IP Introduction

Introduction
Access to the internet along with the computer revolution has altered communication in a profound way. It has provided unprecedented access to new ways to conduct business and to teach. The impact on the publishing industry has also been great. Publishers are being forced to come to terms with an almost uncontrolled access to information of all kinds with new legal and copyright ramifications.

The computer screen can be used in a way that a textbook cannot. As just one example, the use of color is no longer a financial burden and impediment. Animation can be used for the first time to illustrate teaching points in other than tapes or film clips. The internet can be brought into each classroom for a modest expense.

For those of us charged with the responsibility for teaching insect physiology,the internet and email have provided the means to communicate with each other in a manner that was not really possible just a few years ago. Traditionally, each insect physiology class across the country and around the world was taught in isolation from an inadequate textbook or from a personal collection of reprints of individual journal articles and reviews or library materials based on such important sources as Annual Review of Entomology (Annual Review,Inc.), Advances in Insect Physiology (Academic Press), or the massive treatise, Comprehensive Insect Physiology, Biochemistry and Pharmacology (Pergamon Press). This seemed to us a duplication of effort on a massive scale.

The initial purpose of this web site, therefore, was to assist teaching of insect physiology. However, the internet provides a unique opportunity to organize the subject of insect physiology into something that could take the place of a society based on this subject that has never been available. Always before, our colleagues have been scattered amongst a handful of professional societies each with its own perspective, but none inclusive of the entire subject.

It is our fervent wish that all of our colleagues will register at this site and add what materials and expertise they possess to participate in this pioneering effort.

T. A. Miller