With the Ottawa conference fast approaching (May 15-18), we hope that Society for Cinema Studies members will be interested in taking advantage of one of our new Internet resources, scs.conference (located on the SCS Web site). Scs.conference is an electronic bulletin board containing specific discussion areas--Usenet-style "newsgroups". It functions a lot like an email discussion group. Users may "post" messages to the scs.conference newsgroup and thereby make them available to anyone with Internet access--throughout the world. The major difference between an email discussion list and a newsgroup is that the former sends messages directly to your email inbox while the latter requires you to connect to a remote computer in order to view the messages. We envision that presenters might post their papers, excerpts, and/or abstracts to scs.conference, thus giving other interested conference participants the opportunity to read papers or abstracts in advance. In addition, after the conference these papers would be available for printing and downloading, and SCS members unable to attend this year's conference would still be able to participate electronically. We feel that the annual conference and the Society for Cinema Studies as a whole will benefit greatly from such an exchange, and we strongly encourage SCS members to post abstracts or papers to the newsgroup at any point before, during, and after this year's conference. HOW TO READ AND POST TO SCS.CONFERENCE 1) Connecting to scs.conference If you are using a Web browser like Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer, then you already possess the means to connect to scs.conference. Navigator, Explorer and other major Web browsers have built-in "news readers" (the software used to connect to scs.conference). All you need to do is go to the SCS Web page at http://www.cinemastudies.org and click on "Email Lists and Discussion" (you may also go directly to this page at http://www.cinemastudies.org/discuss.htm). Scroll down the page and click on "scs.conference." This will connect you to the scs.conference newsgroup and display the messages. Click on a message and its contents will appear in a reading area below. Alternatively, you may run a news reader separately from your Web browser and attach directly to the news server at news.tcf.ua.edu where scs.conference is hosted. For instance, with Microsoft Internet Mail and News, go to the News menu and pull down to Options. (With some versions of Internet Mail and News you go to the Edit menu and choose Preferences.) Click on the Server tab and click on the Add button. Enter news.tcf.ua.edu for the news server and click OK. After you subscribe/load the newsgroups (most versions will automatically ask you to subscribe, but you may have to go to the News menu and select Download Complete Newsgroup List), click on scs.conference to read the messages. For earlier versions of the Microsoft news reader, go to Edit and pull down to Preferences. Click on News and enter news.tcf.ua.edu for the News Server Address. Click OK. After the newsgroups have loaded click on scs.conference. 2) Posting your paper/abstract After you have connected to scs.conference through your browser (or news reader), just click on the To: News (Netscape) or New Message (Explorer) button. You should see "scs.conference" displayed in the "Newsgroups:" blank of your message; this indicates that the message will be posted in the scs.conference newsgroup. Then if you are using Windows or a Mac you may select the entire document, copy it, and paste it directly into the body of the news message. Click on the Send button and you're done! If you are unable to send your message, you might need to set up your browser for email. Since mail server addresses differ from location to location, please contact your local tech support or University's online documentation for that information. If you are still unable to post to scs.conference, send a copy of your paper to [log in to unmask] and I will forward it to the newsgroup. Hint for Netscape users: if the line breaks don't look right, before you send your paper try widening the message area by pulling on the lower right hand corner of the message window. If you would rather send your paper as an attachment, you should remove your paper's fancy formatting before posting it to scs.conference (otherwise your message may have awkward line breaks and additional characters). In the major word processing programs like Word and WordPerfect, all you need to do is go to the File menu and pull down to "Save as." From the dropbox choose "Text only," "Text Export," "ASCII," or "ASCII DOS Text". Name the file something like "scspaper.txt" and it will be converted and saved as text-only (i.e., ASCII) format. Click on the "attachment" button and select the text file that you prepared. Click on the Send button and you're done! For those of you who'd like to see what a paper looks like on scs.conference, Jeremy Butler has been kind enough to post his 1993 SCS conference paper on _Designing Women_ to scs.conference using both methods (in the body of the message and as an attachment). Thanks Jeremy! Note: These groups are not distributed to all of Usenet. They are only accessible at news.tcf.ua.edu and, like the rest of the SCS Web site, are a service of the Telecommunication and Film Department, the University of Alabama. If you have problems or questions, please contact Jim Castonguay at [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask] *IMPORTANT REMINDER* SCS MEMBERS WHO ARE NOT CITIZENS OR PERMANENT RESIDENTS OF CANADA SHOULD BE REMINDED THAT THEY REQUIRE PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP FROM THEIR HOME COUNTRIES. FOR CITIZENS OF THE U.S., YOU MUST HAVE A VALID PASSPORT OR A CERTIFIED BIRTH CERTIFICATE (NOT A COPY). A DRIVER'S LICENSE IS NOT PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP. While U.S. citizens do not require a visa, citizens of other countries may require them. Please check immediately with the Canadian embassy, consulate or high commission nearest you if you have any questions regarding this. Airlines will not allow you to board if you lack proper travel documents. Road or rail travellers may be refused entry without proper identification. ______________ Jim Castonguay UW-Milwaukee - English - Modern Studies [log in to unmask] - www.uwm.edu/~jamesp [log in to unmask] - www.cinemastudies.org ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.sa.ua.edu/screensite