วันอังคารที่ 27 ตุลาคม พ.ศ. 2552

INTRODUCTION
As we approach a new millennium, the Internet is revolutionizing our society, our economy and our technological systems. No one knows for certain how far, or in what direction, the Internet will evolve. But no one should underestimate its importance.Over the past century and a half, important technological developments have created a global environment that is drawing the people of the world closer and closer together. During the industrial revolution, we learned to put motors to work to magnify human and animal muscle power. In the new Information Age, we are learning to magnify brainpower by putting the power of computation wherever we need it, and to provide information services on a global basis. Computer resources are infinitely flexible tools; networked together, they allow us to generate, exchange, share and manipulate information in an uncountable number of ways. The Internet, as an integrating force, has melded the technology of communications and computing to provide instant connectivity and global information services to all its users at very low cost. Ten years ago, most of the world knew little or nothing about the Internet. It was the private enclave of computer scientists and researchers who used it to interact with colleagues in their respective disciplines. Today, the Internet’s magnitude is thousands of times what it was only a decade ago. It is estimated that about 60 million host computers on the Internet today serve about 200 million users in over 200 countries and territories. Today’s telephone system is still much larger: about 3 billion people around the world now talk on almost 950 million telephone lines (about 250 million of which are actually radio-based cell phones). But by the end of the year 2000, the authors estimate there will be at least 300 million Internet users. Also, the total numbers of host computers and users have been growing at about 33% every six months since 1988 – or roughly 80% per year. The telephone service, in comparison, grows an average of about 5-10% per year. That means if the Internet keeps growing steadily the way it has been growing over the past few years, it will be nearly as big as today’s telephone system by about 2006.


Body :
What is Internet ?

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private and public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections, and other technologies. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail. In addition it supports popular services such as online chat, file transfer and file sharing, gaming, commerce, social networking, publishing, video on demand and teleconferencing and telecommunications. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) applications allow person-to-person communication via voice and video.The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s when the United States funded research projects of its military agencies to build robust, fault-tolerant and distributed computer networks. This research and a period of civilian funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation spawned worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and led to the commercialization of an international network in the mid 1990s, and resulted in the following popularization of countless applications in virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth's population uses the services of the Internet.

What is Library ?

library is a collection of sources, resources, and services, and the structure in which it is housed; it is organized for use and maintained by a public body, an institution, or a private individual. In the more traditional sense, a library is a collection of books. It can mean the collection, the building or room that houses such a collection, or both. The term "library" has itself acquired a secondary meaning: "a collection of useful material for common use," and in this sense is used in fields such as computer science, mathematics, statistics, electronics and biology.Public and institutional collections and services may be intended for use by people who choose not to — or cannot afford to — purchase an extensive collection themselves, who need material no individual can reasonably be expected to have, or who require professional assistance with their research. In addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are experts at finding and organizing information and at interpreting information needs.However, with the sets and collection of media and of media other than books for storin information, many libraries are now also repositories and access points for maps, prints, or other documents and various storage media such as microform (microfilm/microfiche), audio tapes, CDs, cassettes, videotapes, and DVDs. Libraries may also provide public facilities to access subscription databases and the Internet.
Thus, modern libraries are increasingly being redefined as places to get unrestricted access to information in many formats and from many sources. They are understood as extending beyond the physical walls of a building, by including material accessible by electronic means, and by providing the assistance of librarians in navigating and analyzing tremendous amounts of knowledge with a variety of digital tools.

What is relationship between Internet and Library?
As above, now a days, Internet has been related to everything, including Library. In fact, There is one thing that they share the same, is Information.There is a proverb about " two sides of a coin". It means, can be both positive and negative ways. In the positive way that the internet did a lot for the library, example are

1. It is support the library database, means you can search the book that you need from the internet.
2. It can be the source of knowledge for the Liberians and searchers to search for topics that are not in the library.In the other hand, on the negative ways.1. With the advanced of the internet can lead people to stay in touch with information rather than use the library, so people might go to the library less than before.

Conclusion
Library can be effected by the internet and the advancing of technology but the success of the Internet in society as a whole will depend less on technology than on the larger economic and social concerns that are at the heart of every major advance. The Internet is no exception, except that its potential and reach are perhaps as broad as any that have come before.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet




Report on Soccer World Cup

Report
Soccer World Cup


















Subject
IBC 101 (Library access to information and system)
Presented To
Assoc.Prof.Dr Namtip Wipawin
By
Mr. Paphat Kriangthanapha
Faculty: Sripatum International CollegeMajor: Bachelor of Business Administration in Hotel Management



Foreword

The report is on the topic of Soccer World Cup. I did the report to help other people know more and understand about the Soccer World Cup. The purpose of this report is to provide the information about Soccer World Cup by present on blogspot of the access to library subject. I hope this report is helpful for people who would like to know about Soccer World Cup. If there are any mistakes or suggestion about the report feel free to comment about it.

Paphat kriangthanapha



Contents

History

Trophy

Format

Selection of hosts

Organization and media coverage

Awards
Records and statistics


History
Previous international competitions
The world's first international football match was a challenge match played in Glasgow in 1872 between Scotland and England, with the first international tournament, the inaugural edition of the British Home Championship, taking place in 1884. At this stage the sport was rarely played outside the United Kingdom. As football began to increase in popularity in other parts of the world at the turn of the century, it was held as a demonstration sport with no medals awarded at the 1900 and 1904 Summer Olympics (however, the IOC has retroactively upgraded their status to official events), and at the 1906 Intercalated Games.
After FIFA was founded in 1904, there was an attempt made by FIFA to arrange an international football tournament between nations outside of the Olympic framework in Switzerland in 1906. These were very early days for international football, and the official history of FIFA describes the competition as having been a failure.
At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, football became an official competition. Planned by The Football Association (FA), England's football governing body, the event was for amateur players only and was regarded suspiciously as a show rather than a competition. Great Britain (represented by the England national amateur football team) won the gold medals. They repeated the feat in 1912 in Stockholm, where the tournament was organized by the Swedish Football Association.
With the Olympic event continuing to be contested only between amateur teams, Sir Thomas Lipton organized the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy tournament in Turin in 1909. The Lipton tournament was a championship between individual clubs (not national teams) from different nations, each one of which represented an entire nation. The competition is sometimes described as The First World Cup, and featured the most prestigious professional club sides from Italy, Germany and Switzerland, but the FA of England refused to be associated with the competition and declined the offer to send a professional team. Lipton invited West Auckland, an amateur side from County Durham, to represent England instead. West Auckland won the tournament and returned in 1911 to successfully defend their title, and were given the trophy to keep forever, as per the rules of the competition.In 1914, FIFA agreed to recognise the Olympic tournament as a "world football championship for amateurs", and took responsibility for managing the event. This paved the way for the world's first intercontinental football competition, at the 1920 Summer Olympics, contested by Egypt and thirteen European teams, and won by Belgium. Uruguay won the next two Olympic football tournaments in 1924 and 1928.
First World Cup









Estadio Centenario, the location of the first World Cup final in 1930 in Montevideo, Uruguay
Due to the success of the Olympic football tournaments, FIFA, with President Jules Rimet the driving force, again started looking at staging its own international tournament outside of the Olympics. On 28 May 1928, the FIFA Congress in Amsterdam decided to stage a world championship organised by FIFA. With Uruguay now two-time official football world champions (as 1924 was the start of FIFA's professional era) and to celebrate their centenary of independence in 1930, FIFA named Uruguay as the host country of the inaugural World Cup tournament.
The national associations of selected nations were invited to send a team, but the choice of Uruguay as a venue for the competition meant a long and costly trip across the Atlantic Ocean for European sides. Indeed, no European country pledged to send a team until two months before the start of the competition. Rimet eventually persuaded teams from Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia to make the trip. In total thirteen nations took part: seven from South America, four from Europe and two from North America.
The first two World Cup matches took place simultaneously on 18 July 1930, and were won by France and USA, who beat Mexico 4–1 and Belgium 3–0 respectively. The first goal in World Cup history was scored by Lucien Laurent of France. In the final, Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in front of a crowd of 93,000 people in Montevideo, and in doing so became the first nation to win the World Cup.


Growth
After the creation of the World Cup, the 1932 Summer Olympics, held in Los Angeles, did not plan to include football as part of the schedule due to the low popularity of the sport in the United States, as American football had been growing in popularity. FIFA and the IOC also disagreed over the status of amateur players, and so football was dropped from the Game Olympic football returned at the 1936 Summer Olympics, but was now overshadowed by the more prestigious World Cup.
The issues facing the early World Cup tournaments were the difficulties of intercontinental travel, and war. Few South American teams were willing to travel to Europe for the 1934 and 1938 tournaments, with Brazil the only South American team to compete in both. The 1942 and 1946 competitions were cancelled due to World War II and its aftermath.
The 1950 World Cup, held in Brazil, was the first to include British participants. British teams withdrew from FIFA in 1920, partly out of unwillingness to play against the countries they had been at war with, and partly as a protest against foreign influence on football, but rejoined in 1946 following FIFA's invitation. The tournament also saw the return of 1930 champions Uruguay, who had boycotted the previous two World Cups. Uruguay won the tournament again by defeating the host nation Brazil in one of the most famous matches in World Cup history, which was later called the "Maracanazo" (Portuguese: Maracanaço).








Map of countries' best results

In the tournaments between 1934 and 1978, 16 teams competed in each tournament, except in 1938, when Austria were absorbed into Germany after qualifying, leaving the tournament with 15 teams, and in 1950, when India, Scotland and Turkey withdrew, leaving the tournament with 13 teams. Most of the participating nations were from Europe and South America, with a small minority from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. These teams were usually defeated easily by the European and South American teams. Until 1982, the only teams from outside Europe and South America to advance out of the first round were: USA, semi-finalists in 1930; Cuba, quarter-finalists in 1938; Korea DPR, quarter-finalists in 1966; and Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1970.The tournament was expanded to 24 teams in 1982, and then to 32 in 1998, allowing more teams from Africa, Asia and North America to take part. The one exception is Oceania, who have never had a guaranteed spot in the tournament. In recent years, teams from these regions have enjoyed more success, and those who have reached the quarter-finals include: Mexico, quarter-finalists in 1986; Cameroon, quarter-finalists in 1990; Korea Republic, finishing in fourth place in 2002; and Senegal and USA, both quarter-finalists in 2002. However, European and South American teams have remained the stronger forces. For example, the quarter-finalists in 2006 were all from Europe or South America.
198 nations attempted to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and a record 204 will attempt to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.


Other FIFA tournaments

An equivalent tournament for women's football, the FIFA Women's World Cup, was first held in 1991 in the People's Republic of China. The women's tournament is smaller in scale and profile than the men's, but is growing; the number of entrants for the 2007 tournament was 120, more than double that of 1991.
The FIFA Confederations Cup is a tournament held one year before the World Cup at the World Cup host nation(s) as a dress-rehearsal for the upcoming World Cup. It is contested by the winners of each of the six FIFA confederation championships, along with the FIFA World Cup champion and the host country.
FIFA also organizes international tournaments for youth football (FIFA U-20 World Cup, FIFA U-17 World Cup, FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup), club football (FIFA Club World Cup), and football variants such as futsal (FIFA Futsal World Cup) and beach soccer (FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup).

Trophy


From 1930 to 1970, the Jules Rimet Trophy was awarded to the World Cup winner. It was originally simply known as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, but in 1946 it was renamed after the FIFA president Jules Rimet who set up the first tournament. In 1970, Brazil's third victory in the tournament entitled them to keep the trophy permanently. However, the trophy was stolen in 1983, and has never been recovered, apparently melted down by the thieves.
After 1970, a new trophy, known as the FIFA World Cup Trophy, was designed. The experts of FIFA, coming from seven different countries, evaluated the 53 presented models, finally opting for the work of the Italian designer Silvio Gazzaniga. The new trophy is 36 cm (14.2 in) high, made of solid 18 carat (75%) gold and weighs 6.175 kg (13.6 lb). The base contains two layers of semi-precious malachite while the bottom side of the trophy bears the engraved year and name of each FIFA World Cup winner since 1974. The description of the trophy by Gazzaniga was: "The lines spring out from the base, rising in spirals, stretching out to receive the world. From the remarkable dynamic tensions of the compact body of the sculpture rise the figures of two athletes at the stirring moment of victory."
This new trophy is not awarded to the winning nation permanently. World Cup winners retain the trophy until the next tournament and are awarded a gold-plated replica rather than the solid gold original.
Format
Qualification
Since the second World Cup in 1934, qualifying tournaments have been held to thin the field for the final tournament. They are held within the six FIFA continental zones (Africa, Asia, North and Central America and Caribbean, South America, Oceania, Europe), overseen by their respective confederations. For each tournament, FIFA decides the number of places awarded to each of the continental zones beforehand, generally based on the relative strength of the confederations' teams, but also subject to lobbying from the confederations.
The qualification process can start as early as almost three years before the final tournament and last over a two-year period. The formats of the qualification tournaments differ between confederations. Usually, one or two places are awarded to winners of intercontinental play-offs. For example, the winner of the Oceanian zone and the fifth-placed team from the Asian zone will enter a play-off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup. From the 1938 World Cup onwards, host nations have received automatic qualification to the final tournament. This right was also granted to the defending champions between 1938 and 2002, but was withdrawn from the 2006 FIFA World Cup onward, requiring the champions to qualify. Brazil, winners in 2002, thus became the first defending champions to play in a qualifying match.
Final tournament
The current final tournament features 32 national teams competing over a month in the host nation(s). There are two stages: a group stage followed by a knockout stage.
In the group stage, teams compete within eight groups of four teams each. Eight teams are seeded (including the hosts, with the other teams selected using a formula based on both the FIFA World Rankings and performances in recent World Cups) and drawn to separate groups. The other teams are assigned to different "pots", usually based on geographical criteria, and teams in each pot are drawn at random to the eight groups. Since 1998, constraints have been applied to the draw to ensure that no group contains more than two European teams or more than one team from any other confederation. Each group plays a round-robin tournament, guaranteeing that every team will play at least three matches. The last round of matches of each group is scheduled at the same time to preserve fairness among all four teams. The top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Points are used to rank the teams within a group. Since 1994, three points have been awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss (prior to this, winners received two points rather than three). If two or more teams end up with the same number of points, tiebreakers are used: first is goal difference, then total goals scored, then head-to-head results, and finally drawing of lots (i.e. determining team positions at random). The knockout stage is a single-elimination tournament in which teams play each other in one-off matches, with extra time and penalty shootouts used to decide the winner if necessary. It begins with the "round of 16" (or the second round) in which the winner of each group plays against the runner-up of another group. This is followed by the quarter-finals, the semi-finals, the third-place match (contested by the losing semi-finalists), and the final.
Section of hosts
Early World Cups were given to countries at meetings of FIFA's congress. The choice of location gave rise to controversies, a consequence of the three-week boat journey between South America and Europe, the two centres of strength in football. The decision to hold the first World Cup in Uruguay, for example, led to only four European nations competing. The next two World Cups were both held in Europe. The decision to hold the second of these, the 1938 FIFA World Cup, in France was controversial, as the American countries had been led to understand that the World Cup would rotate between the two continents. Both Argentina and Uruguay thus boycotted the tournament.
Since the 1958 FIFA World Cup, to avoid future boycotts or controversy, FIFA began a pattern of alternating the hosts between the Americas and Europe, which continued until the 1998 FIFA World Cup. The 2002 FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly by South Korea and Japan, was the first one held in Asia, and the only tournament with multiple hosts. In 2010, South Africa will become the first African nation to host the World Cup. The 2014 FIFA World Cup will be hosted by Brazil, the first held in South America since 1978, and will be the first occasion where consecutive World Cups are held outside Europe.
The host country is now chosen in a vote by FIFA's Executive Committee. This is done under a single transferable vote system. The national football association of a country desiring to host the event receives a "Hosting Agreement" from FIFA, which explains the steps and requirements that are expected from a strong bid. The bidding association also receives a form, the submission of which represents the official confirmation of the candidacy. After this, a FIFA designated group of inspectors visit the country to identify that the country meets the requirements needed to host the event and a report on the country is produced. The decision on who will host the World Cup is usually made six or seven years in advance of the tournament. However, there have been occasions where the hosts of multiple future tournaments were announced at the same time, as will be the case for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. For the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the final tournament is rotated between confederations, allowing only countries from the chosen confederation (Africa in 2010, South America in 2014) to bid to host the tournament. The rotation policy was introduced after the controversy surrounding Germany's victory over South Africa in the vote to host the 2006 tournament. However, the policy of continental rotation will not continue beyond 2014, so any country, except those belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments, can apply as hosts for World Cups starting from 2018. This is partly to avoid a similar scenario to the bidding process for the 2014 tournament, where Brazil was the only official bidder.

Organization and media coverage
The World Cup was first televised in 1954 and is now the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games. The cumulative audience of all matches of the 2006 World Cup is estimated to be 26.29 billion. 715.1 million individuals watched the final match of this tournament (a ninth of the entire population of the planet). The 2006 World Cup draw, which decided the distribution of teams into groups, was watched by 300 million viewers.
Each FIFA World Cup since 1966 has its own mascot. World Cup Willie, the mascot for the 1966 competition, was the first World Cup mascot. Recent World Cups have also featured official match balls specially designed for each World Cup.

Best performances by continental zones
To date, the final of the World Cup has only been contested by European and South American teams. The two continents have won nine titles apiece. Only two teams from outside these two continents have ever reached the semi-finals of the competition: USA (North, Central America and Caribbean) in 1930 and Korea Republic (Asia) in 2002. The best result of an African team is reaching the quarter-finals: Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002. Oceania has only been represented in the World Cup three times, and an Oceanian qualifier has reached the second round once, as Australia qualified as an Oceanian nation in 2005, although they moved to the Asian Football Confederation before the beginning of the tournament.
All World Cups won by European teams have taken place in Europe and the only teams to have won outside Europe come from South America. The only non-European team to win a tournament in Europe is Brazil in 1958. Only twice have consecutive World Cups been won by teams from the same continent – when Italy and Brazil successfully defended their titles in 1938 and 1962 respectively.

Awards

At the end of each World Cup, awards are presented to the players and teams for accomplishments other than their final team positions in the tournament. There are currently six awards:
The Golden Ball for the best player, determined by a vote of media members (first awarded in 1982); the Silver Ball and the Bronze Ball are awarded to the players finishing second and third in the voting respectively;
The Golden Shoe (sometimes called the Golden Boot) for the top goalscorer (first awarded in 1982, but retrospectively applied to all tournaments from 1930); most recently, the Silver Shoe and the Bronze Shoe have been awarded to the second and third top goalscorers respectively;
The Yashin Award for the best goalkeeper, decided by the FIFA Technical Study Group (first awarded in 1994);
The Best Young Player Award for the best player aged 21 or younger at the start of the calendar year, decided by the FIFA Technical Study Group (first awarded in 2006).
The FIFA Fair Play Trophy for the team with the best record of fair play, according to the points system and criteria established by the FIFA Fair Play Committee (first awarded in 1978);
The Most Entertaining Team for the team that has entertained the public the most during the World Cup, determined by a poll of the general public (first awarded in 1994);
An All-Star Team consisting of the best players of the tournament is also announced for each tournament since 1998.

Records and statistics
Two players share the record for playing in the most World Cups; Mexico's Antonio Carbajal and Germany's Lothar Matthäus both played in five tournaments.[48] Matthäus has played the most World Cup matches overall, with 25 appearances.[49] Brazil's Pelé is the only player to have won three World Cup winners' medals,[50] with 20 other players who have won two World Cup medals.
The overall leading goalscorer in World Cups is Brazil's Ronaldo, scorer of 15 goals in three tournaments. West Germany's Gerd Müller is second, with 14 goals in two tournaments.[51] The third placed goalscorer, France's Just Fontaine, holds the record for the most goals scored in a single World Cup. All his 13 goals were scored in the 1958 tournament.[52]. Brazil are the leading scorers in the World Cup having scored 201 goals in 92 games[53], whilst Germany are the second highest with 190 goals in 93 games[54].
Brazil's Mário Zagallo and West Germany's Franz Beckenbauer are the only people to date to win the World Cup as both player and head coach. Zagallo won in 1958 and 1962 as a player and in 1970 as head coach.[55] Beckenbauer won in 1974 as captain and in 1990 as head coach.[56] Italy's Vittorio Pozzo is the only head coach to ever win two World Cups.[57] All World Cup winning head coaches were natives of the country they coached to victory.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup
www.fifa.com/worldcup
History of the FIFA World Cup
FIFA World Cup Trophy
List of FIFA World Cup broadcasters
FIFA World Cup awards
FIFA World Cup records

วันจันทร์ที่ 5 ตุลาคม พ.ศ. 2552

Exercise5

1. Write the database of the hotel (Similar to the library database)

arrival and departure date
name ,surname , date of birth
status ,address
telephone number
room type ,special request
smoking or non-smoking area

2. Go to the library website search for the bibliographic of database books in the library catalog

(OPAC = online publice access catatog).Understanding and using dBase III (including dBase II) * by Steven C. RossSt Paul: West Publishing Company, 1986 Call#: QA 76.9 .R72U 1986

3. Go the library e-book database, search for the articles about database from proquest, ABI/INFROM, Dissertation & theses

Dropouts cost state billionsJeff Nachtigal. McClatchy - Tribune Business News. Washington: Sep 25, 2009.
Abstract (Summary)The cure is complicated, but the formula is straightforward: reducing the dropout rate, which reduces economic loss due to crimes committed by kids, according to a study released Thursday by the California Dropout Research Project.

exercise4



1.When can you find information about Noble Prize? Who get the Noble Prize this year?


The Nobel Prize Internet Archive is fully interactive. If you have an interesting and useful Internet link about a particular Nobel Laureate, you can add your link instantly to that laureate's home page here at the Archive. We encourage you to add links as often as you like. The educational value of this Archive depends on contributions and resourcefulness its users. Want to try it out? Why not roll the dice, and start with a random Nobel link!?No one.




2. Go to Encyclopedia Online at http://library.spu.ac.th/ Search for the history of automobiles or computer. Summarize the information you get.


HistoryMain article: History of computer science The early foundations of what would become computer science predate the invention of the modern digital computer. Machines for calculating fixed numerical tasks, such as the abacus have existed since antiquity. Wilhelm Schickard built the first mechanical calculator in 1623. Charles Babbage designed a difference engine in Victorian times helped by Ada Lovelace. Around 1900, punch-card machines were introduced. However, all of these machines were constrained to perform a single task, or at best some subset of all possible tasks.




3.What is the difference between general book and reference book?


Reference Book in a library is one that may only be used in the library and not borrowed from the library. Many such books are reference works (in the first sense) which are usually used only briefly or photocopied from, and therefore do not need to be borrowed. Keeping them in the library assures that they will always be available for use on demand. Other reference-only books are ones that are too valuable to permit borrowers to take them out. Reference-only items may be shelved in a reference collection located separately from circulating items or individual reference-only items may be shelved among items available for borrowing.General books are books available on the library. Bookstore and ect ... to read books of all ages.




4.When do you need to search information from the reference collection?
You may search these information during a search time,. A topic related to history. A meaning ofa specific topic.

5.What type of reference collection that you like to use most? And why?
Dictionary I can find the definition and examples from that. when people does not know what is the meaning of the words.
6.Read some book and summary.I should ATLASFrom : The times world atlas book.The time

world atlas is a complete world reference atlas in a convenient and easy to use format, retaining the authority, style and detail of the larger times atlases. All the mapping and information in this new edition has been brought fully up to date to give an accurate picture of today's world.The introductory section covers major world geographical themes - from earthquakes and volcanoes to population growth, communications and climate change - giving a global snapshot of our conterporary world. It also includes a guide to the world's states and territories with flags and key national statistics.Detailed reference maps in the distinctive and respected times style provide balanced, systematic coverage of all parts of the world. The index to over 25000 place names illustrates the scope of this world atlas which is ideal foe home and business use.