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Heriot-Watt University - Internet Resource Centre

Internet Resources Newsletter

Issue 59 - August 1999

Edited by:

Roddy MacLeod (R.A.MacLeod@hw.ac.uk)

Table of Contents:

• Comment
• New / Recent Internet Resources
  • A - H New Web Sites
  • I - Z New Web Sites
  • New Lists
• Nice Web Site
• The Internet in Print
  • Demon Dispatches
  • Seybold Report on Internet Publishing
• Network News
  • BIDS, NISS, BUBL, EEVL, SOSIG, EDINA, CHEST, MIMAS, RUDI, OMNI, ELDIS, Netskills, Biz/ed, AHDS, Mailbase, Data Archive, TASI.
• Book Review How to promote your Web site effectively by Mark Kerr
• Recent Internet Books in the Library
• Get a life ! Leisure Time
• STOP PRESS! Access to Oxford University Press e-journals now available to members of Heriot-Watt:

Edinburgh - what a wonderful place!

No longer a building site, the city's new financial quarter rises imperiously to the west of Lothian Road, with the Edinburgh International Conference Centre its nucleus. Barely a stone's throw away is Princes Street, still the shopping epicentre, and unique as a capital city main street, with buildings along one side only, and open views to Edinburgh Castle on the other. Running east from the castle, which has been occupied as a fortress for over one thousand years, is the Royal Mile, whose tenement buildings, when constructed in the seventeenth centrury, were the tallest in Europe. The Palace of Holyroodhouse, at the bottom of the Royal Mile, now has the Dynamic Earth Exhibition as a neighbour, and both will soon be joined by the Scottish Parliament building. Looking down on all three is a 250 metre high extinct volcano, which is what people are referring to when they boast that they "went up Arthur's Seat at dawn" on May Day to see the sunrise.

Edinburgh is famed for its architecture - the Old Town, the Georgian New Town, the Scott Monument, the National Gallery, St Giles Cathedral, the National Monument on Calton Hill, site of the Beltane Fire Festival and overlooking the classic Royal High School, which I attended as a child, and later constructions such as the Festival Theatre and the Traverse Theatre. Even Edinburgh's deprivation has been immortalised, through the pages of Irvine Welsh's Trainpotting, and writings in a similar vein (s'cuse the rather abstruse pun).

Edinburgh is now the place to see in the New Year, and is home to the Edinburgh International Festival, The Fringe, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Science Festival, the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, not to forget the Caledonian Beer Festival (although I can't remember last year's one at all, for some unknown reason). The city has three universities, Edinburgh University, Napier University, and Heriot-Watt University, where this Internet Resources Newsletter is based.

Want to know more? Then try EdWeb, or the Edinburgh and Lothians Tourist Board site, or Edinburgh Arts & Entertainment. Or have a look at the Get a Life section of this newsletter, which regularly features Web sites relating to events and activities in Edinburgh. Consult The List to find out what's happening or the Time Out: Edinburgh guide, or the Edinburgh Student. Get the latest news from The Scotsman.

Edinburgh Bicycle has a free e-mail newsletter, and looking at their site may motivate you to ride around the town on two wheels. Whatever method you use to get out and about, you will eventually get thirsty. There are various Edinburgh pub guides, or if you are abstentious by nature, you can check out the proliferating number of cafes in the town. Take in both java beans and java script at Cyberia Cafe, Web 13, or the soon to open Southern Cross Cafe in Cockburn Street.

Cafe culture is really taking hold in Edinburgh. According to INSTANT, a new, free newsletter, there are now over 175 cafes to choose from in the capital. You can find copies of INSTANT in many of them, and through it, keep up to date with the caffeine scene.

Now I'm off for a cup of Chimani-Mani, my favourite medium roast from the east of Zimbabwe.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Faculty Librarian
(R.A.MacLeod@hw.ac.uk)

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