Resources for interdisciplinary studies (IDS) appear in a multitude of print publications, online forums, and the "fugitive" or "gray" literature of conference papers, reports, and curriculum materials. The quantity is not surprising, since interdisciplinary discussions have expanded as new fields and approaches emerged across all domains of…

Proclaimed as the "Word of the Year" in 2004 by the "Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary," blog is the official abbreviated name for Weblog. The Weblog began as an online journal, with a single author providing hyperlinks to Web sites of interest and posting personal commentaries for the world to read, ponder, and…

In this article, the authors discuss ways one can create a digital library on a shoestring despite the current high technology costs. Here, they describe the University of South Carolina's digital library development. The cost associated with building and maintaining the digital collections seems to have been worth it based on the feedback that…

Much of the research literature from the past 25 years has supported the importance of teaching grammar in the context of writing instruction (Calkins, 1980; DiStefano & Killion, 1984; Weaver, 1996,1998). Unlike other content areas, practice does not make perfect when learning grammar. While isolated drill and practice of grammatical concepts may…

In an attempt to make the Kansas City Public Library's Web site more user friendly, the Web team took an opportunity to completely redesign the site. This article describes the techniques that the team used to organize and design the new Web site. By adopting a guided approach to the Internet, they were able to streamline their Web links and…

This article explores personalized search technologies showing that various vendors are trying a variety of approaches. Brief descriptions are given of some of beta projects in effort to assist librarians seeking to offer services that meet their patrons' individual needs by exploring how personal search technologies are being used on the Web in…

One topic that is frequently taught at any and all grade levels is elections, particularly during presidential election years. There are numerous organizations that produce materials and maintain websites to help students at all grade levels learn about and even participate in mock election activities. There is, however, one aspect of elections…

Luann Wright, founder and president of NoIndoctrination.org, a Web site devoted to policing professors accused of harassing conservative students in their classrooms, firmly believes that what she's doing is a public service. "The university should be a market place of ideas, a safe place to explore a variety of perspectives," she says. "'But I…

Academic Web publishing is a complex and difficult challenge. It is not surprising that most universities find it necessary to provide different types of Web publishing infrastructures for their constituents, such as conventional, do-it-yourself Web and database services, as well as template-driven solutions that include portals, course management…

The weblog format has increasingly been adopted by academics in recent years, both as a teaching tool and to disseminate and discuss their own research interests. Academics are turning to blogs to exchange ideas about their discipline, their wider field, the academy, and beyond. Doing so, however, raises questions about personal identity with…

This article features a list of websites for primary sources and civics education. The World Wide Web has become an excellent source for facsimiles, images, and transcriptions of primary sources. As it would be impossible to provide a comprehensive list of all the sites, this annotated list highlights selective sites that provide access to…

In this month's column, the author discusses his work on the Library Technology Guides site, additions he has made to the lib-web-cats online directory of libraries, and applications he has created for managing home projects such as family photographs.

In this brief article, the author suggests some tips that can help teachers promote class activities by keeping parents informed on what is going on in class. Letters to the parents, monthly newsletters, and web pages are some of the methods described.

A significant trend in higher education evolving from the wide accessibility to the Internet is the availability of an ever-increasing supply of data on Web sites for use by professors, students, and researchers. As this usage by a wider variety of users grows, the ability to judge the integrity of the data, the related findings, and the Web site…

Employing elements of both radio and blogging, podcasting has enormous potential for providing learning experiences for children. At its most basic level, podcasting involves a person (or team) recording an audio program and saving the program as an MP3 file then uploading the file to the Internet and placing a link to the file in a Weblog. The…