Newsletter No. 74
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Free Pint
"Helping 32,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
ISSN 1460-7239 2nd November 2000 No.74
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Martin White
FREE PINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
Reviewed by Simon Collery
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"Web Sources for Central and Eastern Europe"
By Sam Vaknin
BOOKSHELF
"Super Searchers on Health & Medicine:
The Online Secrets of Top Health & Medical Researchers"
Reviewed by Cynthia L. Shamel
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Portals for business information on the Internet"
By Sheila Webber
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/021100.htm
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Is finding the information you need turning out to be a bit of a bind?
GET UNTANGLED at Online Information 2000 and find a wealth of
information sources for all industry sectors as well as solutions for
information management, retrieval and dissemination.
REGISTER TODAY for free, fast track entry into this essential event
http://www.online-information.co.uk/ol00/index.asp
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>>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<<
Free Pint is a community of business professionals who use the Web for
their work. Members receive this free newsletter every two weeks
packed with tips on finding quality and reliable business information
on the Internet. Signing up at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/> provides
free access to the substantial archive of articles, book reviews,
industry news and events, with answers to your research questions and
networking at the "Free Pint Bar" and "Student Bar". This newsletter
is best read when printed out and viewed in a Courier font.
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EDITORIAL
Winter birthdays are never much fun, but Free Pint celebrates its
third birthday with today's issue. As a concerned parent (or Managing
Director - same thing really) I'm always worrying about the rate of my
toddler's development. It seems that I have little to worry about
though since Free Pint has no problem attracting new friends
(still about a thousand a month), is getting lots of attention (in the
trade and national press) and we're spending lots of money on new toys
(well, servers, programming and content actually). Free Pint may be
showered with attention but it still has to pay its way, which is more
than is requested of most three year olds. Happy Birthday Free Pint!
The main birthday present this year has been the Free Pint Bus which
has been adorned with logos and a massive extending beer jug on the
roof in preparation for Monday's departure on the next leg of the
Roadshow. The Oxford event last week went very well with one attendee
winning a lovely bottle of bubbly courtesy of Roadshow sponsors
Factiva. We'd love you to join us next week if you're in the vicinity
of Lougborough, Sheffield, Newcastle, Manchester or Aberystwyth. Find
out more at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/student/roadshow.htm>.
I hope you're also planning to visit London at the beginning of
December to attend the Online Information 2000 show. We're running the
Free Pint Bar on stand 30 and I'll tell you more about our exciting
plans over the coming weeks. For now though pencil in the 5th - 7th
December 2000 and check out <http://www.online-information.co.uk/>.
Today's birthday edition is as packed with tips and interesting Web
sites as ever. We cover such diverse topics as central and eastern
Europe, business portals, finding health and medical information and
the usual round up of happenings at the Bars, forthcoming events and
personal favourite sites from readers.
If you're visiting a drinking establishment soon (perhaps with us on
the Roadshow next week) then do join us in raising a toast to Free
Pint's third birthday.
Cheers
William
William Hann BSc MIInfSc
Founder and Managing Editor, Free Pint
e: william@freepint.co.uk
t: +44 (0)1784 455435
f: +44 (0)1784 455436
Free Pint is a trademark of Free Pint Limited
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
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"Launching your web presence with e-commerce" is the British Library's
new one day workshop (1 December) aimed at information professionals,
researchers and anyone wanting to design and launch their own web
site. E-commerce is becoming an essential element of business practice
in any context but it is easy to waste time and make mistakes. The
course will cover all the vital steps of setting up an e-commerce
enabled web site. Further info tel 020 7412 7915 or go to
http://www.bl.uk/services/stb/courses.html
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>>> EXTENSIVE WORLDWIDE BROADCASTING OF YOUR MESSAGE <<<
To reach 32,000 information searchers in 117 countries visit:
http://www.freepint.co.uk/advert.htm
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Martin White
* NEWSdesk - press releases from all the leading IT and
telecommunications vendors world-wide , with a well-designed e-mail
alert service <http://www.newsdesk.com>
* Intranet Design Magazine - full of best practice suggestions,
technical briefings and news <http://www.innergy.com>
* Quick Links - monitors developments (mainly in the EU) on internet
issues, the information society and information content, with an
emphasis on legal and regulatory aspects <http://www.qlinks.net>
* Electronic Privacy Information Center - excellent global coverage of
data privacy issues, with well-maintained archives and links to
other resources <http://www.epic.org>
* Richard Feynman - devoted to a quite extraordinary Nobel prize-
winner who was instrumental in solving the cause of the Challenger
Shuttle disaster. <http://www.feynmanonline.com>
Martin White is Managing Director of Intranet Focus
<http://www.intranetfocus.com>, a consulting company that works with
intranet managers and with information companies delivering content to
intranets.
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Tell us about your top five favourite Web sites. see the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/author.htm> or email <simon@freepint.co.uk>
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FACTIVA LAUNCHES INFOPRO ALLIANCE PORTAL
Take a look at our new portal to support information professionals
around the world. The Infopro Alliance Portal provides tools and
resources especially for the professional researcher, with links to
industry web sites, publications, white papers, case studies and
discussion through our link to the Free Pint Bar.
Bookmark http://www.factiva.com/infopro and see you on the roadshow!
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>>> RECOMMEND FREE PINT TO A FRIEND <<<
If you enjoy Free Pint then why not let us send a courteous
and brief introduction to your friends on your behalf.
Simply enter their details confidentially on this page:
http://www.freepint.co.uk/reco.htm
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FREE PINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
Reviewed by Simon Collery
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/021100.htm#bar
Free Pint Bar - http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar
[Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of XXXX in
the address <http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar/read.php?i=XXXX>]
Last week, a Free Pinter from the National Population Unit in South
Africa expressed the view that those working in corporate libraries
and the Special Libraries Association are unaware of the problems
faced by non corporate librarians, especially in the developing world
(5584). Does anyone share this concern?
New search tools continue to appear with clever tricks and gadgets,
such as one that helps you spot plagiarism (5615) and one that allows
you to search for whole chunks of text (5497) and while some existing
engines continue to get better (5606), Google being an example, others
don't. In some search situations it's best to go vertical and use a
specialist tool to find statistics (5580) or places to stay (5594).
General business resources are always in demand and a posting about
them resulted in a nice little collection (5464). The weekly Pub
Crawl looked at a range of Internet business articles, the emphasis
being mainly on competitive intelligence and knowledge management
(5561, 5653). More specific business concerns mentioned on the Bar
include defence spending (5480), diaries of forthcoming events (5490),
grant finding services (5492) and historical price/earning ratios
(5509).
Also aired in the Bar were resources for finding latitude and
longitude coordinates (5449), research evaluation (5533), electronics
and communication engineering information (5551) and operas (5543).
Among the latest Tipples were a review of The Atlantic Online (5471)
and a site holding data on English words with their origin, history
and use (5639).
Webmasters and technical bods have been wondering about bibliographic
software (5511), Dreamweaver (5517), drop down boxes (5528), cultural
considerations in Web design (5559), spiders (5654) and newsgroup
software (5633). There have also been mentions of online writing
(5474), digital subscriber lines (5472), Web design companies (5531),
SAP business application software (5595) and Web site editorial
procedure (5500).
There was mixed bag of questions about singing lessons for the tone
deaf (5603), Latin translation sites (5491), marketing/media
recruitment (5586), greenfield sites (5618), electrical transmission
line graphics (5560) and a request for French language equivalents of
the Free Pint Bar (5447).
Business researchers have been levelling questions on a variety of
topics recently. There's one on finding out the domain names
registered by a particular company (5457), time and materials contract
law (5478), freight carriers (5608) and procurement management (5643).
We are still waiting for replies to the one about oil industry
alliances (5460), a comparison of Portal B with Lexis Nexis (5609) and
researchers with a knowledge of Portugal (5651).
Quantitative and statistical questions are often difficult to find
answers to. We have had answers to queries about Internet usage
statistics (5558), comparisons of the US and the EU under broad
statistical headings (5579) and UK homeowner statistics (5502). But
if you know anything about British companies that have made big
investments in Spain (5475), price/earnings ratios in Italy (5484) or
demographic information on people who use the Internet as a source for
medical information (5514) do pay a visit to the Bar.
Free Pint Student Bar - http://www.freepint.co.uk/student
[Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of XXXX in
the address <http://www.freepint.co.uk/student/read.php?i=XXXX>]
On the Student Bar there have been requests for help with an English
literature dissertation (1051), a dissertation on student stress in
schools (1048), a project on the death penalty (1052) and an essay on
the role of the information professional in the information society
(1056). And there was a posting about some bursaries which have been
awarded by the UK Online User Group (1055).
Simon Collery, Content Developer <simon@freepint.co.uk>
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To read a message:
- Enter the id number in place of XXXX in the address
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar/read.php?i=XXXX>,
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- For Student Bar postings please use the address
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/student/read.php?i=XXXX>
- Alternatively, view this summary online with activated hyperlinks at
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/021100.htm#bar>
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Do you have a research question? Could you help other members? It's
easy to post a message at the Bar <http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar> or
the Student Bar <http://www.freepint.co.uk/student>.
Visit daily for "Today's Tipple" - a different Web site reviewed every
working day at the Bar. Access the Portal archive of Tipples at
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/portal/content/tipple.php3>.
To have the latest Free Pint Bar postings sent to you every other day,
send a blank email to <digest@freepint.co.uk>. For the Student Bar
Digest send an email to <studentdigest@freepint.co.uk>.
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Download your FREE 30-Day Trial of BullsEye Pro, the Ultimate Research
Assistant for Professionals. In the June 8th issue of Free Pint, Chris
Sherman describes how "BullsEye, a desktop based meta search engine
can also access many of the sites included in InvisibleWeb.com." With
fine-grained filters and up to the minute trackers, you will control
information rather than having it control you. Go to
http://info.intelliseek.com/promotions/fp.htm and receive a 20%
discount off the price of $249 if you purchase a copy by 12/31/00.
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>>> TODAY'S GLOBAL AND INDUSTRY NEWS IN 300 FOLDERS <<<
Check out this major free resource for Free Pint members.
http://www.freepint.co.uk/news/
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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/021100.htm#tips
"Web Sources for Central and Eastern Europe"
By Sam Vaknin
I am a veteran web surfer but I am hard pressed to recall a subject so
lacking and yet so over-represented as "Central and Eastern Europe"
(CEE for short) and the Balkan (Southeast Europe or SEE). The apparent
contradiction is easily reconcilable. There are very few authoritative
resources out there - and a myriad of sectarian, biased and propaganda
sources, all clamouring for attention in the most vulgar and primitive
manner possible. To the uninitiated, it is a minefield best treaded
with great caution.
The interested and the curious would do well to start by resorting to
that old fashioned resource, the encyclopaedia. I have found factual
errors even in an establishment as erudite, esteemed and venerable as
the "Encyclopaedia Britannica". But at least, such a source is
unlikely to cloud issues and historical or economic processes with
prejudices and worse.
The best reference sources I use when in need of capsule knowledge are
the aforementioned Britannica <http://www.eb.com> with its excellent
Internet Guide and the reference collections, Xrefer
<http://www.xrefer.com/>, Bartleby <http://www.bartleby.com/> and
ebookcity <http://www.ebookcity.com/ereference/reference/>.
A handy reference portal can be found here:
<http://www.searchedu.com/>.
When in need of impartial and reliable information regarding the
region, avoid all search engines. They are likely to yield zillions of
mind numbing, low quality web sites with reams of irrelevant or
misleading "information". Web directories are not of much assistance,
either. Few editors possess the professional knowledge and wherewithal
to ferret out the pearls. The relevant sections in most web
directories are poor and poorly organized. Not much help there.
Still, these specialized portals are worth a visit:
The great "Political Resources" has it all: links, elections coverage,
resources, reviews and news <http://www.politicalresources.net/>.
And, of course, the excellent, news-oriented "Central Europe Online":
<http://www.centraleurope.com/>. This site brings together communities
of people interested in one of the list of countries it covers. It is
fully featured - from classifieds to "Book of the Day" and a daily
roundup of the relevant media.
Another good portal is "Orientation Central and Eastern Europe"
<http://eeu.orientation.com/en/home.html>. Besides the Favourites
(news and views) it contains unusual features, such as travel and
social issues.
A few scholars or interested individuals have assembled massive
collections of links, usually organized either thematically or
geographically. There are virtually hundreds of such pages but here
are a few of my favourites:
Central and East European Legal, Political, Business and Economics WWW
Resources
<http://law.gonzaga.edu/library/ceeurope.htm>
Balkan Peace Links
<http://www.uottawa.ca/associations/balkanpeace/links.html>
The regional link pages of "Civil Action in Eurasia"
<http://www.friends-partners.org/~ccsi/elctrnic/e-region.htm>
Links - Eastern Europe
<http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~oei/Links/linksite.htm>
A fabulous map collection - both historical and current:
<http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html>
And this is a VERY partial list.
Unconventional problems call for unusual solutions. The best sources,
to my mind, are in the archives of discussion lists and in the
archives of periodicals.
Let's start with the latter. Five stand out. The first is "Central
Europe Review" <http://www.ce-review.org>. For disclosure's sake, I
must inform you that I am proud to serve as a weekly columnist there.
But it lately won the NetMedia 2000 Award, so it must be as good as I
think it is. It contains in depth analysis, news coverage, thematic
issues, book and arts reviews - all related to the countries of CEE.
Its coverage - politics, geopolitics, economies and history - of the
countries of Central Europe and the Balkan is particularly impressive.
Not far behind is the more veteran "Transitions Online"
<http://www.transitions-online.org>. Runners up include
"Centraleurope.com", sister publication "Russia Today"
<http://www.russiatoday.com/>. The links pages of all these
publications are goldmines to the CEE enthusiast. An unusual site
which disseminates high quality and incisive intelligence reports in
CIA-like format is Stratfor:<http://www.stratfor.com/>.
To this august list, we choose to add the courageous and highly
reliable "International War and Peace Reporting"
<http://www.iwpr.net/>. It has a Balkan edition but it covers
virtually all the countries of CEE and SEE (especially the tenser
spots). It has a network of local journalists doing the dangerously
impossible: reporting regularly and even-handedly.
The economies of CEE and SEE are scrutinized by the professional team
of "Central Europe Business" (owned by "The Economist") here:
<http://www.bcemag.com/>. It is the web complement of an eponymous
print monthly.
The archives of discussion lists constitute another source and by far
the most voluminous and thought provoking.
The archives of academic lists sometimes contain hundreds and
thousands of full text articles, resources and links.
The archive of my list, "CEE and Balkan - Aftertherain" contains close
to 500 full texts, carefully selected from hundreds of sources. It
grows by 3-5 texts daily and is available here:
<http://www.listbot.com/archive/aftertherain>.
My list is less than a year old. Imagine the riches available to you
in the archives of multiannuated lists, such as the "Russia List"!
Prof. David Johnson, the list owner, publishes a weekly digest called
the CDI Russia Weekly. E-mail a request to <djohnson@cdi.org> to
receive free back issues or to subscribe to the list.
The archive of the CDI Russia Weekly is available at
<http://cdi.org/russia>.
But these are just two of hundreds of lists of similar or better
quality and breadth. There is no point in listing them all. Visit the
archives, check the background of the list owner, read the list
description and decide for yourself (see below).
Non-academic discussion lists are an infallible source of current,
sparkling, vital and controversial information.
Discussion lists regarding specific CEE/SEE countries can be found
here (e-groups):
<http://www.egroups.com/dir/260>
Many universities put servers, storage space ad other infrastructure
at the disposal of students and faculty.
This server hosts numerous CEE and SEE-related lists:
<http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/>
A few can be found here as well (click on "Online List Archives"):
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/>
Liszt is a general list of more than 90,000 (!) email forums (search
for "Europe" or "Balkan"):
<http://www.liszt.com/>
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Sam Vaknin, an economic and political columnist and a published and
awarded author of short fiction and reference, is currently an
economic advisor to the government of Macedonia. He has collaborated
with Israeli psychologists and criminologists in the study of
personality disorders and is the author of "Malignant Self Love -
Narcissism Revisited" and "After the Rain - How the West Lost the
East". He is the editor of the Mental Health Disorders category in the
Open Directory Project and of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder
topic in Suite101. Web address: for more details.
Product names used in Free Pint are for identification purposes only,
and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Free Pint disclaims
any and all rights in those marks. All rights reserved.
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About this Newsletter
- Publication Date: 2nd November 2000
- Plain text
- Link: https://www.jinfo.com/go/newsletter/74
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