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Internet Resources Newsletter, Issue 45, June 1998 (Section D)
A network for biomedical scientists, educationalists and researchers to share information on education, training and research requirements and provision.
URL: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/biomedical-sciences-education/
Fosters research in the area of object modelling for user interface design.
URL: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/ooui/
A discussion list for microbiologists with an interest in microbial physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology. Aimed mainly at UK based researchers who are members of the Society for General Microbiology.
URL: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/sgm-pbandmg/
SteelCAL EU funded with Industrial support. Aims: research pedagogical issues, provide advanced multimedia technologies for training of UK & European HE students in structural steelwork design with reference to Eurocodes. Professional Engineers will also use it for CPD.
URL: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/steelcal/
TEN stands for Textiles Environmental Network and is a group of researchers who meet regularly to discuss developments in the field of textiles and the environment.
URL: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/ten/
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In the course of finding sites of interest for this Newsletter, we sometimes come across Web sites which we feel deserve slightly more than a passing mention. Each month we will try to pick out one or more such sites, and give them a short review. The sites will normally be UK based, may be small or large, and be of interest or potential interest to academics. After lengthy discussions we have decided, with incredible creativity, to call these: Nice Web Sites. Details of previous Nice Web Sites are available in the Nice Web Site Archive.
It seems to me that there are a number of very good new resources this month. Instead of attempting, as I usually do, to select the most useful academic one for this Nice Web Site section, I have chosen instead a site for an organisation which does a lot of good work and which, fortunately, has also designed quite a nice web site.
URL: http://www.bookaid.org/home.htm
Previously known as the Ranfurly Library Service, Book Aid International works in partnership with various organisations in developing countries to support literacy, education, training and publishing, by providing books and other reading materials. It is actually the largest and best known book aid charity in the UK.
One of the important things about Book Aid International is that it works in partnership with organisations in developing countries, supplying them with relevant useful material rather than simply dumping unwanted publications on their doorsteps. In the next two years, Book Aid International aims to provide over two million books targeted to needs made known by partner organisations in developing countries.
This is a worthy cause which is doing something about the information gap between the rich industrialised nations and developing countries. You can read all about Book Aid International and its work, and find details of how you can help them, at this attractive web site. Perhaps you have some textbooks, or review copies of books, you can send to them.
Roddy MacLeod
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Publisher: Next Publishing Pty Ltd., 78 Renwick St., Redfern, NSW,
Australia, 2016
Frequency: Quarterly
Subscription: Au$8.95 cover price
Email:
editor@ia.com.au
From a personal standpoint, I have nothing against using the Internet for leisure purposes, although I think people should do so in their own time and at their own expense. There is a large number of cybercafes offering very adequate equipment for such purposes, and many people now have Internet access from their homes. What I dislike are publications which give the impression that the Internet's sole function is to cater for leisure interests, and The Australian netDirectory is a typical example. In this magazine are plentiful brief descriptions and addresses of web sites where it is possible to play such games as Connect 4 (a rather sad web activity, surely?), or see a web camera pointed at a toilet seat (extremely sad), but little else. The descriptions of sites are dire; e.g. "A nice place to stop and rest from all the hardcore sex, drugs 'n' rock 'n' roll on the Internet", and, for goodness sake given that its title is "The Australian netDirectory", its not even a directory of Australian resources in that many of the sites listed originate elsewhere!
Summary: few (if any) redeeming features.
Publisher: Global Web Directory Pty Ltd., Level 4, 3 Bowen Crescent,
Melbourne 3004, Australia
Frequency: Bimonthly
Subscription: Au$18.00,
Au$2.50 cover price
Email: info@globalwebdir.com.au
Web:
http://www.globalwebdir.com.au/
In my view, this is a far better directory that The Australian netDirectory (see review above), and a lot cheaper in price. It consists of 14 A3 size pages listing web sites alphabetically under such headings as Automotive, Communication, Computers, Employment, Industry, and Travel, plus some useful and informative articles about such topics as searching the Internet for information, and web tools. Unlike The Australian netDirectory, which lists sites around the world, the Global Web Directory's lists are almost exclusively of Australian sites. Perhaps the two publications should swap names.
Publisher: APN Computing Group Pty Ltd., Level 4, 2 Elizabeth Plaza,
North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia
Frequency: Bimonthly
Subscription:
Au$$4.95 cover price
ISSN: 13294520
Email: bhaverty@apnpc.com.au
Web:
http://www.zdnet.com.au/apnim/
Internet Magazine Australia is the sister publication to PC Magazine Australia, and both titles come from the ZDNet stable. It is a useful publication which follows the usual pattern for such magazines, and consists of various items of industry news, product reviews and feature articles, plus, in the issue I bought, a top 100 Web sites directory. Fairly standard material, although some of the features are aimed at experienced web authors. Given the magazine's title, I would have preferred more Australian content.
Publisher: From May 1998, Phil Ryan, Australian NetGuide, Level 6, 131
York Street, Sydney NSW 2000. Previously published by Cyber Publications Pty
Ltd.
Frequency: Monthly
Subscription: Au$29.95
Email:
neted@netguide.aust.com
Web: http://www.netguide.aust.com
Now might not be the best time to review Australian Netguide, as from the May issue it has a new publisher, Phil Ryan, who comes from the New Zealand NetGuide, and its style may therefore change. However, this may give me another opportunity to look at it again sometime in the future. Its news section concentrates on the Australian situation, but also includes major items of international concern. It is good to see the Australian scene covered so adequately, with, in the issue I have to hand, notes about the National Library of Australia's Persistent Uniform Resource Locator (PURL), (a service to help users find web sites which have moved from their original address), and online training from the Brisbane Institute of TAFE. Book and software reviews are followed by several fairly detailed articles and tutorials aimed at the relatively informed Internet user covering topics such as Javascript and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), but the magazine also caters for beginners with other, less complex, tutorials. In the April issue there was an article about the importance of meta tags.
Summary: a professionally produced magazine which covers Australian resources well, and which does not insult the intelligence of the reader.
Publisher: NZ NetGuide Ltd c/- Industrial Press Ltd, PO Box 9870,
Newmarket, Aukland, New Zealand.
Frequency: Monthly
Subscription: NZ$30
(cover price NZ$3.30)
Email: michelle@industrial.co.nz
Web:
http://www.netguide.co.nz/
The New Zealand NetGuide is the best popular Internet magazine I've found in a long time. The people at NetGuide are efficient, too. Only four days after emailing Louise Richardson, the editor, with a request for a review copy, the latest two issues appeared on my desk, having travelled all the way from the other side of the world.
NetGuide is a striking publication, and obviously a lot of thought has gone into its design. Its Art Director, Matthew Buchanan, deserves credit for producing a magazine which is pleasing on the eye and easy to read. It is therefore small wonder that Australian NetGuide recently looked to this New Zealand publication for inspiration and editorial input. Some magazines manage to compromise readability by overdoing graphic content, excessive use of colour, or fancy fonts. NetGuide's sometimes stunning images, on the other hand, complement its content and the text is consistently legible and attractive. Unusual for a publication of this type, NetGuide sucessfully uses an A5 format.
But what about content? NetGuide has four sections; 'Regulars' which include letters, news items, reviews, and a Net directory (of New Zealand Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Web designers); a 'How To' section which in turn includes a help desk, and items for those new to the net and for more advanced users; several feature articles; and a 'Where To' section featuring brief reviews of Web sites under helpful subject headings. The two issues of NetGuide sent to me contained no smut, no titillation, and none of the 'Sex in Cyberspace' headlines which are apparently deemed necessary by many other Internet magazines to boost sales. Instead, NetGuide has solid content, and features interesting resources from New Zealand and elsewhere. Of course, as a popular magazine, a fair proportion of NetGuide is aimed at the reacreational Internet user, however it also includes material of use to many other users.
If you know of other Internet journals or journals with regular significant sections about the Internet which have not been mentioned in The Internet in Print section, please let me know at: R.A.MacLeod@hw.ac.uk
Roddy MacLeod
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BIDS ISI now has a new anhanced version, which includes Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP) database, which was previously only available via telnet to BIDS.
The Latest BIDS News Bulletin (Spring 1998) is available at:
URL: http://www.bids.ac.uk/news/spring98.html
A week-by-week listing of new information resources on the NISS (National Information Services and Systems) Information Gateway selected by experts in the subject area is available at:
URL: http://www.niss.ac.uk/welcome/whatsnew.html
BUBL has retained a strong library element, but now provides a subject-based service to the academic and research community more generally, this via the BUBL LINK Subject Tree. The latest news from BUBL is available at:
URL: http://bubl.ac.uk/news/
The latest Additions and Updates to EEVL (Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library), The Gateway to UK Engineering Information on the Internet, are available at:
URL: http://www.eevl.ac.uk:4321/whatsnew/
The latest additions to SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway) are available at:
URL: http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/roads/whats-new.html
The latest issue of Edina (Edinburgh Data & INformation Access) Newsline can be found at:
URL: http://edina.ed.ac.uk/newsline/
CHEST aims to obtain quality commercial software, datasets, training materials and other IT products for the Education and Research Community at low prices and attractive licence terms. The latest news from CHEST is available at:
URL: http://www.chest.ac.uk/news.html
MIDAS (Manchester Information Datasets and Associated Services) is a National Datasets Service based at Manchester Computing and funded by JISC, the ESRC and the University of Manchester. It provides UK academics with online access to strategic datasets such as UK Population Censuses, large government and other surveys (including the GHS, LFS, FES, BHPS), macroeconomic time-series databanks, spatial data including satellite images and digital map data, and scientific databases including the Beilstein Crossfire System.
The latest news from MIDAS can be found at:
URL: http://midas.ac.uk/news.html
RUDI (Resource for Urban Design Information) is a multimedia information resource for research and teaching in the field of urban design in the Western cultural context. The latest news from RUDI can be found at:
URL: http://rudi.herts.ac.uk/new.html
UK's independent gateway to high quality biomedical Internet resources. The latest sites added to OMNI can be found at:
URL: http://roads.nott.ac.uk/whatsnew/whats-new-uk.html
And:
URL:
http://roads.nott.ac.uk/whatsnew/whats-new-world.html
Electronic Development and Environment Information System. A gateway to information sources on development or the environment. What's new on Eldis can be found at:
URL: http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/wnew.htm
Netskills aims to help the UK HE community make effective use of the Internet for teaching, research and administration. The latest news from Netskills can be found at:
URL: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/publicity/updates/
Biz/ed is a dedicated business and economics information gateway for students, teachers and lecturers.
URL: http://www.bized.ac.uk/homeinfo/whatsnew.htm
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001.645 GRA HTML 4.0 sourcebook by Ian S Graham Wiley, 1998
How to access the Federal Government on the Internet 1998
by Bruce Maxwell
Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1997
Brief Review
The front cover of this book features, quite naturally, its title and the name of its author. Unusually, however, the author's email address is also given prominence. I take this to be a good sign in a book about some aspect of the Internet as it implies that the author is available for comment about the contents, and also that he is interested in receiving email messages and alerts about new resources for future editions. It was the author, Brice Maxwell, who initially contacted Internet Resources Newsletter about the possibility of reviewing this book. This is another good sign as it shows that he is both actively involved in marketing the title and also aware of electronic sources, even in other countries, which might include reviews.
Most of this book consists of concise and well-written descriptions of more than 600 Internet sites (mostly web sites and email discussion lists) giving access to US federal government information. The entries are arranged alphabetically within subject headings which are themselves listed alphabetically. This arrangement works well, with the first section entitled 'Access to Information' having sub-sections on Gateways, Government Publications, and Libraries, and subsequent sections covering everything from Agriculture, Arts and Museums, and Business, Trade and Economics, to Science and Technology, Space, and Transportation.
I was a bit disappointed to see that my own area of interest, engineering, receives only two entries in the index, but then I noticed that many familiar resources were mentioned in other sections under, for example, Energy, Transportation, and Science and Technology. This only goes to show, I would suggest, that however good and index is (this one is 35 pages long in two columns), it can never answer every user's needs.
Maxwell does not attempt to list every single resource on federal government information, as such a task would be impossible and would become out of date very quickly in printed form. Instead, he has chosen only quality sites for inclusion. Such resources are less likely to change or disappear and this policy will ensure that the book remains current for longer than some other printed Internet guides. As a LIS professional I appreciated Maxwell's 'Final Word[s]' - "While the Internet is a wondrous tool, it is not a panacea. Nor is it a replacement for a good librarian. If you're serious about searching for federal government information, a good librarian remains your most valuable resource." I certainly hope that that statement is true, but it will not stop me using this book over the coming months as a starting point for locating federal information.
RM
A complete list of new books added to Heriot-Watt University Library is now available from the Library News page.
URL: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libWWW/news/news.html
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Photos, movies, resorts, events, links, chat, and much more.
URL: http://www.geocities.com/~snowboarderz/
Properties for sale or rent.
URL: http://www.espc.co.uk/
Internet based provider of travel guides and hotel related services. Assistance for planning that trip during the vacation.
URL: http://worldvacations.com
URL: http://www.felusi.demon.co.uk/ukida/
URL: http://www.soccerstats.com/
URL: http://www.royalmile.com/diningguide/
Apparently there are a lot of important football matches coming up soon. S'funny...I havn't heard anything.
URL: http://www.france98.com/
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