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copyright restrictions. How GPO intends to do this in a more electronic environment remains a mystery to many. Although GPO has provided what appears to be a well thought out and articulated Plan, there are, obviously, many flaws and questions raised and which GPO must provide further evidence on how it intends to address these questions. How will GPO work in conjunction with NARA to maintain and archive important government information? What differentiates GPO’s ability to provide electronic information in a timely manner and useable format from that of a private sector vendor? How long will elec- tronic government information reside on GPO servers, and how accessible will that infor- mation be in the future? And, in what format and by what means?

All in all GPO has sent a clear signal via its Plan that it intends to remain in the fray to become the centralized agency for electronic government information dissemination and management. Perhaps it should become that centralized agency. Regardless, GPO must

provide further evidence of its dissemination techniques, policies, and intent to work with all clients, users, and other stakeholders. Whatever information is produced as a conse- quence must be based on reality, technological feasibility, and fiscal prudence, as well as involve all parties.

National Archives and Records Administration Web Site. By National Archives and Records Administration. Available: http://www.nara. gov/ (Reviewed November 1998).

Reviewed by Timothy E. McMahon, Electronic Publishing Specialist, American Mathematical Society, 20 I Charles Street. Providence, RI 02904-2294 <txm@ams.org>.

The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Web site is broad in scope and deep in content. NARA, at the site, states up front that its mission is to “ensure ready access to essential evidence . . that documents the rights of American citizens, the actions of federal officials, and the national experience. . . .” In this context, NARA offers those with access to the Internet a vast offering of materials that reflect the growth and develop- ment of this country. Here, users will experience the fullness of the American experience from the casualties suffered by the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, to President Kennedy’s famous speech in Berlin on June 26, 1963, to so many other aspects of the American experience. NARA has put together a panoply of text. graphics, and audio files that will draw users repeatedly to the site.

INFORMATION CONTENT CRITERIA

Orientation to the Web Site

When first entering the site, users are presented with an abbreviated form of the organi- zation’s mission statement. The Welcome page provides a broad overview of the site’s content. While this overview is a good start, NARA would benefit by adding a more spe- cific statement of the scope and content of the site. The welcome statement does not really provide the user with an understanding of the breadth and depth of information provided.

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Other pages, like the one for the NARA press releases, present an explicit picture of what to expect.

Content

By its nature, this site must contain a vast amount of material to meet the needs of anyone seeking information about the diverse history of the American experience. In meeting these needs, NARA presents a well balanced mixture of materials relating to the federal govem- ment for genealogists, history buffs, teachers, researchers, NARA itself, and others. The home page is busy but well organized. There are numerous links to various areas within the site.

Materials on this page match what the user would expect from the agency. In many cases, NARA has provided scanned images of primary source materials with supporting text provided by agency staff. When the combination of text and images is used, in most cases, the text is clear, positive, and professional. Jargon, for the most part, is absent from the site. So much of the material presented is unique that users will return repeatedly.

Currency

Addresses for contact persons, as well as updated information, are readily available. In many instances, the content was updated within the past three months. Some pages, how- ever, have not been updates since early 1997.

Bibliographic Control

The development team has sought to compartmentalize information through the use of descriptive headings and page layout. The use of appropriate titles in HTML coding and concise verbiage for page headings allow users to understand quickly the information pre- sented. There are instances (e.g., the American Originals exhibit of the causality list of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment), however, where links are not who@ descriptive. This site presents a graphic depicting the names of enlisted men missing’ aftei: the Regi- ment’s assault on Fort Wagner and a link to the “complete casualty list.” This link can eas- ily be misconstrued to lead to a complete listing of all casualties suffered by the Regiment, officers and enlisted, during the attack (http://www.nara.gov/exhall/originals/ 54thmass.htm). Aside from minor distractions such as these, the site has done an admira- ble job of organization.

Services

The site provides services &its users in the form of links to important government pub- lications, such as the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations, and the U.S. Gov- ernment Manual. In addition, NARA has a Professional Services section of links from its home page. From here, users gather information about records management programs, grants, employment, and other areas of interest. Users can also submit general reference or research questions to NARA. A nice feature, available from the Genealogy link, is the Soundex Machine which converts surnames into a Soundex code that was developed to locate names in NARA’s census microfilm holdings (1880-l 920).

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The site provides notices to the public. Among other things, users are alerted to times that the home page will be down for maintenance.

EASE-OF-USE CRITERIA

layout and Speed

Over the several weeks that this site was reviewed, there were no broken links or tempo- rary forwarding address. The link to the “What’s New” page should be moved to a more prominent space. “What’s New” could benefit from the addition of a dating scheme that allows users to know when a particular feature was added.

In its attempt to provide access to the greatest array of material, NARA has scanned hun- dreds of images to appear on the site. These graphics cause many pages to load slowly. Site design would benefit from the use of a graphics compression program.

Feedback Mechanism

Users have ample opportunities to contact agency staff. The Welcome page solicits com- ments via a mail-to mechanism but does not alert the sender as to whom this mail will be directed. In other instances, users can report broken links and provide feedback to the Web- master.

Accessibility

The site is easily reached through search engines using either the acronym NARA or the full name of the agency. To ensure discovery through search engines, the site creators have added the full agency name to the HTML title code and Alt text of the home page. NARA also makes extensive use of metadata on its home page to facilitate discovery, The site, however, would benefit from a more uniform use of descriptive Alt text throughout pages deeper in the site.

Design

Overall, the site is well designed and easily viewed on a 15” monitor. There are some pages, however where information is presented in such a manner that the user must scroll across a screen and a half (see http://www.nara.gov/nara/electronic/ rihviet.html/).

The site has a written list of browsers that should be used when accessing the NARA Archival Information Locator (NAIL) database and the Kennedy Assassination Records. The list also includes a set of browsers that will not work on either of these two resources. In addition, the site presents a Monitor Adjustment Target to assist in setting up monitors for optimal site viewing (browsers: http://www.nara.gov/ nara/browser.html/; monitors: http://www.nara.gov/nara/target.html/ ).

Volume of Use

During the course of preparing this review, access to the site was never denied due to heavy usage.

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Navigability

Navigation is simple and minimal user search skills are required to find information. Each page has a link to the home page, a URL for the current page, a mail-to link to the Webmaster, and the date last revised. Local navigation is well defined with many book- mark hyperlinks on long pages.

SUMMARY

NARA has developed a well thought out and functionally sound Web site that will meet many needs of its users. The introduction of graphics, descriptive text, audio files, and superior design make this site stand out. With attention to the few drawbacks noted in this review, the site’s value increases.

Silencing Scientists and Scholars in Other Fields: Power, Paradigm Controls, Peer Review, and Scholarly Communication. By Gordon Moran. Greenwich, CT: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1998. 175 p. $73.25 (cloth). ISBN 1-56750-342-X. $39.50 (paper). ISBN 1-56750-343-K

Reviewed by Harold C. Relyea, Specialist in American National Government, Gov- ernment Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540-7470.

Over a century ago. Frederick Nietzsche wrote: “I looked for great men, but all I found were the apes of their ideals.” Moran might well agree with Nietzsche’s comment. His book begins with his own introduction to great men-“the dining room of Pierson College at Yale University during the academic year 1956-1957, where the Fellows of Pierson Col- lege had lunch together every other Wednesday or so.” The author was, at the time, a bus boy, who cleared tables, “taking in as much of their conversation as possible.” The Fellows “consisted of some of the most famous professors at Yale (if not also in academe at large) from a variety of academic disciplines.” The author, by his own admission, was strongly impressed by the experience, especially “by the civility of discourse during specific discus- sions in which there was strong disagreement of opinion.” Indeed, he writes of his experi- ence, “it became an assumption, if not a belief, that such civility of discourse characterized the behavior of famous scholars whenever they engaged in intellectual debate with their colleagues” (p. 1).

As a consequence, when the author much later attempted “to publish some information and hypotheses that contradicted what was being taught as a paradigm in art history class- rooms, and what was written in art history textbooks, monographs, encyclopedias, and so on,” he was little prepared for the resulting “insults, censorship, and falsifications, all directed toward silencing the new, unwanted hypotheses.” Quite likely, he was shattered and, at the time, “felt that such reactions must be an exception rather than the norm,” the latter being exemplified by his Pierson College Fellows experience.

To some extent, he is still injured and offended. However, he has come to realize that the opposition that greeted his pronouncements two decades ago not only has various forms of expression, but also is more widespread than he initially realized. In response, he has pre-