ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


C&RL N e w s ■  Se p te m b er 1998 / 611

I n t e r n e t  R e v i e w s Sara Am ato, editor

J o n ' s  H o m e s c h o o l  R e s o u r c e  P a g e .  Ac­
cess: http://www.midnightbeach.com/hs/ 
index.html.
The U.S. Department o f Education estimates 

that 1 percent o f the school-aged population 
is hom e schooled (half-a-million students), 
while various hom e schooling organizations 
give estimates two to three times 
higher. Whether for reasons of 
quality, morality, family togeth­
erness, or attempts to control so­
cial interactions, all agree that the 
numbers are growing at a swift 
rate.

Since the Internet has joined 
the public library as a great re­
source for parents who choose 
to e d u c a te  th e ir c h ild re n  at 
h o m e , h o m e  s c h o o l e r  J o n  S h e m itz  
( jo n @ m id n igh tbeach .com )  has aggregated 
Internet resources that support parents w ho 
choose to hom e school their children.

The most valuable resource on  his site is 
the list o f local support groups for 45 U.S. 
states taken from the magazines Growing With­
out Schooling ( http://www.HoltGWS.com/) 
an d  H om e E d u cation  M a g az in e (http:// 
www.home-ed-press.com/) and another home 
schooler named RuthAnn Biel. Those support 
groups that have Web sites tend to outline the 
rights and responsibilities o f parents, provide 
curricular materials, and give a philosophical 
foundation for hom e schooling. The list also 
includes resources for nine foreign countries 
and seven religious groups.

Many o f Shemitz s support pages also point 
to state laws. While som e merely point to com ­
pilations o f all state laws, others summarize 
relevant laws, including state standards for 
certification, required hours, school attendance, 
standardized tests, health and immunizations, 
and eligibility for extracurricular activities. Since 
not all pages point to legal information, it is a 
shame that the link to a summary o f each state’s 
hom e schooling law leads to a site that has 
moved or n o longer exists.

Another key resource is the list o f Web sites 
for hom e schooling pages and national orga­
nizations. In addition to other sites that aggre­

gate hom e schooling resources, Shemitz lists 
pages that discuss the philosophy o f home 
schooling and provide curricular materials, 
lesson plans, activities, field trips, and infor­
mation about college admissions. His list o f 
individual and family hom e pages would be 
more useful if he did something more to dis­
tinguish on e hom epage from another than 
separate them  into families, students, and 
graduates.

Other sections include a file o f FAQs, lists 
o f discussion groups, a pointer to site-listing 
conferences, links to general education and 
parenting resources, and a very limited list of 
“offline" resources. Shemitz only includes ven­
dors w ho choose to pay to appear o n  his site.

J o n ’s Homeschool Resource Page does not 
link directly to curricular resources, but it is 
one o f the most com prehensive and best or­
ganized o f the ideologically “neutral" (i.e., no 
particular religious viewpoint) aggregator sites. 
It should serve the needs o f parents who are 
exploring the idea o f hom e schooling or al­
ready teaching their children at hom e.— Mark 
Emmons, University o f  New Mexico

N e w s T r a w l e r .  A ccess: h ttp :/ / w w w .
newstrawler.com.
“Meta” search engines allow librarians to 

search the Web efficiently by sending a search 
request to more than on e engine at a time. 
NewsTrawler is a meta-search engine special­
izing in search in g  archives o f  W eb new s 
sources and a useful starting point for under­
graduates looking for current news stories.

The site is based in Australia, which prob­
ably explains the site’s preference for news 
sources from Asia. O f the 18 countries in the 
“publications by country” list, 9 are in that part 
o f the world, while the Americas, Europe, and 
South Africa also appear. Many o f the sites are 
not in English, which patrons should keep in 
mind w hen com posing a search. Publications 
are also classified by “category,” or type o f 
publication, but the user should be aware that 
the publications listed as journals might merely

Sara Am ato is autom ated systems librarian at Central 
Washington University;samato@tahoma.cwu.edu

http://www.midnightbeach.com/hs/
mailto:jon@midnightbeach.com
http://www.HoltGWS.com/
http://www.home-ed-press.com/
http://www
mailto:samato@tahoma.cwu.edu


612 / C&RL News ■  Septem ber 1998

have “journal” in the title. In all, the NewsTrawler 
site covers around 200 news sources.

T he sim ple search interface consists o f 
a w in d o w  to  e n t e r  s e a r c h  t e r m s , a 
d ro p -d o w n  list to  c h o o s e  th e  s e a r c h ’s 
timeout limit, and another drop-dow n b o x  
that lets the user determ ine if im ages should 
b e  provided. T h ere are n o help  screen s, 
possibly b ecau se each  new s sou rce treats a 
s e a r c h  d iffe r e n tly . At th e  to p  o f  e a c h  
pu blication’s search results, w hich appear 
together as on e long page, the user will see 
the search strategy as interpreted by that 
p u blication’s search engine. In this w ay I 
d eterm ined that som e o f the sites treated an 
intended phrase search correctly, w hile oth­
ers put “and ” b etw een  each  term.

One downside is the inability o f users to 
know in advance whether they will have to 
pay to see a full article. Sometimes in the search 

 results a price ap­
pears next to an ar­
ticle summary, but 
occasionally a pa­
tron will click on 
an article with no 

price listing, only to find that access to the 
site’s archive requires payment o f a subscrip­
tion fee. T h e News-Trawler administrators 
might add a symbol to the publication title to 
indicate fee-based access.

N ew sTraw ler e n te re d  the In te rn e t on  
Ju n e  27, 1998, and is still developing. T he 
site adm inistrators are very responsive to 
su g g estio n s, g en erally  resp on d in g to my 
e-m ail m essages within 24 hours. They are 
o p en  to ideas for new  publications and re­
quire only 15 minutes to add new  sites.—  
H e id i S en ior, U niversity o f  P o r tla n d ; 
senior@up.edu

P o li c y .c o m . Access: http://www.policy.com.
T h e Web provides access to a w ide range 

o f inform ation on political and policy issues. 
Users may view  official governm ent sites 
plus those operated  by organizations and 
individuals. Maintained by A2S2 Digital Prod­
ucts, P olicy.com  ranks am ong the better d e­
signed Web sites providing free access to 
data con cern in g current political and gov­
ernm ental topics.

P olicy .co m ’s m ain page con tain s three 
sections. T he main section presents links to 
current news stories, daily briefing and issue

Policy.comThe policy news & information service

o f the w eek sections, information on the up­
coming 1998 federal, state, and local elections, 
a special report section covering in detail one 
current issue, and a featured event area pre­
senting Real-Time audio versions o f speeches 
presented at policy forums.

During the period o f  site exam ination the 
site con tain ed inform ation on the proposed 
patients’ bill o f  rights, th e Social Security 
Reform Bill, the d ebate on  race in American 
society, the upcom ing election s in O h io and 
North Carolina, and the M icrosoft antitrust 
suit. Each section contains links to additional 
materials taken from governm ent sources, 
the m edia, think tanks, and other sources. 
E choing the site’s efforts to gather inform a­
tio n  fro m  a ra n g e  o f  n o n g o v e r n m e n ta l 
sources, o n e side section contains a listing 
o f policy events occurring in the W ashing­
ton, D.C. area.

A second side contains the site index, con­
tents grouped in eight broad areas. The news, 
events, and issues o f the w eek are listed first, 
fo llo w ed  by an issu es’ library con tain in g 
archive materials. An interaction area allows 
users to discuss topics in various moderated 
policy chat groups, and the Virtual Congress 
area provides links to pending and past legis­
lation and allows users to contact senators and 
legislators via e-mail. A student section con­
tains links to college- and university-based 
publications and groups. The community sec­
tion contains a well-selected list o f think tanks, 
advocacy groups, associations, foundations, 
businesses, colleges and universities, U.S. and 
foreign government sites, international orga­
nizations, media organizations, and other re­
lated resources. Finally, the search section 
contains a site search engine and a text-only 
site index.

Combined with sites like Project Vote Smart, 
which concentrate on federal and state legis­
lative action, Policy.com gives citizens a pow­
erful tool for obtaining needed information 
on  important issues facing the country. It pro­
vides an excellent balance for the evening 
news. This site is recommended for all variet­
ies o f academic libraries.— Stephen L. Hupp, 
University o f  P ittsburgh a t  J o h n s to w n ; 
shupp@upj.pitt.edu.

mailto:senior@up.edu
http://www.policy.com
mailto:shupp@upj.pitt.edu