Info Newsletter Index

SIS INFO
Vol. 14, No. 4
July 2000

Editor’s Corner

Future Meetings

If you would like to host a future meeting, or if you have a suggestion for a future program, contact Ray Eydmann, SIS Vice-President, with your ideas. Ray can be reached by email at eydmanr@juno.com or by phone at TECO 813-228-1207.

News to Share

The SIS Newsletter is a great way to share news, conference announcements, achievements, and items of interest with all organization members. Please send your news to the Editor, Nancy Becker, so we can include it in our next newsletter.

From the Editor

It’s summer and lots of members are on vacation. They must be; when I sent out the call for info to include in the edition, I received a somewhat lesser response than usual! And since it’s the summer issue, the content and meeting information is less formal than usual. But, I hope you find it informative. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the August meeting. Be sure to keep the election of officers in mind, so that you can nominate your most capable colleague.

Upcoming election for SIS officers.

LOOKING for a FEW GOOD OFFICERS: SIS votes in new officers in October 2000, for the calendar year 2001. If you have any interest in the positions, let one of the current officers know. We would rather members volunteer their services, so we don't have to beg later on this summer! Your participation insures that the organization continues for all of us. Plus you get two free dinners with the officers' meetings!

Sites of Interest?

Shirl Kennedy is working on a freelance job that involves building a Web guide for a print publication. She uncovered a ton of useful Web sites in the last couple of months. Here are ten good ones.

CAROL (Company Annual Reports Online)
 http://www.carol.co.uk/

Annual reports from companies in Asia, Europe and the U.S. News update page searches over 100 of the world's financial news sources for breaking merger, acquisition and take-over news. Free registration required.

Illinois Institute of Technology: Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions: Codes of Ethics Online Project
 http://csep.iit.edu/codes/

Collection of over 850 codes of ethics of professional societies, corporations, government, and academic institutions. A literature review, an introduction to the codes and a user guide are included.

Cornell University: Computer Policy & Law Collection
 http://www.cuinfo.cornell.edu/CPL/Policies/

List of sample computer-related policies, including: Acceptable/ Responsible Use, Access, Computer Use/Abuse, Conditions/Guidelines for Use, Dial-In, E-mail, Ethics, Privacy, Security, World Wide Web, General/Multiple-topic.

4. Nerd's Heaven: The Software Directory
 http://boole.stanford.edu/nerdsheaven.html

A comprehensive directory of software directories. General software, Internet software, operating system and scientific.

5. Ernst & Young's Doing Business In...
 http://www.doingbusinessin.com/

Online tax guide that provides a quick overview of the investment climate, taxation, forms of business organization, and business and accounting practices in 141 countries.

6. bitpipe: Your Link to In-depth I.T. Information
 http://www.bitpipe.com/

A network of analyst reports and vendor-produced technical literature, such as product literature, white papers, case studies, documentation and technical specifications.

7. Merrill Lynch e-Commerce: Virtually Here
 http://www.e-commerce.research.ml.com/

An industry-by-industry analysis. PDF documents require free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

8. eBookNet.com
 http://www.ebooknet.com/

"We aim to be the best-known and highest quality place on the Web for people interested in electronic books to exchange news, information, ideas, and writings."

9. Librarian's Datebook
 http://www.hsl.unc.edu/libcal.htm

Nine-year calendar of conferences, seminars, meetings, workshops and institutes of interest to librarians. Gleaned from professional association home pages, mailing list and Usenet postings, brochures, etc. Includes direct links to relevant home pages.

10. Cader Books: Publisher's Lunch
 http://homepages.go.com/~caderbooks/index.htm

One-stop guide to some of the most interesting and relevant coverage of the publishing business to be found on-line. Gathers stories that look interesting, and provides links to the original sources.

Some Items of Interest

Kathleen McCook, Professor, School of Library & Information Science, University of South Florida, recently sent the following information to the ALIS (Announcements in Library and Information Science) list:

Subject: Mother of all web sites in 90 days.

US govt plans mother of all Websites

LOS ANGELES: Coming soon to your computer: a Website that will make available at the click of a mouse every online resource offered by the U.S. federal government.

Its name will be firstgov.gov, and it will be created in 90 days or less, President Bill Clinton said on Saturday.

"When it's complete, firstgov will serve as a single point of entry to one of the largest, perhaps the most useful, collection of Web pages in the entire world," Clinton said in what was billed as his first Saturday Webcast to the nation.

"Increasingly, we'll give our citizens not only the ability to send and receive information but also to conduct sophisticated transactions online," Clinton said.

By using the site, Americans will be able to track their Social Security benefits, find a fuel-efficient car, buy a home, learn how to invest wisely, check for flight delays and learn food safety tips among other things.

It is all part of an effort to create a "high-speed, high-tech, user-friendly government," Clinton said.

Clinton also offered a $50,000 reward to citizens, students, researchers and government employees who provide the most innovative idea for advancing e-government. Details are to be on  http://excelgov.org/  .

In addition, he said that by the end of the year the government will make it possible for people to go online to bid on, or apply for, some of the $300 billion in grants or $ 200 billion in government contracts for goods and services.

The firstgov.gov Website will be created by a team led by Internet entrepreneur Eric Brewer at no cost to taxpayers.

A free site, it will allow citizens to search all online government documents. Government information and services are currently spread over 20,000 different Websites.

The site will be able to search half a billion documents in less than one-quarter of a second and will have the ability to handle at least 100 million searches a day, the White House said.

"It will uphold the highest standards of protecting the privacy of its users," Clinton promised. (Reuters)

You can see the beginning of firstgov.gov at  http://www.firstgov.gov

June Meeting

[The June meeting was held at Sweet Tomatoes in Largo Mall and Pinellas Heritage Village. Ray Eydmann was the only officer attending and was kind enough to submit the following information. No formal business meeting was conducted.]

Linda Tabor and Theresa Burress were kind enough to round up the troops at the lunch portion at Sweet Tomatoes. I didn't hear about the food so i assume it was okay. I understand that there was some good conversation over the meal, and I hope the new comers felt welcome.

A number of hardy souls then gather at the Pinellas Heritage Village - with my arrival timed just about perfect [the traffic on Ulmerton was a major mess]. My apologies if anyone was offended by 'the incident' in the parking lot [if you weren't there, you didn't miss anything! <g>]

We signed in at the museum and enjoyed the a.c. for a bit waiting for the scheduled tour to open. At the appropriate time, we found our way to the House of the Seven Gables - built in 1907. Nice tour up and downstairs. This was how the upper class lived in those days.

And it was air conditioned! [at least today it is]

Then we found our to the Plant-Sumner House - it was built in 1986 for H.B. Plant - railroad magnate - for the workers who were building his railroad and other projects. The cement workers made $1.75 / ten-hour day, regular laborers $1.25.

After this tour, several members had to depart for work, so they went their way - a few of us walked around and checked out the Boyer house - one room fisherman's house and the Palm Harbor church - still in heavy demand for weddings - but if anyone is looking for a place there are a few openings still.

Then since they had work, the rest left, but since i was burning up ½ day of vacation, i stayed a bit longer and walked around to see the mercantile store, the railroad station [the only building that was not originally in Pinellas County - imported from Sulphur Springs if I remember correctly].

Then a bit more a.c. before i headed back to this side of the bay.

I hope everyone had an enjoyable time and a safe journey back to where ever. Take care all and hope to see more of you at the next meeting.

August Meeting

In keeping with the laid back summer, the August SIS meeting will be a dinner social event.

We will meet at Rio Bravo, 1102 N Dale Mabry Highway [Dale Mabry and Cypress] just south of I-275 for conversation and other topics as interests the members.

Please plan on beginning to arrive by 6:15 p.m on Wednesday, August 2, 2000. We will be ordering off the menu.

Please RSVP to Ray Eydmann, eydmanr@juno.com, 813-228-1207, no later than Monday, July 24th, so we can prepare the restaurant for the invasion of the information specialists.

SIS Officers 1999-2000