More TeleRead Links
More TeleRead Links
Note: This area will be undergoing a major overhaul, with updating of links. Suggestions welcome from readers.-David H. Rothman
Copyright
Bookstores on the Web Censorship Issues Copyright Community Networks Education and Libraries Electronic Periodicals Newsgroups Technology and the Net Business on the Net
Copyright
Copyright
Clearance Center. The
Center works with publishers, authors, and users to simplify the
permissions process.
The Copyright FAQ, by Terry
Carroll, Esq.
Intellectual property issues--a resources guide on the Yahoo index.
Intellectual
property site of Jeff Kuester,
a Net-hip intellectual property attorney who also has an
engineering background. This prize-winning site is well-stocked
with a wealth of authoritative links. I ran into Kuester while
fighting a Net-hostile law that Georgia had passed. Kuester (kuester@kuesterlaw.com) is working to bring Georgia pols up to speed
on the Net and would like to expand his efforts at the national
level. Send him a note if you're interested in helping out. A
good cause! Note, too, the existence of a Congressional Internet Caucus. Educations of policymaker is the best
protection against Net-stupid legislation--like the recent law
out Georgia that could jeopardize linking on the Web if other
jurisdictions repeated the same mistake.
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Bookstores on the Web
The
Electric Book. A
friendly area with links to online books, newspapers, and
magazines. Proprietor Bob Tingle has even created an electronic
cafe. Tingle provides
a gateway to food- and drink-related links, and a forum for
discussion of copyright and other hot issues.
Book
Stacks Unlimited. It
offers more than 400,000 titles and publishes scads of free
writings and links to other resources for book-lovers; Book
Stacks recently decided to spotlight the TeleRead
site. The search engine is a real beaut. What's more, you can
even browse the site "in 100 subject categories or by their
Dewey Subject Classification."
Open
Book Systems, formerly
the Online BookStore, which offers the writings
of Laura Fillmore (OBS proprietor) on electronic books. Her
vision isn't the same as mine, but is notable for her
appreciation of the potential of the technology.
Censorship Issues
Computers
and Academic Freedom Archive.
Electronic
Frontier Foundation
Legal
Information Institute
at the Cornell University Law School. Right off the Net, you can
see copyright laws
for yourself. Netscape fan that I am, I'll always be grateful to
these folks for giving us Cello. You can even track down for intellectual property decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The
Right Side of the Web.
Not all of censorship's foes are liberals.
Community Networks
Communet. TeleReaders would be terrific for two-way networking
of the local variety. Communet is a mailing list devoted to the
concerns of community networkers, including, yes, hardware.
Email listserv@uvmvm.uvm.edu. In the body write: subscribe
communet firstname lastname.
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Education and Libraries
Association
for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD). This progressive educational group fights the
proverbial "savage inequalities." A well-stocked
national digital library, of course, could let students in poor
communities enjoy the same copyrighted books as those in rich
ones, without harming the latter; in fact TeleRead would increase
the range of materials available to Beverly
Hills, not just Watts.
ALAWON, the newsletter out of the Washington office of
the American
Library Association.
It's one of the best ways of keeping up with library-related
issues in Congress. For a subscription, email listserv@uicvm.uic.edu. In the body of your message write: subscribe
ala-wo firstname lastname.
Consortium
for School Networking (CoSN).
Members promote better-wired schools. CoSN includes a mix of
teachers, independent consultants, and people in industry. Some
of the top innovators in K-12 networking belong to CoSN
Ednet. Our schools are so unwired that most
classrooms lack telephones; forget about modems and e-books. So
how are teachers faring in their efforts to get students into
cyberspace--when even Americans schools have a 15-to-1 ratio
between students and computers? Write listproc@nic.umass.edu. In the body write: subscribe
ednet firstname lastname.
The
Edupage digest on computers and schools. Well-written summary of news from sources
ranging from academic journals to daily newspapers. Email listserv@bitnic.educom.edu. Say: subscribe edupage
firstname lastname.
School- and library-related links on the Web. This is a handy list out of the University of
Washington. I'd also recommend Gleason Sackman's HotList of K-12 Internet School Sites, a quick way to find a school near you that's
already on the Net.
MendelWeb, which help readers explore Gregor Mendel's
seminal work in the area of genetics. MendelWeb itself is a
ground-breaker of sorts. Readers can contribute their
own hyperlinked annotations
to Mendel's writing, complete with links to other attractions of
MendelWeb or those of the Web in general.
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Electronic Periodicals
AJR
Newslink, the best
single guide to newspapers and magazines on the Net--and plenty
of provocative media criticism in the bargain.
Last
Writes? Re-assessing the Law Review in the Age of Cyberspace. "The next decade could witness the end of
the law review as we know it," says Bernard
Hibbitts, a law
professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School--telling how
the Net could shake the reviews up. Along the way he digs up
little tidbits from the past. In 1896, the editor of one journal
complained ("somewhat ironically, perhaps," as Hibbitts
sees it) that "This is a book-enslaved generation. Too many
books, too many newspapers, too many magazines--too little
reflection, too little originality." Show that to your
technopobic friends next time they moan about the proliferation
of Web journals.
Newsgroups
For some provocative
listings on education, drop by misc.education, and for a home-school perspective, try misc.education.home-school.misc. TeleRead would be a boon to resource-strapped
children, parents and educators everywhere--the home-school
variety as well as the public-school kind. For discussion of
copyright- and patent-related issues--often from a business
perspective, as opposed to an educational one--see misc.int-property. Also don't forget comp.org.eff.talk (see "Electronic Frontier Foundation"
earlier on this list). Too, remember the already-mentioned alt.extext newsgroup, as well as comp.internet.library and soc.libraries.talk. For a current list of newsgroups relating to
libraries, try searching on "libraries" and
"library" on the search
page of the Usenet
Info Center--perhaps
the best way to track down newsgroups on any
topic. Kevin
Atkinson (kevina@clark.net), who started it, is only 17 years old. What
better evidence that we can benefit by getting young people
online in a massive way through TeleRead? Not every student will
show Kevin's knack for computers, but such efforts will still
result in a more skilled, more productive workforce in general.
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Technology and the Net
Computer-Mediated Communication resources. Yes, TeleRead could spread the
technology around. But how to make the best use of it? What about
the human side? And just what are people doing now
with the technology? Check out the Computer-Mediated Communication Studies Center and related resources, including Computer-Mediated
Communication Magazine.
The May 1995 issue offers a fascinating article, "How Will This Improve Student
Writing?" A
preliminary investigation found that "Students who were more
than able to get their point across in the online environment
wrote stilted and stiff prose in the offline environment, and
each rater commented on the difficulty of reading and evaluating
the off-line texts when compared with the online texts." In
my opinion, as society increasingly goes online, net.writing will
count for its own sake. Just the same, we must ask, "What
can educators to do improve offline
writing as well?"
The Web as a true
many-to-many medium. A
Net-smart writer named Misha Glouberman proposes "third-party databases that
correlate user-contributed comments with the addresses of Web
pages. Effectively, the system would make it possible for users
to add comments to any page on the Web." His Webbed proposal
includes links
to others with somewhat similar ideas. Way to go, Misha! I've
long felt that a TeleRead-style library should let readers
annotate e-books and even exchange comments among themselves.
Readers could easily ignore or switch off such capabilities, or
could subscribe to private services that were selective in the
comments posted.
Business on the Net
Why use
sharp-screened, low-cost TeleReaders just for reading and other
forms of education? Cost-justify! The same pen-style interface
capacity would work well with electronic forms to order good and
services--displayed in a colorful Web style. The technology's
only going to get better and better, without the bothersome delay
when you call up new "pages." A focused procurement
program for schools and libraries could encourage Silicon Valley
to think more in terms of book- , Net- and retail-friendly
computers. Already the Web teems with businesses. Now let's give
them eyes--enough people
to buy their products. White
Rabbit Toys in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, is one of my favorite examples of Net businesses
of the kind that TeleRead would especially benefit. You can also
use the Net to order cranberries and other goodies from New England Country Cupboard in Weymouth, Massacusetts--or check out real
estate. Meanwhile,
scads of electronic malls are springing up such as The Tar
Heel Mall in North
Carolina. For links to dozens of cybermalls click here.
Just remember: most net.stores are barely scraping by; the right
hardware just isn't in enough hands. For an example of electronic
forms, which could slash bureaucracy in both the commercial and
government areas, visit the Federal
Express site and take
a look at the package-tracking forms. Also take a look at the
site of net.Genesis,
a company that has released net.Form, "a universal forms
processing engine for the Web." net.Forms speeds up the
creation for forms for consumer comments, "survey responses,
ordering information and data entry," among other
applications. Yet another resource for people interested in
net.commerce would be the Electronic
Messaging Association.
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