may04c.indd I n t e r n e t R e v i e w s Joni R. Roberts and Carol A. Drost, editors Animation World Network. Access: www. awn.com/. Launched in 1995, Animation World Network (AWN) claims to be the “largest animation­related publishing group on the Internet.” With an international animation newswire, professional publications, online directories, career resources, and places for animators to get together online, they make a good case. Of most interest to librarians is the Anima­ tion Industry Database (AIDB), which lists more than 5,000 animation and visual effects companies, distributors, schools, advertising agencies, and supply companies—80 catego­ ries in all. AIDB consists of several worldwide databases, including an animation business directory, directories of computer and pro­ duction companies, and a school directory, which lists “more than 550 schools that of­ fer courses and programs in animation and related fields in 42 countries.” AWN provides a daily animation newswire plus a searchable archive of news stories covering the industry, people, publications, releases, events, and more. A calendar of events can be searched by name, date, en­ try date, and location. A list of upcoming theatrical releases can be viewed by release date, distribution, production, special effects company, and country of origin. AWN’s flagship publications are Anima­ tion World Magazine and VFX World. Both are weekly online magazines “dedicated to the art, craft and industry of the international animation community,” with VFX World emphasizing visual effects and computer animation. More than 1,400 articles are now available online. AWN also provides several free weekly online newsletters. In addition, Joni R. Roberts is associate university librarian for public services and collection 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 AWN hosts 14 discussion forums where ani­ mation students, teachers, and enthusiasts can share ideas and artwork. For aspiring animators, there are education and career sections. “Student Corner” gathers education information together into one page. Animator Larry Lauria put together “Larry’s Toon Institute” in 1999 to teach the basics of classical sketching and animation. “Career Connection” includes a selection of resumes that can be searched by name, location, and skills, and a section on job postings that can be searched by name, company, location, and date. At first glance, the main page can be confusing, as there is simply too much in­ formation on the screen. AWN is organized portal­style, featuring an advertising banner across the top, a navigation bar to the left, categories in the center, and a mix of more advertising and more categories to the right. The key to moving around the page is getting to know what is available and then using the navigation bar to change sections and the body of the page to see the latest articles from the magazines, news, events, releases, and shortcuts to most used pages. With more than 150,000 artists, educators, students, and fans visiting each month, AWN is not only the largest, but also the most use­ ful starting Web site for animation and visual effects.—Mark Emmons, University of New Mexico, emmons@unm.edu Science and Development Network. Ac­ cess: www.scidev.net. The Science and Development Network (SciDev.Net) provides a very easy to navi­ gate portal to credible information about the social and economic impact of science and technology on developing countries. You can enter via one of the four regional gateways, Latin America, the Middle East, South and East Asia, or Sub­Saharan Africa or you can enter via one of the seven dossiers or subject areas. The subjects include the environmental topics—biodiversity, climate change, and genetically modifi ed crops. 280 / C&RL NewsMay 2004 http:SciDev.Net http:www.scidev.net mailto:emmons@unm.edu mailto:cdrost@willamette.edu Other subjects are brain drain, ethics of research, indigenous knowledge, and intel­ lectual property. Within each dossier you may find background information, news, feature articles, editorials, policy briefs, and book reviews. There are also links to related articles and resource links to key documents, events, extensive glossaries, and additional links. Gateways offer regional news and lo­ cal perspectives. SciDev.Net is a not­for­profi t company funded by three international development organizations and the Rockefeller Foundation. Support also comes from Nature and Science and the Third World Academy of Sciences. It is run by a board of trustees, most of whom are from developing countries. It takes advantage of free and open access sources and online news sources to provide much full text. There are selected articles available from Science and Nature, for example, but some journal articles require subscriptions. A key feature of this site is the cross­linking of information within the site. It is truly a Web of information. Depth of information is provided through spotlight features on some topics and key documents. You can read “What’s New,” a summary of each week’s new content, in four languages—English, Spanish, French, and Chinese. There is also an e­mail alert option for these summaries. This Web site provides an excellent way to get an overview of the issues and a cen­ tralized source for keeping up with the latest developments. There is a keyword search engine with an advanced search that allows you to limit by date, type of material, dossier, or gateway. The site was designed to bring authoritative information to a broad range of people, including scientists, journalists, and policy makers. Librarians might find the book reviews helpful, although the number was limited and most seemed to be from Science and Nature. SciDev.Net would also be useful to undergraduates, especially those in inter­ disciplinary programs, such as environmental studies.—Carol McCulley, Linfi eld College, cmccull@linfi eld.edu Women in Politics. Access: www.ipu.org/iss­e /women.htm. Women in Politics is the most developed section of the Inter­Parliamentary Union’s (IPU) “Main Areas of Activity” pages. Women in Politics offers information on IPU’s ac­ tivities and members. The site also provides research tools, including several statistical and bibliographic resources, that researchers will find useful: “Women in National Parlia­ ments,” the “Women in Politics” database, and “Useful Links.” “Women in National Parliaments” pro­ motes a variety of statistical pages, each presenting easy­to­read tabular data. Here you can find answers to such questions as how many parliaments existed in 1945 and which country has the highest percentage of women in its lower or single legislative body. “50 Years of History” contains statistics on the number of national parliaments from 1945 to 1995. “Comparative Data by Country,” updated in February 2004, shows that nearly 49 percent of Rwanda’s parliamentarians are women. “Statistical Archive” provides infor­ mation from 1997 to the present. The “Women in Politics” database began in 1999 as a print publication. In addition to keyword searching, it is possible to search by geographic area, named organization, subject area, author, and within one of the more than 200 periodicals indexed. Geographic areas do not overlap; a citation covering Kuwait will not be retrieved through a “Middle East” geographic search. The search interface offers a valuable language limiter, as article titles and abstracts may be in any of ten languages and are rarely translated into English. Sub­ ject headings in all retrieved citations are in English. “Useful Links” contains Web sites ar­ ranged by geographic coverage (Interna­ tional vs. Regional/National) and by resource type (Bibliographic Databases and Web Directories). High­quality sources listed in­ clude “Zarate’s Political Collections,” “Emily’s List,” “Women’s Human Rights Database,” etc. The list had several broken links, but fortunately the page supplies an e­mail ad­ dress for suggestions. The Women in Politics Web site has its faults; no pages have “last updated” infor­ mation, and few pages, aside from “Use­ ful Links,” list the IPU Webmaster’s e­mail address. This site is especially useful for its statistical data, less so for bibliographic information. Researchers should use this site as a starting point.—Heidi Senior, University of Portland, senior@up.edu  C&RL NewsMay 2004 / 281 mailto:senior@up.edu www.ipu.org/iss-e http:SciDev.Net http:SciDev.Net