may05c.indd I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost Digital History: Using New Technologies to Enhance Teaching and Research. Access: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/. History can be perceived by students to be boring. The challenge to teachers is to fi nd ways to excite them. Incorporating resources available via the Web into lesson plans is one method. The electronic collection, Digital His­ tory, provides access to historical documents and texts to students, and teaching aids to The texts and links to primary documents are usually transcribed versions of the origi­ nals, not PDF images, so they are easy for students to read. The materials for teachers include lesson plans, handouts, resource guides, learning modules, and an active learning section—all tools that would benefit new history teachers. This site’s focus is on supporting instruction, not teaching content. If users have histori­ cal questions related to content on Digital History, they can “Ask the HyperHistorian” or browse the ques­ tion archive. K–12 teachers. Digital History is supported by the Department of History and the College of Education at the University of Houston and was developed collaboratively with other or­ ganizations, including the Chicago Historical Society and the Gilder­Lehrman Institute of American History. Digital History has many interesting fea­ tures, such as music clips, images, and inter­ active timelines, but the strongest collections on the site are the primary documents and the teaching resources. Secondary students have limited access to primary sources, and the breadth and presentation of the docu­ ments on Digital History will benefi t students of varying ages. The documents in “Primary Sources” in­ clude Supreme Court decisions, famous court cases, historical newspaper articles, landmark documents in history, and social history. There is also a book of U.S. documents, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War, which allow users to search by title, keyword and author or browse the title list. Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public ser vices and collec tion development at Willamette University, e-mail: jroberts@willamette. edu, and Carol A. Drost is associate university librarian for technical services at Willamette University, e-mail: cdrost@willamette.edu This site is large, yet navigation is easy because there is a site table of contents on every page, even at the document level. Users can search the Online Textbook or the Ethnic Voices collections by keyword. A site map is underway, which will make using Digital History even simpler. The care and upkeep of Digital History is evident, there are current updates, images on this site are clear, and the documents are fully cited. Digital History is a good introduction to primary sources, and such a rich collec­ tion of American historical texts, images, and sound that it will appeal to others out­ side of education and history.—Kimberly Bartosz, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, bartosz@uwp.edu The Arctic Theme Page. Access: http://www. arctic.noaa.gov/. The value of this award­winning resource on the northern polar region lies in the many and diverse links to distributed data from research institutions around the world. The Arctic Theme Page is sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin­ istration (NOAA) and is intended for use by “scientists, students, teachers, decision makers and the general public.” Information includes statistics, maps, images, meteorologi­ cal, biological, and ocean data, and essays by prominent scholars. The site consists of six 400C&RL News May 2005 http:arctic.noaa.gov http://www mailto:bartosz@uwp.edu mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu http:http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu sets of primary links available via javascript navigation and additionally, links to three other excellent subsections of the Web site. “Scientific” offers “Realtime Data and Climate Indices,” which contains hundreds of links to data: from sea ice measures to sea surface temperatures to ice packs and satellite imagery and more. “Retrospective or Historical Data, Analyses and Indices” provides excellent links to maps, fl ora and fauna, environmental atlases, place names, historical maps, and more. There is an entire section of the Web site focusing on just the Bering Sea climate. Also included in this section are links to data centers containing Arctic datasets around the world, and links to research insti­ tutions, organizations, and research programs focused on the Arctic. “General Interest” offers a rich web of resources, including links to virtual fi eld trips, virtual classrooms, thematic maps, and links for both teachers and students; links to Arctic exploration essays; extensive information on the aurora borealis; information on Arctic peoples and archaeology; and the Arctic environment and pollution. “Gallery of Arctic Images” provides links to photographs from a wide variety of topical areas: North Pole and Arctic animal photo­ graphs, images, and information; photographs of ships; and extensive ice pictures. “Essays” contains a series of scholarly articles by scientists associated with NOAA. Many articles focus on Arctic change over the past century, especially as concerns the environment. Essays include footnotes, refer­ ences, and links to additional information. The FAQ, too, is noteworthy, well writ­ ten and presented, and provides valuable information to a wide variety of audiences, from the general public to undergraduate and graduate students, instructional faculty, and scholars. The three related subsections include “Arctic Science Laboratory,” “Arctic Change Indicators,” and “Arctic Research,” and offer a rich resource of additional Arctic­related information. Highly recom­ mended.—John Creech, Central Washington University, John.Creech@cwu.edu National Institute of Standards and Technol­ ogy (NIST). Access: http://www.nist.gov. In 1904, a fire broke out in a warehouse in Baltimore and spread throughout the business district. Firefighters from Washington, D.C., New York City, and other areas rushed to help but discovered that their hoses did not fit on the Baltimore fire hydrants. The blaze raged for 30 hours and destroyed 1,500 build­ ings. Following this catastrophe, NIST helped to create a national fire hose standard. This true story illustrates the vital, though often underappreciated, role of standards. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a nonregulatory fed­ eral agency founded in 1901 as the National Bureau of Standards. It is part of the U.S. Commerce Department’s Technology Ad­ ministration. NIST’s mission is, “to develop and promote measurement, standards, and technology to enhance productivity, facilitate trade, and improve the quality of life.” They do this by awarding research grants in every­ thing from aerospace to health care, from fi re research to nanotechnology. NIST has four major programs: the NIST laboratories, the Baldrige National Qual­ ity Program, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and the Advanced Technology Program. NIST works with manufacturers, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies to develop and apply international standards and test products for standards compliance. NIST also standardizes measure­ ments so a 15­ounce bag of potato chips actually contains 15 ounces. Much of the NIST Web site describes the hundreds of programs and activities (continued on page 410) May 2005 401 C&RL News http:http://www.nist.gov mailto:John.Creech@cwu.edu Alea Henle is the electronic resources librarian in the reference services department at Colorado State University. Kristi Jensen has been named science librarian in the University of Minnesota­Twin Cities’ Science and Engineering Library. Meghan Lafferty has been appointed science librarian at the University of Min­ nesota­Twin Cities’ Science and Engineering Library. Shu Liu is the metadata librarian in the technical services department at Colorado State University. Rozalynd McConnaughy has been pro­ moted to assistant director for education and outreach at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Library. Jennifer Nardine is the new public ser­ vices librarian at the University of Michigan’s Shapiro Undergraduate Library. Kenley Neufeld has been named technol­ ogy librarian at Santa Barbara City College. Neil Rambo has been appointed associ­ ated director of the Health Sciences Libraries at the University of Washington­Seattle. Annemarie van Roessel is working with the Avery and Preservation staffs at Columbia University in a one­year appointment as a project archivist focusing on un­ and under­ processed collections. Dale Sauter has joined the staff of the J.Y. Joyner Library at East Carolina University as assistant professor/manuscript curator in the special collections department. Paul Soderdahl has been appointed co­ ordinator of digital initiatives at the University of Iowa Libraries. Jean Song is the new information services librarian at the Public Health Library and In­ formatics at the University of Michigan. Tracy Waterman has been appointed assistant librarian in monograph catalog­ ing/special projects and collections at the University of Michigan. Tanner Wray is the new director of public services for the University of Maryland Librar­ ies in College Park. John Wagstaff is now music librarian at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana­ Champaign. Josh Wilson is now reference librarian for physical and mathematical sciences at North Carolina State University. Felicia Yeh has been appointed assistant director for serials at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Library. Sha Li Zhang has been appointed as­ sistant director for technical services at the University of North Carolina­Greensboro’s Jackson Library. (“Internet Reviews” cont. from page 401) NIST is involved in. It gives general interest information about standards and measure­ ments, including measurement converters, the official worldwide time, and more. The NIST Web site is well organized, though the terminology can be confusing. Navigation is facilitated by a Google­powered site search and an extensive index. The NIST Virtual Museum has many interesting exhibits, including “The Stan­ dardization of Women’s Clothing” and “The Reading Machine”—about the fi rst optical text reader. Researchers should use the NIST Data Gateway to search 80 NIST databases by keyword, property, or substance name. Some of the NIST databases are available for purchase only. The Virtual Library has some password­protected resources, but there are also subject guides for various science topics, including biotechnology, homeland security, patents, and more. Users can search the NIST technical publications database. The NIST publications deal with quality issues, physical and chemical data, technology, engineering and more. Overall, the NIST Web site is a good re­ source for businesses, manufacturers, scien­ tists, and students who want to learn about standards, technology, and measurement. —Kate Peterson, California State University, Long Beach, jpeters4@csulb.edu 410C&RL News May 2005 mailto:jpeters4@csulb.edu