============================================================ _REACH_, Summer 1992 ------------------------------- Research & Educational Applications of Computers in the Humanities ----------------------------------- Newsletter of the Humanities Computing Facility of the University of California at Santa Barbara ------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS * ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES * THE _ACH NEWSLETTER_ MOVES TO UCSB * DESKTOP PUBLISHING USED FOR PREPARATION OF BOOK * SACRED GEOGRAPHY * CONFERENCE ON HYPERTEXT AND HYPERMEDIA * MULTIMEDIA TRAINING PROJECT AT HULL IN U.K. * IAT, THE INSTITUTE FOR ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY * SOFTWARE SOURCE * NEW ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER FOR CETH * SYMBOLIC AND LOGICAL COMPUTING * TRAVELS ALONG THE SILK ROAD, A MULTIMEDIA PROJECT * CLASSICS E-GROUP * THE OED2 IS NOW AVAILABLE ON CD-ROM * COMPUTER CONFERENCE IN SAUDI ARABIA * NEW ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE INFORMATION * MEDIEVAL HISTORY * PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION BULLETIN BOARD * LEARNING ABOUT AVAILABLE VIDEO LASERDISCS * UPCOMING U.K. CONFERENCE ON ARABIC COMPUTING * ITALICA PRESS, SCHOLARS AS SELF-PUBLISHERS * ELECTRONIC MAIL AND NETWORKS IN CHINA * LIST OF ALL E-GROUPS * NEW ELECTRONIC GROUPS RECENTLY ANNOUNCED * HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO AN ELECTRONIC GROUP * HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH A LIST SERVER * THE ACH AND THE _ACH NEWSLETTER_ ------------------------------------------------------------ ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTERS AND THE HUMANITIES The Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) is an international professional organization, currently in its fifteenth year. Since its establishment, the Association has been the major professional society for people working in computer-aided research in literature and language studies, history, philosophy, and other humanities disciplines, and especially in research involving the manipulation and analysis of textual materials. The ACH journal, _Computers and the Humanities_, continues to be the premier scholarly journal for research in the field of humanities computing. The journal is published six times a year by Kluwer Academic Press. The _ACH Newsletter_, published quarterly, covers the activities of the Association and its members and includes articles on humanities computing, news of projects and conferences of interest to ACH members, software reviews, and reports on the activities of governmental agencies and other organizations that affect computer-aided humanities research. ACH, together with the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing (ALLC), sponsors an annual joint meeting, held in North America in odd-numbered years and in Europe in even-numbered years. This international conference brings together scholars from around the world to report on research activities and software and hardware developments in the field. Selected proceedings from the conferences appear in a series entitled _Research in Humanities Computing_, published annually by Oxford University Press. For ACH membership information, please communicate with: Joseph Rudman Department of English Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213, U.S.A. rudman@cmphys.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ THE _ACH NEWSLETTER_ MOVES TO UCSB by Eric Dahlin For the last ten years, the _ACH Newsletter_, published by the Association for Computers and the Humanities, has been edited ably and tirelessly by Vicky Walsh, director of the Humanities Computing Facility at the University of California, Los Angeles. Vicky recently announced that she would be retiring this fall, and at the April ALLC/ACH conference at Oxford University a search was begun to find the newsletter a new home. The newsletter, founded by Joseph Raben fifteen years ago at the birth of the ACH, is the official publication of the Association and is sent four times a year to all its members. Vicky will be much missed, and in recognition of her long and selfless service to the Association and to humanities computing the ACH has awarded her a lifetime membership. Beginning with the Summer 1992 issue, the _ACH Newsletter_ will be published here at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with me as editor, and I hope that I'll be able to maintain the high editorial standards set by Vicky during her tenure. If you have any material which you think would be appropriate for inclusion in the _ACH Newsletter_, please send it to me at the address below, either by e-mail or on disk in any standard word processing program format. Eric Dahlin Humanities Computing Facility University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3170 hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.bitnet hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ DESKTOP PUBLISHING USED FOR PREPARATION OF BOOK In February, 1991, UCSB played host to LSRL XXI, the Twenty- First Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages. Selections from the proceedings are now being prepared for the publisher in camera-ready form by the staff of the HCF. Editors of the volume are UCSB faculty members William Ashby, Marianne Mithun, Giorgio Perissinotto, and Eduardo Raposo. The book is to be published by John Benjamins, and, as in an increasing number of cases, the publisher is requiring that the copy be submitted in a form ready for the printer. Contributions arrived in a variety of word processing formats, typically MS-Word, WordPerfect, or Nota Bene on the PC, and MS-Word on the Mac. Files were converted to MS-Word for the PC using the program Software Bridge by Systems Compatibility, which the HCF uses as its standard conversion program. MS-Word files on the Mac were saved in DOS format from within the program, and then transferred to an IBM diskette on a device called a DaynaFile. It's an external disk drive attached to a Mac which is capable of reading IBM formatted diskettes. Once on the PC, the files were edited and then loaded into Ventura Publisher, the desktop publishing program used in the HCF. A Ventura style sheet was then set up to define the specifications and typography of all the text elements, and tree diagrams were drawn using Ventura's own graphics mode. Certain unusual special characters presented a novel challenge. How do you print such characters with a standard printer font? These had to be drawn painstakingly with the font editing program Publisher's Type Foundry, by ZSoft. If you are interested in learning more about the processes involved, please communicate with: Eric Dahlin hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ SACRED GEOGRAPHY Allan Grapard, the faculty member in UCSB's Department of Religious Studies whose Sacred Geography Project was described in the Fall 1991 issue of _REACH_, has recently presented his work at several conferences. In June he attended an international conference organized by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jerusalem, on "Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land," and presented a paper entitled "The Constitution of Experience in Japanese Sacred Mountains: the Case of Mount Hiko." Grapard has also given presentations at the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley, at the University of Toronto, and at the national meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Washington, D.C. He's found a great deal of interest in the Project on the part of scholars in many fields. For more information on the Project, please communicate with: Allan Grapard agrapard@ucsbuxa.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ CONFERENCE ON HYPERTEXT AND HYPERMEDIA ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is the sponsor of a conference on hypertext and hypermedia scheduled for November 30 through December 4, 1992, in Milan, Italy. The conference will include prominent guest speakers, presentations of refereed papers, panel sessions, technical briefing sessions, and poster and video presentations, as well as demonstrations of experimental research prototypes and commercial products. It will also feature two days of introductory and advanced tutorials on a variety of topics. For more information on the conference please communicate with: Paolo Paolini Politecnico di Milano Dipartimento di Elettronica Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32 20133 Milano, Italy Phone: (39) 2-23993520 Fax: (39) 2-23993411 paolini@ipmel1.polimi.it ------------------------------------------------------------ MULTIMEDIA TRAINING PROJECT AT HULL IN U.K. Hull University has recently been awarded a grant of L120,000 as part of the national Information Technology Training Initiative (ITTI). The award of an ITTI project grant to the University of Hull was the result of a bid for funds made jointly by the Computer Centre and by the Schools of Arts, Humanities, and European Languages and Cultures. Entitled "Multimedia Based IT Training for the Humanities," the project is designed to develop a course of training for humanities faculty in information technology (IT). Project Director is Brian Powell, head of the Hispanic Studies department. Project Development Officer Lorraine Warren is responsible for the administration of the project. The objective of the project is to construct, over a three year period, a training scheme with a humanities emphasis in basic IT, authoring and presentational skills, and the harnessing of multimedia. An initial report, _Perceived Needs in the Humanities_, is now available. To obtain a copy of the report, or for more information on the project, please communicate with: Lorraine Warren l.warren@hull.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------ IAT, THE INSTITUTE FOR ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY Located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and operated by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the IAT provides a center for the exploration and assessment of new educational technologies. Established in 1989, the IAT is supported with funding from IBM's Academic Information Systems (ACIS). IAT offers an ongoing series of briefings and workshops of interest to faculty members using computers in all the various disciplines. It also publishes a quarterly print newsletter, _IAT Briefings_, available free of charge from the address given at the end of this article. An anonymous ftp site is also available, providing electronic access to a variety of files. The address is: gandalf.iat.unc.edu When you reach the site, log on as anonymous. The files index.txt and tree.txt describe the available files. The Institute has recently begun the electronic distribution of its publications. Requests to be added to the e-mail mailing list should be sent to: pubs.iat@mhs.unc.edu and should include name, position, institution, street address, and phone number. In addition, it has set up a bulletin board system for immediate access to information on academic computing. The new bulletin board can be reached at 919/560-5048, at either 1200 or 2400 baud, with settings of 8 data bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit. If you'd like more information about the Institute for Academic Technology, call or send an e-mail note to: IAT P.O. Box 12017 Research Triangle Park NC 27709-2017 919/560-5031 iat@unc.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ SOFTWARE SOURCE Humanists may be wondering about the present status of the extensive collection of Macintosh educational software distributed at one time by the Kinko's company. Recent questions appearing on HUMANIST suggest that its current source is not as well known as it might be. The software is now being distributed by Intellimation, which publishes a comprehensive and nicely designed catalogue of its offerings. The company address is: Intellimation P.O. Box 1922 Santa Barbara, CA 93116-1922 Phone: 805/968-2291 Fax: 805/968-8899 Software is available for a variety of disciplines including art, classics, drama, and languages. ------------------------------------------------------------ NEW ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER FOR CETH CETH, the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities at Rutgers and Princeton Universities, has established an electronic newsletter to distribute information about its activities. The Bitnet and Internet addresses of the newsletter and its list server are: ceth@pucc.bitnet ceth@pucc.princeton.edu listserv@pucc.bitnet listserv@pucc.princeton.edu To subscribe to the newsletter, send an e-mail message to the address of the list server containing nothing more than the single line: subscribe ceth "your name" with your own name, not your e-mail address, in place of "your name," without the quotation marks. For further information on the Center and its activities, please communicate with: Annelies Hoogcarspel, CETH ceth@zodiac.bitnet ceth@zodiac.rutgers.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ SYMBOLIC AND LOGICAL COMPUTING ICEBOL6, the Sixth International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing, will be held at Dakota State University, Madison, South Dakota, on October 15-16, 1992. The conference will focus on computer programming for all kinds of non-numeric applications. Featured speakers will be Ralph Griswold, creator of the Icon programming language and SNOBOL4, and Mark Olsen, Technical Review Editor of _Computers and the Humanities_, and the Assistant Director of the ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago. Among the many conference topics are parsing, conversion of text to hypertext, parallel algorithms for text processing, machine translation, natural-language query processing, artificial intelligence and backtracking, and an analysis of the language of Victor Borge. Proposals for presentations at ICEBOL6 have been accepted from Australia, Bulgaria, England, Finland, France, India, Japan, The Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, and throughout the United States. For further information on the conference, please communicate with: Eric Johnson 114 Beadle Hall Dakota State University Madison, SD 57042, U.S.A. 605/256-5270 eric@sdnet.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ TRAVELS ALONG THE SILK ROAD, A MULTIMEDIA PROJECT William Powell of UCSB's Religious Studies Department, whose multimedia Silk Road Project was described in the Spring 1992 issue of _REACH_, is now rounding out the final design details of the computerized tutorial. According to Powell, the tutorial will center on certain "units of study within specific locales along the Silk Route: the Yazd Valley in Persia, Madurai in India, Turfan in Central Asia, and Xian in China, centers of Zoroasterism, Saivism/Vaisnavism, Mahayana Buddhism, and imperial Buddho- Confucianism, respectively." As he explains, "on maps of each locale are represented boundaries, roads, economic and political divisions, sacred sites, and the principal temples and shrines. These locales will be explored interactively on computer in order not only to present data and illustrate concepts in a flexible manner, but also to generate further questions that take the student back into the class anthology of readings." The student finds that "each of the four locale-based units is introduced by a fundamental theoretical question, such as the relation of knowledge and power." As for additional locations, Powell indicates that "to the above units will be added Mt. Kailasa in Tibet, and Yoshino- Kumano in Japan." He adds that "no more than four locales would be used in any one quarter, but the constellation of locales can vary from quarter to quarter. The classic religious formulations, which have dominated the course in the past, will be presented as integral with the cultural fabric of institutions and practices that characterizes each locale." As he says, "the idea is to enhance the students' critical abilities, rather than to leave them with a set of curious, perhaps even mildly thought-provoking truth claims." Future editions of _REACH_ will carry additional articles on the development and elaboration of the multimedia Silk Road Project. ------------------------------------------------------------ CLASSICS E-GROUP Students at the University of Washington have recently established CLASSICS, an electronic discussion group for topics in Greek and Latin. The Bitnet and Internet addresses of the group and its list server are: classics@uwavm.bitnet classics@uwavm.u.washington.edu listserv@uwavm.bitnet listserv@uwavm.u.washington.edu The group is unmoderated, and a background in ancient Greek and Latin is assumed. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to the address of the list server containing the single line: subscribe classics "your name" with your own name, not your e-mail address, in place of "your name," without the quotation marks. If you have any questions about the group, please communicate with: Linda Wright lwright@cac.washington.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ THE OED2 IS NOW AVAILABLE ON CD-ROM The 20 volumes of the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED2) are now available on a single CD-ROM, complete with retrieval software and full documentation. The current version runs on the PC as a Windows application. A Macintosh version is due out early in 1993. The price of the CD-ROM is $895, considerably lower than the price of the printed version at $2750. For further information on the OED2 in its new CD-ROM form, please communicate with the Oxford University Press at: Oxford University Press 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212/679-7300, ext. 7370 or 7127 Fax: 212/725-2972 ------------------------------------------------------------ COMPUTER CONFERENCE IN SAUDI ARABIA King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the Saudi Computer Society will be hosting the 13th National Computer Conference and Exhibition in Riyadh, on November 21-26, 1992. This conference is the latest in a series of twelve national computer conferences held in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia since 1974. The general conference theme is Information Technology Transfer, and among the topics will be human aspects, human computer interaction, training, legal aspects, social aspects, computer literacy and education, and special interest groups. Other discussions will center on information industries, tools and infrastructures, role of research, and planning and management. Additional topics will include computer networks, systems architecture, software engineering, artificial intelligence, and databases. For more information on the conference, please communicate with: 13th National Computer Conference Directorate of Information Systems King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) P.O. Box #6086, Riyadh 11442, Saudi Arabia Phone: (966-1) 481 3273 Fax: (966-1) 488 3118 ncc13@sakacs00.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ NEW ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGE INFORMATION A new Australian electronic archive of information on issues connected with language can now be reached from across the networks at LATTICE, the Language and Technology Centre of the National Languages and Literacy Institute of Australia (NLLIA). Located at the Centre for Language Teaching and Research at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, LATTICE is one of five research and development centers of the NLLIA. A principal function of LATTICE is the development of language-related databases accessible to all interested people through the international computer networks. Among other LATTICE functions are research in distance education in languages, and computer-aided language learning. LATTICE has established a database system to serve as a primary source of information on activities related to language throughout Australia. Information from the databases is made available to users through the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet), which in turn is connected to the Internet and other international electronic networks. Currently the database system has information on courses, institutions, resources, language professionals, and bibliographies. The information is accessible through a program called MenuShell which also provides e-mail facilities; conferencing and talk facilities; ftp, telnet, and Kermit facilities; usenet newsgroups for reading and posting; and various UNIX tools and utilities. Reports from the databases are also placed in an anonymous ftp directory. To gain access to these reports, ftp to the address archive.cltr.uq.oz.au and change to the directory nlia. Access to the central database system itself requires obtaining an individual account on "Lingua," the host computer running the system. To set up an account, send your full name, title, address, telephone number, username (8 characters), and user password (8 characters), to Peter White, the Information Services Manager, at the following address: Peter White peterw@lingua.cltr.uq.oz.au ------------------------------------------------------------ MEDIEVAL HISTORY MEDIEV-L is a new electronic discussion group on medieval history. The Bitnet and Internet addresses of the group and its list server are: mediev-l@ukanvm.bitnet mediev-l@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu listserv@ukanvm.bitnet listserv@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu It's an unmoderated group designed for scholars and students of the Middle Ages, which, for its purposes, cover the period from 283 to 1500. Subscription to this new electronic group is by the usual method. For further information on MEDIEV-L, please communicate with: Jeff Gardner jgardner@ukanvm.bitnet jgardner@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu Lynn Nelson lhnelson@ukanvm.bitnet lhnelson@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION BULLETIN BOARD The American Philosophical Association (APA) has just instituted a bulletin board system which is accessible through the telnet process, a UNIX technique which allows the user to connect with distant computers. To reach the bulletin board, telnet to the following address in either of its two forms: atl.calstate.edu 130.150.102.33 Once connected to the site, enter apa at the login prompt and then follow the menus from that point. The board contains a list of e-mail addresses of APA members, a Philosophical Calendar, news from the National Office, information on joining the APA, and other items of interest to the philosophical community. For further information on the APA Bulletin Board, please communicate with the administrator: Saul Traiger traiger@cfi.waseda.ac.jp traiger@oxy.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ LEARNING ABOUT AVAILABLE VIDEO LASERDISCS One of the first questions you'll ask when you begin to experiment with multimedia instructional techniques is just what kinds of material are available on video laserdisc. Luckily, a comprehensive catalogue is produced by: The Videodisc Compendium Emerging Technology Consultants P.O. Box 120444 St. Paul, MN 55112 Phone: 612/639-3973 Fax: 612/639-0110 A $30 annual subscription brings you a large catalogue supplemented by periodic updates. Other useful catalogues of video laserdiscs are available from: Laser Learning Technologies 3114 37th Place South Seattle, WA 98144 Phone: 206/722-3002 Fax: 206/723-3497 The Voyager Company 1351 Pacific Coast Highway Santa Monica, CA 90401 Phone: 213/451-1383 These last two catalogues also contain listings of educational software using video laserdiscs. ------------------------------------------------------------ UPCOMING U.K. CONFERENCE ON ARABIC COMPUTING The Third International Conference and Exhibition on Multilingual Computing in Arabic and Roman Script will be held at Durham University in the U.K. on December 10-12, 1992. The conference, sponsored by the Documentation Unit at the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at Durham University, will be conducted primarily in English, although some papers may be presented in Arabic, accompanied by English abstracts or full translations. Among the conference themes will be: editing Arabic manuscripts using computers, multilingual databases, multilingual maps, computer based lexicography and machine translation, teaching of Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages by computer, notation of Oriental music on computers, archaeology and computing, and the hardware and software industries in the Arab World. An intensive seven-day course for journalists and others interested in writing on computing topics for the Arab media will precede the conference. Lasting from November 30 to December 8, the course will cover a variety of issues in both bilingual computing and computing in general. The course is designed to prepare journalists to meet the increasing demand by Arab publications for writers knowledgeable about the many different aspects of computing. Participants in the course will attend lectures and discussion groups led by professional journalists and academicians specializing in the field. For further information on the conference, please communicate with: Ahmad Ubaydli Documentation Unit, CMEIS University of Durham South End House, South Road Durham, DH1 3TG, U.K. Phone: +44 (91) 3742838 Fax: +44 (91) 3742830 a.y.ubaydli@durham.ac.uk ------------------------------------------------------------ ITALICA PRESS, SCHOLARS AS SELF-PUBLISHERS Five years ago, after some time spent in the publishing business, Eileen Gardiner and Ron Musto were thinking about opening a bookstore. Then one day they saw a friend's Macintosh and changed their plans. Impressed by the capability of the computer to produce camera-ready copy, they decided instead to set up a small press. What to publish? Both were interested in Italian literature in translation, and both had strong academic backgrounds in medieval and Renaissance literature. They decided to begin by reissuing some old Italian texts. Since then they've added translations of contemporary Italian literature, and now distribute twenty-two titles internationally. If you'd like a copy of Italica's catalogue, you can reach them at: Italica Press, Inc. 595 Main Street, #605 New York, NY 10044-0047 Phone: 212/935-4230 Fax: 212/838-7812 ------------------------------------------------------------ ELECTRONIC MAIL AND NETWORKS IN CHINA Some computing humanists may be interested in learning about the current state of electronic mail connections in China. A good place to keep up with the latest information is an electronic discussion group devoted to the subject. Its addresses are: chinanet@tamvm1.bitnet listserv@tamvm1.bitnet Those interested in a closer view of the position might want to consider a conference scheduled for this fall, the U.S./China Joint Conference on Education, which will include a special section on Linking For Learning, Coming On-Line Worldwide, to be held in Beijing, November 8-16, 1992. It's being organized by the Citizen Ambassador Program of People to People International, the China State Education Commission, the Chinese Education Association for International Exchange, the China Association for Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Education. To learn more about the conference, please communicate with: Ernie Anderson geand@educ.umass.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ LIST OF ALL E-GROUPS One of the questions most frequently asked by new users of electronic mail who are beginning to hear about the marvels of electronic discussion groups is "How can I learn if there is a group out there dealing with ...?" There is indeed a simple way you can get a list of all the electronic discussion groups. Just send the following command as an e-mail message, with no subject, to the address of your nearest backbone list server machine: list global You will then receive a file containing a complete list of all electronic discussion groups known to the list server on the day of your message. The file can only be obtained from what are called "backbone list servers." Try sending the command to your nearest list server. If it can't provide the file, it will give you the address of the nearest backbone server. Ask your resident computer experts if you're not sure of the address of the list server closest to you. ------------------------------------------------------------ NEW ELECTRONIC GROUPS RECENTLY ANNOUNCED The following new electronic discussion groups have been announced since the last edition of _REACH_. Addresses of the discussion group and its list server are given in both Bitnet and Internet form, followed by the address of the owner. History of the Renaissance renais-l@ulkyvm.bitnet renais-l@ulkyvm.louisville.edu listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu James Cocks jacock01@ulkyvm.bitnet jacock01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu The Ancient Mediterranean ancien-l@ulkyvm.bitnet ancien-l@ulkyvm.louisville.edu listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu James Cocks jacock01@ulkyvm.bitnet jacock01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu History of Islam islam-l@ulkyvm.bitnet islam-l@ulkyvm.louisville.edu listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu James Cocks jacock01@ulkyvm.bitnet jacock01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Works of Mark Twain twain-l@yorkvm1.bitnet twain-l@vm1.yorku.ca listserv@yorkvm1.bitnet listserv@vm1.yorku.ca Taylor Roberts troberts@yorkvm1 troberts@vm1.yorku.ca Notes: Thomas Zielke, the founder of the HISTORY electronic discussion group, has just announced that the group is now also available in Czechoslovakia at the address: history@csearn In addition to founding the original HISTORY group, Zielke has helped to develop an association of affiliated electronic discussion groups dealing with a variety of specialized periods and areas of history. Many of these new groups have been mentioned in recent issues of _REACH_. Those who have any questions about either the central HISTORY group or its affiliated groups should communicate with: Thomas Zielke 113355@doluni1.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO AN ELECTRONIC GROUP Every electronic discussion group has a group name, something such as GROUP-L, and two associated addresses: the address of the group itself, beginning with the name of the group; and the address of its list server, beginning with "listserv." The list server is the mainframe computer program which conducts the subscription and mail distribution processes of the electronic group. A single list server may be home for a number of groups. You use the two addresses in very different ways. When you first subscribe to a group you send your subscription message to the list server address. Later on, after you've subscribed, you send messages which you want to distribute to the members of the group to the group address. Subscription, depending upon the group, is by one of two methods. In a few instances, you may have to send a message to the editor of the group. In most cases, however, you simply send an ordinary e-mail message to the address of the list server, with no subject, containing the single line: subscribe "groupname" "your name" Enter the name of the group to which you are subscribing in place of "groupname," and your own full first and last names, separated by a space, in place of "your name." Do not enter the quotation marks. ------------------------------------------------------------ HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH A LIST SERVER There are a number of useful commands which you can send to a list server, aside from the usual one requesting a subscription to one of its electronic discussion groups. Here are some of the standards. These should all be sent to the address of the list server as e-mail messages with no subject. Just substitute the name of the group in which you're interested for "groupname." Do not enter the quotation marks. To see who has subscribed to a group, or to get the e-mail address of the editor or owner, just send the following command: review "groupname" Unless the owner has restricted access to the subscription list, this will bring you a file containing a complete list of the names and e-mail addresses of the group's subscribers. To get a file listing the names of all the files which have been stored in the group's archive, including the files containing the daily exchanges of messages, send the command: index "groupname" Finally, if you'd like to get a file of instructions describing all the additional more specialized commands which you can use to communicate with a list server, send the command: info genintro The instructions will tell you how to retrieve files from the archive, turn off your mail when you're going on vacation, and how to unsubscribe. --------------------------------------------------------- THE ACH AND THE ACH NEWSLETTER If you've already read the front page, you'll have seen that in a weak moment I volunteered to take on the responsibility of editing and producing the _ACH Newsletter_, the quarterly newsletter of the Association for Computers and the Humanities. The ACH is the leading professional organization of humanists interested in the application of computers in the humanities, and it richly deserves the support of humanists everywhere. Do please consider becoming a member, if you aren't one already. I'll even make you a special offer, one which I hope you'll find hard to refuse. If you do become a member of the ACH, I'll include, upon request, your name and address, together with details of your interests and current computer projects, in a special section of a future edition of _REACH_. What better way is there to get in touch with humanists of like mind from all around the world? Unfortunately, present budgetary difficulties prevent me from offering the really valuable sorts of premiums, such as _REACH_ T-shirts or HCF mouse pads. I'm afraid that those will have to come later. Still, I've made a handsome offer, don't you think? Surely you won't be able to resist. You'll find that the ACH has many facets. Its journal, _Computers and the Humanities_, published six times a year, is the leading scholarly journal in humanities computing. It's the joint sponsor of an annual conference for computing humanists, held in North America and Europe in alternating years. The conference was held at Oxford University in 1992. In 1993 it will be at Georgetown University, and in 1994 at the Sorbonne. Among the projects sponsored by the ACH are the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), the Center for Electronic Texts in the Humanities (CETH) at Rutgers and Princeton Universities, and the HUMANIST electronic discussion group. I'm now gathering material for the Summer 1992 issue of the _ACH Newsletter_ and should have it ready to mail out to members by the first or second week in August. The _ACH Newsletter_ is 12 pages in length and contains articles on a wide variety of topics of interest to computing humanists, together with calls for papers and announcements of conferences. If you have any material which you think might be of interest to the readership, by all means send it along to me, preferably by e-mail. Tell me something about your own computer projects, or a computer conference you're organizing, or the humanities computing facility at your institution, and I'll include it in the _ACH Newsletter_. --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 Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez Chicano Studies Patricia Cohen Women's Studies John DuBois Linguistics Gunther Gottschalk, Vice Chair Germanic, Oriental & Slavic Barbara Harthorn Interdisciplinary Humanities Center JoAnn Kuchera-Morin Music Albert Lindemann History Claudine Michel Black Studies Jack Murray French & Italian Michael O'Connell English Giorgio Perissinotto, Chair Spanish & Portuguese W. Clark Roof Religious Studies Nathan Salmon Philosophy Leland Strasburg Dramatic Art Peter Sturman Art History John Sullivan Classics ------------------------------------------------------------ HCF Coordinator & Editor of _REACH_: Eric Dahlin Phone: 805/893-2208 HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.bitnet HCF1DAHL@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu ------------------------------------------------------------ The electronic version of _REACH_ is prepared from the files used to produce the paper edition. A few formatting changes have been made to adapt the text to electronic transmission, but the content of the two versions is identical. A complete table of contents has been included for the convenience of e-mail readers. ======================= end of file ========================