ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 778/C&RL News Internet Reviews Sa ra Am a to, editor Financial Aid Inform a­ tion P a g e. Access: http: // w w w .cs.emu.edu/afs/ cs/user/mkant/Public/ FinAid/finaid.html. The Financial Aid Informa­ tion Page offers an abundant array o f information on fi­ nancial aid and links to other useful sites. It was estab­ lished in the fall o f 1994 by Mark Kantrowitz, a Ph.D. candidate in computer sci­ ence at Carnegie Mellon Uni­ versity, w ho continues to maintain the site. The page is updated frequently, with the date o f last update given on the first page. It provides a “What’s N ew ” section o f new resources within the last month and Frequently Asked Questions (FA Q ) files on financial aid. A table o f contents and index to the site are included and, in gen­ eral, the page is very well organized. A very useful link featured on the page is called FastWEB, a searchable database o f more than 180,000 private scholarships, fellowships, grants, and loans. Also quite useful is the fi­ nancial aid estimation form, which explains terminology and provides clear instructions. Calculators to estimate loan payments, expected family contributions, and savings growth are provided. The page contains many informative re­ sources such as a glossary o f financial aid terms, a listing o f free documents, important financial aid telephone numbers, information from uni­ versity financial aid offices, foreign study aid, bibliographies, consultants, and warnings on potential scams in financial aid. Links to other sources o f financial aid information, including scholarship search services, are given. Infor­ mation is also provided on relevant mailing lists, newsgroups, and other W eb sites. A lot o f in­ formation from the U.S. government is avail­ able through hot links to specific agencies. For users o f commercial online services such as America Online, the location o f financial aid resources for specific providers is listed. Overall, this site is a gold mine for locating financial aid resources for students, parents, and Sara Amato is automated systems librarian at Central Washington University; samato@tahoma.cwu.edu financial aid professionals.— A n n M. Tenglund, St. Bona υenture University; ateng@ sbu.edu D ejαN ew s. Access: http:// www.dejanews.com. DejaNews Research Service is a general purpose Usenet search tool. Because Deja­ News indexes most Usenet newsgroups, it can be used for searching on a variety o f topics. Its intended audience is the general user seeking current information. According to docu­ mentation screens, the alt, talk, and soc hierar­ chies, as well as all .binaries groups, are spe­ cifically excluded. Ostensibly this is done to focus the search on those groups likely to con­ tain actual information, but it can have the ef­ fect o f removing from the search those groups in the alt hierarchy where the newest technolo­ gies are discussed (before there was a comp, infosystems.wais, there was an alt.wais). In fact, searches do retrieve results from talk.politics, soc.culture, and other “excluded” sub-hierar­ chies, so the limits o f the coverage are rather vague. Currently the site indexes several months’ postings. The plan is to keep a rolling year o f postings in each newsgroup once a year’s news has accumulated. DejaNews supports search­ ing by subject and by author, but defaults to free text keyword searching. Reading the docu­ mentation is recommended, since a simple default search is likely to retrieve a large num­ ber o f miscellaneous postings. Unfortunately, a more complex search using wildcards, pa­ rentheses, and Boolean or proximity operators can result in an error message for no apparent reason. The option o f narrowing a search by Usenet group or hierarchy is a useful feature, although it does not work exactly as expected: limiting to the newsgroup rec.pets.cats retrieved postings from rec.pets as well. With some prac­ tice I was able to retrieve a specific newsgroup’s FAQ and postings similar to the results described in the DejaNews tutorial. However, as a gen­ eral puφose information lookup tool, DejaNews is only o f incidental value. It is only a search mechanism; the content it searches is provided http://www.dejanews.com mailto:samato@tahoma.cwu.edu December 1995/779 by those who post messages to Usenet, who the topics can hold the interest o f its readers. ­ The alternative care that is featured includes chiropractic, homeopathy, naturo-pathy, acu­ ­ puncture, reiki, rolfing, and osteopathy. Brief explanations o f the origins and use o f each is provided. s ACH provides interesting information to the t consumer, the student, and the professional practitioner. The consumer section contains ­ articles and FAQs on topics such as midwifery ­ and herbal dosing. This W eb site also contains information about alternative care that may help someone seeking a career in the field. The gen­ erality o f the information makes it easy to un­ ­ derstand by first-time users o f alternative medi­ ­ cine. r The student section can be used throughout l the student’s academic career, providing study . tips and advice, information on obtaining funds t for tuition, and alternative school listings. The . titles o f the sections are self explanatory: “How to Remember All This Stuff in the Basic Sci­ r ences Even If the Velcro in Your Brain Is Shot, and You Haven’t Got a Whole Lot o f Empty Neurons Left Anyway” and “The Ambitious Student’s Guide to Financial Aid.” “Alternative School Listings” contains the names and ad­ l dresses o f schools abroad and in the United t States. The professional section is tailored pri­ ­ marily for the practicing chiropractor. This sec­ tion offers text on upcoming seminars and f events as well as current articles about the pro­ fession. The listing can help the professional stay up-to-date with credentialling and new state licensure rules and regulations. The state-by- : state chiropractic information includes state laws, exams, and contacts. The two complaints I have with this home­ s page are that some parts are under construc­ tion and it is not updated frequently. However, ­ the site coordinator is a student with limited ­ time, therefore updates will be slow. Overall, ­ this homepage covers all the bases. It is well laid out, easy to navigate, and interesting.— ­ Charles A. Bradsher, Sherman College o f Straight Chiropractic are under no obligation to provide accurate in form ation o v e r personal op in ion . Some newsgroups do contain a great deal o f accu rate content, and where this is the case, the most concise source o f information is the FAQ file. This can be located via DejaNews, but it i also available in the Usenet FAQ repository a ftp://rtfm.mit.edu. Where Usenet news shines is in its cover age o f actual “news,” that is, job listings, apart ment sublets, and announcements; reports from regions where news is occurring, or from which little published news is available. DejaNews could be used to search for these topics, al though it should be weighed against other re sources. For example, students seeking caree leads are likely to find more relevant materia at a site such as CareerMosaic ( http://www careermosaic.com), which carries both Usene and other information related to job seeking DejaNews shines in its ability to retrieve results from a variety o f newsgroups and in its autho search. This can be particularly useful when accurate information is not at issue, e.g., when what is sought is an opinion. An interesting side effect o f the author search is that DejaNews can be used as a tool for looking up e-mai addresses. Although those who post no Usene news are automatically excluded, e-mail ad dresses can be so tricky to locate that this is a handy feature.— Genevieve Engel, University o California, gen@dla.ucop.edu Alternative Care H om epage. Access: http //www.altcare.com/. Some o f the marks o f a good homepage are it ease o f use and the ability to interest people from the novice to the professional. The Alter native Care Homepage (ACH) is an informa tive page that would be o f interest and assis tance to all involved in alternative care. The site coordinator is Neil Tarvin, a student at Cleve land Chiropractic College. It is well written and ftp://rtfm.mit.edu http://www mailto:gen@dla.ucop.edu http://www.altcare.com/