African Studies
"African Lives"
http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/africanlives.front.htm
The Africa too often represented in newspaper headlines is one of an undifferentiated mass of people beset by war and famine with only the occasional political figure standing out. To give at least some snapshots of the people who live there, if not a comprehensive picture of a large and varied continent, The Washington Post has assembled a series of stories covering the lives of everyday Africans into one convenient archive. One of the stories explores the increasing difficulty of making a living as a fisherman in Senegal and another one covers the duties of a midwife in an Ethiopian village. An accompanying photo album helps with visualization and an extensive links section for each country allows visitors to find reliable information about everything from weather to politics. Though it would be nice if the site were easier to navigate it is economically designed for fast loading and does have a good search engine; and, of course, it draws on the archives of a major U.S. newspaper to add context and depth.
"Africa South of the Sahara"
http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/guide.html
"Africa South of the Sahara" is a vast directory of links prepared by Karen Fung for the Electronic Technology Group, African Studies Association, USA. The site provides access to an impressive array of varied information and is a good place to start exploring the African continent online. Users can browse the directory by regions and countries or by one of more than 30 topics, ranging from art, business, e-mail access and electronic networking to international relations, literature and travel. (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)
"Geechee Girls Film, Video & Multimedia Productions"
http://www.geechee.com/
This is a website devoted to Julie Dash's film Daughter's of
the Dust, about the lives of a group of African-American women living in
a "Gullah" community on South Carolina's Sea Islands at the turn of
the century. The site admirably provides intriguing glimpses of the film, its
contributors, and places the film in a larger context of filmaking and writing by African-American women and others. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)
"The Martin Luther King Papers Project"
http://www-leland.stanford.edu/group/King/
This long-term, large-scale documentary project by Stanford University aims to clarify the nature and sources of Martin Luther King's ideas and leadership style with a complete 14-volume edition of Dr. King's papers that is being developed in collaboration with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc. The planners hope it will also become an essential reference work for the study of modern social and intellectual history as it makes secondary documents written during Dr. King's life, student research, as well as internship programs and public education available. Portions of the first two volumes are available now--starting with a letter from the eight-year-old Martin to his father on Father's Day--and some of his more famous texts are listed separately. As the database grows, a search engine and more adaptable interface will be needed to fulfill the goals of the project but, for now, it's an excellent start for a much-needed resource.
"Universal Black Pages"
http://www.gatech.edu/bgsa/blackpages.html/
The Universal Black Pages--an information service residing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, but not affiliated with the Institute--allows visitors to "discover the African Diaspora." The service offers access to a directory of sites related to African and African-American culture, including sections on art, music and entertainment as well as history, educational opportunities and student organizations. The Universal Black Pages are a well-organized and user-friendly gateway to information on African-American culture. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)
"World African Network"
http://www.worldafricannet.com/
The "World African Network" is a multimedia telecommunications company founded by Eugene and Phyllis Jackson, specializing in television, telephony, and information services. Its mission is to address historical imbalances in telecommunications; the network's website is designed as a gateway through which people of color can contribute to the global market place of ideas. The site is a useful resource, covering a wide area of topics: the content and programming of "World African Network Online" is based on 24 areas of "Life Interests"--ranging from "Education" and "Art & Culture" to "Business & Economics" and "Religion & Spirituality." You may also visit "The World African Vineyards" to connect to African communities around the world.(Vol. 1 No. 5, Sept. '96)
Agricultural Sciences
"Cyber-Farm"
http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~farm
The "Cyber-Farm"--maintained by the Ohio State University Extension Information Office for Small, Part-Time and Sustainable Agriculture--effectively uses a graphic interface to organize an index of links to sources of agricultural information. Visitors to the farm may click on items and locations on a map, such as "The Farmhouse," "The Garden" or "The Machine Shed," to access listings of Internet resources. Clicking on "The Barn" will lead users to information on "Cattle" and "Poultry" or "Beefalo, Buffalo, Bison." The "Crops" section features links to resources such as "The Corn Growers Handbook from Purdue University" or "Pest Management and Pesticides." (Vol. 1 No. 9, January '97)
"University of Delaware Botanic Gardens"
http://http://bluehen.ags.udel.edu/udgarden.html
see article Vol. 1 No. 2, May '96
American Studies
"American Studies Crossroads Project"
http://www.georgetown.edu/crossroads/crossroads.html
Co-sponsored by Georgetown University's American Studies
program and the American Studies Association, this site is designed as
an "electronic crossroads" bringing together material about
organizing American Studies courses and programs. Though still under
construction, it already features a library of American Studies syllabi as well as
a guide to using multimedia in the classroom. Users may also access bibliographies
and Internet resources from a "Subject Map to Fields of American Studies"
(e.g. African or Asian American Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies). The site will
eventually include descriptions of collaborative teaching efforts sponsored by the
Crossroads Project. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)
American Indian Studies
"Cankpe Opi"
http://vp4.netgate.net/~jsd/WKmasscre.html
"Cankpe Opi," the Wounded Knee home page--approved by the elders on the Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River reservations--should be on the reading list of everybody interested and involved in American Indian issues. The site doesn't shy away from controversy; visitors to the home page are confronted with two quotes--the first one an excerpt from an official investigation of the Massacre at Wounded Knee initiated at the behest of Congress ("There is nothing to conceal or apologize for in the Wounded Knee Battle - beyond the killing of a wounded buck by a hysterical recruit."), the second one a note from the Editor of "Indian Country Today," who dismisses the First Nations web site as a misguided attempt to support American Indian issues. The site features a section on "What happened?" (at Wounded Knee) and "Medals of (dis) Honor," focusing on the 20 medals awarded to participants in the Massacre at Wounded Knee and the e-mail campaign that has been initiated in order to force the U.S. Government to rescind the medals of (dis) Honor. (Vol. 1 No. 11, March '97)
"The Native American Adventure"
http://www.indians.org/
"The Native American Adventure --sponsored by the American Indian Heritage Foundation--consists of a "Live 3D Virtual Art Museum" and an archive of "Indigenous Peoples' Literature." The impressive literature section, an e-text archive developed by Glenn Welker, is an inclusive library, which makes for terrific reading. The archive contains stories and legends, prayers and music, as well as famous quotes and information on great chiefs and leaders (most of the texts are of North American Indian origin, but readers will also find "Fables of the Mayas" and material on indigenous peoples of Mexico). The stories, fables and legends are catalogued by categories such as creation/migration stories or animal stories--e.g., coyote, deer, eagle--and the e-texts can also be browsed by name, date and type. (Vol. 1 No. 11, March '97)
"Nativeweb"
http://www.nativeweb.org
If you don't know who Leonard Peltier is, here's the place to find out. A collective
group of webmasters have pooled an impressive array of resources here to serve
the interests of indigenous people, especially Native Americans, and those wanting
to find out more about their current activities, art, history and much more. (Vol. 1 No. 1, April '96)
Anthropology
"The Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents"
http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/CSAD/
CSAD, the home ofOxford University's epigraphical archive, has one of the world's largest collections of paper impressions of Greek inscriptions, Roman inscriptions from Britain, and a substantial photographic collection. The archive is particularly strong in representations from Chios, Samos, Pirene, Rhodes and Samothrace. The Centre is currently involved in an experimental project to create a library of digitized images that will be part of a unified database of papyrological resources available to scholars and the public through the Internet. Samples of the work done so far are available at the site for viewing online and as higher-resolution downloadable files.
(Vol. 2 No. 2, Spring '98)
"3-D Reconstruction of Ancient Egyptian Mummy"
http://www.coe.ncsu.edu/departments/ne/mummy2.html
North Carolina State University's Department of Engineering has created a page describing its 3D reconstruction of an Egyptian Mummy from the collection of the British Museum. The mummy--Tjentmutengebtiu, a priestess from the 22nd dynasty (945-715 BC)--was chosen by the British Museum as an example of the period when the mummification process had reached its highest level of expertise. The webpage describes the use of 'state of the art' facilities (that are normally used clinically), such as X-ray Computer Tomography, for the 3D reconstruction of the mummy. The project made use of radiological techniques that hadn't been applied to studies of mummies previously. (Warning: the page contains huge image files, so the download may take some time.) (Vol. 2 No. 1, Fall '97)
Archaeology
"ArchNet"
http://www.lib.uconn.edu/ArchNet/ArchNet.html
"ArchNet"--produced by Thomas Plunkett and Jonathan Lizee--serves as the Virtual Library for Archaeology and is the best gateway to archaeological resources available on the Internet. The well-organized and inclusive site categorizes information by geographic region and subject; the subject areas range from archaeometry and ethnohistory to mapping and analytical software. The home page is available in 7 languages, including Catalan, Dutch, French and German. (Vol. 1 No. 8, December '96)
"Fallen Timbers Battlefield"
http://www.heidelberg.edu/FallenTimbers/
This archaeological project is maintained by Heidelberg College. Everything at this site is neatly indexed on the homepage: "documents," "photo gallery," "press archives," but there is little synergy between the material. The site exhibits careful and dedicated work; still, it would be desirable if some "embodiment" of this work risked displaying it by presenting it in a way that wouldn't be possible in a different medium. As it is, everything here remains loyal to traditional forms of presenting academic material. (Vol. 1 No. 3, June '96)
Art History
"The Medici Archive Project"
http://www.jhu.edu/~medici/
The Medici Archive Project Inc.--a non-profit corporation based in New York--was founded in 1993 in order to realize the potential of the Medici Granducal Archive, housed in the Archivio di Stato in Florence. The project's website, hosted by Johns Hopkins University, features documentary sources for the arts and humanities (1537-1743); a section on Jewish history, religion, and culture in the Medici Archive as well as a section on the history of costumes and textiles. The site is mostly a linear directory to the Medici Archive's collections, but offers access to a host of valuable resources for everybody interested in this historical period. (Vol. 2 No. 1, Fall '97)
Arts
"Arts-Edge"
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/
Arts-Edge is an information network created by The John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. It is designed to provide teachers, students and artists with access to educational resources, professional development opportunities and special projects that support the arts as a core subject area in the K12 curriculum. Among the services featured at the site are NewsBreak--focusing on newsworthy developments and information about arts education issues--a Job Listings page, and the K12ARTSED Listserv, with close to 300 subscribers from all over the world. (Vol. 1 No. 3, June '96)
Architecture
"Architecture in London"
http://ilex.cc.kcl.ac.uk/year1/architecture.html
A handy and thorough annotated index to architecture resources gathered from a keyword search of the net and part of the Humanities with Applied Computing Program at King's College London. The focus is mainly London and the resource is meant for humanities students, not architecture scholars, but there is plenty of information for students at any level who may be interested in the urban environment. Contemporary and historical subjects are covered as well as conservation, decorative arts and social aspects. As of this writing, the index created in the fall of 1997 has been frequently updated and a link to the Course page will lead visitors to the host site for a class intended to give students and faculty hands-on experience in Web publishing. The course is taught by Dr. Willard McCarty, senior lecturer at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities at the College, whose research interests lie in two largely overlapping areas: Ovidian studies, particularly the Metamorphoses, and problems of meta-textual representation on the computer.
Asian Studies
"Asian Studies Network Information Center"
http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic.html
ASNIC's site--managed by the Center and Department of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin--is designed to provide students, faculty members, scholars, and other Asianists with information regarding Asia and Asian Studies programs. Users may "visit" 17 countries and places of Asia and will find information on topics ranging from language, literature, arts and religion to history, government, politics and media. ASNIC is an excellent, inclusive service providing a massive amount of materials--one of the best educational websites around. (Vol. 1 No. 4, July/August '96)
"Orientation"
http://www.orientation.com/
Conceived, developed, and hosted by The Black Box, a Hong Kong-based interactive media company, "Orientation" is a commercial Web directory providing information about Asia in cyberspace and locating it for you. The database of Asian and Asian-related websites can be searched by subject areas, including "Arts & Activities," "Ideas & Institutions," and "Science & Technology"; "Orientation" also offers the latest regional financial news, headline news, and chat. The outstanding feature of this useful directory is its multilingual interface, which is available in Chinese, Japanese, and English.
(Vol. 1 No. 10, February '97)
Astronomy
"Explorers of the Universe"
http://coe.tnstate.edu/explorers/
"Explorers of the Universe" is a scientific literacy project based within the Center of Excellence in Information Systems Engineering and Management at Tennessee State University (TSU). Engineered by Marino C. Alvarez, Ed.D., of the Department of Teaching and Learning, the project teams scientists at TSU with students at a number of different public and private high schools. The students research and analyze data on the brightness of stars, collected from Automatic Photoelectric Telescopes that are based at Washington Camp in the Patagonia Mountains of Southern Arizona. The "Explorers" website features background information on the project and the educational tools used and might be a helpful model for any institution engaged in similar endeavors. (Vol. 1 No. 12, April/May '97)