Web-Cite: online research tool

[Cam Balzer]

   Web-Cite Info-Design, Inc., announces Web-Cite, a free
   web-based service to simplify online research in literary and
   cultural studies, and to stimulate scholarly exchange among
   online literary scholars and students.

SIMPLIFYING ONLINE RESEARCH

   At the heart of Web-Cite <http://www.web-cite.com/> is a
   continuously growing "knowledge-base" of links to scholarly
   articles, conference papers, book excerpts and reviews, and
   hypertexts available on the World Wide Web. Listings include
   sources on electronic and print journal web-sites as well as
   "authorially-disseminated" sources on personal and
   departmental sites. The knowledge-base presently contains
   information on over 2200 sources.

   Web-Cite's web-site offers three ways to access the
   knowledge-base:

     1)  browse listings by period, genre and national literature
     2)  search for words in the full text of sources: author
         names, titles or keywords
     3)  register to receive notification of new additions to the
         knowledge-base in user-defined fields (e.g., 20thC
         Canadian fiction) or matching a search term.

   These services make Web-Cite the shortest route through the
   online info-swamp to substantial literary and cultural studies
   scholarship. Searches of the general web indexes produce
   unmanageable results. For instance, "James Joyce Ulysses"
   produces "over ten thousand" hits on AltaVista. The same
   search on Web-Cite currently finds 26 items, since Web-Cite
   indexes only scholarly works on literature, theory and
   culture. And because all indexed sources are categorized
   by period, genre and national literature, search results
   quickly yield useful sources.

STIMULATING ONLINE SCHOLARLY EXCHANGE

   As The Chronicle of Higher Education put it in a recent "Site
   of the Day" review, "Humanities scholars who publish their own
   papers by putting them on the internet may find a broader
   audience thanks to [Web-Cite]." By simply filling out a quick
   online form, individual scholars can add articles, reviews,
   hypertexts, or conference papers, whether preprint, reprint or
   previously unpublished, to Web-Cite's knowledge-base. Once
   added, these sources are available for browsing and searching
   by other researchers. Each week, one new source is featured on
   Web-Cite's home-page as "web 'cite' of the week."

   Cam Balzer, president of Web-Cite Info-Design, Inc., says, "we
   hope that having such an easy way of bringing their scholarly
   work to the attention of the growing online literary and
   cultural studies community will encourage scholars to
   disseminate their published and unpublished work via the
   internet. This tool facilitates the development of a whole
   new arena for intellectual exchange to supplement the
   traditional forums of classroom, conference and refereed
   journal."


   Web-Cite is offered as a free service to the academic
   community by Web-Cite Info-Design, Inc. Comments and inquiries
   are invited, addressed to Cam Balzer at <cbalzer at web-cite.com>
   or at 773.338.3734.


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                 Web-Cite  http://www.web-cite.com
        your link to online, full-text, literary scholarship
        g e t   o u t   o f   t h e   i n f o - s w a m p !
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