IAT Infobits - April, 1998
No. 58
ISSN 1071-5223
About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of the Institute for Academic Technology's Information Resources Group. Each month we monitor and select from a number of information technology and instruction technology sources that come to our attention and provide brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
Digital Continuity and Preservation Conference
Digital Future Coalition
Online Resources for Writers
Multilingual Web Site
Online Sources of Statistics
The Digital Agora
IAT Librarian's Links
DIGITAL CONTINUITY AND PRESERVATION CONFERENCE
The "Time and Bits: Managing Digital Continuity" conference, sponsored by the Getty Conservation Institute and the Getty Information Institute, in collaboration with the Long Now Foundation, was held at the Getty Center on Feb 8-10, 1998, to explore the issue of preservation in the digital age and the impact of digital technologies on our cultural heritage. The Time and Bits Web site includes transcripts, images, and video clips from the meeting; an online discussion forum; participants list; papers related to the conference; and links to digital preservation resources on the Web. The Time and Bits Web site is at http://www.ahip.getty.edu/timeandbits/index.html
The Getty Conservation Institute "works internationally to further the appreciation and preservation of the world's cultural heritage for the enrichment and use of present and future generations." For more information, see their Web site at http://www.getty.edu/gci/
The Getty Information Institute "works to enhance global access to arts and humanities information by encouraging those responsible for preserving the cultural heritage to collaborate in building a cultural information infrastructure." The Institute has created several research and bibliographic databases in the areas of art and architecture. For more information, see their Web site at http://www.gii.getty.edu/
The Long Now Foundation was established in 1996 to foster long-term responsibility. The Foundation sponsors activities that promote planning for the "deep future." Their focus is on planning for the coming centuries, rather than for the next several years. For more information, see their Web site at http://www.longnow.org/
The Digital Future Coalition (DFC) was formed in 1995 in response to the Clinton administration's "White Paper on Intellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure," which recommended significantly altering existing copyright law in ways that would restrict access to digital information by educators, businesses, libraries, consumers, and others. The DFC is a collaboration of non-profit educational, scholarly, library, and consumer groups, together with major commercial trade associations representing leaders in the consumer electronics, telecommunications, computer, and network access industries. DFC members include the American Library Association, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Association of Research Libraries, the Modern Language Association, and the National Education Association. The Coalition is committed to "striking an appropriate balance in law and public policy between protecting intellectual property and affording public access to it."
More information about the DFC, its current activities, and its members is available on the Web at http://www.dfc.org/
In "Online Resources for Writers" (Library Journal Digital, April 1, 1998 issue), Martha Jones presents a collection of Web sites for writers, especially those who want to learn more about both the business and creative sides of the writing profession. Jones provides evaluations of the selected sites and offers links for both veteran and novice writers. The article and all links are available on the Web at http://www.bookwire.com/LJDigital/webwatch.article$7266
Library Journal Digital is an electronic offshoot of Library Journal, the oldest independent national library publication. Library Journal [ISSN 0363-0277] is published 20 times a year by Library Journal, P.O. Box 57559, Boulder, CO 80321-9690 USA; tel: 212-463-6819; fax: 212-463-6734; Web: http://www.bookwire.com/ljdigital/
For subscriptions are available from the above address or tel: 800-456-9409 (within the USA); tel: 303-604-1464 (outside the USA); fax: 303-604-7455; Web: http://www.bookwire.com/ljdigital/subscribe.html
Annual subscriptions are available for $99 (U.S.); $129 (Canada); $179 (air delivery to all other countries).
For more resources for writers, see the IAT Information Resource Guide "English Literature and Composition Resources on the Internet: Selected Sites" at http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-30.html
New York University Innovation Center's Academic Computing Facility Multilingual Web site "provides links to worldwide multilingual computing resources on the Internet, gives an overview of the technical issues, and offers tools for browsing and publishing on the Web in dozens of languages." The site focuses on the seventeen languages taught at NYU, including many with non-Roman character sets (Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean).
For more information, visit the ACF Web site at http://www.nyu.edu/acf/multilingual/index.html
"Statistics are among the hardest kinds of information to find," according to Paula Berinstein in "The Numbers Game: The Top 10 Sources for Statistics" (Online, vol. 22, no. 2, March 1998, pp. 61-65). Nonetheless, Berinstein has located ten sources that answer a large number of researchers' statistical questions. Most of the sources are available on the Web, as well as in print format. She also includes a list of tips for finding statistics online.
The entire article and all Web links are available at http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/OL1998/berinstein3.html
Online [ISSN 0146-5422] is published bimonthly by Online, Inc., 462 Danbury Road, Wilton, CT 06897-2126 USA; tel: 203-761-1466. Annual subscriptions are $110 (U.S. & Canada); $132 (Mexico); $145 (foreign airmail).
Selected articles are available on the Web at http://www.onlineinc.com/onlinemag/
According to authors Carolyn Watters, Marshall Conley, and Cynthia Alexander, in "The Digital Agora: Using Technology for Learning in the Social Sciences" (Communications of the ACM, vol. 41, no. 1, January 1998, pp. 50-57), the objective of the Digital Agora Web site at Acadia University is "to educate students to meet the challenges of complex, interdependent socio-cultural, political, technological, environmental, and economic systems." The site enables students in political science courses to collaborate on group projects, view online video tutorials, and get access to Web resource materials. While primarily focusing on the issues of implementing these tools, the authors acknowledge that Web resources may be "only rudimentary as tools for facilitating the understanding of the complexity of issues, the formulation of strategies dealing with these issues, and finally, the communication of ideas."
The Digital Agora is located at http://ace.acadiau.ca/digagora/digagora/agora.htm
For information on how the site was conceived and implemented, along with the creators' pedagogical philosophies, see http://ace.acadiau.ca/digagora/digagora/about/
The theme of the January 1998 issue of Communications of the ACM is "Computers Across Campus." Other articles include "A Strategic Plan for Ubiquitous Laptop Computing," by David G. Brown, Jennifer J. Burg, and Jay L. Dominick; "Combining Universal Access with Faculty Development and Academic Facilities," by Alan Candiotti and Neil Clarke; and "Computers and Systemic Change in Higher Education," by Ann Deden.
The issue's table of contents, but not the articles, is available on the Web at http://www.acm.org/cacm/0198/198toc.html
"Editorial Pointers," the editor's column is available at http://www.acm.org/cacm/0198/198point.html
Communications of the ACM [ISSN 0001-0782] is published monthly by the Association for Computing Machinery, the world's oldest and largest educational and scientific computing society. Subscriptions to Communications are included with membership in the ACM. Annual nonmember subscriptions are available for $144 (print version only), $173 (print and online versions), $115 (online version only). For more information, see Web: http://www.acm.org/catalog/journals/101.html
For information on joining the ACM, contact ACM Member Services Department, 1515 Broadway, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10036-5701 USA; tel: 800-342-6626 or 212-626-0500; fax: 212-944-1318; email: acmhelp@acm.org; Web: http://www.acm.org/
The following IAT Information Resource Guides were updated this month:
CD-ROMs, Laserdiscs, and Videos: Sources
http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-02.html
English Literature and Composition Resources on the Internet: Selected Sites
http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-30.html
URL: http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitapr98.html
Infobits editor: Carolyn Kotlas
© Copyright 1998, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.
May be reproduced in any medium for non-commercial purposes.
Center for Instructional Technology
Academic & Technology Networks
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
