ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


Internet 
Reviews

Sara A m ato, editor

C lassics a n d  M ed iter­
ra n e a n  A rch a eo lo gy . Ac­
cess: http:/rome.classics.lsa. 
umich.edu/welcome.html or 
gopher://rome.classics.lsa. 
umich.edu:70+/ll/General.

The Classics and Mediter­
ranean Archaeology (C&MA) 
server points to Internet re­
sources pertaining to the 
study o f the ancient Medi­
terranean world. C&MA also 
serves as a well-organized, 
easy-to-use launching site to 
other loosely related archae­
ology resources. Sources pointed to include: 
e-texts, field projects, course-related materials, 
museum files, other gophers, and listservs.

Announced in October 1993, the server re­
sides at the University of Michigan (UM) as a 
WWW site and a gopher site. The WWW site 
links to more sources, including files and im­
ages, than the gopher site. Sebastian Heath, a 
graduate student at UM, created the site and 
maintains it with “plenty o f moral support from 
the faculty.” Links are updated regularly.

The Field Projects section (/Table o f Con­
tents/Field Projects) accesses preliminary ar­
chaeological project reports from UM research­
ers, the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, 
and the Archaeological Fieldwork Server in 
Cornell which lists archaeological fieldwork op­
portunities. For exam ple, the files on the 
Leptiminus Archaeological Project, Tunisia, 
which was a port town under Roman Rule, in­
clude the report text and images of the site plan, 
structures located on site, and some artifacts.

Why are these preliminary reports exciting? 
They allow a peek at information that may not 
appear in published form for months or years, 
complete with images. They can also be used 
in class for discussion of various sites. The Field 
Projects section is a valuable resource that will 
increase in value as other reports are included.

The C&MA server in general is an excellent 
resource. Professional archaeologists, classicists, 
students, and archaeology/classics buffs will 
find it informative and fun.— Ruth V ondracek, 
Western Oregon State College;vondrar@fsa.wosc. 
osshe.edu

F D IC  G o p h e r . A ccess: 
gopher://nic.sura.net:71.

Stand ard  p ra c tic e  fo r 
most, if not all, academic li­
brarians involves the search 
fo r resources and guides 
through the Internet. This 
in cred ib le, m ystical, and 
majestical world o f cyber­
space is packed with elec­
tronic d elicacie s such as 
journals, financial reports, 
and U.S. government docu­
m e n ts. R e c e n tly , the 
governm ent’s Federal D e­

posit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) established 
Internet access to its publications. The FDIC 
promotes a soundly managed banking indus­
try, regulates commercial and savings banks, 
and insures depositors.

Presently, bibliographies, statistical data, and 
consumer information await any infonaut. Li­
brarians will find the bibliographies useful in 
compiling in-house handouts. Graduate stu­
dents in accounting, economics, and finance 
will appreciate access to the 1991 and 1992 
Statistics on  B a n k in g  and The H istorical Statis­
tics on  B an kin g , 1934– 1992. The periodical 
C on su m er News and other assorted pamphlet 
titles may be o f some assistance in answering 
banking queries. The statistical and consumer 
news materials are available in both ASCII and 
WordPerfect 5.1 text formats.

This nascent host offers only a handful of 
publications, but the FDIC reports that, in the 
future, users will be able to access materials 
such as press releases and quarterly banking 
profiles. Hopefully, these and other important 
publications such as the D ata B o o k  will make 
their way into cyberspace. In any event, the 
FDIC is to be applauded for initiating Internet 
access to its publications.— row D iam ond, Lou i­
s i a n a  S t a t e  U n iv ers ity ; n o tt e d @ ls u v m ; 
notted@lsuvm sn cc.lsu .edu

V o ice o f  A m e r ic a  G o p h e r . A ccess: go­
pher:// gopher, voa. gov/.

For those who are not familiar with its ser­
vices, the Voice o f America (VOA) is the inter­
national broadcast service o f the U.S. Informa­
tion Agency. While VOA has been providing 
up-to-date news through a variety of media for 
more than forty years, a relatively new way of

Sara Amato is systems librarian a t Willamette 
University, Salem, Oregon; samato@willamette.edu

gopher://rome.classics.lsa
gopher://nic.sura.net:71
mailto:samato@willamette.edu


Ja n u a ry  1 9 9 5 /3 3

accessing this information is through the Inter­
net. The VOA gopher, located  at gopher. 
voa.gov:70/11/, is a remarkably well-maintained 
source of news and any other information hav­
ing to do with the many VOA services. While 
this information would be of particular interest 
to the political scientist, or anyone interested 
in current international news, the “About the 
Voice of America” file on this gopher describes 
itself as covering “economics, science, medi­
cine, technology, agriculture, and music.”

The directory, which is perhaps the most 
impressive feature, deals with the most famil­
iar service of VOA, the News and English Broad­
casts Wire Service. Much like its broadcast coun­
terpart, this directory provides up-to-date news 
from bureaus all over the world, averaging 180 
stories per day. What is really remarkable about 
this service is the claim that news stories are 
posted to this gopher within five minutes of 
the time that they are posted to the wire. The 
impact o f this was very effectively illustrated to 
me when the first story I read had been posted 
15 minutes earlier, and was not on the net­
work television news until six hours later.

Stories are arranged in files that cover one 
day o f the week, and are kept on the gopher 
for seven days. There are, however, repeated 
notices that, in keeping with U.S. law, these 
files are not available to users within the United 
States. I would be interested to know if this is 
in fact the case.

This gopher also includes complete sched­
ules for many VOA services, including program 
and frequency schedules for radio broadcasts 
to fifty countries around the world, once again, 
updated frequently. For those who use the

Worldnet Television Services and its great 
variety o f programs, this gopher provides 
schedules as well as all o f the satellite down­
link information necessary to receive these 
broadcasts.

I imagine that this source of information 
could be very useful to those in far off places 
who wish to keep up with international news. 
With an Internet connection you could read 
the news and receive schedules for a wide va­
riety o f television shows through a familiar in­
terface, no matter where in the world you were 
sitting at the time. With the proper equipment, 
you could even receive audio versions of the 
news over your personal computer.

The directory on this gopher with the title 
“VOA Internet Audio” provides compressed 
digitized audio files o f selected VOA broad­
casts. These may be downloaded, uncom ­
pressed, and played back on your personal 
computer. There are warnings, however, that 
these files can be quite enormous, may take a 
great deal o f time to download, and may also 
require significant bandwidth for transmission.

Finally, this gopher provides a list of all of 
the files available from the VOA and Worldnet 
Public Internet Server, an anonymous ftp site 
holding the text o f many VOA and Worldnet 
documents. As with many other gopher serv­
ers, VOA offers connections to other servers of 
interest to its users. This is a very well-orga
nized and well-maintained gopher server. Those 
interested in VOA services, or simply in the 
most up-to-date source o f international news 
(short o f reading it off the wire) should find 
this site quite valuable.— D oug H o m e, Univer­
sity o f  Guelph, O ntario; d h o m e @uoguelph .c a



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