oct06c2.indd I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost Access Excellence. Access: http://www. accessexcellence.org. Access Excellence is packed full of re­ sources for K–12 science teachers and science education students. Teachers and education students will find background information to educate themselves on biology, life sci­ ence, and health topics, as well as extensive resources for classroom activities. Some of the information and activities could also be used by first­ and second­year undergraduate students, as well as non­science majors. Genentech and the National Health Museum (NHM), a nonprofi t organization founded by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to promote health education, sponsor the page. There is no advertising on any of the pages, although there are links to Genentech research projects relevant to some of the topics. The easy­to­navigate pages are organized into five main sections. “What’s News” is a current events page for science and bio­ medical information. “Resource Center” links to graphics, demonstrations, and a wide variety of information resources, as well as career information, including interviews with well­known scientists. “Activities Exchange” includes extensive links to resources and suc­ cessful in­class activities designed by teach­ ers. “Health Headquarters” provides access to NHM’s monthly Health Focus as well as other information, and “Let’s Collaborate” links to information about science education. Some Access Excellence sections look extremely useful. There is up­to­date sci­ ence and biomedical news and classic pa­ pers on major scientific concepts. “Activities Exchange” has many links to information and demonstrations of science concepts. 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 For instance, “The Mystery Spot” links to interactive mysteries for students to solve that have teacher information to make them more effective. “Health Headquarters” offers a health question of the week with informa­ tion on topics that would be of interest to middle and high school students. However, other areas are not as well developed. For example, under “Let’s Collaborate” there is a link to the peer­reviewed journal Biology Education Online for K–16 science teachers that links to only four articles, three from 2002 and one from 2005. Also, although it is designed to have active discussions, “SciTalk” is out of date. The oversight of these pages has changed somewhat according to “About AE” and it does not seem to be getting the attention that it once did, which makes the interactive areas for sharing ideas and activities disappointing. In spite of this, I would recommend this site for its many useful resources and links to authoritative information for students and teachers.—Carol McCulley, Linfi eld College, cmccull@linfi eld.edu Child Care and Early Education Research Connec tions. Access: http://www. childcareresearch.org/. Child Care and Early Education Research Connections, otherwise known as Research Connections, is cooperatively supported by the Child Care Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Depart­ ment of Health and Human Services, the National Center for Children in Poverty, and Inter­university Consortium for Political and Social Research. A “comprehensive resource for researchers and policymakers,” Research Connections is an excellent source for free access to nearly 9,000 resources from the various disciplines related to child care and early education. The resources available cover a broad spectrum of research, including information on child care and early education experi­ C&RL News October 2006 578 http:childcareresearch.org http://www mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu http:accessexcellence.org http://www ences of children from birth through age 8. When addressing school­age child care, the literature addresses children to age 13. Other subjects include parents and families using child care and early education services, the early childhood and school­age child care workforce, childcare and early education settings, and national, state, and local child care and early learning policies. Users can also search for grants, jobs, and events from the Home Page. Research Connections accepts all research and related documents disseminated in the field without peer review, making it essential that users evaluate the quality of research they find on this site. Research Connections provides its own useful link to “Assessing Research Quality,” with questions social science researchers should ask themselves when reading a study from this collection. Links to other research evaluation sites and print resources are also provided. In addition to accepting contributions from researchers, Research Connections also searches more than 200 journals and 245 Web sites on a regular basis to maintain the currency of its collection, and has continually done so since 1995. The collection also includes some ear­ lier, pre­1995 publications. With a wide array of browsing capabilities, such as locating information relevant to a particular state, Research Connections allows users to perform basic and advanced searches in its comprehensive database. Results are marked with icons that allow users to deter­ mine if a citation is a Research Connections publication or if it is a peer reviewed journal article. Users can also see immediately if an article is available in full text. Links to tech­ nical assistance provide detailed information about search capabilities and downloading datasets. Most of the features of the Web site are easily accessible by using the lefthand navigation bar, but it is noteworthy that many of the pages are cluttered with too much text, making it difficult for users to choose the links they need. Research Connections is a valuable Web site for early childhood researchers and should be recommended to anyone in the fi eld.—Lea Currie, University of Kansas Li­ braries, lcurrie@ku.edu Civilization.ca. Access: http://www. civilization.ca. The Web site for the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation provides a wealth of diverse information centered on the museum collections. The corporation manages the Canadian War Museum, the virtual Museum of New France, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which also houses the Canadian Postal Museum and the Canadian Children’s Museum. The site has received numerous awards and accolades. While the site is aimed at a wide audience, including children and teachers, it also high­ lights items of particular interest to research­ ers and scholars. Researchers may search 50 virtual exhibits and digitized collections by subject in the “Explore Our Virtual Museums” section. These virtual collections provide ba­ sic information on a variety of topics, as well as images of artifacts and bibliographies. Within this section, undergraduate stu­ dents and researchers will fi nd “Resources for Scholars” of significant value. This link provides four options: “Essays,” “Publica­ tions,” “Resources,” and “Monographs.” “Publications” provides the most recent items published by the museums. While the sources found in “Essays” and “Monographs” are useful (providing museum research and bibliographies), the most current is from 2004. “Resources” provides a useful list of research materials in five categories. Among these re­ sources, researchers can search and browse the museums’ artifact collections, gain access to the library and archives and its catalog, and find bibliographies. A number of online reference tools are also provided, including links to special collections, such as a database of World War II newspaper articles collected by the Canadian newspaper The Hamilton Spectator and Before E­Commerce: Mail Order Catalogues (1880–1975). (continued on page 586) October 2006 579 C&RL News http:civilization.ca http://www http:Civilization.ca mailto:lcurrie@ku.edu kind collaboration that combines the resourc­ es and collections of the university’s library with the city’s public library. In honor of her years of service, the Jo Bell Whitlatch His­ tory Endowment has been established. Dona­ tions to the endowment may be sent to San Jose State University, Advancement Offi ce, One Washington Square, San Jose, California 95192­0257, and inquiries may be directed to alyssa.byrkit@sjsu.edu. Frederick G. Kilgour D e a t h s Frederick G. Kilgour, 92, founder of OCLC Online Computer Library Center, has died. Kilgour is widely rec­ ognized as one of the leading figures in 20th­ century librarianship for using computer networks to increase access to information in libraries around the world. At the dawn of library automation in the early 1970s, he founded OCLC Online Computer Library Center and led the creation of a library net­ work that today links 55,000 institutions in 110 countries. In 1971, he developed a data­ base, WorldCat, that now contains more than 70 million entries for books and other mate­ rials and more than 1 billion location listings for these materials in libraries around the world. Kilgour had been an academic librar­ ian and historian of science and technology at Harvard and Yale for 30 years when the Ohio College Association hired him in 1967 to establish the world’s fi rst computerized library network, the Ohio College Library Center, on the campus of Ohio State Univer­ sity in Columbus. Under Kilgour’s leader­ ship, the nonprofit corporation introduced a shared cataloging system in 1971 for 54 Ohio academic libraries. In 1990, he was named Distinguished Research Professor for the School of Information and Library Sci­ ence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and served on the faculty until is retirement in 2004. Kilgour was the author of 205 scholarly papers. He was the founder and first editor of the journal Information Technology and Libraries. In 1999, Oxford University Press published his Evolution of the Book. His other works include: Engineer­ ing in History; The Library of the Medical Institution of Yale College and its Catalogue of 1865; and the Library and Information Science CumIndex. In 1982, ALA presented him with Honorary Life Membership. Barbara K. Nelson, chair of the acquisitions department at Auburn University (AU), has died. Nelson joined the university as gifts and exchange librarian in 1978. She was named order librarian in 1979 and was appointed chair of the acquisitions department in 1998. She served as editor of the Christian Periodi­ cal Index for over a decade and received the Emily Russell Award for Outstanding Contri­ butions in the Area of Christian Librarianship in 2000. She served on and chaired a host of library committees, including more than a dozen search committees, and contributed more than 20 articles and papers to the litera­ ture of academic librarianship. She was also responsible for the selection of literature for the library’s Juvenile Collection, and shaped that collection during her tenure at AU. (“Reviews” continues from page 579) Navigation on the site is straightforward and easy to use. The site offers both simple and advanced search options. The advanced search allows researchers to limit to a particu­ lar museum, and search by document type, section, and kilobyte size. Quick links allow for easy access to areas, including library and archive catalogues. Despite the currency issues, the func­ tionality of Civilization.ca and the schol­ arly resources it offers make the site suitable for undergraduates and research­ ers.—Krista Godfrey, McMaster University, godfrey@mcmaster.ca C&RL News October 2006 586 mailto:godfrey@mcmaster.ca http:Civilization.ca mailto:alyssa.byrkit@sjsu.edu