ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

Internet Reviews

Sara Amato, editor

Sara Amato is electronic services and Web development librarian at Bowdoin College, e-mail: samato@bowdoin.edu

Encyclopedia Astronautica Access:httρ://solar.rtd.utk.edu:81/~mwade/ spaceflt.htm.

The Mir Space Station is a widely recognized outer space collaboration between American and Russian space scientists. In cyberspace, the Encyclopedia Astronautica Web site has also gained recognition—including recommendation from the Encyclopedia Britannica—as a well-organized source of a wealth of information about American and Russian space exploration.

Encyclopedia Astronautica is authored by Mark Wade, a space hobbyist, and sponsored by Friends and Partners, one of the first Internet services developed jointly by citizens of the

United States and Russia. The author has made excellent use of frames and an extensive variety of indexes to present detailed space mission information. These include a chronology of space flight searchable by individual year and year quarter, alphabetic indexes to space programs, detailed spacecraft: information (including mission purposes), astronaut biographies (including photos and mission information), manned flights, rocket launches, stages, and engines. A fuels index presents the stage index information alphabetically within propellant type. A launch site index allows users to search by site name. One can also search spacecraft alphabetically by objective and launch vehicles by family name. Another index is a gateway to many enlargeable graphics, many in color. All indexes offer users the opportunity to search by the first letter or digit of the desired record, and at the top of every record page a standardized top menu of options for traveling the site is provided.

Visitors will also find a “What’s New” section noting new or updated pages, as well as other special features. At this writing, the latter included a link to astronaut statistics, women of space, and Soviet combat spacecraft, among others. A “Top Twenty” section lists selected popular links to a variety of topics. An alphabetical listing of references by author and an acknowledgments section provide some authority information. Encyclopedia Astronautics currently boasts 5,596 articles, i.e., the individual entries located via the indexes, and also provides a main index link to longer, overview articles.

Truly encyclopedic, this is a colorful and easily navigated site, rich with information. While some content might be useful to middle-school children, this site is really most appropriate for the more sophisticated visitor, from the high school student to the advanced researcher. Additional information about the Web site’s author would be a useful addition to the FAQ section provided on the homepage.—Judith A. Matthews, Physics-Astronomy librarian, Michigan State University, e-mail: Matthe20@pilot.msu.edu

Diversity Rx (Web site) Access:http://www.DiversityRx.org/.

To get a handle on Diversity Rx, keep in mind language, culture, and healthcare. Diversity Rx is a clearinghouse of information on how to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of minorities, immigrants, and refugees seeking healthcare. It is thus a prescription (“Rx”) for diverse populations. Again and again, the site editors, who are interpreters, advocates, researchers, and consultants in the field of multicultural health, stress language and culture as they relate to healthcare delivery.

In regard to language, the site is a gold mine of information on the emerging profession of medical interpretation. The glossary does everything right, as when it distinguishes between interpretation (which is always oral) and translation (which is always written) or when it introduces us to interesting terms such as “encounter,” defined as a communication event, which may occur in a healthcare setting, in which the services of an interpreter are required. The Bilingual Interpreter Services section gives an example of a model medical interpretation service in its profile of the Community Health Services Program of Seattle, Washington. Interpreter Practices goes beyond directory information to give the codes of ethics of major medical interpretation societies, such as the American Medical Interpreters Translators Association and the Massachusetts Medical Interpreters Association. But the best section of all is the overview, written by Sherry Riddick, which makes excellent suggestions, such as how hiring bilingual staff is the most efficient approach to dealing with language barriers, how self-assessment of fluency is inadequate, and how strategies to break down language barriers might include retraining foreigners, bringing in traditional healers such as medicinemen and herbalists, and encouraging students of the health professions to study a foreign language. Riddick’s Overview (of the Models and Practices section) is the highlight of the site.

Librarians will find Diversity Rx closer in usefulness to a monograph than a reference work. Like a print monograph, the site is rich in information; but it does not lend itself easily to answering reference questions, since (as of December 1998) there is no FAQ and no engine to search the site by keyword. A suggestion for the future might be the addition of a glossary of culturebound syndromes (patterns of nonnormative behavior whose unique symptoms and progression tend to be specific to a particular geographic, ethnic, or cultural group).

Until then, information relevant to transcultural medicine and nursing may be found using the Hot Links to other sites, specifically EthnoMed (http://www.hslib.washington.edu/ clinical/ethnomed/index.html) at the University of Washington and the Transcultural and Multicultural Health Links page (http:// www.lib.iun.indiana.edu/trannurs.htm) at Indiana University.—Penelope Pαpαngelis, Health Sciences librarian, Western Kentucky University, email: Penny.Papangelis@wku.edu

The Copyright Website. Access:http:// www.benedict.com.

With his tongue planted in his virtual cheek, the author of The Copyright Website describes his award-winning Web resource as an endeavor “to provide real world, practical and relevant copyright information of interest to infonauts, netsurfers, webspinners, content providers, musicians, appropriationists, activists, infringers, outlaws, and law abiding citizens.”

Launched in 1995 by copyright and trademark attorney Benedict O’Mahoney, The Copyright Website was created to “encourage discourse and invite solutions” on issues related to copyright law in the digital environment. The site employs a unique presentation style to invigorate and illuminate this discussion. Utilizing an effective blend of text, graphics, and multimedia elements, the site succeeds in engaging users regardless of their level of expertise or familiarity with copyright law. The content is organized into six main categories: a discussion of the fundamentals of copyright law, the application of fair use and public domain, the distribution of copyrighted materials across the Internet, an examination of notable copyright infringements, copyright in the news, and an online copyright discussion area. Other issues of importance to librarians and educators are addressed within these major categories. These topics include the protection of content and design of Web pages, software ownership issues, implied and actual license, and copyright as applied to electronic newsgroups and mail lists. The site also helps visitors stay informed of copyright legislation in the news and provides links to a select set of related resources for additional information.

Useful as a primer on issues of copyright, The Copyright Website covers a broad range of issues but does not seek to offer a comprehensive examination of any single topic. It does, however, offer a sufficient and concise narrative coupled with an engaging audiovisual presentation. The site is particularly effective in its use of graphics and audio to provide detailed analysis and demonstration of recent infringement litigation. Highly graphical, easy to navigate and presented with a sense of humor, this site would be useful as a resource for online presentations.

Many examples are drawn from litigation within the news and entertainment industries and will appeal to a wide audience. Unfortunately, the site is not particularly well-suited to quick or ready reference use. The major organizational elements are broad and the Web site is not indexed or searchable. The online discussion threads are searchable, but as one might expect, users of this electronic forum pose far more questions than they answer.

With a sense of humor and effective use of the medium, The Copyright Website succeeds in providing authoritative, useful information on copyright law, particularly as it applies to information in digital form.—Mark A. Smith, Information Systems librarian, Scholes Library, NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred University, e-mail: fsmithm@bigvax.alfred.edu ■