Defining black studies on the world wide web

Defining Black Studies on the World Wide Web by Thomas Weissinger

Commercial home pages link to personal (and other

commercial) home pages much more frequently than do

academic ones. Thus, clients using academic sites have

limited access to Black Studies resources unless they turn to

nonacademic sites. Clearly, academic Web sites have little

connection to contemporary black experience and activism.

Thomas Weissinger is Head, John Henrik Clarke Africana Library, Cornell University

Library, Ithaca, New York 14850 < tw 14 @cornell.edu>.

B lack Studies World Wide Web (Web) sites have been present on the Internet for some time. The

first gopher sites in Black Studies were the African Education Research Network (AERN) from Ohio University, the Afri- can Studies BBS of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Pennsylvania's African Studies site, and the University of Missouri at St. Louis' Black Studies site. The first Black Studies Web site was the University of Pennsyl- vania's African Studies WWW. Since 1994, there has been a proliferation of Black Studies home pages.

This article explores some of the relations among different types of Black Studies home pages. In particular, it explores the idea of scholarly versus non- scholarly Black Studies Web sites. How useful is this notion? Arguably, its prac- tical application results in academic Web sites having little connection to contemporary black experience or activism. One of the creators of the Universal Black Pages home page is quoted as saying their "directory has grown larger each year, reflecting a surge in the number of sites focused on African-American interests. The directory initially listed 800 sites and now includes thousands. ''~ When Gladys Smiley Bell's article, "Electronic Re- sources for Cultures of the World," was written in 1993/1994, Black Studies gopher and Web sites did not exist. 2 Unfor- tunately for many of those created after- wards, they disappeared from the scene almost as swiftly as they ascended. Still, given that there are thousands of these Web sites, why are so few represented on academic Web sites?

STUDY PROCEDURES

A list of 62 general Black Studies home pages was compiled from the Spec- traLinks Internet Guide to Black Studies (http://maelstrom. stjohns.edu/archives/ spectralinks.html), the "Resources" sec-

tion of the Universal Black Pages (http// www.ubp.com), and the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library (http://www. library.cornell.edu/africana) home pages. Then using the "link" command in the AltaVista search engine (e.g., "link:http:// www.library.cornell, edu/africana"), it was possible to determine how many of these Web pages are linked to by other Web pages. The term "link" refers to highlighted words in a hypertext document. An internal link allows one to jump to another section of the same document. An external link lets one jump to another document on the Web.

It was possible to identify the domains to which those sites belong. For example, the domain name in http://www.library. cornell.edu/africana is "cornell.edu". The suffix ".edu" indicates an educational institution. Other suffixes ".corn," ".org," ".net," ".gov," and ".mil" indicate commercial businesses, nonprofit organizations (including large public libraries), network organizations (personal Internet services), government (museums, public libraries, or schools), and the military, respectively.

Because AltaVista search results tend to vary, the results presented here are at best a snapshot of one moment in time. From the search described above, 100 links per home page were selected. Re- sults from searches were further limited as follows. Internal links referring to pages elsewhere within a host site were eliminated; as were duplicate external links from the same host, and all sites with non-U.S, domain identifiers. For example, the domain name in http://docker. library.uwa.edu.au is "uwa.edu.au". The suffix ".au" indicates the country of Aus- tralia. Other country name suffixes ".cm," ".ca," ".et," ".fr," ".de," and ".uk" indicate the countries Cameroon, Canada, Ethiopia, France, Germany, and Great Britain, respectively. 3 At the end of this

288 The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 24, Number 4, pages 288-293

Table 1 Relat ionships Between Black Studies H o m e Pages (N = 2,738)

Domains Linked to Domains Linked

from Academic Commercial Organization Personal

Academic 510 305 89 114

Commercial 297 590 91 179

Government 93 77 28 20

Personal 82 107 14 21

Organization 31 42 23 25

process, a set of 2,738 relations among Black Studies home pages was identified.

STUDY RESULTS

Table 1 depicts Web host sites arranged by their domains and Web sites linking to them also arranged by domain. Most sites in academic domains link to other sites in academic domains. Similarly, most sites in commercial domains link to other sites in commercial domains. Academic sites link to each other 510 times, whereas commercial sites link to other commercial sites 590 times. Interestingly, about the same number of academic domain sites link to commercial sites as the other way around. Academic sites link to commercial sites 305 times, and commercial sites link to academic sites 297 times.

Also of interest is the relation between academic and commercial domains to personal home pages. Commercial home pages link to personal home pages much more frequently than do academic ones. Commercial home pages link to personal ones 179 times, whereas academic home pages link to personal ones 114 times. This is a large disparity. Depending on how one counts personal home pages, the disparity is even greater. In actuality, however, some academic home pages are really personal pages. Table 2 displays the number of personal home pages found in academic domains. 4

When these are identified as personal pages (rather than academic), the number of academic home pages declines. In particular, the number of academic links to personal home pages decreases. Now, whereas commercial home pages link to personal ones 179 times, academic home pages link to personal ones only 78 times. The difference is 129%.

DISCUSSION

Most sites in academic domains link to other sites in academic domains. Simi-

larly, most sites in commercial domains link to other sites in commercial domains. The fact that external links must be selected implies the existence of some principle or policy governing de- cisions on what resources should or should not be included. On some level, whether with explicit institutional poli- cies or subconsciously, similarities between types of resource are recognized and preferred. The question is whether this is always a good thing. This result is discussed at length in the following section on contesting Black Studies on the Web.

About the same number of academic domain sites link to commercial sites as the other way around. This indicates there is not as much distance between the two categories as one might first suppose. In other words, Internet domains are not mutually exclusive. One way of increasing access to Black Stud- ies sites from academic domains is by creating external links to useful nonacademic sites. Because scholars are eager to increase numbers of Black Studies sites on the Internet, much more external linking between different domains is in order. 5

"Because scholars are eager to increase numbers of Black

Studies sites on the Internet, much more external linking

between different domains is in order."

Commercial home pages link to personal home pages much more frequently than do academic ones. An observation consistent with this result is that individuals managing academic sites find personal Black Studies home pages (and to a lesser extent commercial ones) to lack credibility or trustworthiness. One reason for this is that real-world applications of the scholarly versus nonscholarly distinction to the Web may be problematic. The credibility of Web pages may depend on criteria other than those used for books or serials. Regarding a recent study of high school and college students who use the Internet, Edwin Schlossberg writes: "Trustworthiness did not depend on traditional standards such as familiar voices or established information sources. ''6 This result raises various issues. These range from the exclusion of Black Studies links, competing interests and control of Web resources, defining Black Studies on the Web, and the librarian's role in developing Web resources. These are discussed at length in subsequent sections of this article.

"The number of sites linking to a Web page presumably is

important to both academic and lay audiences."

Table 2 Relat ionships Between Black Studies H o m e Pages (N = 2,738)

Domains Linked Domains Linked to from Academic Commercial Organization Personal

Academic Personal 63 74 16 36

Academic 447 231 73 78

Commercial 297 590 91 179

Government 93 77 28 20

Personal 82 107 14 21

Organization 31 42 23 25

July 1999 289

SCHOLARLY VS. NON-SCHOLARLY WEB SITES

The number of sites linking to a Web page presumably is important to both academic and lay audiences. As Edwin Schlossberg rightly observes in the study of student Internet users cited above: "Trustworthiness emerged from linkage rather than lineage. ''7 Alternatively, Alastair G. Smith surveyed 10 sites that evaluate Internet information resources. He found that traditional criteria of cur- rency, authority, and audience were still widely used. 8 Similarly, James Rettig suggests that many of the review criteria developed for reference books can be applied to electronic resources. These have "analogs in the digital world. ''9 Accord- ingly, knowing the domains of Web pages is also important. Some may consider this relationship (between domains and Web pages) analogous to one which books and serials have to publishers. That is, scholarly materials are generally associated with academic presses and non-scholarly materials associated with commercial (and vanity) presses.

However, there is a caveat, which is that many sites with academic domain names are personal pages of individuals affiliated with academic institutions. Some of these are scholarly; others are not. Similarly, some sites that started in academic domains have become commercial (e.g., the Universal Black Pages was developed by a group of graduate students at Georgia Institute of Technology). Whereas the scholarly authority of nonacademic sites might be questioned, the credibility of academic ones is also an issue. For example, "The Slave Consult- ant 's Narrative," a speech allegedly deliv- ered by a white slave holder in 1712, appears on the University of Missouri at St. Louis ' Black Studies site (gopher:// gopher .umsl .edu :70/11/ l ibrary/subjects / blackstu/). The speech outlines methods for controlling slaves. The controversy centers around whether the narrative is a 20th century fabrication. About this Wil- l iam Pierson writes:

It is impossible to prove a negative (e.g. that the document was never written in 1712) and, in this case, probably equally difficult to find an 18th-century source for what is likely a late 20th century manufacture.

I expect what caught Ms. Edwards' atten- tion, was that the narrative doesn't read at all like 18th-century prose.

I suspect that the narrator's name-Mr. Will Lynch-is a humorous put-on. More-

over, when Mr. Lynch thinks about dividing the slaves, he forgets the division that was most obvious to a West-Indian planter: na- tionality-both African ethnic divisions-A- kan, Ibo, Mandingo, and American divisions between so-called new Negroes [native Af- ricans] and those born in the New World. His old vs. young and dark vs. light divisions would be most peculiar among early 18th- century African Americans (in both the West Indies and Virginia) who did not have such color gradations as in our own time and who still maintained the near absolute African respect for age.m

Even so, there are enough similarities between Web pages and books (or serials) to justify thinking of Web pages as scholarly or non-scholarly. For instance, there are clear differences between academic library home pages and personal (or commercial) home pages. A common attribute of academic pages is conservatism (care and caution) in design. Background and text colors are not flamboyant. Absent are bells, whistles, or gyrating images. Most likely these pages describe Black Studies resources available, and may include printed bibliographies, guides, or finding aids. Probably the selection of external links to other home pages will not be controversial.

"Risks in content are taken when personal (and

commercial) home pages espouse social causes and

purposes."

One's expectation for personal (or commercial) home pages is on the oppo- site end of the spectrum. Sometimes a personal home page only presents trivial and idiosyncratic information about the designer. On the other hand, the very nature of many personal Black Studies home pages is to document experiences or a reality ignored by sites catering to main- stream audiences. This in itself gives them special value and relevancy. It dis- tinguishes them from many academic home pages that skirt controversy by either listing a few common links to Black Studies sites; or by listing a nearly com- prehensive set of links so as not to show favoritism to specific Black Studies sites.

Risks in content are taken when personal (and commercial) home pages espouse social causes and purposes. Often the language of such home pages is unre-

servedly straightforward and outspoken. From one personal home page to the next, chances are there will be a variety of earthy topics and external links. The following examples from Black Studies personal home pages are indicative of such content:

• The limited "gains" Blacks throughout the Diaspora have made since the 1950s and 1960s have not changed the status of the masses of African people. A cursory glance at the American Black community and at the Black countries of the Third and Fourth World give a glimpse to the severity of our situation. But we must remember that as a people, nothing has marked our existence more so than struggle . . . . Below are listed a host of Black Nationalist and Pan-African links to help better define the struggle. (From the KAM Current Struggle. URL http:/ /www.swt.edu/studentorg/ kammaasi/curntstrug.html.)

• Welcome to Style 's Index, a coordi- nated collection of interpolated information pertaining to black, progres- sive, and alternative resources on the Wor ld-Wide Web. (From Style 's In- dex: ht tp: / /www.ece.uc.edu/--cyoung/ style.htm).

• We are pleased to meet you. We are a group of African American men prac- ticing, and dedicated to, the quality of life, successful manhood and parent- ing, economic growth and development, and the pursuit of excellence and spiritual development. (From The Circle Brotherhood Association: http:// w w w . a c s u . b u f f a l o . e d u / - s w w / c i r c l e . html).

Other personal home pages may simply be an eclectic assemblage of links to some very interesting home pages about contemporary culture; for instance,

• The students in the Providence Col- lege Program in Black Studies have selected several of our favorite sites, where you ' l l find the best of contemporary Black art, news, politics, Afri- can diasporan resources, commentary, and education. (From AfroZones on the World Wide Web: http://www. providence.edu/afro/afrozones.htm).

CONTESTING BLACK STUDIES ON THE WEB

Whatever other reasons academic sites have for failing to link with personal

290 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

home pages, something major is at stake here. The credibility issue mentioned earlier seems modest in comparison. Rather than challenging the authenticity of single documents, the issue is about the form and characteristics Black Studies will take on the Web. What will count as Black Studies and who will determine this?

"External links found on a credible home page (e.g., a

library's) are really recommendations for users to connect to particular sites."

External links found on a credible home page (e.g., a library's) are really recommendations for users to connect to particular sites. For many this will be seen as authoritative and the final word on the matter. Unlinked home pages, on the other hand, have no value because they are not endorsed. Ross Atkinson refers to this sort of selectivity as a way of ascrib- ing value to materials collected:

To add value to certain objects of informa- t ion . . , always necessarily entails a reduc- tion in the value of other objects. Therein lies the dynamic of selection, which is the core operation of all information services. Infor- mation services entail the transfer of an object of information, usually through the application of some form of technology, across a boundary, by which action that object is distinguished or "privileged" (that is, given a special status) with respect to other objects. The service is defined, in other words, on the basis of the opposition between what is in- side and outside that boundary.~

Whether selection really is the core operation of information services is not at issue here. At issue is the step just before a thing's selection and movement across the boundary into special status. Are credible selection choices being made, or are well-worn, safe and secure patterns of as- sumption and predilection at play? As- sumptions as benign as the scholarly versus nonscholarly distinction can have dire consequences when applied in certain contexts. A decision to exclude links to controversial Black Studies sites on the Web from academic home pages sounds an alarm.

Obviously, some clients in academia share the need for more Black Studies resources. They are creating personal home pages to gain for themselves--and provide

for others--access to materials that their institution's official home pages exclude. As alternative sources of information, personal (and commercial) Black Studies home pages contest and/or complement the credibility of academic home pages.

The idea of contesting Black Studies on the Web is not a mere abstraction. It is a political idea about the control of resources. It has precedence in the library literature. A very similar discussion is un- derway regarding academia's contesting the control commercial publishers have over scholarly information. For instance, Atkinson writes:

If an individual library were to realize once having outsourced a particular operation, that it would he significantly more cost effective for the library to perform such work again itself, the library would resume that responsibility immediately. It is time now to recognize that specialized scholarly publication has been one of the most longstanding instances of outsourcing in the academic community. The excessive prices that academic libraries are now experiencing, mainly at the hands of commercial publishers, should be sufficient to convince libraries that such outsourcing is no longer cost effective and that the time has come to take whatever steps are necessary to reappropriate that function.~2

This has a very political tone. Notice that he gives new meaning to a situation by redefining it. "Specialized scholarly publication" is redefined as outsourcing by the academic community. Next, he asks the academic community to become con- scious of this new meaning; since it is time now to "recognize" the state of af- fairs for what it truly is. Lastly, based on this new insight, he urges librarians to contest control by commercial publishers. This idea stems from the escalating cost of materials, particularly science journals. It assumes that if authors retain copyright (or it is vested in universities), then control of publication and prices can be wres- tled away from commercial publishers.

"A striking example of how personal (or commercial) Black

Studies home pages contest academic pages is 'Sankofa

University.' "

A striking example of how personal (or commercial) Black Studies home pages

contest academic pages is "Sankofa Uni- versity." In this case the competition spills over into classroom teaching and learning. Sankofa University is an online virtual learning center of The Black World Today (http://www.tbwt.net/ sankofa/course/index.htm). Projects such as this contest academic efforts to teach over the Internet. At Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,

An on-line course called "Media, Technol- ogy, and Diversity,!' for example, was developed by Joyce Williams Green, director of black studies. It focuses on the impact of various stereotypes in the media and teaches students how to recognize culturally sensi- tive and ethnically diverse educational materials.

To create the course, Dr. Green teamed up with Glen Holmes, a professor in the instruc- tional-technology department. Students and Dr. Green interact entirely on line, either by e-mail or in real-time, on-line discussions. ~3

In comparison, the Sankofa University site offers a series of 12-week courses in Black Studies such as the "African Dias- pora," "Introduction to Pan Afrieanism," "The Early History of Jazz," and "Mal- colm X and the Organization of Afro- American Unity." The courses do not carry academic credit. Sankofa Universi- ty 's faculty are professors of Black Stud- ies from various American universities. The late John Henrik Clarke was Sanko- fa's first president. Each course includes weekly text lectures supplemented with graphics and audio. The audio component can be listened to over the Web with a popular free software product called Real Audio. Live interactive chat with professors is scheduled every two weeks. A bulletin board attached to each course permits students and faculty to post notes and relevant information. Also, courses are supported by an online bookstore sup- plying the recommended books and au- diovisual material. This is probably the most intrusive commercial foray yet into academic territory.

DEFINING BLACK STUDIES ON THE WEB

How does this competitive relationship between academic and personal home pages reconcile with the concept of Black Studies? The modern Black Studies movement is founded on a belief that intellectuals should base their research on African American experiences and perspectives. Regarding this concept of Black Studies James Turner writes:

July 1999 291

Our social roots (fertilized as they were by the challenges for change of the 1960s) gave rise to an intellectual perspective that pro- posed that Black Studies would supercede the traditional disciplines by pursuing a holistic structural interpretation in its research and teaching methodology of the Black Ex- perience.

Philosophically its argument is that a more accurate understanding of African-American sociocultural and politico-economic realities is achieved "if the research concerns ema- nate from their (African-Americans') experience and phenomenological frame of reference. ''14

This concept of Black Studies also has a normative component. Black intellectuals ought to have an "active relationship to the ongoing institutional and organizational process of the African-American community and the oppression and racist inequality that it confronts. ''~5 Worded differently, a similar definition is given by Jacqueline Wade:

Not all Black Studies programs.., meet the standards set by the National Council for Black Studies. According to Jacqueline Wade, past executive director of the 20-year- old organization, authentic Black Studies programs must take a "holistic approach to studying the experience and history of people of African descent the whole diasporic experience, as well as the African experience." And these Africana programs, as she calls them, must do so from an Afrocentric perspective. "It's not a matter of taking a Eurocentric perspective and coloring it up, ''16

"The practice that many academic home pages follow in

separating scholarly Black Studies sites from popular

commercial and personal home pages is inconsistent with both

the methodological and normative components of

Black Studies."

The practice that many academic home pages follow in separating scholarly Black Studies sites from popular commercial and personal home pages is inconsistent with both the methodological and normative components of Black Studies. This practice implies an alternative notion of Black Studies. It reflects the variety of organizational structures Black Studies

programs have taken on campuses. Not all meet National Council for Black Studies standards for authenticity.

This becomes a pitfall for librarians when collection development is divided along discipline-based lines. Typically an academic library will have several selectors building Black Studies collections. For example, African American history is covered by the selector for American history. African American social sciences, literature, music, art, and so on, are covered by selectors for the social science disciplines, literature, and so forth. Afri- can Studies, and Caribbean and Afro- Latin Studies are covered by area studies selectors. Already, there is a basic inconsistency between methods of building collections and the interdisciplinary approach called for in the original concept of Black Studies. There is nothing very "holistic" about this approach to collection building. When scholarly sites are de-linked from popular Web sites, the inconsistency is simply carried a step further by excluding primary source materials about black peoples' actual experiences and perspectives. When academic sites de-link themselves from contemporary black experience and activism, intellectuals are not helped to use either methodological or normative tenets of Black Studies. The unhappy truth about all of this is that academic Web support for Black Studies intellectuals is inadequate.

SEPARATE VS. INTEGRATED BLACK STUDIES MODELS

An alternative approach to building Black Studies collections is available. This approach is consistent with the concept of Black Studies defined earlier. Back in the 1970s and 1980s there was a very heated debate about the nature of Black Studies collections. At issue was whether the new collections for support of Black Studies should be separate or integrated into the general collectionJ 7

The argument for the separate Black Studies model was that these should be special collections. Their materials would be selected and referenced by profession- als having knowledge and experience with the subject matter. In this way meaningful collections and materials by black authors could be developed and easily accessed. This was deemed necessary because typically card catalogs and online catalogs do not tell one which authors are black or which books are best. Services to users would be personalized on a level

generally expected in special libraries. One learns the names and interests of one's clients, sets up current awareness services to alert them of new material in their fields of interests, and so on. Of course, this also implies a certain ability to anticipate client needs. As historical fact, it should be noted that with the ad- vent of the Black Studies movement publications about blacks grew at astronomi- cal rates. The problem this created was finding knowledgeable people who could distinguish meaningful publications from bad material produced quickly to capital- ize on the new market. At the time many selectors with inadequate academic back- grounds and experience were hastily buy- ing any and everything written about blacks.

The argument for integrated Black Studies collections was that maintenance of a special collection would be expen- sive. It would require special staff who would be immersed in collection development activities, reference, and other service activities supportive of Black Stud- ies; and additional equipment and a special facility. In many cases there would be duplication of library materials, because the general library and the Black Studies special library would acquire cop- ies of the same texts. Besides, the need for Black Studies specialists would become less important as online databases of various sorts were developed. Subject indices and keyword searching would make iden- tification of meaningful Black Studies materials easier. Moreover, approval plans would ensure that relevant scholarly and popular materials found their way to the stacks.

Academic libraries went on to organize for Black Studies in various ways. Most established Black Studies collections along the subject discipline lines of exist- ing academic departments. Others such as the University of Pittsburgh, Ohio State University, and Cornell University created separate Black Studies collections. A modification of the separate Black Stud- ies model was developed by Northwest- ern University, Princeton University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Cham- paign, and so on, when these institutions created Black Studies Librarian positions responsible for developing Black Studies collections across disciplines. In more recent years another modification to the model has arose. Atlanta University and Duke University have developed Black Studies Librarian/Archivist positions responsible for overseeing separate special

292 The Journal of Academic Librarianship

collections as well as developing Black Studies collections across disciplines for the general library collection.

CONCLUSION

Taking either Wade's Afrocentric perspective or Turner 's African American phenomenological frame of reference, or some other Africa-centered idea as a methodological parameter in studying the black experience is not without controversy. 18 Without weighing into some appar- ently insoluble debates concerning what counts as knowledge, scientific method, or objectivity, one can imagine an optimal scenario in which things work out.

The idea of divergent conceptual schemes is not new. It is discussed vari- ously in a branch of philosophical meta- physics known as ontology, in cognitive psychology, in the sociology of knowledge, and so forth. Regarding ontology Willard Van Orman Quine writes:

One frequently hears it urged that deep differences of language carry with them ulti- mate differences in the way one thinks, or looks upon the world. I would urge that what is most generally involved is indeterminancy of correlation. There is less basis of comparison-less sense in saying what is good translation and what is bad--the farther we get away from sentences with visibly direct conditioning to nonverbal stimuli and the farther we get off home ground) ~

Linda J. Myers writes:

Conceptual systems as divergent as the Eu- rocentric and Afrocentric... will yield very different perceptions, cognition, and experiences for their adherents. 2°

And, social philosopher Charles Mills writes:

The requirements of "objective" cognition, factual and moral, in a racial polity are in a sense more demanding in that officially sanctioned reality is divergent from actual reality. So here, it could be said, one has an agreement to misinterpret the world. One has to learn to see the world wrongly, but with the assurance that this set of mistaken perceptions will be validated by white epistemic authority, whether religious or secular. 2~

Implicit here is the idea that responses

emanating from the same circumstances, but under different conceptual schemes, may differ considerably in meaning. One admits to at least this much when one accepts the notions of cultural diversity and multiculturalism. The idea of an Af- rican American frame of reference de- rives from this line of thought.

Although neither side in the separate versus integrated debate about Black Studies models was clearly victorious, the trend in recent years favors separatism. The separate Black Studies model also solves the problem of de-linking scholarly from non-scholarly Web resources. A holistic vision of Black Studies (i.e., an Afrocentric perspective, African Ameri- can phenomenological frame of reference, and so forth) allows selection of meaningful materials across disciplinary boundaries. As knowledgeable intermedi- aries, librarians with such an outlook can interpret the content of Web sites and determine if there is potential value there for Black Studies students or researchers. More precisely, such a focus means ability to understand various experiences, practices, or beliefs established within black communities; and decision making that is reasonable and coherent within such a framework.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Dana Canedy, "Virtual Community for Af- rican-Americans," New York Times (October 8, 1998), p. GI0. 2. Gladys Smiley Bell, "Electronic Resources for Cultures of the World," The Reference Librarian 45/46 (1994): 313-337. 3. P. Robinson, "Relationship of Telix An- swerback Codes to Internet Domains" (Janu- ary, 1993). Available at: http://sunsite. unc.edu/pub/docs/rfc/rfc 1394.txt. See this document for a full list of country domain identifiers. 4. Relevant home pages were identified by the tilde (--) followed by a personal name or pages with the words "student organization," "users," "personal pages," et cetera, as subdi- rectory names, Excluded were all curriculum- related pages by faculty intended for courses. 5. Bianca P. Floyd, "Scholars Are Eager to Increase Ranks of Black-Studies Sites on the

Internet," Academe Today 43 (April 11, 1997): A23. 6. Edwin Schlossberg, "A Question of Trust: How Do We Know Whether Information on the Internet is Trustworthy? A Citation Index Would Help," Brill's Content (March 1999): 68. 7. Ibid. 8. AIastair G. Smith, "Testing the Surf: Crite- ria for Evaluating Internet Information Re- sources," The Public-Access Computer Sys- tems Review 8 (1997). Available at: http:// info.lib.uh.edu/pr/v.8/n3lsmit8n3.html. 9. James Rettig, "Beyond 'Cool': Analog Models for Reviewing Digital Resources," Online 20 (September/October 1996): 62. 10. Anne Taylor, "The Slave Consultant's Narrative: The Life of an Urban Myth? Cor- respondence with Dr. William Piersen including Critique of the Narrative." Available at: http://www.umsl.edu-libweb/blackstudies/ piersen.htm. 11. Ross Atkinson, "Library Functions, Schol- arly Communication, and the Foundation of the Digital Library: Laying Claim to the Con- trol Zone," Library Quarterly 66 (July 1996): 243. 12. Ibid., p. 253. 13. "Scholars Are Eager to Increase Ranks of Black-Studies Sites on the Internet," p. A24. 14. James Turner, editor, The Next Decade: Theoretical and Research Issues in Africana Studie. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, Afri- cana Studies and Research Center, 1984), p. viii. 15. Ibid, p. ix. 16. E.R. Shipp, "Studying Black Studies," Emerge (September 1995), p. 48. 17. Denise Marie Glover, "A Study of the Re- lationship between Academic Institutional Commitment to Minority Studies Programs and Minority Studies Libraries or Collections" Ph.D. dissertation (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1982), p. 28. 18. Kathleen E. Bethel, "Culture Keepers: Cat- aloging the Afrocentric Way," The Reference Librarian 45/46 (1994): 226. 19. Willard Van Orman Quine, Word & Ob-

ject (Cambridge, MA: MIT. Press, 1964), pp. 77-78. 20. Linda J. Myers, "The Psychology of Knowledge: The Importance of World View," New England Journal of Black Studies 4 (1984): 12. 21. Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), p. 18.

July 1999 293

Documents

Defining black studies on the world wide web