june05c.indd I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost The Heritage Foundation: Policy Research a n d An a l ys i s. A c c e s s : h t t p : / / w w w . heritage.org. “Founded in 1973, The Heritage Founda- tion is a research and educational institute–a think tank—whose mission is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.” The Heritage Foundation Web site is a respected place to find research reports and documentation on a variety of domestic and international issues, such as “Education,” “Europe/NATO,” “Family,” “Health Care,” “Middle East,” “Social Security,” and “Trans- portation,” for example. The site is straightforward, attractive, and easy to navigate. The bottom half of the homepage is more detailed but, nonethe- less, uncomplicated. There is a helpful site index, a feature that users will appreciate. Those interested in politics, college students, and members of debate teams will find biographical information and contact names, commentaries, and illustrated policy papers (a sampling of which is all full text). Other features include news releases, weekly com- mentaries, policy experts, a Weblog, and an archive of taped programs to name a few. This reviewer tried a sample search for opinions on military wages as part of the U.S. national defense. Under the National Security heading was vague mention of “appropriate policies to sustain high morale [of military personnel].” The prominently placed search box retrieved a 2004 memo protesting that a 3.5 percent pay increase “makes sense for the military, but not for [civil service].” A “De- 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 fense” listing under “Research Issues” at the bottom of the page yielded a study indicating how U.S. troop presence has a positive im- pact on the gross domestic products of “host countries.” The advanced search page adds an option to sort results by date, relevance (score), title, or type. This site offers conservative opinions with- out over-the-top rhetoric. The site includes links to other members of the conservative community and offers lists of available jobs and internships. The Heritage Foundation site is recommended to those who seek to understand important historical and contem- porary issues through a politically conserva- tive lens.—Kirstin Steele, The Citadel, kirstin. steele@citadel.edu The National Archives of England, Wales and the United Kingdom. Access: http://www. nationalarchives.gov.uk/. The National Archives of England, Wales, and the United Kingdom contains records dating from the Domesday Book of 1086 up to recently re- leased government docu- ments. The National Archives was created in 2003 by combining the Public Records Offi ce and Historical Manuscripts Commission and serves as a clearinghouse for both UK gov- ernment documents and historical archives. Information is accessible through online exhibits and a catalog of more than 9 million records housed in the National Archives. The Web site is well organized, with an easy-to-navigate menu bar across the top of the homepage. American users access- ing this Web site will find the “Search Our Collections,” “Search Other Archives,” and “Exhibitions and Learning Online” options most useful, while a helpful “Getting Started” option includes information on searching the archives. Searching is available through an online catalog, while browsing is an option in several hundred research guides ranging from June 2005 481 C&RL News http://www mailto:steele@citadel.edu mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu http:heritage.org http://www the Court of Star Chamber of 1485–1642 to documentary records from both World Wars. While it may appear to casual American users that many of the services are primarily intended for British citizens (such as histories of individual houses), stateside Anglophiles and researchers will relish the breadth and depth of information available through this site. Dozens of online exhibitions feature a wealth of digitized documents and archival materials, including such items as scanned copies of the Magna Carta and Domesday Book to a documentary exhibit on trench warfare in World War I. For serious researchers, there are a number of online document delivery options available for a fee, allowing researchers to comb the catalog, locate specific primary documents, and request delivery via several options, in- cluding copies in digital, paper, and microfi lm formats. Ordering documents requires pay- ing for an estimate of the requested services prior to ordering. While such services are not inexpensive and require payment in British currency, this is still a great value compared to the traditional method of traveling overseas to gather such materials. While this is, generally, an excellent resource, it does require patience at times. Users are advised to read the various guides to learning how to search the catalog. Several links to individual data records were broken over the course of several searches, but these seemed to be intermittent server problems. Given the fact that this site brings 9.5 million records and primary documents within grasp of American researchers, these are minor inconveniences.—Gene Hyde, Radford Uni­ versity, wehyde@radford.edu UbuWeb. Access: http://www.ubu.com. Founded in 1996 as a repository for avant- garde visual, concrete, and sound poetry, UbuWeb has expanded to become a formi- dable online collection of visual, audio, and written material that is freely available for noncommercial, educational use. The diversity of UbuWeb’s content is represented by the categories under which it is organized. “Contemporary” chronicles the transformation of concrete poetry from linear text to text, image, and electronic media, and “focuses on the rich tradition bestowed by the 1950s pioneers in electronic form.” “Eth- nopoetics” offers visuals, sound recordings, and discourse on poetry from oral traditions and cultures. “Films” provides a collection of downloadable films. “Historical” provides a historical analysis of visual and concrete poetry, from the 16th century to the 1970s. “MP3 Archive” furnishes an extensive col- lection of MP3 files featuring music, poetry, and spoken word recordings (including in- terviews). “Outsiders” is defined by UbuWeb as the work of artists “refl ecting broader cultural trends toward the legitimization of Outsider work, be it in the visual, musical, or literary arts.” Collections include music and visual content. “Papers” pulls together writ- ten analysis on poetry, sound, ethnopoetics, and radio. “Sound” includes historical and contemporary sound art. “/Ubu Editions” is a collection of full-text publications available for download in PDF. UbuWeb archives a number of interest- ing projects as well, such as the “365 Days Project” produced in 2003 by Otis Fodder. This project provided one MP3 per day for a year and was archived biweekly by UbuWeb. Also included is an archived version of the multimedia magazine Aspen, published from 1965 to 1971; the “Anthology of Conceptual Writing,” an anthology of conceptual works by such writers as Samuel Beckett, Gertrude Stein, and Christian Bök; and “Radio Radio” described as “a sixteen-part series of forty- five minute broadcasts which asks an honest question: Is there really a place on radio for experimentation?” UbuWeb is a commercial-free, indepen- dent site with technical support from SUNY Buffalo, University of Pennsylvania, and West Virginia University. UbuWeb’s digitization policy with respect to copyright is stringent, as exemplified in their FAQ: “If it’s out of print, we feel it’s fair game. If it’s in print, we won’t touch it.” UbuWeb is well designed, (continued on page 486) 482C&RL News June 2005 http:http://www.ubu.com mailto:wehyde@radford.edu ness papers, including literary contracts, are also included. Mailer has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Armies of the Night (1968) and The Executioner’s Song (1979), an account of the life and death of Utah murderer Gary Gilmore. The Mailer collection is scheduled to ar- rive in Austin in July. Ransom Center staff will perform a routine conservation inspection on its arrival and prepare an initial list of collec- tion materials. With a projected size of about 900 document boxes, or- ganization, housing, and description of the papers in a detailed finding aid is expected to take several years. Mailer will donate $250,000 to the Ransom Center for cataloging, maintenance, and sup- port of the collection. The Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar Collection, con- sisting of thousands of documents—corre- spondence, memora- bilia, photographs, and books—owned by the former Cuban Presi- dent has been acquired by the University of Miami’s Cuban Heritage Collection. This in- valuable part of Cuban history was donated by Batista Zaldívar’s widow, Martha Batista, and his children. The collection contains several hundred pages of documents dating from 1958 to 1973. The materials include an unfinished autobiography, original manu- scripts, and correspondence with Cuban government and military officials prior to 1959, as well as letters from Cuban political and literary figures and foreign dignitaries. Additionally, there are manuscripts of several books written by Zaldívar, books and pam- phlets on Cuban and Latin American history and politics, periodicals published before T h e h e a v i l y c o r r e c t e d t y p e s c r i p t manuscript of “One Man Dead,” the opening pages of Norman Mailer ’s Ancient Evenings (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983) and after 1959, and photographs, posters, and memorabilia. Kodak Canada has recently donated its entire historic company archives to Ryerson University Library. The library will also soon acquire an extensive collection of materials on the history of photography from the pri- vate collection of Nicholas M. and Marilyn A. Graver of Rochester, New York. The Kodak Archives, which date to 1909, contain historic photos, files, trade circu- lars, Kodak magazines, price lists, daily record books, cameras, equip- ment, and other ephem- era. The print and photo- graph collection is cur- rently being processed in the library with assistance from graduate students in Photographic Preservation and Collections Manage- ment. The processing of this collection is ex- pected to be an ongoing project, and will provide a valuable hands-on learning opportunity for students in the program. The Graver collection, built up over many years, consists of more than 1,000 books, pe- riodicals, catalogs, and other similar material related to the history of photography. (Internet Reviews, cont. from page 482) with streamlined navigation that is intuitive and easy to use. All content is presented in clear, uncluttered pages; indexed by author; and full-text searchable. This unique, unparal- leled collection would be invaluable to librar- ians and educators in the humanities and social sciences.—Amanda Etches­Johnson, McMaster University, etchesa@mcmaster.ca 486C&RL News June 2005 mailto:etchesa@mcmaster.ca