Vol. 3  Iss. 4  The Chemical Educator  © 1998 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.

ISSN 1430-4171 http://journals.springer-ny.com /chedr S 1430-4171(98)04227-8

The Macrogalleria, a World Wide Web site by Mark Michalovic, Kelly Anderson, and Greg Brust, under the sponsorship of Lon Mathias, Department of Polymer Science, University of Southern Mississippi, with assistance from Krzysztof Matyjaszewski. The Macrogalleria is also available on CD ROM.

The Macrogalleria is a comprehensive yet irreverent Website on polymer science, designed for those with no background in the subject. It is best suited to those who have taken at least an advanced high-school or introductory college chemistry course; exposure to standard methods of depicting organic molecules and reaction mechanisms is essential.

The site claims "Netscape compliance," and requires both ChemScape Chime (MDL Information Systems) and Shockwave (Macromedia, Inc.). To test the site's interoperability, I surfed using Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.04 for Windows 95 and experienced no problems.¹

The Macrogalleria draws the reader into its world almost immediately. On the first page, the word macromolecule takes you to a pair of historical vignettes, nested one below the other, in hypertext. The opening page also links to a guide for students and educators, and has a site directory² at the bottom.

The site is laid out in five levels, corresponding to increasing complexity of explanation:

1. Polymers are Everywhere is a virtual shopping mall, with descriptions of polymer-containing items in each store. The concept is tried and true, and works well, but some of the backgrounds (like Crafts Cave) are too busy and interfere with readability
2. Polymers Up Close and Personal contains introductions to specific polymers, such as polyethylene, and links to pages explaining how they are made and used.
3. How They Work contains pages that discuss general classifications and concepts used in polymer science, such as fibers, tacticity, glass transition, and so on.
4. Makin' Polymers concerns the synthesis of polymers, for example, by free radical polymerization.
5. Getting Polymers to Talk deals with experimental methods used to study polymers, both instrumental and "wet" chemical methods.

The most serious deficiency is the lack of links to all five levels from each page -- or at least a link straight to the directory, rather than one to the top of the opening page.² Sites on Level One link, for example, to pages at Level Two, and pages at Level Two tend to link to pages at Levels Three, Four, and Five, but pages at each level link back only to their own level and to the top of the opening page (listed as a link to the site directory²). If you've clicked on a half-dozen links in a row (a common occurrence as I surfed the site), it can be inconvenient to get back out again.

As an example of the interlacing in the Macrogalleria, the Paints and Decorating "store" on Level One mentions polyurethane carpet padding (linking to Level Two). The article on polyurethanes contains many links, for example to a Level Three article on elastomers or a Level Four article on polyurethane synthesis.

These drawbacks, though annoying, by no means make the Macrogalleria a Website to be avoided. While it can be a little clunky in execution, the Macrogalleria is an education for both students and teachers, and I intend to recommend it to my classes.

1. Chime 1.0 works well with Internet Explorer 3.02 and above, running under Windows 95, though it must be installed separately in Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. Chime 2.0 beta will install simultaneously in both browsers. The reviewer does not know whether this is true for the Mac OS version of Chime or Internet Explorer.
2. There is no internal link to the site directory on the home page. All links to the directory from elsewhere in the site take you to the top of the home page, but the directory cannot be seen onscreen at that position.