ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries October 1995/659 Internet Reviews Sa ra A m ato, editor EFF W e b —The Electronic Frontier Foundation. Access: http://www.eff. org. As the issues o f censorship and freedom o f information on the Internet get more at­ tention in Congress and in society, a good place to be­ gin to explore those issues is the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) W eb site. EFF describes itself as “a nonprofit civil liberties orga­ nization working in the public interest to pro­ tect privacy, free expression, and access to online resources.” This site is essentially an ar­ chive o f information containing just about any­ thing to do with the topic o f censorship and the Internet. It also offers general information on the EFF. The “Alerts” section is a large col­ lection o f recent news stories dealing with cen­ sorship, including full text o f relevant legisla­ tion, as well as sound bites and video clips. The EFF also provides an archive o f these docu­ ments (and those in related sites), allowing users to ftp items from an organized and indexed collection directly to their home computers. The EFF W eb page also provides access to the current edition o f EFF’s newsletter, as well as back issues and an index. There are collec­ tions o f information to be found under “Spe­ cial Collections,” including “The Frontier Files Collections”; a best o f the EFF; the online li­ brary o f computers and academic freedom, fea­ turing acceptable use policies; and collections of local and foreign computer crime laws. This site also makes available the archives o f Com­ puter Underground Digest E-Zine ( CuD), an electronic journal that provides news on intel­ lectual freedom and the Internet. EFF provides links to other related sites, and to some unique addresses which might be hard to find elsewhere. These include the U.S. Li­ brary o f Congress Legislation Server; a link to PGP Key Server at MIT (for PGP encryption o f messages); and links to servers that provide anonymous remailing o f messages (they work, I tried it). Links to sites dealing with “activism, Sara Amato is automated systems librarian at Central Washington University; samato@tahoma.cwu.edu computing, and nonprofit organizations” provide ac­ cess to FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), the ACLU, and the NRA. EFF-Web is an entertain­ ing site, providing access to some obscure sources and occasionally straying into the bizarre. It is also well main­ tained and topical.— Doug Home, University o f Guelph; dhome@uoguelph. ca Paris Pages: A Collection o f Everything Regarding the City o f Light. Access: http://www.paris.org/. Launched July 14, 1994, Paris Pages (PP) pro­ vides a wide array o f information not only about the city, but also about France in general through excellent linkages to the growing num­ ber o f France-related w eb sites. Many screens have French and English versions. A metro map, current opera and ballet productions, and a Paris events calendar (searchable by month) are some o f its useful features. Created by Norman Barth, a California ocean­ ographer, PP also utilizes the talents o f many others. The “H ow You Can Participate” page encourages readers to enrich the site with new projects. A French class at Pomona College re­ cently contributed essays (in French) about La Belle Epoque. PP is updated almost weekly with commen­ tary on current topics such as strikes, how Paris commemorated VE day, and the presidential election. The main screen is organized into four gen­ eral sections (The City, Its Culture, Tourist In­ formation, and Paris Kiosque) follow ed by nu­ merous other sections, including Metro, Monuments, Museums, Schools, Bibliography, photos o f French classes, Special Expositions (including the 1944 Paris Liberation and the art­ work on “tickets o f Paris”). A directory pro­ vides a comprehensive table o f contents, What’s New lists additions chronologically by date, and Other Links connects to other w eb sites. The strengths o f Paris Pages are its size (over 1,000 pages), currency, continual additions, or­ ganizational features such as the Directory and http://www.eff http://www.paris.org/ mailto:samato@tahoma.cwu.edu 660/C&RL News What’s New sections, good design and layout, clear and easy-to-read documentation on how to navigate and participate, and its wealth of related webs about France. The drawbacks are that it doesn’t have “ev­ erything” about Paris yet— e.g., hotel and res­ taurant listings are minuscule, a common fail­ ing o f most city W eb sites. Paris Pages is highly recommended for all levels o f French students to practice French in a new, fun way and learn about the city and country simultaneously. Faculty and others trav­ eling to France should explore this site to see how Internet is changing the face o f travel lit­ erature.— Lotte Larsen, Western Oregon State College; LarsenL@fsa.wosc.osshe.edu The Humαn-Lαnguαges Page. Access: http: //www. willamette.edu/~tjones/Language- Page.html. As resources on the World Wide Web prolifer­ ate, so do the pages that attempt to provide subject-oriented access to those resources. In most cases, such efforts are somewhat scattered, with many different pages providing more or less comprehensive, often overlapping lists o f resources on a given topic. An exception is the Human-Languages Page (HLP), which is rap­ idly becoming known as the focal point for language-related information on the Internet. HLP was created by Tyler Jones, a computer science student with an interest in languages and the World Wide Web. He began with a list o f some 30 links and encouraged submissions o f additional links from users. The page now includes over 300 links to information related to over 70 spoken, written, signed, or invented languages. It is a nominee for the GNN “Best o f the Net” award for 1995. Language and literature resources are grouped by language, ranging from Aboriginal languages to Yiddish and including such gems as a language tutorial in Tagalog and audio news in Greek. Links lead to dictionaries, language lessons (many include audio), news digests, periodicals, and language-related software. The English section includes a substantial number o f resources for students and teachers o f En­ glish as a second language, as well as special­ ized dictionaries and information about Old and Middle English. A “Quick Jump” feature near the top o f the page allows the user to jump to alphabetized sections o f the language list and highlights in­ teresting sections near the end o f the page that might not otherwise come to the attention o f the casual browser. For example, a section on multilingual resources contains a rich collec­ tion o f resources embracing more than one lan­ guage, including archives o f non-English com­ puter fonts and information on instruction in less commonly taught languages. Additional sections lead to online text collections, linguis­ tics resources, and commercial sources for soft­ ware and translation services. The author’s goal is to include all sites that contribute to the understanding o f a language or languages. Casting such a wide net has re­ sulted in the impressive array o f languages rep­ resented and the variety o f resources; however, users should be aware that the quality o f the linked resources will vary. In addition, the page is growing so rapidly (some 50 new links per month) as to become unwieldy. Within each language list there is no further breakdown by category, and the larger lists are becoming dif­ ficult to browse. Jones now plans to create a database o f the entries which will be search­ able by language and type o f resource, allow­ ing users to quickly zero in on the desired links. Anyone with a casual interest in foreign lan­ guages will find something o f interest here. Lan­ guage students and teachers will find HLP in­ dispensable, and librarians will like having quick and easy reference to dictionaries in a range o f languages not usually represented on reference shelves.— Lori Robare, University o f Oregon; lrobare@oregon.uoregon.edu ■ mailto:lrobare@oregon.uoregon.edu