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Barbara Kantrowitz ("Men, Women, and Computers") points to a number of "wired women" who have developed on-line networks for women. She mentions specifically
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Systers, ECHO, and Women's Wire.
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If you were to find the names of groups or discussion lists such as these and needed to know more about them, one way to make an electronic search for them, as discussed previously, is to go to and use the HotBot and AltaVista search engines. Once you get to the engines, all that you have to do is type, in the appropriate space, the key word "syster" and make a search, which I did at AltaVista.
When I tried this single word, however, the returns were of no interest to me. So I typed in several associated words with syster:
"women computers programming"
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and got better results.
How did I know to use these words? Common sense might answer that question, but if not, then recall the task at hand: Namely, to discover sites about women and computers but specifically in reference to Kantrowitz's speaking of the site Syster.
When done, you will have something similar to these results, which are selections:
Web Results 9 matches. Breakdown: programming 1217374, computers 1500098, women 2367255,
syster 3810
1 - 9
1. Wired Women - 99%
2. Gender & Race in Media: Cyberspace - 97%
3. Chapter Two: Women, Feminism And Activism - 76%
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Let's try another approach.
If you recall, Kantrowitz refers to "Ada Lovelace" as the first programmer, who worked with Charles Babbage. You can again make a search for more information by typing in the search area "Ava Lovelace" and then execute the search. When I attempted this approach, which will vary from day to day, I got:
1. Yahoo! - Computers and Internet:History:People:Lovelace, Ada
(1815-1852) - 99%
2. Yahoo! UK & Ireland - Computers and Internet:History:People:Lovelace, Ada (1815-1852) - 98%
3. Yahoo! - Computers and Internet:History:People:Lovelace, Ada
(1815-1852) - 98%
4. Yahoo! in Asia - Computers and Internet:History:People:Lovelace,
Ada (1815-1852) - 98%
5. Yahoo! UK & Ireland - Computers and
Internet:History:People:Lovelace, Ada (1815-1852) - 98%
6. Yahoo! - Computers and Internet:History:People:Lovelace, Ada
(1815-1852) - 98%
7. Ada Home: the Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (HBAP) - 95%
8. (alternate)http://adahome.com/
9. Ada Home: the Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (HBAP) - 95%
10. Introduction for New Ada Programmers - 93%
11. (alternate)http://adahome.com/Discover/
12. The Ada Information Clearinghouse - AdaIC - 93%
13. The Ada Information Clearinghouse - AdaIC - 93%
14. The Ada Information Clearinghouse - AdaIC - 93%
15. The Ada Information Clearinghouse - AdaIC - 92%
16. Ada95 Lovelace Tutorial Home Page - 92%
17. Ada Lovelace - 92%
18. Ada Lovelace Home Page - 92%
19. Lovelace, Ada - 92%
20. Lovelace Ada Tutor Home Page - 92%
21. Some Interesting Computer Science Sites - 92%
22.(alternate)http://www.mathcs.rhodes.edu/cslist.html
23. Lovelace Ada Tutor Home Page - 92%
24.(alternate)http://cs.hbg.psu.edu/LOCAL/
lovelace/lovelace.htm
25. Lovelace Ada Tutor Home Page - 91%
26. Lovelace Ada Tutor Home Page - 91%
27.(alternate)http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/ada/crsware/
lovelace/html/lovelace.htm
28.(alternate)http://www.cdrom.com/pub/languages/ada/crsware/
lovelace/html/lovelace.htm
29.(alternate)http://www.simtel.net/pub/languages/ada/crsware/
lovelace/html/lovelace.htm
30.(alternate)http://cs.hbg.psu.edu/LOCAL/
lovelace/lovelace.html
31.(alternate)http://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/ada/crsware/
lovelace/html/lovelace. 32. Association for Women In Computing (AWC) - 91%
33. Lovelace Ada Tutor Home Page - 91%
34. Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace - 91%
35. Ada95 Lovelace Tutorial Home Page - 91%
36.(alternate)http://rk.pvt.net/doc/Ada/
Lovelace/lovelace.htm |
One thing that you have got to understand is that all of these hits are not about the "Ada" we are searching for; only a few are. Checking out some of these sites, for example, you will discover a tutorial for a program language called Ada, a website called "Home of the Brave Ada Programmers" (with a tremendous amount of information) and another called "Past Notable Women of Computing" with a number of names listed including
* Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, 1815-1852
which when searched gives you a brief bibliography. If you search "Communications Manifestos" and move down the list, you will find
* Catch up on your computer history and read about Augusta Ada
Lovelace, the inventor of computer programing.
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While you were searching through these sites, you probably noticed other titles that interested you such as
* Doctress Neutopia: The Feminization of Cyberspace
* Ellen Balka: Women's Access to On-line Discussions About Feminism.
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There are still others, but we are now away from our specific search for Ada Lovelace.
Some fine points about searching: Recall that we searched for the term "syster." Using HotBot, see what differences exist among searching for and with these various terms and methods:
"Syster" (in caps)
"systers" (in plural form)
"Systers" (in caps and plural form)
At first, select "Exact phrase" as the means for searching; then try "Title." |
Once again, the Search Engines:
HotBot || AltaVista || Yahoo ||
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