A Publication of Internet Scout
Provided by the InterNIC as a Service to the Internet Community
The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and
newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and
educators, the InterNIC's primary audience. However, everyone is welcome to
subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML) or visit the Web
version of the Scout Report. Subscription instructions are included at the
end of each report.
http://rs.internic.net/scout/report
Philosophy on the Net
Philosophy around the Web is a comprehensive page of links to all things
philosophical. There are links to philosophy departments all over the
world, a large selection of annotated and rated (see thumbs ups) links to
individual philosophy pages, "living philosophers" pages, and mostly dead
philosophers pages from Apollonius of Tyana to Arthur M. Young. Also
provided are pointers to philosophy journals, Usenet news groups,
discussion lists, IRC's, conference and seminar listings, world wide
philosophy job openings, and several of the author's own writings. This
is a well done resource, full of nicely designed and well organized
content. Philosophy around the Web is produced by Dr Peter J. King
St Hilda's College, Oxford, England.
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0337/phil_index.html
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The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization --
FAOSTAT Databases
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has
made available several searchable databases containing extensive
agricultural data from many countries. Called the FAOSTAT Database, data
is provided for production, trade, commodity supply and demand balances,
population, land use, and fisheries. Users can select geographical
areas, commodities or products, variables relating to those commodities
or products, and an annual time series ranging from as early as 1961 to
as late as 1995, depending on the series. Results can be downloaded as
text tables, bar or line graphs with user definable axes, or CSV file
format -- text with comma separated values for easy import into
spreadsheet or other statistical applications. It is important to
carefully read the help files that accompany each database in order to
fully exploit the searching system. The FAOSTAT Databases give the user
access to an amazing amount of country data. Note that these databases
are forms based. Each is a work in progress.
http://apps.fao.org/lim500/agri_db.pl
For more information on FAO's World Agricultural Information Center
(WAICENT), which provides these databases as well as other information
collections:
http://www.fao.org/waicent/waicent.htm
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Hubble's Photos of Pluto
The Hubble Space Telescope's photographs of the surface of Pluto are
available on the Web. The photographs were taken during a seven day
period in late June and early July of 1994, but have just recently become
available. To understand the power of the Hubble Telescope, "viewing
surface detail on Pluto is as difficult as trying to read the printing on
a golf ball located thirty-three miles away!" Along with two
resolutions of a surface map of Pluto, there are three resolutions of an
entire planet picture, as well as PostScript and Adobe Acrobat PDF
illustrations of the planet's orientation during the picture.
Explanatory captions are provided.
http://www.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/96/09.html
For more information about the Hubble Space Telescope, see the
Space Telescope Science Information Service:
http://www.stsci.edu/
Text only:
http://www.stsci.edu/topNG.html
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New Astronomy -- A new electronic, refereed journal
Elsevier Science will begin a fully electronic and refereed journal in
astronomy and astrophysics later this year. "New Astronomy" will be
available via the Web as well as in print. Elsevier states the journal
will publish "articles in all fields of astronomy and astrophysics:
theoretical, observational and instrumental. 'New Astronomy' includes
full length research articles and letter articles. The journal covers
solar, stellar, galactic and extragalactic astronomy and astrophysics. It
reports on original research in all wavelength bands, ranging from radio
to gamma-ray." The journal's Web site provides a listing of receiving
editors, as well as a call for papers. It will be a scholarly journal
of "rigorously refereed" papers and aims to provide a short publication
time, with accepted articles being made immediately available
electronically. Detailed instructions on submittal are at the site.
http://www.elsevier.nl:80/journals/newast/
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Library of Congress Learning Page
The Library of Congress (LOC) has organized its digitized American Memory
collection in a way designed to fit the needs of students and educators.
The new site is called the LOC Learning Page. Resources to help educators
incorporate the Library's primary sources into their curriculum are
provided on the "Educator's Page," as well as answers to technical
questions about the online materials. The electronic collections are
arranged alphabetically by keyword, as well as by media type. The
"Pathfinder Pages" arrange the collection by types of events, people,
places, and topics. The entire site is searchable, and under "Search
Suggestion List" a synonym list for key word searching has been provided.
While the American Memory collection has been available for some time,
the Learning Page is a significant enhancement for K-12 educators and
students, and everyone else.
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/
For more information on LOC's digitized American Memory historical
collections:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ammemhome.html
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Teaching and Learning on the Web
The Maricopa County Community College District of Phoenix, Arizona
presents Teaching and Learning on the Web. This is a searchable
collection of almost 300 sites that use the Internet for teaching and
learning. Users can search over 35 subject categories ranging from
Anthropology to Writing. Although most resources are college level, a
small sampling of K-12 resources are included as well. Do a key word
search on k-12, high school, or kid in all categories to retrieve the
primary or secondary level resources. Maricopa encourages submissions,
which can be made through a form available on the home page.
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tl/index.html
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State Dept. Human Rights Country Reports -- 1995
U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for
1995 are available via the State Department's Foreign Affairs Network
gopher site. Reports are available for over 190 countries. An "Overview"
file, prepared by John Shattuck, Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human
Rights and Labor, gives a thumbnail sketch of the State Department's
views on world wide human rights issues, and can be found under "Preface
and Overview." Each country report is available as an ASCII text file and
countries are arranged alphabetically by continent. See Appendix A for
detailed information about the reports. All reports are available in one
DOS .exe compressed file under the "Zip" menu. Reports for 1993 and 1994
are also available.
gopher://dosfan.lib.uic.edu:70/1D-1%3A22373%3Ax1995%20Report
Gopher to: dosfan.lib.uic.edu
Select: Publications and Major Reports/Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices
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Way Cool Software Reviews
The "Way Cool Software Reviews" project encourages students, teachers, and
parents to make available their evaluations of software that they think of
as truly "way cool." Everyone is welcome to contribute reviews of software
they have at home or use at school. Students with disabilities are
particularly encouraged to contribute, as are reviews of software that may
be appropriate for individuals with disabilities. Reviews are distributed
via a mailing list and are available at the Web site. Way Cool Software
Reviews is a joint project of the A. J. Pappanikou Center Technology Lab
at the University of Connecticut and the Chatback Trust of the United
Kingdom.
http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~wwwpcse/wcool.html
Send email to:
listserv@Uconnvm.uconn.edu
In the body of the message type:
subscribe wycool-L Your name
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its a bunny -- Literary e-zine
"its a bunny" is a new Montreal, Canada based e-zine for new English
fiction, poetry and art. It is a stylishly done endeavor that seeks to
provide an outlet for writers and artists. The present issue, Winter
1996, contains four works of fiction, two poems, two essays, and fourteen
paintings. The site also points to several other literary e-journals.
http://www.iti.qc.ca/iti/bunny/
Less graphical home page:
http://www.iti.qc.ca/iti/bunny/bunny.html
Pointers page:
http://www.iti.qc.ca/iti/bunny/other.html
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The Syndicate -- A page of financial pages
The Syndicate is one of the most comprehensive "meta" financial pages on
the Net. Each monthly edition contains feature articles, but the
"Syndicate Navigator" section is the highlight of the site. It offers a
page of links to over 1,000 finance related pages in over 25 categories
from accounting and taxes to stock research and forecasts, some of which
are annotated and rated. It also offers brokers' information and links,
bond information and links, and mutual fund information and links. The
Syndicate is a financial page of pages.
http://www.moneypages.com/syndicate/index.html
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Chicago Tribune Online Edition
The Chicago Tribune has launched an Internet edition. The cyber paper
contains articles from each issue of the print version in the categories
of news, sports, weather, editorial, financial, and stocks, among others.
There are also "fun" and "extra" sections. The cyber edition is
particularly strong in terms of local and regional news. The full site
index gives access to the site's entire contents from one page. Currently
the entire electronic version is available at no charge.
http://www.chicago.tribune.com/
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CDNow -- The Internet Jukebox
The Internet Jukebox, provided by CDNow, makes it possible to listen to
entire CD's over the Internet if your computer is enabled with the
necessary hardware. The Internet Jukebox uses freely available RealAudio
2.0 technology, which enables audio files to be played over 28.8 modems.
CD's can be chosen from the categories of classical, pop-rock,
alternative, and jazz and blues. While the quality heard over the Net is
still not yet that of the CD player in your living room, the 2.0 version
of RealAudio is a definite improvement over 1.0. Oh yes, we can't forget
to mention that if you like the CD, you can order it from CDNow on the
spot. The virtual spot, that is.
http://cdnow.com/jukebox/
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AudioNet
For Internauts with RealAudio 1.0 capability (a 14.4 modem) try
AudioNet, the "Broadcast Network of the Internet." AudioNet offers live
broadcasts of over ten different talk radio stations, including WOR--New
York, WTEM--Washington D.C., and XTRA--San Diego. It also offers several
music radio stations, a selection of audio books, and numerous live (and
recent) sporting events such as NIT and NCAA Men's and Women's basketball
games and college baseball games.
http://www.audionet.com/
Free RealAudio 1.0 and 2.0 players can be downloaded from the
above sites. RealAudio 2.0 players will play RealAudio 1.0
sites, but 1.0 players will not play 2.0 sites. For more information
on RealAudio, see the Scout Toolkit:
http://rs.internic.net/scout/toolkit/3d1.html
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Email Discussion groups and lists
"E-mail Discussion Groups/Lists - Resources" is a simple collection of
information about using each of the three most commonly used software
tools for managing electronic mailing lists: Listserv, Majordomo, and
Listproc. The site provides the basic commands available to subscribers
of each type of list, which are sometimes similar but not the same
between types of lists, leading to confusion. The site also provides
links to more detailed guides for each of the three types of list
managers. Pointers to several search engines for locating discussion
lists by topic are also provided.
http://www.webcom.com/impulse/list.html
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MetaCrawler Search Engine
MetaCrawler is a search engine that searches multiple search engines with
a single command. It searches nine different engines. Its unique feature
is that it will verify that each reference returned is a valid address.
While this process takes longer than a normal search, it is well worth the
wait. For more information on MetaCrawler, see the Scout Toolkit (see
below).
http://metacrawler.cs.washington.edu:8080/
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Newly added resources to Scout Toolkit
Three searching resources have been added to the Scout Toolkit. Two are
searchable index "meta-search" engines, and the third is a subject
catalog. The meta-searchers are MetaCrawler (discussed above), and
SavvySearch (discussed in the February 23, 1996 issue of The Scout
Report). The OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) InterCAT catalog of
Internet resources is an experiment in which librarians have created a
seachable and browsable database of Internet resources using MARC (MAchine
Readable Cataloging) records.
Metacrawler:
http://rs.internic.net/scout/toolkit/3b1-7.html
SavvySearch:
http://rs.internic.net/scout/toolkit/3b1-8.html
OCLC InterCAT:
http://rs.internic.net/scout/toolkit/3b2-7.html
[Back to Contents]
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Copyright Susan Calcari, 1996. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the Scout Report provided the copyright notice and this paragraph is preserved on all copies. The InterNIC provides information about the Internet to the US research and education community under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation: NCR-9218742. The Government has certain rights in this material.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin - Madison, the National Science Foundation, AT&T, or Network Solutions, Inc.