============================================================ _REACH_, Fall 1991 ------------------------------- Research & Educational Applications of Computers in the Humanities ----------------------------------- Newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California at Santa Barbara ------------------------------------------------ SACRED GEOGRAPHY AND COMPUTER MODELING This summer, UCSB was the site of a three-day conference, "Sacred Geography and Computer Modeling in the Pacific Rim Area," funded by the University of California Pacific Rim Research Program. Organized by Allan Grapard, a faculty member of UCSB's Religious Studies Department, the conference brought together scholars from various disciplines to discuss the application of computers to issues in sacred geography. Among the participants were representatives of UCSB's National Center for Geographical Information and Analysis. According to Grapard, "Sacred geography is an important but little-studied phenomenon in the history of cultures East and West." He suggests, "Computer analyses of the phenomenon will help to identify a variety of principles of the organization of sacred geography and either support or disprove some theories that are current in religious studies." Grapard believes that "computer based three-dimensional modeling offers unparalleled potential to reveal new perspectives." He is now forming a research group which will pursue development of computer modeling and interpretive analysis of the phenomenon of sacred geography. The group's scholars will examine the feasibility of creating a database of digitized elevation maps, three- dimensional computer models of those maps, and geological maps of the areas under study in order to identify some of the principles that may have been involved in the formation of the religious geography of the region. Papers presented at the summer conference are currently being edited and will shortly be published in the journal _Religion_. Anyone interested in further information on the conference and the UCSB Sacred Geography Project may communicate with: Allan Grapard E-mail: agrapard@ucsbuxa.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ REACH SCHEDULE Rising postal rates and tightening budgets have forced a change in the publication schedule of _REACH_. Beginning with this issue, _REACH_ will be published four times a year in an eight-page format. The May & June issue was the most recent issue published, and all readers who received it are fully up to date in their collections. The new quarterly schedule and eight-page length will permit the inclusion of an equal amount of text annually, but early notice of coming conferences and other events will now take on added importance. ------------------------------------------------------------ THE COALITION FOR NETWORKED INFORMATION The Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, and EDUCOM have joined together to form the Coalition for Networked Information. Its objective, as stated the announcement of its formation, is "to promote the creation of and access to information resources in networked environments in order the enrich scholarship and to enhance intellectual productivity." A number of working groups have been formed to examine means of achieving these goals. Among them are groups on Transformation of Scholarly Communication, Modernization of Scholarly Publication, Access to Public Information, Directories and Resource Information Services, and Teaching and Learning. The Coalition will be collecting and organizing information about experiments and demonstration projects in the application of advanced networks and high performance computers to research and educational communication processes. It will try to identify and establish suitable means for the further testing and evaluation of such innovative projects in computer use. Information about the plans and activities of the Coalition will be distributed through the publications of the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, and EDUCOM. For further information on the Coalition, please communicate with: Coalition for Networked Information 1527 New Hampshire Ave., N.W. Washington, DC 20036 Phone: 202/232-2466 Fax: 202/462-7849 ------------------------------------------------------------ ARACHNET SPREADS ITS WEB ACROSS THE NETWORKS ARACHNET is an electronic discussion group for the owners, editors, and moderators of those electronic discussion groups, newsletters, digests, and journals devoted to topics of scholarly interest. There are now over 600 such groups and publications, and their number and diversity is increasing daily as more and more scholars, students, and researchers start using electronic communication. ARACHNET is designed to provide a mechanism for the administrators of these electronic groups and publications to exchange questions and information about the ethical and practical issues involved in their operation. New administrators will be able to benefit from the experiences of their electronic colleagues. Established originally by Willard McCarty, the founder of the well-known electronic discussion group HUMANIST, ARACHNET is currently administered and edited by Diane Kovacs and Michael Strangelove. Its addresses are: arachnet@uottawa.bitnet arachnet@acadvm1.uottawa.ca Subscription is through e-mail application to one or the other of the editors, whose e-mail addresses are given below. ARACHNET is not intended to replace LstOwn-L@indycms, a discussion group on which list owners explore the more technical aspects of electronic discussion group management. The two groups are intended to complement one another. To subscribe to LstOwn-L, send an e-mail message to the address of its list server containing the single line: subscribe lstown-l "your name" with your own name, not your e-mail address, in place of "your name," without the quote marks. To subscribe to ARACHNET, send an e-mail note to one of the editors: Diane Kovacs dkovacs@kentvm.bitnet Michael Strangelove 441495@acadvm1.uottawa.ca ------------------------------------------------------------ HISTORIANS MEET The 5th Annual British Conference of the Association for History and Computing will be held April 2-4, 1992, at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, Wales. Internationally distinguished speakers will present plenary papers, and there will be special sections on a variety of cognate disciplines, including Archaeology, Archive and Records Management, Demography, Spatial Geography and Psephology. Additional group sessions will be offered on the latest developments and implementations of database management, graphics, simulation, and text handling. For further information, please communicate with: Deian Hopkin Department of History Hugh Owen Building University College of Wales Aberystwyth, U.K., SY23 3DY Phone: 01044 970 622662 Fax: 01044 970 617172 E-mail: drh@aber.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------ SWEDISH CONFERENCE ON TRANSLATION A conference on "Translation and the European Communities" is scheduled for June 22-23, 1992 near Stockholm, Sweden. The conference, designed to explore the many issues and problems facing translators in the rapidly changing world of the European Communities, is being organized by the Swedish Association of Authorized Translators (FAT), in conjunction with the Committee for Linguistics (FID/LD) within the International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID). Inquiries should be addressed to Eurofat AB, a company formed by FAT, at the address: EUROFAT AB: Skeppsbron 26 S-111 30 Stockholm, Sweden Telex: 15 440 KVAL S Fax: +46 8 796 96 39 Voice: +46 8789 66 83 E-mail: coling@com.qz.se ------------------------------------------------------------ NEW LINGUISTICS DISCUSSION GROUP FORMED Anthony Aristar has announced the formation of LINGUIST, a new electronic discussion group dealing with issues of interest to the academic discipline of linguistics. The addresses of the group and the list server are: linguist@tamvm1.tamu.edu listserv@tamvm1.tamu.edu LINGUIST is scholarly in orientation, and is designed to provide a forum for the community of academic linguists in different countries. To subscribe to the group, send an e-mail message to the address of the list server containing the single line: subscribe linguist "your name" with your own complete name, not your e-mail address, inserted in the message in place of "your name," without the quote marks. If you have difficulty subscribing, please communicate with: Anthony Aristar E-mail: ling-ed@uniwa.uwa.oz.au ------------------------------------------------------------ SUBSTANCE, A JOURNAL PUBLISHED ON THE DESKTOP When Sydney Levy, one of the editors of the well-known journal of theory and literary criticism _SubStance_, first came to UCSB from the University of Wisconsin three years ago he decided to move to desktop publishing techniques for its preparation. The journal, edited by Levy and Michel Pierssens, would continue to be printed by the University of Wisconsin Press, but Levy wanted to gain the advantages of desktop publishing in speed, control, and cost savings by undertaking all preliminary stages of the production process up through the preparation of camera-ready copy using desktop publishing methods. Levy, a faculty member of the UCSB French and Italian Department, decided to use the PC desktop publishing program Ventura Publisher for the purpose. The printing of final camera-ready copy would be done on an Apple LaserWriter. The publication was redesigned, with a new cover and format. Decisions were made to use the Bitstream Fontware Zapf Calligraphic typeface, a version of Palatino, for the text, and to prepare the camera-ready copy at a page size larger than that of the eventual printed publication. The printer would then reduce the size of the page when the negatives were made, a standard technique designed to improve the resolution of the final printing. Levy was more than pleased with the early results, and has continued to use desktop techniques for all further editions of _SubStance_. His satisfactory experiences in using desktop publishing have led him to recommend its methods to other publishers of academic journals. For further information, please communicate with: Sydney Levy E-mail: fi00levy@ucsbuxa.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ HCY 1989-90 READY The _Humanities Computing Yearbook 1989-90_ is now available from Oxford University Press. Edited by Ian Lancashire of the University of Toronto, the _Yearbook_ is the primary source of information on people, projects, programs, and resources in humanities computing. New to the preparation of this second edition was the participation of an international board of specialists who assisted in discovering, assembling, and evaluating materials for inclusion. The reference work is divided into three parts: Disciplines, Methods and Tools, and Resources. Part III, Resources, contains a chapter on People and Places which lists many associations and computing centers and offices of interest to computing humanists. Among them is UCSB's own Humanities Computing Facility and its newsletter _REACH_. ------------------------------------------------------------ ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION ON WOMEN'S STUDIES A new electronic discussion group for Women's Studies, WMST-L, has recently been established. Joan Korenman, the founder of WMST-L, indicates that the new electronic group is designed "to serve the academic and professional needs of people involved in Women's Studies as teachers, researchers, librarians, and program administrators." WMST-L will be circulating information on conferences, job opportunities, calls for papers, and publications. The group will also collect course materials, curriculum proposals and projects, bibliographies, and other files related to Women's Studies. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to the address of the list server: listserv@umdd.bitnet containing the single line: subscribe wmst-l "your name" with your own name, not your e-mail address, in place of "your name," without the quote marks. For further information about the group, please communicate with: Joan Korenman E-mail: korenman@umbc.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ NEW LIST OF INTERNET LIBRARIES AVAILABLE A new version of the list of computerized library catalog systems accessible over the Internet network using the UNIX Telnet process is now available on the list server at the address: listserv@unmvm.bitnet To retrieve a copy of the list, send an electronic mail message to the address of the list server containing the single line: get library package The list, co-authored by Art St. George of the University of New Mexico and Ron Larsen of the University of Maryland, contains sections on more than 100 online library catalogs and databases, both inside and outside the United States. This new list has been formatted and edited by Carlos Robles of the California Education and Research Network (CERFnet): carlos@cerf.net The list is a continuing project. Readers who have suggestions, comments, or additions are encouraged to send them to: Art St. George E-mail: stgeorge@unmb.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ TELNET ACCESS TO U.K. LIBRARIES NOW AVAILABLE Humanists can now use the UNIX Telnet process to gain access to the computerized catalogues of a number of libraries in the United Kingdom, including those of Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Manchester. The first thing to do is to get a guide to using JANET, the U.K. joint academic network. To do that, send an e-mail message to the address: info-server@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk containing the following two lines: request: janetpad topic: userguide. You'll be sent a copy of the guide. Next, you'll need to obtain the necessary general information about the services available. To do this, use Telnet to connect to JANET's information facility. The address is: sun.nsf.ac.uk or 128.86.8.7 Log in as janet in lower case. There is no password. When asked for a host name, enter uk.ac.janet.news using the U.K. address order. This is the name of the source of the information files. When prompted for an id, enter news, and when asked if you know how to use the view command, answer no. You'll then see a list of files and categories on the screen. Select Library, and another menu will appear. To see a listing of all libraries on JANET and their addresses, choose Catalogs. Other interesting files are Directory, a list of librarians and their e-mail addresses, and Overview, an overview of JANET. To reach a particular library catalogue system, make the Telnet connection indicated above, and when asked for a host name enter uk.ac. plus the appropriate NRS abbreviation given in the Catalogs file, such as uk.ac.cam.ul for Cambridge. Note once again the U.K. address order. If you're unfamiliar with the use of Telnet on your local electronic mail system, you'll want to confer with your local computer wizards. ------------------------------------------------------------ NEW MILTON ELECTRONIC DISCUSSION GROUP Kevin Creamer of the University of Richmond has recently announced the formation of an electronic discussion group for scholars, students, and others interested in the life and work of John Milton. The address of the group is: milton-l@urvax.bitnet Creamer expects that as participation grows Milton-L will also carry postings on various aspects of Milton scholarship, such as proposals and projects, bibliographies, and conference announcements. The new group is moderated, and subscription is not automatic. To subscribe to Milton-L, please send a brief note to: milton-request@urvax.bitnet Any questions regarding Milton-L may be sent to the list moderator: Kevin Creamer E-mail: milton-request@urvax ------------------------------------------------------------ VAMPYRES ROAM ON THE ELECTRONIC NETWORKS VAMPYRES, a new electronic discussion group for humanists with certain specialized tastes has recently been announced. The addresses of the group and the list server are: vampyres@guvm.bitnet listserv@guvm.bitnet James Wilderotter of Georgetown University, founder of the group, mentions that VAMPYRES was established for those interested in the "discussion of vampiric fact, fiction, and lore." He adds that "discussions on this list range from vampiric myths, to origins, to new and old vampire novels, to original stories written by the subscribers." Subscription is through the usual technique of sending an e-mail message to the address of the list server. Wilderotter cautions prospective subscribers that the group is quite active and can be expected to produce a number of messages each day. For any further information on VAMPYRES, please send a note to: James Wilderotter E-mail: wilder@guvax.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ JAPANESE E-MAIL AND TEXT PROCESSING ON VIEW During the summer, Troy Dillard, a graduate student in Asian Studies on the staff of the HCF, explored alternative programs for Japanese text processing and electronic mail on both the PC and the Macintosh. Building on important work by Ken Lunde, previously of the University of Wisconsin and now with Adobe Systems, and on preliminary local investigations by Jason Hendrix of the UCSB Computer Center, Dillard reviewed alternatives and then demonstrated the basic processes and techniques to several groups of interested faculty and graduate students. One particularly useful program, available as shareware, is Kanji Driver, a communication utility program used in conjunction with Kermit, the popular PC communication program. It stays invisibly in the background behind Kermit, doing nothing at all until it detects a Japanese character in the current electronic mail message. When it finds a Japanese character it displays it on the screen. Dillard also prepared a handbook of principles and resources which was distributed to all those attending the demonstrations. The handbook discusses standards for the coding of Japanese characters, identifies various resources, describes Japanese e-mail addressing conventions, and lists the e-mail nodes of many Japanese universities and commercial entities. The HCF still has a few copies of the handbook available, and the editor of _REACH_ will be happy to mail them on request to anyone interested, as long as the supply lasts. ------------------------------------------------------------ SESSION AT MLA The Committee on Computers and Emerging Technologies of the Modern Language Association is sponsoring a special session of particular interest to computing humanists attending the annual MLA meeting in San Francisco, December 26-29, 1991. The session, "The Use of Electronic Communications for Research in Literature and Language," chaired by Otmar Foelsche of Dartmouth College, will consist of three presentations on electronic projects: In the first, Daniel Brink, Arizona State University, and Donald Ross, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, will discuss "Planning a Conference by E-Mail: Pluses and Pitfalls." In the second, John Unsworth, Eyal Amiran, and Elaine Orr, editors of the electronic journal _Postmodern Culture_ will examine "Patterned Responses to the Electronic Journal." In the third, Elaine Brennan, Brown University, co-editor of the electronic group HUMANIST, will review "The HUMANIST Bulletin Board." ------------------------------------------------------------ ARCH-L, A NEW ARCHAEOLOGY E-GROUP A new electronic discussion group, ARCH-L, has been formed for those interested in discussions of archaeological problems. The addresses of the group and list server are: arch-l@dgogwdg1.bitnet listserv@dgogwdg1.bitnet ARCH-L will post conference news, job announcements, calls for papers, bibliographies, and notices of new publications, and will also serve as a central repository for public domain or shareware software related to archaeological studies. To subscribe to the group, send an e-mail message with no subject to the address of the list server. The message should contain nothing more than the single line: subscribe arch-l "your name" with your own name, not your e-mail address, in place of "your name," without the quote marks. For further information, please communicate with: Sebastian Rahtz s.p.q.rahtz@ecs.southampton.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------ WOMEN'S STUDIES AND COMPUTING Rosanne Potter of Iowa State University, the editor of the 1993 special topics version of _The Humanities Computing Yearbook_, has announced that the edition will be devoted to the uses of computing in the interdisciplinary field of Women's Studies. Potter says, "My first editorial goal is to gather information about applications of computer technology to the diverse issues faced by scholars in Women's Studies. My second goal is to assign experienced researchers in each of the disciplines to write review essays on the best work in that field." In her announcement she asks computing scholars active in Women's Studies to send her off-prints of the essays they have about research that relied on computational technology. She adds, "I am also interested in essays submitted for publication, and statements about work in progress. I plan to choose review-essay writers from those who send their work for inclusion in the collection." Off-prints, submissions, descriptions of research, or inquiries may be sent to Potter at: Rosanne G. Potter, Chair Women's Studies Program 247 Ross Hall Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 50011 E-mail: s1.rgp@isumvs ------------------------------------------------------------ VIDEO LASERDISC PROJECT IN FILM STUDIES AT UCSB Meredith McMinn, lecturer in the UCSB Film Studies Program, and graduate student in the Department of Dramatic Art, has received an instructional improvement grant to develop a computer based laserdisc tutorial for the course Introduction to Cinema, which she is currently teaching. McMinn is now developing and testing a model of the tutorial, using the video laserdisc equipment in the Humanities Computing Facility. She hopes to have the tutorial ready for full use by the spring term. According to McMinn, the "self-guided, interactive program will use computer and laserdisc technology to develop and enhance student skills in recognizing and applying fundamental concepts of film analysis." McMinn has found that recognizing the various aspects of editing seems to present students with particular difficulties. While "students who do the reading may memorize definitions and examples, they frequently cannot recognize actual filmic instances or apply the concepts." There isn't enough time in the classroom to demonstrate all the concepts, and students and teaching assistants have both remarked on the limited opportunity to practice the recognition and application of concepts to actual instances. The tutorial will expand that opportunity. It will "cover all aspects of editing, giving students examples of concepts and practice in visual skills." Students will be able to see multiple examples of each concept. Screen text will offer guidance, and frequent quizzes will give the student practice in applying the concepts, together with an immediate indication of why a given answer is correct or incorrect. For further information on the development and testing of the tutorial, please communicate with: Meredith McMinn Phone: 805/893-2347 ------------------------------------------------------------ ON THE SILK ROAD William Powell, a faculty member in the Religious Studies Department at UCSB, is designing a multi-media program to be used in his course Introduction to Asian Religious Traditions. The program will use the Silk Road, the old caravan route from China to Persia, with a branch into India, as a geographical metaphor with which to illustrate the pattern and movement of ideas through the Asian continent. This summer, Troy Dillard and Deenesh Sohoni, graduate students in Asian Studies, working in the Humanities Computing Facility with the new video laserdisc equipment, developed an experimental model of the program, using HyperCard on the Macintosh and commercially available images and video laserdisc material. The model was recently demonstrated to Provost Llad Phillips of UCSB's College of Letters and Science and interested faculty and staff. At the next stage of development, the model will be tested further and additional imagery, including slides taken by Powell during his trips to Asia, will be added. ------------------------------------------------------------ SUSAN HOCKEY NAMED TO DIRECTOR POSITION Robert Hollander of the National Center for Machine-Readable Texts in the Humanities has announced that Susan Hockey, Oxford University Computing Service, has been named Director of the Center, a joint effort of Rutgers and Princeton Universities. Most recently Director of the Computers in Teaching Initiative at the Centre for Textual Studies, Hockey has been a leading figure in humanities computing for many years. A founding member of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC) and the Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH), she has been a member of the Executive Council of the ACH, and Chairman of the ALLC since 1984. She is currently Chair of the Steering Committee of the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). An active lecturer and author on humanities computing subjects, Hockey has made many presentations and has written several books and numerous articles. She is also a grants reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as a number of other organizations. ------------------------------------------------------------ ELECTRONIC JOURNAL ON POSTMODERN CULTURE Distributed free of charge as electronic mail, _Postmodern Culture_ is a peer-reviewed electronic journal of interdisciplinary criticism on contemporary literature, theory, and culture. Edited by John Unsworth, Eyal Amiran, and Elaine Orr, _Postmodern Culture_ now has over 1000 subscribers throughout the world. To subscribe to the journal, send an e-mail message to: pmc@ncsuvm.bitnet The editors invite submission of works in progress, book reviews, scripts, poetry, fiction, and essays. Submissions by electronic mail should be sent to the address above. Hard copy and disk submissions should be mailed to: Postmodern Culture Box 8105 NCSU Raleigh, NC 27695 Disk submissions should be in ASCII text or in WordPerfect. If this is not possible, the submission should indicate the operating system and word processing program used. ------------------------------------------------------------ CZECHOSLOVAKIAN NETWORK PROJECT A SUCCESS A project to improve electronic network access and usage is now underway in Czechoslovakia, funded by the Mellon Foundation and directed by Stephen Ruth, Director of the International Center of Applied Studies in MIS at George Mason University. Results have been even better than expected. Since last November when the first node was established in Prague, over two thousand new network users have been registered. The purpose of the Czechoslovakian network project, says Ruth, is that of "improving the ability of universities, laboratories, and other research institutions to connect with colleagues around the world, without waiting for necessary but complex and expensive improvements in data communications infrastructure." Ruth states that the project is "aimed at bringing the low cost of academic networks to many more users than would normally be possible." He goes on to say, "We would like to do this in all the countries of Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and of course the former Russian republics. By concentrating on the user and not so much on the hardware, our approach is very low in unit cost and the results in Czechoslovakia speak volumes about who is benefiting." Approval and funding have been received to begin a similar project in Romania, and Ruth expects to have three major nodes installed in Bucharest within the next several months. For information on the project, please communicate with: Stephen Ruth E-mail: ruth@gmuvax.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ IHC USES DESKTOP The UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC), along with many organizations, is moving toward the use of desktop publishing for the production of its publications. Last spring, Barbara Harthorn, Assistant Director of the IHC, and a member of the HCF Advisory Committee, decided to experiment with the new techniques by using them to produce the IHC's humanities calendar. She asked Lorna Clymer, a graduate student in English who had had some previous experience with traditional publishing techniques, to come to the Humanities Computing Facility and use the PC desktop publishing program Ventura Publisher to develop the calendar. This year Clymer will be continuing the calendar on the desktop, and will also be testing the use of Ventura Publisher for the Center's newsletter. Further information on these projects may be obtained from: Lorna Clymer E-mail: 6500lc01@ucsbuxa.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ TEI WORK GROUP ON THE CODING OF VERSE The Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) has set up a number of work groups to recommend SGML mark-up systems for inclusion in the TEI Guidelines as an international standard. David Robey is the chair of the Verse Work Group. The other members are Elaine Brennan, David Chisolm, and Willard McCarty. Robey is seeking information from those who have encoded verse texts in any language about the mark-up systems which they have used. As Robey says, "It will be very helpful (not to say essential) to us to know as much as possible both about the kinds of textual feature that have been tagged, and about the tagging language employed." He adds, "We would like to base our recommendations as much as possible on what colleagues in the field have actually done and what they have felt to be important." Text encoding humanists may reach Robey at the address: David Robey Department of Italian Studies The University Manchester M13 9PL, England E-mail: robey@vax.oxford.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------ A MYSTERIOUS NEW ELECTRONIC GROUP Computing humanists who are enthusiasts of mystery literature will be pleased to learn of the formation of DorothyL, an electronic discussion group for lovers of the mystery genre. The Bitnet and Internet addresses of the group and its list server are: dorothyl@kentvm.bitnet dorothyl@kentvm.kent.edu listserv@kentvm.bitnet listserv@kentvm.kent.edu According to the owners, suitable postings will include announcements and previews of new books; reviews and criticisms of books, plays, and films; identification of great mystery bookshops; ideas for happenings; descriptions of mysterious events; or even an electronic mystery. To subscribe to the group, send the standard one-line e-mail message to the address of the list server. Subscribers may choose to adopt the name of a favorite mystery character. For further information, please communicate with the owners: Harriet Vane E-mail: harrietv@e-math.ams.com Kinky X.Y.Z Friedman E-mail: kinky@e-math.ams.com ------------------------------------------------------------ AND IT KEEPS ON DEVELOPING As this issue of _REACH_ illustrates, humanities computing continues to develop in new and interesting directions, despite economic woes and budgetary strictures. You'll now find discussion groups on vampires and mystery literature, another discussion group for editors of discussion groups, an academic journal published on the desktop, a scholarly electronic journal, expanded access to library catalogues all over the world, and still more. By the way, if you know of a particular project in humanities computing which you think might be of interest to the readers of _REACH_, by all means send me a note, e-mail or postal. I'm always looking for information on new developments, and will be glad to include stories about innovative uses of computers, space permitting. Are you the director or coordinator of a humanities computing facility, or perhaps a member of an advisory committee for such a facility? If so, you might be interested in an electronic discussion group called HCFnet, designed to serve as a forum for the discussion of issues involved in the operation of these facilities. HCFnet was founded by a small group of individuals with these responsibilities who gathered during the ACH/ALLC '91 conference at Arizona State University. Since the members of HCFnet have decided to restrict participation to persons with a close connection to the administration and operation of humanities computing facilities, subscription to the group is by application. If you're interested in joining HCFnet, send me an e-mail note at HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet and I'll forward you an application. Again on the electronic communication front, I'm now ready to test a new technique for the electronic distribution of _REACH_, and I'm looking for a few volunteers to help me with the experiment, especially some from outside the United States. Drop me an e-mail note if you'd like to be a charter subscriber to the new edition. A sign of the times appears in the November, 1991 edition of Publish, a periodical devoted to desktop publishing. It carries a story describing the New Yorker magazine's conversion to desktop publishing methods for its production. That must be a landmark in the history of desktop publishing. There's a fascinating story in the September/October issue of Desktop Communications, another desktop publishing periodical, about two literary scholars who have formed their own publishing company, Italica Press, to produce new editions of older Italian texts, using desktop publishing methods. I hope to have a story on the venture in a future _REACH_. --Eric Dahlin ------------------------------------------------------------ _REACH_ is published four times a year by the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Advisory Committee: Edward Branigan Film Studies Carol Genetti Linguistics Gunther Gottschalk Germanic, Oriental & Slavic Allan Grapard Religious Studies Barbara Harthorn Interdisciplinary Humanities Center Gerald Horne Black Studies JoAnn Kuchera-Morin Music Albert Lindemann History Francisco Lomeli Chicano Studies Ursula Mahlendorf Women's Studies Jack Murray French & Italian Michael O'Connell, Vice Chair English Giorgio Perissinotto, Chair Spanish & Portuguese Nathan Salmon Philosophy Leland Strasburg Dramatic Art John Sullivan Classics Burr Wallen Art History ------------------------------------------------------------ HCF Coordinator & Editor of _REACH_: Eric Dahlin Phone: 805/893-2208 HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ _REACH_ is produced on an Everex 386, using Microsoft Word, Version 5.0, and Xerox Ventura Publisher, Version 3.0, with camera ready copy printed on an HP LaserJet III. Printing is by UCSB Printing & Reprographic Services. ============================================================