april08c.indd I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost History Matters: the U.S. Survey Course on the Web. Access: http://historymatters. gmu.edu/. A joint production of the American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning (Graduate Center, CUNY) and the Center for History and New Media (George Mason Uni­ versity), History Matters is aimed at high school and college students and teachers. As its subtitle implies, it provides primary sources, teaching aids and ideas, and other resources useful in supporting the research and the teaching of a survey course in U.S. history. Among the many features it offers, of par­ ticular interest is “Many Pasts,” which contains more than 1,000 primary documents that por­ tray the lives of ordinary people throughout U.S. history. Arranged chronologically from earliest document forward, the resources listed here range across history and subject matter from an excerpt of Cabeza de Vaca’s account of his companions and his journey from Florida across the Gulf Coast to Mexico in the 1530s to a firsthand reaction from an Arab­American to events following 9/11. Each document is credited with its original source. Keyword searching is available; using the ad­ vanced search option, a search can be limited just to “Many Pasts,” or to any of the other sections, or can include the entire site. Among other components included in His­ tory Matters is “Making Sense of Evidence,” which offers strategies for using a variety of primary sources, including photographs, oral histories, political cartoons, and letters, in re­ search and teaching. 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 Another section, “WWW.History” provides an annotated guide with links to other sites that can be useful in teaching U.S. history. A section titled “Reference Desk” lists resources that provide standards, copyright information, citation and style information, and evaluation criteria for using online sources. Others sections include “Talking History;” a listing of online forums; “Syllabus Central,” containing syllabi emphasizing the integration of historical content and online technology; and “Digital Blackboard,” which provides Web­ based assignments offering practical models in using the sources listed. The site is well laid out, with the various sec­ tions listed on the opening page containing brief descriptions of their content. Keyword searching is effective in locating relevant material. There is a link to a full list of individual resources provided on the site. The primary documents alone make this a worthy resource. It should be especially useful for those students and teachers of high school and lower division college U.S. history survey courses, which the site was intended to serve.—Ford Schmidt, Willamette University, fschmidt@willamette.edu/ Social Psychology Network. Access: http:// www.socialpsychology.org. Founded in 1998 by Scott Pious, Social Psychology Network (SPN) strives “to pro­ mote peace, social justice, and sustainable living through public education, research, and the advancement of psychology.” It achieves this mission by providing approxi­ mately 3,500 searchable links pertaining to psychology. In addition, SPN has three partner sites, which also help with its mission. These are Society of Experimental Social Psychology, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and Research Randomizer. Since becoming grant­funded the site hired professional staff and also added four new partner sites: Stanford Prison Experi­ 232C&RL News April 2008 http:www.socialpsychology.org mailto:fschmidt@willamette.edu WWW.History mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu http://historymatters ment, Jigsaw Classroom, Anti­smoking Web Site, and Understanding Prejudice. SPN’s Web site is clean and well orga­ nized. Site visitors can easily navigate to psychology­related information by clicking the topic­related links on the left side bar. In addition, users can search the site via a user­friendly search interface or navigate it using a site map. Perusing the categories on the left side bar, one quickly discovers the opportunity to drill down to a wealth of psychology­related information. Some of the options that are available include college textbooks, professional journals, social psychology topics, broader psychology topics by area (e.g., history, cultural, developmental, clinical, etc.), and even a list of free offerings. Under “Free Offerings from SPN,” users will find helpful tools including “Psychol­ ogy News Service,” “Psychology Headlines Search Box,” and “Psychology Links Search Box.” The news service feature provides an RSS feed of psychology news articles from around the world, while the headlines search box allows you to add a search box to your Web site, which searches SPN’s international database of news stories. Finally, the links search feature allows you to add a search box, which scans approxi­ mately 15,000 links on SPN’s Web site. All told, these free features are useful for course pages, department pages, blogs, LibGuides, and just about any other platform that will allow you to embed a search box. This reviewer would be hard­pressed to find anything to really criticize and would highly recommend the site. While the site is suitable for public libraries, it definitely deserves serious consideration by academic librarians, colleges or universi­ ties with strong social science programs, and even psychology faculty or practitio­ ners.—Brad Matthies, Butler University, bmatthie@butler.edu The Foreign Policy Association. Access: http://www.fpa.org/. The Foreign Policy Association (FPA) was founded in 1918 and “is a non­profi t orga­ nization dedicated to inspiring the American public to learn more about the world.” The FPA’s Web site acts as both a membership site for the association and an educational tool to provide information and research tools relating to foreign policy. A key strength of this site is video content, featuring video clips from the FPA’s Great Decisions television series available for pur­ chase on DVD and currently aired on public television. Transcripts of the shows can be accessed from the site, as well. Accompany­ ing materials including suggested background readings and “Opinion Ballots”—worksheets to inspire pro and con discussions of issues introduced in the series—provide possible classroom tools. Lectures by prominent eco­ nomic and political leaders round out the Web site’s video content. Continuing the focus on key current policy issues, fpa.org features a series of blogs that discuss current international events ranging from the U.S. Presidential election to China trade. With daily postings from foreign policy scholars, the blogs keep up with current events. Readers may also refer to linked ar­ chival blog postings and Web sites of relevant organizations and associations. More scholarly content is buried, but well worth digging for. The site’s “Resource Li­ brary” allows for both keyword searching and browsing by topic or region. Search results may be narrowed to “Research and Analysis” as well as news and media, organizations, maps, or speeches. FPA invites scholars to post research papers and other international resources to the site. For a student interested in staying current with international events and for instruc­ tors or discussion group leaders looking for thought­provoking multimedia materials for use in the classroom, the FPA Web site is a noteworthy resource.—Ann Flower, Monterey Institute of International Studies, afl ower@miis.edu April 2008 233 C&RL News mailto:ower@miis.edu http:http://www.fpa.org mailto:bmatthie@butler.edu