The Scout Report - February 9, 2001

February 9, 2001

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators. However, everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML). Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.


In This Issue:

New From Internet Scout

Subject Specific Reports

Research and Education

General Interest

Network Tools

In The News


New From Internet Scout

Open Letter to Our Readers
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/about/letter-010202.html
Dear Readers: Here at the Internet Scout Project, we have been working on securing a new source (or sources) of funding for the Scout Reports. We are soliciting your ideas in an Open Letter to Readers that has been sent to the subscriber mailing lists and is available on our Website. Please read the letter at the address above and send us your ideas.
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Subject Specific Reports

Scout Reports for Social Sciences & Humanities and Business & Economics
Scout Report for Social Sciences & Humanities
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/socsci/2001/ss-010206.html
Scout Report for Business & Economics
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/bus-econ/2001/be-010208.html
The eleventh issues of the fourth volumes of the Scout Reports for Social Sciences & Humanities and Business & Economics are available. The In the News section of the Social Sciences & Humanities Report annotates eight resources on disagreements between the US and its European allies on the issues of a US missile defense system and the deployment of a "rapid reaction" European Union force. The Business & Economics Report's In the News section offers seven resources on the recently proposed patients' bill of rights.
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Research and Education

Tobacco Control Archives [.pdf]
http://www.library.ucsf.edu/tobacco/
Sponsored and hosted by the University of California-San Francisco Library & Center for Knowledge Management, Department of Archives & Special Collections, this site offers a wealth of papers, unpublished documents, and electronic resources relevant to tobacco control issues (primarily in California). The final version of the archive will contain over 40 million pages of documents, but even now users can access thousands of pages in three collections. These are the Brown & Williamson Collection, the Joe Camel Campaign: Mangini v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Collection, and California Documents from the State of Minnesota Depository. All three are searchable and browseable. Also included at the site are a guide to searching tobacco industry Websites, full-text reports on tobacco industry activity, and links to related resources. [MD]
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New Jersey Environmental Digital Library (NJDEL) [.pdf, RealPlayer]
http://njenv.rutgers.edu/njdlib/
Developed by the Scholarly Communication Center of Rutgers University Libraries, this site offers access to an impressive array of materials related to the New Jersey environment. The scope of the collection is quite broad, including citizen information, technical reports, photographic tours, and even some full-length videos. In addition, many of the items in the digital library are ephemeral or grey literature, typically unavailable through common research tools. Visitors may search the collection by keyword or phrase, title, or author, or browse via one of three pull-down menus: theme, place (county), and document type. As if all this were not enough, the library will also digitize documents on demand, and environmental organizations and individual researchers can submit their materials directly to the collection (select "submit records" for instructions). An excellent resource and a model for other states. [MD]
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Making of America Collection (MOA) Update
http://moa.umdl.umich.edu/
The Making of America Project (last reviewed in the November 18, 1997 Scout Report for Social Sciences) has announced a major update to its collection of late-nineteenth-century American books and journals. The University of Michigan Digital Library Initiative has added over 7,000 volumes (books and journal issues) to the MOA collection, which now holds more than 8,500 volumes totalling approximately 2.89 million pages of text. As before, this site is notable not only for its sheer size and utility, but also for its use of Optical Character Recognition technology, which presents users with a searchable scanned image of the actual pages of the nineteenth-century texts. Instructions are provided for those who prefer to view the (uncorrected) plain text versions. Both the journal and book collections may be browsed alphabetically (and chronologically in the former), searched by keyword, or searched by a number of advanced options, including boolean, proximity, frequency, and index searches. [MD]
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War, Chaos, and Business: Modern Business Strategy
http://www.belisarius.com/
This unique Website, hosted by Kettle Creek Corporation, offers articles and presentations on the theories of Colonel John R. Boyd, a US strategist. Boyd wrote extensively on the ideas of agility and time-based competition. The former refers to the ability "to generate ambiguity, isolation, and panic in the opposing side." Boyd advocated combining agility with time-based competition, "to operate in rapid decision cycle time," in order to win wars. On this Website, these two theories are applied to business strategy. The articles in the database may be browsed by author or title, navigating via the left side of the screen. The site also contains a large collection of case studies, business applications, and biographies of Boyd. This site seems to be a little slow to load, but for those interested in applying military theory to business strategy, it will be well-worth the wait. [EM]
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"No Child Left Behind": President Bush's Education Initiative to Congress -- US Department of Education
http://ed.gov/inits/nclb/index.html
Executive Summary:
http://ed.gov/inits/nclb/part2.html
.pdf version:
http://ed.gov/inits/proposal.pdf
The US Department of Education has placed online a report outlining President Bush's new educational policy and recommendations to Congress. The report sketches Bush's goals for education reform: testing to assess student performance and the success of individual schools, less federal regulatory involvement in school policymaking, targeted spending to "improve schools and enhance teacher quality," a focus on literacy, and a system of choice for parents whose children are in failing schools. The 28-page report provides a general summary of the policy initiatives designed to realize these goals. [DC]
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Foreign Relations of the United States
http://libtext.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/
The Foreign Relations of the United States series is "the official documentary historical record of major US foreign policy decisions and significant diplomatic activity." The series initially began in 1861 and now comprises over 350 volumes. Many volumes published since 1945 are available online from the State Department (see the January 21, 2000 Scout Report), and users can now read the full text of volumes from 1900-01 and 1903-18 at this site, offered by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago Libraries. Visitors may browse the collection by volumes, keyword search by issue or all volumes, or perform Boolean and proximity searches. The volumes are displayed as digital page images with links to text versions and printable page images. [MD]
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UNICEF Innocenti Report Card [.pdf]
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/pdf/repcard2e.pdf
Press Release
http://www.unicef.org/newsline/01pr10.htm
This new UNICEF report contains the "most comprehensive estimates so far of child injury deaths across the member countries of the OECD" (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), the world's most industrialized countries. The Innocenti Report Card offers the first league table of child deaths by injury and concludes that injury has become the number-one killer of children ages one to fourteen in developed countries and accounts for almost 40 percent of deaths in that age group. The full text of the 30-page report is available for download in .pdf format from UNICEF. [MD]
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H-Caribbean
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~carib/
The latest addition to H-Net's discussion networks is intended to serve as a forum for debates and discussions on Caribbean Studies for academics teaching and researching in associated fields. The editors note that "in keeping with current historiographical trends, it is intended that this list will help to move the study of the Caribbean beyond a regional analytical framework and will locate the region within the broader context of modern world history." Users can subscribe to the list and read discussion logs at the site. [MD]
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General Interest

The Hannah Arendt Papers at the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/arendthtml/arendthome.html
The American Memory Project has released a preview version of the new Library of Congress's Manuscript Division collection relating to the life and activities of author and political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975). Totalling over 25,000 items (about 75,000 digital images), the collection contains "correspondence, articles, lectures, speeches, book manuscripts, transcripts of Adolf Eichmann's trial proceedings, notes, and printed matter pertaining to Arendt's writings and academic career," as well as correspondence with a number of leading literary and political figures of the 20th century. At present, only a limited number of page images are available online at the preview site (best accessed via the browse by series option), though they total over 2,000 images. These include lectures on Kant, Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Existentialism; the first and final drafts of Between Past and Future; the New Yorker version of Eichmann in Jerusalem_;On Revolution; and other essays and lectures. The complete version of the digitized Arendt Papers will be made available to researchers onsite at three locations in the summer of 2001. The final online version will contain four document series: the Adolf Eichmann File, Subject File, Speeches and Writings File, and Addition I, plus the "General" section of the Correspondence File. Also included at the preview site is an essay on Arendt by Jerome Kohn, Professor of Philosophy at The New School University. [MD]
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"Sexual Victimization of College Women" -- DOJ [.pdf]
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/nij/182369.pdf
ASCII version:
http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1/nij/182369.txt
Press release:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/svcw.pr
Last week, the Department of Justice released the report "Sexual Victimization of College Women," which offers "a comprehensive look into the prevalence and nature of sexual assault occurring at American colleges." The report provides data on the frequency, types, related injuries, and victim perceptions of sexual assault on campus. It finds that "about three percent of college women experience a completed and/or attempted rape during a typical college year" and that about thirteen percent of college women had been stalked since the beginning of the school year. The report can be downloaded in .pdf format or ASCII, and an online press release presents key findings. [DC]
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The Centennial Exhibition -- Philadelphia 1876
http://libwww.library.phila.gov/CenCol/index.htm
The Free Library of Philadelphia presents this online look at one of the great nineteenth-century World's Fairs: the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, celebrating America's 100th birthday. The Website is organized into a variety of sections to help modern visitors recreate the experience of visiting the fair, but which may obscure the site's structure. The Tours section is a good starting point, featuring an interactive color panorama that's a jumping off place to major fair buildings such as the Women's Pavilion, the Horticultural Hall, or the Main Exhibition Building. Other highlights include the Centennial Schoolhouse with children's activities: a timeline, and paper model of the fair that can be printed and built. Types of historical materials presented include postcards, trade cards, wood engravings, albumen photographs, manuscripts, and children's books. In addition to the digitized historical images, the online exhibition makes heavy use of specially designed graphics, and loading these image-intensive pages may result in some long waits. For impatient types, there is a quick search box, and an advanced search for searches by subjects, captions, material types, and a link to search bibliographic records for the collection in the Free Library of Philadelphia catalog. [DS]
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"Resource Guide on Racial Profiling Data Collections Systems: Promising Practices and Lessons Learned" -- DOJ [.pdf]
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/bja/184768.pdf
Text Version
http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1/bja/184768.txt
Prepared by staff at Northeastern University for the US Department of Justice, this report is a resource guide on racial profiling. The report offers an overview of the nature of racial profiling; gives information on data collection and its purpose; describes current activities in California, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Great Britain; and offers some recommendations for the future. Non-specialists may not be interested in the particulars of data collection, but the report still contains much of interest to anyone concerned with racial profiling and efforts to stop the practice. [MD]
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"Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change" [.pdf]
http://www.nssg.gov/phaseIII.pdf
US Commission on National Security/21st Century
http://www.nssg.gov/
The US Commission on National Security/21st Century has been tasked with conducting the "most comprehensive government-sponsored review of US national security in more than 50 years." The commission has recently posted the report from its third and final phase: "Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change." The 131-page report covers topics such as institutional redesign, human requirements for national security, and the role of science and education. Users may download the full text of this and the previous two reports in .pdf format at the site. [MD]
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Breakthrough Books -- Lingua Franca
http://www.linguafranca.com/bookworm/breakthrough/
In each issue, Lingua Franca asks noted scholars and experts in a select field to recommend recent breakthrough books in their field. The magazine has begun to place the entire archive online, which currently includes over 60 topics. Each book listing includes the recommender's comments and links to purchase information. A very nice resource, especially for those new to a subject or from a different discipline. [MD]
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Louis Armstrong Discography
http://www.satchography.com/
Satchography! Whether or not you agree with Ken Burns (and many others) that Louis Armstrong is the font of jazz and modern American music, you have to appreciate the effort and care that have gone into this site. Fans, researchers, and casual listeners can use the site to access comprehensive information on Armstrong's recordings, sessions, and the composers. These are collected in seven sections which chart the course of Armstrong's career. Each section begins with an introduction and lists recording dates and song titles with a link to session details, which include composer, record label, and release number of first issue, the musicians featured, and CDs (or, in some cases, vinyl LP) where the song can be found. Pops's appearances on television, radio, and film are also noted, but detailed information is not yet available. The site is intended to serve as a working compendium, and suggestions, new discoveries, and comments are welcome. [MD]
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Public Radio Fan
http://www.Publicradiofan.com/
Created and maintained by Kevin Kelly, this is a great site for public radio listeners. The site serves as a directory to public radio stations in the US and around the world, linking to both the Websites and audio feeds as well as programming schedules. It also offers program listings by station, time (including what's on now), or program (the list is huge). There are many, many possibilities for this site. Visitors can look up when their favorite programs air on their local station, find an Internet broadcast of the show at an alternative time, discover new programs and stations, and so on. The site is especially useful for finding new programs from non-US stations. This is one of those sites that earned an immediate spot in this Scout's personal bookmarks. [MD]
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Network Tools

ProFusion - Version 2 Beta
http://beta.profusion.com
Originally developed by the University of Kansas Information Telecommunication and Technology Center, and School of Engineering DesignLab (see the July 25, 1997 Scout Report), ProFusion is a meta-search and "deep Web" search engine. Recently purchased by Intelliseek and fitted with a new interface, ProFusion allows users to search over 1,000 search sites, "including search engines, Web directories, discussion groups, news sources, online publications, and archives." Visitors can also perform targeted searches of vertical search sources, selecting which databases to query. Two other new features include an alert service that tracks changes to selected pages and notifies users by email and a Search Assistant that suggests results from search engine groups relevant to a query in addition to the general Web results. Worth a spin around the block. [MD]
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AltaVista Tools
http://tools.altavista.com/
AltaVista
http://www.altavista.com/
As part of a general redesign that has returned AltaVista closer to its search engine roots, the engine/ portal now offers a number of useful tools. Chief among these are education and government searches, which restrict searches to the .edu and .gov domains respectively. Education search features keyword searches of 20 million university and college sites in numerous languages, an education directory, and a list of the top four searches. Government search indexes all sites hosted by the US federal government and also offers a directory and top four list. The main AltaVista site has also been improved, with a much more streamlined and user-friendly interface. If you have drifted away from this venerable search engine over the years, you might want to take another look. [MD]
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Google Now Indexes PDF Files
http://www.google.com/
The indomitable Google has recently begun indexing content in .pdf files, allowing searchers a significant peek into the "invisible Web," the large area of online content not covered by most search engines. PDF files are differentiated by a [PDF] label and instead of a cached version, Google provides a link to a plain text version of the document. Keeping a plain text version allows Google to apply its PageRank technology and integrate .pdf content with normal search returns. Test searches did not turn up a large number of .pdf files, but adding "pdf" to the query produced a more significant proportion in the returns, although they were not always the majority. [MD]
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In The News

Peace Summit in Colombia
Colombia: War Without End -- CNN [RealPlayer, QuickTime, Windows Media Player]
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/colombia.noframes/
"Pastrana meets with rebel" -- Miami Herald
http://www.herald.com/content/today/news/americas/digdocs/040671.htm
"Colombia talks enter second day" -- BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1161000/1161048.stm
"Talking Peace on Rebel Turf" -- Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45717-2001Feb8.html
Colombia Report
http://www.colombiareport.org/
"Colombia's War Comes to Town" -- Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/barranca.html
Colombian Government
http://www.presidencia.gov.co/webpresi/index2.htm
El Tiempo
http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/
El Espectador
http://www.elespectador.com/
El Colombiano
http://www.elcolombiano.terra.com.co/
Peace talks between Colombian President Andres Pastrana and guerrilla leader Manuel Marulanda entered their second day today, fueling hopes for some breakthrough in ending the country's 37-year conflict. On Thursday, Pastrana rather boldly placed himself in the hands of the enemy, flying into the town of San Vicente del Caguan with a minimal security detail. The town is held by the main rebel army in Colombia, the 17,000 strong Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials, FARC. Two years ago, Pastrana ceded a 16,200 square mile area of the country to FARC as a goodwill gesture to jumpstart peace talks. So far, these talks have been disappointing, as kidnappings and violence by both the rebels and right-wing paramilitaries have continued unabated. Popular fatigue and anger at continued insecurity in Colombia has inspired Pastrana's latest efforts to secure peace. At the very least, he is expected to get FARC to return to the formal negotiations they left in November, claiming the government had made insufficient efforts to halt attacks by right-wing paramilitary groups. The outcome of this meeting will also most likely impact US policy in the region, as Colombia is now the second-largest recipient of US foreign aid, mostly in the form of combat helicopters and troop training. These have been provided ostensibly to battle the drug trade, which is protected and taxed by the FARC, but in reality, Colombia's civil war and drug war are now almost impossible to segregate.

Readers can begin with CNN's special report on Colombia, which features background, analysis, maps, timeline, key players, comment, archived stories, and video selections. Reports on the latest meeting can be found in the Miami Herald,Washington Post, and at the BBC. The Colombia Report offers history and analysis of the drug war in Colombia, with a focus on human rights and US involvement. An excellent account of the civil war at the local level can be found at Mother Jones, which also links to several related stories. Spanish-speaking readers can consult the official site of the Colombian government and El Tiempo,El Espectador, and El Colombiano for recent news and analysis. [MD]
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From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2001. http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/

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Copyright Susan Calcari and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1994-2001. The Internet Scout Project (http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/), located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about the Internet to the U.S. research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire Scout Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, are preserved on all copies.

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