security card, or a zip code directory, the site is hard to beat. Instructions and related links and information are also provided for each topic. A list of most-requested forms is available from the main page. While the site is probably not much use to anyone seeking detailed or obscure government information or documents, ordinary consumers will find it easy to use and very helpful. When FirstGov undergoes its inevitable redesign, let's hope they take some notes from this site. [MD]
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Dred Scott Digital Project [MS Word]
http://library.wustl.edu/vlib/dredscott/
This site, the first major digital project of the Washington University in St. Louis Library, takes advantage of a remarkable collection of documents that involve both local history and one of the most significant episodes in Antebellum US history, the Dred Scott Case. In 1846, Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit for their freedom in the St. Louis Circuit Court, initiating an eleven-year legal fight that ended in the US Supreme Court, which issued a decision that contributed in no small part to rising tensions between the free and slave states. The site offers digital images and transcriptions (HTML or Word) of 85 original documents from the Dred and Harriet Scott cases tried in St. Louis courts between 1846 and 1852. In addition to the documents, the site also provides a brief chronology and links for further information. [MD]
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LIGHT!/LICHT! Exhibition
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/light/
Light! presented by the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam) and the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), invites users to trace developments in lighting technology from the 1700s to the present by looking at the effects of light in several areas: science, economics, street, home, art, and entertainment. The exhibition combines images of objects and paintings with text arrayed on a background of bands of spectral colors. The home section begins with a pair of gilt candlesticks from 1807. Accompanying text points out that these golden candlesticks are not just prettier because they are shiny; they light better as well. This section concludes with an electric Tiffany lamp from 1907, and in between, includes the Van Gogh painting "The Potato Eaters," showing a peasant family eating potatoes in an interior lit by a meager kerosene lamp. Other objects of note are an Argand lamp in the economics section, the first lamp to exploit the discovery that flames burn brighter when fed by oxygen, and my favorite, a group of filament lightbulbs from the 1880s on a rack described in the caption as "various nationalities." The art section includes a live Webcam of the Statue of Liberty, and both the entertainment and science sections point out that many innovations in lighting originated in the theater. [DS]
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TrafficStation.com -- QuickCheck
http://www.trafficstation.com/home/homepage.html
TrafficStation.com
http://www.trafficstation.com/
Here's a handy site for the holiday travel season that is fast upon us. Brought to users by TrafficStation.com, a provider of free and for-fee customized real-time traffic reports, QuickCheck allows visitors to check current traffic conditions in 28 major metropolitan areas in the US and Canada. These are accessed via a pull-down menu and include a map with traffic flow, construction, incidents and events, and other important information. Visitors can also read an incident log and change the area displayed. These reports are probably most useful to people living in these areas about to leave to or from work or perhaps expecting visitors from out of town. After free registration, users can also sign up to receive traffic warnings for two personalized routes, while paid users can receive additional services, including personalized traffic reports by email, phone/ mobile phone, pager, and PDA. [MD]
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qbSearch
http://qbsearch.com/
This meta-search engine has several features that set it apart from its peers. In addition to the usual suspects (Google, Yahoo, Raging, MetaCrawler, etc.), the engine also searches News Index and Deja.com. qbSearch allows users to specify the number of pages displayed per engine and combines them all into one large page (this may take a while to load). The final and best feature of the site is the QuickLinks mode, which (when activated) allows users to select all of the links they want to view and then display the first page of all of them on a single page. Clicking any link on these pages launches a new browser window. Worth a look. [MD]
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Yahoo! Movies Online Shorts Directory
http://movies.yahoo.com/shorts/
Yahoo! recently launched a new directory and search engine for online short films. Drawing from some of the leading online movie sites, including Ifilm, AtomFilms, and Icebox, the site may be browsed by genre or searched by keyword. There is quite a bit here; at time of review, the directory indexed close to 2,800 films. Aspiring auteurs can also suggest their own short film for inclusion. [MD]
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Happy Thanksgiving to all of our US readers


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Susan Calcari Rachael Bower Travis Koplow Michael de Nie David Charbonneau Aimee D. Glassel Emily Missner Laura X. Payne Debra Shapiro Scott Watkins Ed Almasy Hilary C. Sanders Andy Yaco-Mink Manoj Ananthapadmanabhan Pat Coulthard

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