may04c.indd


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

Carol A. Drost, editors 

Animation World Network. Access: www. 
awn.com/. 
Launched in 1995, Animation World 

Network (AWN) claims to be the “largest 
animation­related publishing group on the 
Internet.” With an international animation 
newswire, professional publications, online 
directories, career resources, and places for 
animators to get together online, they make 
a good case. 

Of most interest to librarians is the Anima­
tion Industry Database (AIDB), which lists 
more than 5,000 animation and visual effects 
companies, distributors, schools, advertising 
agencies, and supply companies—80 catego­
ries in all. AIDB consists of several worldwide 
databases, including an animation business 
directory, directories of computer and pro­
duction companies, and a school directory, 
which lists “more than 550 schools that of­
fer courses and programs in animation and 
related fields in 42 countries.” 

AWN provides a daily animation newswire 
plus a searchable archive of news stories 
covering the industry, people, publications, 
releases, events, and more. A calendar of 
events can be searched by name, date, en­
try date, and location. A list of upcoming 
theatrical releases can be viewed by release 
date, distribution, production, special effects 
company, and country of origin. 

AWN’s flagship publications are Anima­
tion World Magazine and VFX World. Both 
are weekly online magazines “dedicated to 
the art, craft and industry of the international 
animation community,” with VFX World 
emphasizing visual effects and computer 
animation. More than 1,400 articles are now 
available online. AWN also provides several 
free weekly online newsletters. In addition, 

Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian 
for public services and collection 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 

AWN hosts 14 discussion forums where ani­
mation students, teachers, and enthusiasts can 
share ideas and artwork. 

For aspiring animators, there are education 
and career sections. “Student Corner” gathers 
education information together into one page. 
Animator Larry Lauria put together “Larry’s 
Toon Institute” in 1999 to teach the basics of 
classical sketching and animation. “Career 
Connection” includes a selection of resumes 
that can be searched by name, location, and 
skills, and a section on job postings that can 
be searched by name, company, location, 
and date. 

At first glance, the main page can be 
confusing, as there is simply too much in­
formation on the screen. AWN is organized 
portal­style, featuring an advertising banner 
across the top, a navigation bar to the left, 
categories in the center, and a mix of more 
advertising and more categories to the right. 
The key to moving around the page is getting 
to know what is available and then using the 
navigation bar to change sections and the 
body of the page to see the latest articles 
from the magazines, news, events, releases, 
and shortcuts to most used pages. 

With more than 150,000 artists, educators, 
students, and fans visiting each month, AWN 
is not only the largest, but also the most use­
ful starting Web site for animation and visual 
effects.—Mark Emmons, University of New 
Mexico, emmons@unm.edu 

Science and Development Network. Ac­
cess: www.scidev.net. 

The Science and Development Network 
(SciDev.Net) provides a very easy to navi­
gate portal to credible information about the 
social and economic impact of science and 
technology on developing countries. You can 
enter via one of the four regional gateways, 
Latin America, the Middle East, South and 
East Asia, or Sub­Saharan Africa or you can 
enter via one of the seven dossiers or subject 
areas. The subjects include the environmental 
topics—biodiversity, climate change, and 
genetically modifi ed crops. 

280 / C&RL NewsMay 2004 

http:SciDev.Net
http:www.scidev.net
mailto:emmons@unm.edu
mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu


Other subjects are brain drain, ethics of 
research, indigenous knowledge, and intel­
lectual property. Within each dossier you 
may find background information, news, 
feature articles, editorials, policy briefs, and 
book reviews. There are also links to related 
articles and resource links to key documents, 
events, extensive glossaries, and additional 
links. Gateways offer regional news and lo­
cal perspectives. 

SciDev.Net is a not­for­profi t company 
funded by three international development 
organizations and the Rockefeller Foundation. 
Support also comes from Nature and Science 
and the Third World Academy of Sciences. 

It is run by a board of trustees, most of 
whom are from developing countries. It takes 
advantage of free and open access sources 
and online news sources to provide much 
full text. There are selected articles available 
from Science and Nature, for example, but 
some journal articles require subscriptions. A 
key feature of this site is the cross­linking of 
information within the site. It is truly a Web of 
information. Depth of information is provided 
through spotlight features on some topics and 
key documents. You can read “What’s New,” 
a summary of each week’s new content, in 
four languages—English, Spanish, French, 
and Chinese. There is also an e­mail alert 
option for these summaries. 

This Web site provides an excellent way 
to get an overview of the issues and a cen­
tralized source for keeping up with the latest 
developments. There is a keyword search 
engine with an advanced search that allows 
you to limit by date, type of material, dossier, 
or gateway. The site was designed to bring 
authoritative information to a broad range of 
people, including scientists, journalists, and 
policy makers. Librarians might find the book 
reviews helpful, although the number was 
limited and most seemed to be from Science 
and Nature. SciDev.Net would also be useful 
to undergraduates, especially those in inter­
disciplinary programs, such as environmental 
studies.—Carol McCulley, Linfi eld College, 
cmccull@linfi eld.edu 

Women in Politics. Access: www.ipu.org/iss­e 
/women.htm. 

Women in Politics is the most developed 
section of the Inter­Parliamentary Union’s 
(IPU) “Main Areas of Activity” pages. Women 

in Politics offers information on IPU’s ac­
tivities and members. The site also provides 
research tools, including several statistical 
and bibliographic resources, that researchers 
will find useful: “Women in National Parlia­
ments,” the “Women in Politics” database, 
and “Useful Links.” 

“Women in National Parliaments” pro­
motes a variety of statistical pages, each 
presenting easy­to­read tabular data. Here 
you can find answers to such questions as 
how many parliaments existed in 1945 and 
which country has the highest percentage 
of women in its lower or single legislative 
body. “50 Years of History” contains statistics 
on the number of national parliaments from 
1945 to 1995. “Comparative Data by Country,” 
updated in February 2004, shows that nearly 
49 percent of Rwanda’s parliamentarians are 
women. “Statistical Archive” provides infor­
mation from 1997 to the present. 

The “Women in Politics” database began 
in 1999 as a print publication. In addition to 
keyword searching, it is possible to search by 
geographic area, named organization, subject 
area, author, and within one of the more than 
200 periodicals indexed. Geographic areas 
do not overlap; a citation covering Kuwait 
will not be retrieved through a “Middle East” 
geographic search. The search interface offers 
a valuable language limiter, as article titles 
and abstracts may be in any of ten languages 
and are rarely translated into English. Sub­
ject headings in all retrieved citations are in 
English. 

“Useful Links” contains Web sites ar­
ranged by geographic coverage (Interna­
tional vs. Regional/National) and by resource 
type (Bibliographic Databases and Web 
Directories). High­quality sources listed in­
clude “Zarate’s Political Collections,” “Emily’s 
List,” “Women’s Human Rights Database,” 
etc. The list had several broken links, but 
fortunately the page supplies an e­mail ad­
dress for suggestions. 

The Women in Politics Web site has its 
faults; no pages have “last updated” infor­
mation, and few pages, aside from “Use­
ful Links,” list the IPU Webmaster’s e­mail 
address. This site is especially useful for 
its statistical data, less so for bibliographic 
information. Researchers should use this site 
as a starting point.—Heidi Senior, University 
of Portland, senior@up.edu 

C&RL NewsMay 2004 / 281 

mailto:senior@up.edu
www.ipu.org/iss-e
http:SciDev.Net
http:SciDev.Net