oct08c.indd


I n t e r n e t  R e v i e w s  Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost 

Beliefnet. Access: http://www.beliefnet.com/. 
Beliefnet claims to be the largest spiritual 

Web site on the Internet. 
It presently has 76 million subscribers and 

adds 15,000 new subscribers daily (as of Au­
gust 1, 2008). The average reader spends 13 
minutes on the site. Seventy­five percent of 
its visitors are female, with a median house­
hold income of $65,000. Beliefnet’s mission 
is to help people find “a spiritual path that 
will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength and 
happiness.” 

The toolbar on the homepage provides 
links to the religious faiths and practices of 
the world (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, 
Hinduism, Judaism, etc.). Each page con­
tains features of interest respective to that 
particular faith. For example, “Hinduism” 
describes Hindu intercultural marriage 
traditions and reviews movies of special 
interest to Hindus (such as Prince Caspian). 
“Christianity” features “A Church in Crisis,” 
describing the issues facing the Anglican 
Church, particularly the ordination of gay 
clergy. “Islam” features “Obama reaches out 
to Muslims,” and discusses the Democratic 
candidate’s trip to the Middle East. “Bud­
dhism” contains material from the Dalai 
Lama. “Christianity” has separate pages for 
its Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Latter­
Day Saints branches. Other faiths, however, 
are not similarly divided. 

Beliefnet hosts several blogs. Particularly 
interesting is the Blogalogue “How Would 
God Vote?” Two columnists debate “God’s 
priorities” and discuss the pressing political 
issues of the day, such as abortion, same­
sex marriage, and the Iraq War. Other links 
of interest include “Comfort and Support,” 
where readers will find links to “Grief and 

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 

Loss” (a grief counselor shares how to heal 
from longstanding grief) and “Illness and 
Recovery” (information on pain management 
and mental health). There are also several 
“Relationship” links, such as marriage, dat­
ing, and divorce. 

Beliefnet appears very similar to an 
ecumenical version of the monthly maga­
zine Christianity Today, but contains more 
advice than dispassionate analysis. The site 
should particularly find traction in libraries, 
in religious colleges, or in Religious Studies 
classes. Instructors in courses on the world’s 
religion can use Beliefnet as a departure 
point for classroom discussion. Beliefnet is 
a commercial site and presents an abun­
dance of advertising. Given its content and 
advertising, patrons will be more likely to 
consult Beliefnet for news rather than for 
research material. Beliefnet is part of the 
Fox Entertainment Group and is updated 
daily.—Wendell Johnson, Northern Illinois 
University, A134202@wpo.cso.niu.edu 

Center for History and New Media. Access: 
http://www.chnm.gmu.edu/. 
The Internet portal of the Center for 

History and New Media (CHNM), based at 
George Mason University, is a collection of at 
least 30 freely accessible exhibits, interactive 
projects, and tools designed for researchers 
and educators in history and related fi elds. 
The portal is designed to foster the integra­
tion of Library 2.0 strategies into the display, 
interpretation, and management of interdis­
ciplinary source materials. 

Users of the portal will find a crisp inter­
face offering a menu of three main choices 
at the homepage: “Collecting + Exhibiting,” 
“Research + Tools,” and “Teaching + Learn­
ing.” The first of these options contains 
several collections of primary sources on 
subjects such as September 11, the French 
Revolution, the Soviet Gulag, and Mexican 
guest workers in the United States. These are 
organized with the spirit of interactive blogs 

C&RL News October 2008 
574


http:http://www.chnm.gmu.edu
mailto:A134202@wpo.cso.niu.edu
mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu
http:http://www.beliefnet.com


rather than static databases, with possibilities 
for user­generated content and tagging. 

The second area, “Research + Tools,” 
offers a number of freeware applications, 
among them an innovative bibliographic 
management system known as Zotero. Avail­
able as a Firefox plugin, it has been compared 
in its functionality to proprietary offerings, 
such as RefWorks and EndNote. 

The newer Omeka is a series of conve­
nient templates for online exhibits of image 
and document collections. 

Librarians working with instructional plans 
for history programs at the K–12 and college 
level will take special note of the third area, 
“Teaching + Learning.” Created with the 
collaboration of prominent historians and 
museums, these modules offer nuts­and­
bolts suggestions for integrating technology 
with primary sources, planning of research 
projects, and for reinforcing best practices in 
information literacy. 

If the sheer experimental dynamism and 
granularity of offerings at CHNM is an asset 
to many users, it may be a source of slight 
confusion to others. Librarians seeking to 
recommend projects to their users may need 
to spend extra time parsing the established 
initiatives from those in an earlier stage of 
development. 

All told, this site is highly recommended 
for its source materials and as a laboratory 
for methods in faculty outreach and stu­
dent instruction.—Joshua Lupkin, History, 
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 
jlupkin2@illinois.edu 

Environment Canada. Access: http://www. 
ec.gc.ca. 
Environment Canada’s mandate is to “pre­

serve and enhance the quality of the natural 
environment; conserve Canada’s renewable 
resources; conserve and protect Canada’s 
water resources; forecast weather and envi­
ronmental change; enforce rules relating to 
boundary waters; and coordinate environ­
mental policies and programs for the federal 
government.” In addition to providing general 
contact, policy and mandate information, 

the site serves as a clearing house for much 
of the information generated by the various 
sub­agencies and offices falling within Envi­
ronment Canada’s portfolio. Site content is 
organized both by subject and the geographi­
cal region from which it originated. 

Overall, the site provides a wide range of 
resources appropriate for elementary, high 
school, and college students. It devotes a 
large section to the provision of teaching 
materials and kits. Much of the content would 
also be of interest to the general public (e.g., 
information about national environmental 
initiatives, and tips for making environmen­
tally sound decisions around the home). It 
also directs users to a wide range of original 
data sources that would be of interest to 
researchers. 

Unfortunately, some of the data resource 
links were not working at the time this review 
was written. It is important to note that the 
number of broken links is not necessarily a 
flaw of this site as much as it is a statement 
about the stability of Canadian Government 
Web sites addresses in general. In terms 
of original data, the site also refers users 
to restricted access databases such as the 
Particulate Matter Database, which allows 
the user to submit requests for additional 
information. 

No direct comparison can be made be­
tween the Environment Canada site and any 
single U.S. federal site. However, much of 
the meteorological and climate data provided 
through Environment Canada is similar in 
scope to that which is provided by the Na­
tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra­
tion. The information related to Canadian 
environmental policy, programs, and public 
awareness is similar to the content provided 
on the Department of Energy and the Envi­
ronmental Protection Agency sites. 

As is the case with all Canadian federal 
sites, content is fully bilingual (French and 
English). Web site designers have included 
an accessibility statement that indicates the 
site has been tested to ensure compatibility 
with adaptive technologies. They have also 

(continues on page 579) 

October 2008 
575
 C&RL News 

http:ec.gc.ca
http://www
mailto:jlupkin2@illinois.edu


Manon Theroux is head of cataloging 
and metadata services at the George Mason 
University Libraries. 

Carrisa Tomlinson has been appointed 
emerging technologies librarian at Towson 
University’s Albert S. Cook Library. 

Scott Watkins is head of educational servic­
es at the George Mason University Libraries. 

R e t i r e m e n t s  

William A. Gosling has been named uni­
versity librarian emeritus and curator of chil­
dren’s literature emeritus at the University of 
Michigan. He joined the university as assistant 
director for technical services and library sys­
tems after positions at the Library of Congress 
and Duke University, and served as university 
librarian from 1997 to 2005. Gosling became 
curator of children’s collections in the special 
collections library in 2005. 

Stephen Karetzky has retired after serving 
for two decades as library director of Feli­
cian College in New Jersey. The author of nu­
merous books—including Reading Research 
and Librarianship, The Media’s Coverage 
of the Arab-Israeli Confl ict, and Not Seeing 
Red: American Librarianship and the Soviet 
Union—He also taught at schools of informa­
tion and library studies in the United States 
and abroad. 

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Annual Reviews 570 
Archival Products 543 
Association of Research 580,
  Libraries centerspread 
Chemical Abstracts Service 514, 557 
Choice 573 
EBSCO cover 2 
H. W. Wilson cover 4 
LexisNexis cover 3 
Perry Dean Architects 535 
Rittenhouse Book Distributors 517 
SWETS 513 

Jeannette Sommer Ward has retired from 
the University of Central Florida (UCF) Librar­
ies. Ward had been working in libraries since 
1975, when she was an acquisitions searcher. 
Her first professional library position as head 
of the serials depart­
ment at the Rider 
College (now Rider 
University) library in 
Lawrenceville, New 
Jersey. Ward has 
been a driving force 
in three complete li­
brary management 
system conversions, 
beginning with one 
at Rider College and 
then two more, 20 years apart, at the UCF 
Libraries, where she began working in 1984 
as the technical services librarian. In 1986 
Ward was appointed head of the UCF Serials 
Department, later serving as the department 
head for the combined serials and acquisi­
tions and collection development depart­
ments. In 2005 Ward was appointed the fi rst 
associate director for collections and tech­
nical services. Throughout her career Ward 
has been an active member, presenter, and 
leader of several professional organizations, 
including ACRL, North American Serials Inter­
est Group (NASIG), and Florida Library As­
sociation. She has also presented programs 
at EDUCOM and the Charleston Conference. 
Ward received UCF’s Excellence in Librarian­
ship award, and for her more than 20 years of 
service in the library profession (ten or more 
of which having been served at the UCF Li­
braries), she will also receive the UCF Librar­
ies Lifetime Service Award. 

Jeannette
Sommer


Ward



(“Reviews” continues from page 575) 

included “text only” layout options and 
“printer friendly” functionality. Despite the 
complex nature of the content, the Envi­
ronment Canada site is well organized and 
provides a simple yet effective search engine. 
—Jennifer McKinnell, McMaster University, 
mckinn@mcmaster.ca 

October 2008 
579
 C&RL News 

mailto:mckinn@mcmaster.ca