Dublin Core Metadata Initiative News
The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set: ANSI/NISO Z39.85-2001 [pdf]
http://www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/pdf/free/335284/Z39.85-2001.pdf
Announcement: "Dublin Core Metatdata Element Set Approved"
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0110&L=dc-general&F=&S=&P=2142
International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications 2001
http://www.nii.ac.jp/dc2001/
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)
http://www.dublincore.org/
National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) recently approved and published this standard set of fifteen metadata elements for resource description. The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (discussed in the September 11, 1998 Scout Report) brings together librarians, digital library researchers, content providers, and text-markup experts who seek to increase the visibility of resources by establishing a common, low-cost framework for description. The official approval by ANSI/ NISO of this DC element set is a major step forward in more widespread adoption. Through a series of ongoing workshops, DCMI developed and refined these elements into an easily applied standard meant to coexist with other metadata standards. The next of these workshops is in Tokyo, October 22-26, 2001. Ninth in the series, this workshop, sponsored by Japan's National Institute of Informatics, will examine the emerging Semantic Web and the broader metadata community. [DJS]
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Eukaryotic Promoter Database
http://www.epd.isb-sib.ch/promoter_elements/
Attention genetics and bioinformatics researchers. The Eukaryotic Promoter Database (EPD), developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and currently maintained at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, is an annotated collection of eukaryotic POL II promoters intended to assist experimental researchers as well as computer analysts in the investigation of eukaryotic transcription signals. Promoters are included in EPD if they are recognized by eukaryotic RNA POL II, active in a higher eukaryote, experimentally defined or homologous and sufficiently similar to an experimentally defined promoter, biologically functional, available in the current EMBL release, and distinct from other promoters in the database. Database entries (searchable by organism, homology group, sequence, keywords, references, etc.) include promoter identifications and descriptions, information on the experimental evidence, various kinds of promoter classifications and regulatory properties, as well as bibliographic references and cross-references to other databases. The EPD Website also features yearly-updated base frequency matrices for major eukaryotic promoter elements, a user manual, and a link to a complementary database called EPDX, which allows users to view available gene expression data for human EPD promoters. [HCS]
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World Biodiversity Database
http://www.eti.uva.nl/Database/WBD.html
The World Biodiversity Database, provided by the Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification (ETI), seeks to "document all presently known species (about 1.7 million) and to make this important biological information worldwide accessible." This continually growing database "provides taxonomic information, species names, synonyms, descriptions, illustrations and literature references when available" on 200,000 taxa. The searchable database can be explored using an expandable tree of the five taxonomic kingdoms or by typing in a common or scientific name. Both educators and students should find this site easy to navigate, informative, and useful. [JB]
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Labor Research Portal
http://iir.berkeley.edu/library/laborportal.html
Berkeley's Institute of Industrial Relations Library offers this useful metasite. While not new, the site is kept current, and the information here will be useful for anyone involved in any aspect of labor relations. Resources are divided into nine sections, including Labor Unions, Government, Labor Libraries, Globalization, and more. While these sections bill themselves as "Web guides," many span a host of resource types, such as print works, songs, and videos. Brief annotations are supplied where useful, but in other cases, such as the links to labor unions around the country and world, having all of these references in one list is sufficiently helpful. Some of the lists are far from comprehensive, but they will surely grow over time. This is a must-bookmark for labor activists and researchers. [TK]
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Two from NCES
Characteristics of the 100 Largest Public Elementary and Secondary School Districts in the United States: 1999-2000 [.pdf]
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001346
"Overview of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools and Districts"
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/overview/
The first of these new reports from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) describes the 100 largest US school districts, responsible for the education of nearly 25 percent of public school students. The 66-page report includes sixteen tables, a section presenting the highlights of the data, and a discussion section, which briefly reviews the characteristics of these large districts, including their greater student/ teacher ratio and the higher percentage of minority students. The second report, "Overview of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools and Districts," is provided on NCES' site. Here users will find information gleaned from the Common Core of Data (CCD) survey system about US public elementary and secondary schools and local education agencies, 1999-2000. More than a dozen tables cover distribution of schools, numbers of students, and student/ teacher ratios. [TK]
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Special Briefing: The Terrorist Attack on America: Background -- Foreign Affairs
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/home/terrorism.asp
This special briefing from Foreign Affairs collects the full text of ten previously published articles and thirteen book reviews that "contribute to an understanding of the tragic attacks on New York and Washington." The articles range from David Fromkin's 1975 "The Strategy of Terrorism," which gives the history of terrorism and some governmental strategies for combatting it, to Richard K. Betts' prescient 1998 "The New Threat of Mass Destruction," discussing the dangers of terrorist attacks on the US. Other writers include Ahmed Rashid, Walter Laqueur, and Ashton Carter. [TK]
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Shattered! 50 Years of Silence
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/c/carmelly-felicia/
The Nizkor Project (first mentioned in the May 19, 1998 Scout Report for Social Sciences) has just posted online Dr. Felicia (Steigman) Carmelly's 1997 book, Shattered! 50 Years of Silence. The book, which focuses on the Holocaust in Romania and Transnistria, has been revised and updated for this Internet edition, which includes more current information about political groups and several new personal testimonies. The book is divided into three main parts: Geographic and Historical Background, Personal Testimonies, and Psychological Implications, with plenty of additional information: a conversion guide for Romanian tender, an index of Transnistrian Camps, a bibliography, etc. Note that most of the book's graphics are not yet on-site and will be added over time. [TK]
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Bibliography of the History of American Education
http://www.zzbw.uni-hannover.de/HerbstStart.htm
This extensive bibliography by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor emeritus Jurgen Herbst covers the historical literature of American education. It is organized in four sections: General Works, The Colonial Period, From Revolution to Reconstruction, and America in the Urban Age, with each section subdivided into thematic lists of scholarly, historical journals, and government reports. A smattering of the many topics includes Government, The Courts, and Education; Racial Minorities and Education; The Education of Women; Americanization: The Response to Immigration; Youth, the Arts, and Psychoanalysis; Nineteenth Century Pedagogy; and Teachers and Teaching. One might wish for additional features such as annotations and/or the ability to search across these topics, but the scope of this compilation is impressive. [DJS]
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