Library Juice 1:5 - February 10, 1998
Contents: 1. Meeting of Union for Democratic Communications (Call for Contributions) 2. The Tibetan Book of the Dead -- UVA Library [Javascript] 3. Black History Month--Gale Research [frames] 4. THE ELECTRONIC AFRICAN BOOKWORM: A WEB NAVIGATOR 5. The Two Nations of Black America--PBS [RealPlayer] 6. UMBC AgentWeb - "Intelligent Agents" 7. From Frying Pan to Flying Z: The Rise of the Electric Guitar - SI NMAH 8. The Memory Management Reference 9. devSearch [frames, Javascript] Web development search engine 10. AltaVista Search Engine -- Barrier to Access? 11. Call for Papers and Projects - Gender and Knowledge 12. "Observation and Measurement in Evaluating Digital Libraries" 13. CIA-Coke Report Online 14. January/February 1998 Intellectual Freedom Action News 15. Links on Country of Ireland 16. Hawaiian Independence and Cultural Liberation - several links _______________________________________________________________________________ 1. Meeting of Union for Democratic Communications (Call for Contributions) The Union for Democratic Communications The Union for Democratic Communications (UDC) invites participation in its next international meeting, June 11-14, 1998, in San Francisco, California, addressing the topic "Media, Democracy and the Public Sphere." UDC welcomes papers, audiovisual works, panels, workshops and projects that break with traditional, monological approaches, to promote dialogue and interaction around questions of critical communications and media activism, as suggested below. Please send proposals for presentations by no later than MARCH 1, 1998, to Prof. Bernadette Barker-Plummer 1998 UDC Conference Chair Department of Communication University of San Francisco 2130 Fulton Street San Francisco, CA 94117 email: barkerplum[at]usfca.edu _______________________________________________________________________________ 2. The Tibetan Book of the Dead: Literature and Artwork on Prayer, Ritual, and Meditation from the Religious Traditions of Tibet, India and Nepal --UVA Library [Javascript] http://www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/dead/ The Special Collections Department of the University of Virginia Library has recently launched this site, a companion to an exhibit running from November 7, 1997 to March 4, 1998. The UVA Library holds one of the world's largest collections of Tibetan literature; this site is designed to "demystify the sacred Tibetan texts on death and dying and to create an opportunity to share the wisdom of these ancient beliefs and practices." The text and artwork sections highlight the site; they contain six and three subsections respectively. Under texts there are explanations, and page samples of Sutras, Tantras, The Art of Dying, and Transitions to the Other World, among others. The still-developing artworks section contains explanations and/or examples of selected scroll paintings, statuary, and ceremonial art. The only drawback to this fascinating site is the confusing Javascript navigation interface, which requires users to click on the "Choose a Page" button and make a selection, even if there is only one selection. [JS] (from Internic Scout Report - http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/) _______________________________________________________________________________ 3. Black History Month--Gale Research [frames] http://www.gale.com/gale/bhm/blackhm.html Gale Research, publisher of many library reference resources, provides this site in celebration of Black History Month, as well as to increase awareness of the 22 related reference resources it supplies. The focal point of the site is the biography section, featuring thumbnail sketches of 60 prominent African-American men and women derived from the _African American Almanac_. A briefly annotated timeline highlights relevant events from 1619 to the present. Another section features content summaries of 35 works taken from _The Schomburg Center Guide to Black Literature_. Daily quizzes and selected educational activities from the _Black History Month Resource Book_ round out the site. [JS] (from Internic Scout Report - http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/) _______________________________________________________________________________ 4. THE ELECTRONIC AFRICAN BOOKWORM: A WEB NAVIGATOR As part of the newly created Website of Hans Zell Publishing Consultants, and which can be found at http://www.hanszell.co.uk/ this directory of well over 400 links and Internet resources has been designed especially for use by the book professions in Africa and by African writers and scholars, particularly those who may be new to the Web. However, we hope Africana librarians, and cyberhounds outside Africa, will also find it helpful and informative. THE ELECTRONIC AFRICAN BOOK WORM WEB NAVIGATOR is a quick-access guide and pick-list to some of the best sites on Africa, African studies, and African publishing and the book trade. It also provides links - many with short descriptions - to the home pages of African and Africanist journals, African newspapers, to Web sites of libraries in Africa and to some of the major Africana libraries in the countries of the North, as well as links to the major publishers (outside Africa) with African studies lists. Additional links cover resources for writers, African literary and cultural journals, and a number of African literature sites. Moreover, there is also a section on electronic networks for development, and Web sites featuring discussions and resource material on Internet infrastructure and connectivity in Africa. In addition to Africa- and African studies-related Internet sites it also offers links to Web sites (not Africa-specific) relating to book and journal publishing and the retail book trade, book trade organizations, publishing services, libraries and library associations, as well as a number of other organizations, networks, NGOs, and donor agencies. There are also links to some of the best general reference and Internet directories, and to some of the major Internet tools and search engines. A hardcopy version of the ELECTRONIC AFRICAN BOOKWORM is available to the African book communities free of charge through the Bellagio Publishing Network Secretariat, Email: bellpubnet[at]gn.apc.org The Hans Zell Website, and its extensive links pages, will be regularly updated. Comments and suggestions are welcome! _______________________________________________________________________________ 5. The Two Nations of Black America--PBS [RealPlayer] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/ This companion site to a recent _Frontline_ examines the growing class gap within the African-American community. The site features a powerful essay by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the correspondent and writer for _Frontline's_ report, RealPlayer audio and text from the Du Bois Institute's 1997 forum, economic and social statistics, and interviews with prominent African-American activists and scholars, including Eldridge Cleaver, Angela Davis, Cornel West, and Jesse Jackson. Additional resources include a summary of the debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, a movie of the Howard University 1968 Takeover, a discussion forum, and a collection of readings and links. A complete transcript of the show is forthcoming. [MD] (from Internic Scout Report - http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/) _______________________________________________________________________________ 6. UMBC AgentWeb http://www.cs.umbc.edu/agents/ This site, sponsored and maintained by the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Laboratory for Advanced Information Technology (LAIT), focuses on intelligent agents, known alternatively as software agents, knowbots, infobots or intentional agents. The site is divided into several parts, some of which are annotated and some of which contain only links to resources. Annotated resources include a bibliography titled Introduction to Agents (under Introductory Material), a list of research projects involving agent technology, and abstracts of and links to articles on a variety of topics such as Agents and Security and Agents in Manufacturing. [MR] (from Internic Scout Report - http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/) _______________________________________________________________________________ 7. >From Frying Pan to Flying Z: The Rise of the Electric Guitar--SI NMAH [.wav, .aiff] http://www.si.edu/organiza/museums/nmah/lemel/guitars/ The Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History provides this new site, which celebrates the evolution of the electric guitar. Although new, the site is based on an exhibit at the NMAH that took place in 1996 and 1997. It contains sections on the invention process, the commercial success of the instrument, and the development of its design. The centerpiece of the site, however, is the annotated gallery of 40 guitars ranging from acoustic to electric to "innovative design." A section explaining how guitars work (with selected sound clips) completes the site. [JS] (from Internic Scout Report - http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/) _______________________________________________________________________________ 8. The Memory Management Reference http://www.harlequin.com/mm/reference/ The Memory Management Reference, a publication of the Harlequin Group, is a useful compilation of memory management resources. The site offers a range of information including a handy, hyperlinked dictionary of terms, an introduction to memory management, a detailed bibliography which includes abstracts, FAQs, links to other resources, and more. It is both a good reference point for current garbage collection research, as well as a nice introduction to the subject for the novice. [CL] (from Internic Scout Report - http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/) _______________________________________________________________________________ 9. devSearch [frames, Javascript] http://www.devsearch.com/ Project Cool provides this meta-search engine that allows simultaneous searching of up to 23 web development-related sites. Customized searches in a limited number of sites are available from the following home page linked sections: HTML+, design, scripting, and zines. The megaSearch section can be used to search any or all sites covered. The search interface supports only multiple phrase searching; the providers of the site advise users to be discriminating in the sites they pick to search. Each search site is briefly described. [JS] (from Internic Scout Report - http://rs.internic.net/scout/report/) _______________________________________________________________________________ 10. Search Engine Barrier to Access? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help[at]weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 08:20:28 -0500 From: John Pike <johnpike[at]fas.org> To: pagre[at]weber.ucsd.edu Subject: Flawed AltaVista Internet Search Engine "As web-surfing enthusiasts already know, AltaVista is a program that will search the entire Web..." was the way Amy Schwartz introduced a review of the new book "The AltaVista Search Revolution" on the oped page of the Washington Post ["The Information Laundromat" 22 March 1997]. http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1997-03/22/015L-032297 -idx.h tml While AltaVista is indeed an estimable implementation, most web.surfers will be astonished to learn that, contrary to this conventional wisdom, AltaVista indexes only a small, flawed, arbitrary and not even random sample of what is on the web today. Estimates of the total content of the web are of necessity speculative, but run as high as 150 million pages. AltaVista claims < http://altavista.digital.com/ to be "the largest Web index: 31 million pages found on 476,000 servers." So where are the missing pages ?? [or as Ronald Reagan asked "where is the rest of me??]. There are many reasons a web page might not show up in the AltaVista index. Some parts of some sites are hidden from public view with the Robots Exclusion Protocol, which tells search engines not to index certain pages. Other types of content, such as the Adobe Portable Document Format [PDF] do not currently support indexing. Some large sites dynamically generate their content, rendering it invisible to search engines. And other sites have security access controls which may [or may not!!! but that is another story.... ] preclude indexing their pages. But surely this does not explain why the estimable AltaVista indexes only 20% of the web. The AltaVista FAQ sez: http://altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=tmpl&v=faq.html >How do I submit my site to AltaVista? >Use our Add URL feature, found at the bottom of every >page. Simply type in the main URL for your site. You can >submit several URLs, but it is considered bad taste to >manually submit your entire site: just let Scooter do this for you. This certainly creates the impression that once AltaVista has even one URL from a site, it will automatically [in the fullness of time, but that is another story as well....] include the entire site in its widely used index. Certainly, this claim is the reason that AltaVista is so widely relied upon, and the reason that most web.users assume that "if it ain't in AltaVista, it ain't online" I webmaster the Federation of American Scientists site, http://www.fas.org/ which is a medium-sized website with some 6,000 pages and about 1/2 Gig online. Recently I noticed that the Alta Vista search engine seemed to only index about 600 of our pages. I thought that this was rather odd, since I had long had the impression that AltaVista indexed pretty much everything, or at least made a good-faith best effort to do so. I asked them about this, and this is what I got back: >Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 09:08:39 -0800 (PST) >From: Alta Vista Support >To: johnpike >Subject: Re: AltaVista not indexing www.fas.org >That is probably a good estimate...We have 600 pages from you indexed >in the system. You will probably not see much more than that for any >one domain. Goecities has 300...and they have 300,000 members. I confess that I was rather horrified as I contemplated the implications of this [which can be verfied by searching AltaVista on <host:geocities.com > ... try this trick on your own domain and see what happens!!!]. For a medium to large site, such as ours, it means that they are only indexing some arbitrarily selected subset of our total content. Thus corporations, universities, or most other really content-rich sites will be poorly represented in their index. It also means that for smaller entities that do not have their own domain, their content will also not be indexed. As in, are the reported 300,000 users of Geocities aware that the fact that their pages are hosted [at] www.geocities.com [or the larger number of folks who are hosted [at] members.aol.com] means that they are effectively invisible to AltaVista, one of the most widely used and admired search engines??? What this seems to mean is that medium-sized sites of a few hundred pages are going to show up nicely in AltaVista, but larger and smaller implementations will be nearly invisible, which is a rather odd way of doing things. I mean, this is sorta like buying a map that shows some arbitrary number of roads but doesn't have any of the main interstates, or a phone book that only has even-numbered phone numbers, or something. I confess that I was not previously aware of this practice of AltaVista, which is certainly not been previously reported anywhere, and is certainly [at] variance with their apparent claims that if you supply them with one URL from their site they will spontaneously include the rest of their site in their index. This is not to trash AltaVista, which at least has an implementation that enables one to determine just how many of your pages are in their index [I can't seem to make the other engines do this neat trick]. But it is to say that anyone whose online presence has been predicated on their entire site [large or small] showing up in AltaVista had better think again. And that anyone trying to search the 'entire' web [as opposed to some arbitrary sample thereof] had best look somewhere other than AltaVista. Frankly, I think this is a more significant story than the widely reported "flawed Pentium chip" or "browser security flaws" stories. These highly visible episodes affected only a small number of users, or were more in the nature of theoretical problems. But AltaVista claims to be used nearly 30 million times a day, so this "undocumented feature" of AltaVista affects nearly everyone who uses the web [doesn't everyone???]. As someone who uses AltaVista many times a day, and whose webpresence strategy had been predicated on "If I build it, they will come, cause they will find it in AltaVista" this has really come as a shock to me, and I imagine that it would come as a shock to many others as well. I mean, it is one thing to admit that regenerating a web.wide index takes a long time, and that your index goes stale after a month or so, but it is another to admit that you are just not even trying to index large sites, or small sites that are appended to an ISP's domain, and I am pretty astounded. To keep track of this issue Melee's Indexing Coverage Analysis (MICA) http://www.melee.com/mica/index.html examines the relative page coverage for a select group of search engines. Each week, Melee Productions will retest the engines on the list and publish an update to the MICA Report. They will be happy to test any publicly accessible search engine that supports date-range and host/domain constraints, and purports to index at least one fifth of the "web". Stay tooned for further developments!!! [at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at][at] John Pike Director, Space Policy Project Federation of American Scientists 307 Massachusetts Ave. NE Washington, DC 20002 V 202-675-1023, F 202-675-1024, http://www.fas.org/spp/ _______________________________________________________________________________ 11. Call for Papers and Projects - Gender and Knowledge ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 09:33:25 -0500 From: Greg Stocke <stocke[at]kes.cc.uakron.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list H-GRAD <H-GRAD[at]h-net.msu.edu> Subject: CFP: Gender & Knowledge From: Barbara Cutter <bcutter[at]rci.rutgers.edu> Call for Papers and Projects The Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University invites submissions for its Fourth Annual Graduate Student Conference --- Gender and Knowledge --- April 3, 1998 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey The production, acquisition and legitimation of knowledge are gendered processes. This interdisciplinary graduate student conference seeks to explore, from multiple perspectives, the ways in which gender and knowledge are mutually constitutive. How is knowledge gendered--what is the role of gender in defining what is known and how we know? How do we learn about gender and sexuality? Do men and women acquire knowledge differently? How are academic disciplines created, and who creates them? How do we reproduce and legitimate knowledge? What types of knowledge are produced in various arenas? How is gender implicated in the transmission, advancement and reinvention of knowledge? What constitutes cultural knowledge? How do we change knowledge? We seek papers and creative projects that touch on themes relating to gender and knowledge. Additional focuses may include: Gendered learning and teaching Cultural knowledge and representation Formation of identity and subjectivity Cyberknowledge; "new" knowledges Knowledge production Libraries as gendered sites of knowledge Technology as a vehicle for knowing Sexuality as gendered knowledge Gender, knowledge and power Submission Guidelines: Abstracts due March 2, 1998 Individual paper abstracts, panel proposals and other program suggestions are invited. Please include name, departmental and institutional affiliation, address, phone number and email address. Paper or Panel Proposals: send three copies of a one-page abstract detailing the proposed project. Include paper or session title, names, phone numbers, addresses and email addresses of all participants. If possible, please email additional copy to jnelson234[at]aol.com. (Completed papers should be 8-12 pages in length.) Creative projects: send three copies of a one-page abstract describing the project as well as any slides, audio tapes or other appropriate media. We cannot guarantee return of these materials. If you have questions, feel free to contact Jennifer Brier (jbrier[at]eden.rutgers.edu) or Barbara Cutter (bcutter[at]rci.rutgers.edu). Send all proposals to: Graduate Student Conference Institute for Research on Women 27 Clifton Avenue Rutgers University New Brunswick, NJ 08903 _______________________________________________________________________________ 12. "Observation and Measurement in Evaluating Digital Libraries" Paul B. Kantor from SCILS, Rutgers, the State University URL: http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/current.html This lecture is available as a RealAudio broadcast. You will need the RealPlayer 5.0 to view and listen to the lecture. ---------------------------------------------------------- Most of the problems of evaluating digital libraries have clear counterparts in the evaluation of traditional libraries, which therefore provides a good foundation for dealing with digital libraries. The key issues to be dealt with include: 1. reducing complex experiences to comparable mathematical objects 2. identifying the range of stakeholders for an evaluation 3. developing a basket of scenarios and/or tasks and 4. mapping observations and measurements into concrete time-limited management decisions. We will discuss these issues in a general economic framework, and illustrate the approach by reducing a number of scenarios to elementary measures. The notion of "dominance" and of the "efficient frontier" will be explored. We will concentrate on applying these concepts to evaluation of the digital library in its interaction with the human user. _______________________________________________________________________________ 13. CIA-Coke Report Online FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS * The recently released CIA Coke Contra report is online [at] http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/cocaine/ * * * John Pike Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/ Space Policy Project http://www.fas.org/spp/ Public Eye http://www.fas.org/eye/ Intelligence Resources http://www.fas.org/irp/ Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. -- Jefferson _______________________________________________________________________________ 14. January/February 1998 Intellectual Freedom Action News January/February 1998 Intellectual Freedom Action News is online at http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/ifan_pub.html ______________________ Don Wood American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom 50 East Huron Street Chicago, IL 60611 Office: 800-545-2433, ext. 4225 Fax: 312-280-4227 E-Mail: dwood[at]ala.org _______________________________________________________________________________ 15. Links on Country of Ireland -Hello Folks, For anyone out there who may be interested in Internet links for the country of Ireland, I have created a web site at the following URL: http://pw1.netcom.com/~pohallor/ireland/irdex.html. I've included several links to RTE's news broadcasts in real audio to cover the peace process now going on in Northern Ireland. Patrick O'Halloran -===================================================================== pohallor[at]wahoo.sjsu.edu Patrick J. O'Halloran SJSU SLIS Program at CSU Fullerton Home Page: http://pw1.netcom.com/~pohallor/index.html -====================================================================== _______________________________________________________________________________ 16. Hawaiian Independance and Cultural Liberation - several links ALOHA friends of Hawai'i ************************** The following links will take you to some outstanding and inspiring resources here on the WWWeb related to Hawaiian Independance and cultural liberation. {{{http://www.hawaii-nation.org/}} {{{http://www.hula.net/~onipaa/}}} {{{http://www.pixi.com/~kingdom/}}} Check out the Aloha March to Wash. D.C. in Aug. 1998 {{{http://www.hawaiian.net/~cbokauai/butch.html/}}} And for a comprehensive list of books and other resource materials: {{{http://www.teleport.com/~infomach/history.html/}}} Be sure to read the Writ of Mandamus currently pending in the SupremeCourt {{{http://www.hawaii-nation.org/mandamus.html/}}} Please pass these LIBERATION LINKS along! In Strength & Solidarity Beezee beezee[at]earthling.net == "The world is now too dangerous for anything less than Utopia."=-=-=-=-=Buckminster Fuller=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= +MUTANEX+ <http://www.freeyellow.com/members2/sugarthorn> *******{{{EarthMotherShip}}}<http://www.earthwisdom.com> "People travel to wonder at the height of mountains,at the huge waves of the sea, at the vast compass of the ocean... and they pass by themselves without wondering." St.Augustine _______________________________________________________________________________ This was Library Juice No. 5. Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks go out to Sam Trosow and Dinah Sanders for their contributions. Email me to unsubscribe, to send items for inclusion or to tell me what you think. __________________________________________________________________ Rory Litwin mailto:rlitwin[at]earthlink.net PO Box 720511 phone: (408) 286-6409 San Jose, CA 95172 http://home.earthlink.net/~rlitwin __________________________________________________________________
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