Voice of the Shuttle: "Premier Online Destination"

Voice of the Shuttle is a "premier online destination" for surfers of the web and die-hard researchers, according to Forbes. It lists VOS in its "Summer 2002 Best of the Web" directory in the category for academic research.

VOS is a database and social bookmarking site that was started by a UC Santa Barbara professor, Allan Liu, in spring 1994.

Liu structured VOS’ mission to provide an annotated guide to online resources for the humanities, sciences, social sciences and new digital media. Its audience includes researchers, students and instructors from elementary through higher education.

The site offers more than 25 categories of research links for the humanities and social sciences: art, anthropology, architecture, classics, cyberculture, dance, history, law, literature, music, politics, postindustrial business theory, religion, science, and technology of writing. Resources include: museums, journals, publishers, listservs, conferences, and travel.

What does the allusion, VOS, mean? It refers to the Greek myth of a young girl, Philomela. Raped by her brother-in-law, who cuts off her tongue and imprisons her, she weaves a tapestry that communicates, instead of her voice. Likewise, VOS communicates by its cross weave of hyperlinks that are designed to form a tapestry of commentaries.

Research Moves Toward Electronic Annotated Bibliography

Comparing electronic annotated bibliography to the traditional style is like comparing an electric typewriter to a word processor—once one uses a word processor, there’s no going back to an electric typewriter. Similarly, once a person has used electronic annotated bibliography, no looking back to the old ways.

An example of an electronic annotated bibliography is called Zotero, a free service. While researching Poe, I use it to collect, manage, and cite my research sources.

With clicks from my mouse and by installing Zotero in my web browser, I save time. As an English researcher, my Works Cited page is formatted easily.

Another example is Diigo, which is my favorite and preferred method to store my notes and sources for research. Why would someone use an old-fashioned method of index cards or copy/pasting with a word processor articles and type notes, when all this can be done through Diigo. It’s also free, and I highly recommend it.