More and more faculty are discovering that home pages are not only important places to visit, but to create as well. Just as faculty have created home pages to share personal interests and to expedite teaching, so have departments and schools, to publicize the content and requirements of their programs. Many students from foreign countries and other states surf the Web looking for programs that complement their research interests. Several months ago a student at the University of California became interested in the Human Sciences program exclusively from the program s home page. A department or program can detail the background of its faculty, provide an overview of the program, describe special institutes or projects affiliated with the program, and provide student testimonials about the program s attractiveness.
Some institutions use home pages to disseminate unique scholarly information.
The University of California at Berkeley is digitizing their Jack London collection, which reproduces exact images from manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, journals, and first editions. The University of Michigan provides access to a wide variety of economic and demographic data that is invaluable to social scientists. Faculty at Brown University have created a Victorian Studies Web site that contains original essays about Victorian science, literature, religion, history, and psychology. What institutions are discovering is what corporations realized several years ago that the Web is one of the best publicity vehicles for promoting a product. In an effort to assist faculty interested in creating home pages, Gelman Library and CIRC provide home page workshops each semester.