ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Sara Amato, editor A fric a n a .C o m . http://www.africana.com. Africana.Com provides a gateway to con­ temporary events and news, culture, and his­ tory relating to Africa and people of African descent throughout the world. This resource. p ro d u c e d by th e co -e d ito rs o f Encarta Africana, Professors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah, has great potential for undergraduate students in the area of Af­ rican American studies and possibly sociol­ ogy. Africana.Com’s articles are divided into six areas, or Afri Channels: Worldview (selected news articles, updated daily), Lifestyle (fash­ ions and trends). Fast Track (career, business, and education). Heritage (legacy and com­ munity), Art Scene (arts and entertainment), and Homefront (home and parenting). The articles consist of original and third-party content from sources such as the BBC. The links to related articles and background en­ tries are particularly useful. Annotated links lead to related Web sites. The “Africana Links” section is divided into 25 categories, including science fiction, ac- tivism and education, and is available from a sidebar on the homepage. Two other use­ ful areas are the News section, offering a daily news roundup, and Book Reviews by Harvard professor Kwame Anthony Appiah and Africana.Com contributors. Africana Blackboard is a selection of les­ son plans for grades K-12, incorporating the Encarta Africana CD and selected Web sites, organized into various subject areas. This section is under development, with many lesson plan titles without links. The site offers immediate access to a great variety and breadth of resources from its homepage without appearing cluttered or sacrificing clarity. The “Afri Channels” navi­ gation bar appears consistently along the bottom of each page. A dropdown menu on the navigation bar allows the user to jump ' ' directly to other sections of the site, includ­ ing the homepage. Users can search the site by keywords or by entering an exact phrase in quotation marks and then sort the results by date. One of the goals of the site is to promote Encarta Africana, and the CD-ROM is featured prominently. Some options, such as free e­ mail services and radio broadcasts (requiring RealPlayer) are not ex­ ceedingly relevant in an academic reference environment. The vast selection of options, however, makes Africana.Com an effective source of information on people, ideas, and is s u e s fro m a r o u n d th e w o rld . — Britt Fagerheim, Gates Library F oundation, b_f agerheim@ hotmail.com C S P V V io le n c e L it e r a t u r e D a ta b a s e ( V io L it ) . http://w w w .C olorado.E D U / cspv/infohouse/violit/. Violence is an epidemic that is destroying America’s homes and communities. CSPV Violence Literature Database is an effort to p ro v id e research ers, p ro fessio n als, and policy- makers with resources in the causes and prevention of violence. The Center for r for udy and ntion o f the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado at Boulder, which was fo u n d ed in 1992 w ith a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, maintains this database. VioLit is one of four databases that is offered through CSPV Information House. Its user-friendly search interface was cre­ ated by using ShowBase software. Users are ab le to p erfo rm sim p le an d m ultifield searches. A simple search is performed by typing text in the query box and clicking on the index drop down list box to choose key­ Sara A m a to is electronic services and W eb developm ent librarian at Bowdoin College, e-mail:samato@bowdoin.edu ente le St reve C&RL News ■ April 2000 / 321 Africana.Com http://www.africana.com Africana.Com Africana.Com Africana.Com mailto:b_fagerheim@hotmail.com http://www.Colorado.EDU/ mailto:samato@bowdoin.edu 322 / C&RL News ■ A pril 2000 words, title, author, year o f publication, or record number to search. A multifield search supports advance searching, including bool ean operators, numeric operators, compari son operators and the ability to search more than one field at a time. Searching can be enhanced by using partial words, begins with, or browse search options. Search results yield bibliographic records and ordering informa tion for journal articles, books, reports, and literature reviews. B ecause the database has not been up dated since 1998, researchers will have to search other reference tools for current vio lent literature. VioLit can b e a starting point fo r lo catin g ju v en ile v io le n c e literatu re. —Nancy Allen, USFat Sarasota-Manatee/New College, nallen@sar.usf.edu Biz/ed. http://bized.ac.uk/. This well-organized site, created by a non profit consortium working at the Institute for L e a r n in g and R esearch T e ch n o lo g y at th e U n iv e rs ity o f B r is to l, is d e signed for busi n e s s an d e c o nomics students and their teach ers. The Internet Catalogue, the first major link on the site, is a Yahoo-style directory o f more than 1,500 Internet resources selected and described by subject experts. Top-level headings cover accounting, busi ness, econom ics, financial econom ics, higher education, human resources, m acroeconom ics, management, marketing, mathematical economics, organizational management, pro duction, the tourist industry, trade, and com merce. Business students, business profes sionals, and the public at large will b e able to m ake good use o f this directory. The Virtual Worlds link on the site includes two resources: a Virtual Factory and a Virtual Economy. The factory is based on a bona fide business, Cameron Balloons Ltd. There are four main sections in the factory: the Fac tory Floor (which includes worksheets, pho tos, relevant business theories, and an ex planation o f each main business function), Cameron Balloons (background on the com pany, its history, and product range), a Cost Breakdown o f balloon com ponents, and a Glossary o f ballooning jargon. The Virtual Econom y is based on com puter models that are similar to those used to keep the British econom y on track. It in cludes case studies, a section on the economic variables in the model, a library o f resource materials, and the interactive model itself. Users o f the site may change the values o f the variables and run the model repeatedly. The site also includes major links to Learn ing Materials, Com pany Facts, and Data. These pages include many online worksheets, datasets, PowerPoint presentations, and other instructional resources. Some will b e most useful to students in the UK. Despite the breadth o f Biz/ed, navigation is quite easy. The site includes a persistent navigation bar, a good site map, a search func tion, and several readily ac ce ssib le help screens that explain the site section by sec tion. Biz/ed will be useful both as a quality information resource and as an interactive teach in g to o l.— Tom Nichol, College o f St. B enedict & St. J o h n ’s University, tnichol@ csbsju.edu ■ ( “The time to le a d ” continued from p ag e 317) Science and Technology Billie Jo y Reinhart, University Library RT100C, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH 44115; b.reinhart@csuohio.edu Slavic and East European G razyna Slanda, Library-Slavic D ivision, Harvard C olleg e, C am bridge, MA 02138; slanda@fas.harvard.edu University Libraries Don Frank, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30324; don.frank@library.gatech.edu W estern European Specialists Jam es Campbell, University o f Virginia Li brary, Alderman Libraiy, Charlottesville, VA 22903; campbell@virginia.edu W om en’s Studies T o b e announced. Contact current Vice-chair T heresa T obin , M assachusetts Institute o f Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cam bridge, MA 02139-4307; tat@mit.edu ■ mailto:nallen@sar.usf.edu http://bized.ac.uk/ mailto:b.reinhart@csuohio.edu mailto:slanda@fas.harvard.edu mailto:don.frank@library.gatech.edu mailto:campbell@virginia.edu mailto:tat@mit.edu