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Table of Contents:

Comment News items Internet Resources Newsletter by email	A-Z New & Notable Web Sites Information and reviews of new and recent Web sites
Nice Web Site This month: The Informed Librarian Online	Press Releases Recognition for Faculty of 1000 New look RDN Virtual Training Suite Three new Internet resource booklets now available from EEVL
Network News DNER BUBL EEVL SOSIG EDINA CHEST MIMAS PSIgate BIOME ELDIS Netskills BIZ/ed AHDS JISCmail UK Data Archive Chemical Database Service Academic Info RDN Humbul	Book Reviews Review of: Library and Information Professional's Guide to Plug-ins and Other Web Browser Tools: Selection, installation, troubleshooting, by Candice M. Benjes-Small and Melissa L. Just
Recent Internet Books in the Library	Get a life! Leisure Time
Stop Press! Updated How To Find Out: Built Environment guide

COMMENT

Now is the time of year that many students will be arriving at universities to start out on their academic careers, or to continue from previous years. Nowadays, their first port of call for information on any topic seems to be the Internet. Where should they begin their searching on the Internet? Google is an excellent search engine, but it has its limitations. One big minus is that, in trying to index as much of the Web as possible, it includes a lot of ephemeral and unsubstantial material.

PINAKES http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html is a subject launchpad for quality information on the Internet. PINAKES links to over fifty subject gateways. Anything you find via PINAKES should be substantial and of high quality.

Why is it called PINAKES? Well, in ancient times, the Library of Alexandria was seen as a universal store of human knowledge. As the Library grew in size, however, it became increasingly difficult to locate relevant material. The poet Callimachus solved the problem by compiling a catalogue called The Pinakes. On a far smaller scale, the PINAKES site hopes to provide a similar function for Internet resources, by linking to the major subject gateways.

News items

Here are this month's news items of interest, courtesy of Managing Information Newsletter::

World Intellectual Property Organisation Launches Chinese Website
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) launched this week a Chinese language version of its web site as part of its efforts to make intellectual property-related material more readily available to a larger audience.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=839

European Academic Digital Publishing Initiative Underway
A collective of European universities and publishers have announced the establishment of FIGARO, an academic publishing project that will create a European network of institutions providing e-publishing support.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=837

Report Suggests Increase in Spending on Electronic Journals
The information buying balance of power has subtly shifted in favour of libraries, especially those that tend to be aware of alternative web access to databases.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=836

UK Joint Information Systems Committee Fund Archiving Investigation
The UK Joint Information Systems Committee have funded a one-year investigation into the rights issues surrounding the self-archiving movement. The project, called RoMEO, is based at Loughborough University.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=826

SPARC Europe Formally Launches Organisation and Hires Director SPARC
Europe (the pan-European alliance of research libraries and institutions) and LIBER (the principal association of the major research libraries of Europe) have announced that David Prosser will become SPARC Europe's first director.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=798

British Library Launch Digitisation Programme.
The British Library has launched their biggest ever digitisation programme for a new website called 'In Place'. By 2004, people will be able to see and hear 100,000 images and sounds from British Library's collections.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=795

Ohioans Gain Access to Millions of Articles Online
Every person in the state of Ohio can now access a collection of online journals, magazines, and research databases. The collection includes full-text articles from over 6000 different titles.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=790

Internet Resources Newsletter by email

Over 9,000 people now subscribe to the email version of this Newsletter. Many thanks to Free Pint who distribute the email version. To subscribe, at no cost, go to http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html

Text version

A text only version of the Internet Resources Newsletter is now available at: http://www.hw.ac.uk/cgi-bin/parser.pl/0304/www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html

A-Z NEW & NOTABLE WEB SITES

123cam.com

http://www.123cam.com/

A search engine directory about web cams and live video.

AlgaeBase

http://www.algaebase.org/

A store of information on the algae of the world.

American Precision Optics Manufacturers Association: APOMA

http://www.apomanet.org/

The American Precision Optics Manufacturers Association and the APOMA.ORG website is dedicated to promoting and advancing science, technology and business opportunities for the precision optics industrial base.

AnswerBus

http://www.answerbus.com

A natural language search service. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Bernie Sloan's Digital Reference Pages

http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/~b-sloan/bernie.htm

A number of Web resources dealing with the topic of online or virtual or digital reference services

BlogStreet

http://www.blogstreet.com/

Information about Weblogs. "BlogStreet is brought to you by Netcore Solutions, an Enterprise Messaging Solutions company, offering cost-effective technology solutions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets like India."

British HCI Group

http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/

"The web site of the British HCI Group offers a service to practitioners, researchers, consumers, students and anyone with an interest in highly usable computing and communications systems."

BSI, ISO and EN Standards

http://www.bga.org.uk/publish/techpub/standards/standards.html

By arrangement with the British Standards Institution (BSI), the British Gear Association is able to offer for sale copies of BSI, ISO, EN and other Standards that relate to the Power Transmission Industry.

An on-line database of 885 Standards has been created by the BGA that can be searched on any combination of four parameters. When the required Standard has been located, a link is provided to the BGA Shop that will show current pricing and availability of the chosen Standard and allow immediate on-line purchase.

Chartered Institute of Housing: CIH

http://www.cih.org/

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) is the professional body for people working in housing.

Commonwealth Association of Planners: CAP

http://www.commonwealth-planners.org/

The Commonwealth Association of Planners is concerned with the planning and management of settlements and regions across the Commonwealth.

Copyleft, Collaboration & Clusters

http://www.freepint.com/issues/190902.htm#tips

An article in a recent issue of the popular newsletter Free Pint, by Helen Baxter.

Document Supply Centre: Current Serials Received

http://www.bl.uk/services/document/serials.html

This service allows you to search the DSC's Current Serials Received file. This file contains the titles of over 60,000 serials currently received by the Document Supply Centre (DSC) and the Science, Technology and Business Service (STB) and is updated quarterly

Doing It Right: How Some Universities Encourage the Creation of Prime Research Web Sites

http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep02/Block.htm

An article by Marylaine Block, from Searcher magazine.

eWeek

http://www.eweek.com/

eWEEK.com is a source for all high-tech news.

From Fortune 500 to Handelsblatt's European 500 one year on: another look at some useful European and International Rankings

http://www.freepint.com/issues/050902.htm#feature

An article in Free Pint by Helen Clegg.

Genomes & Machines

http://www.cs.tcd.ie/Francisco.Azuaje/genomes&machines.html

Reviews, databases and general resources on genomics and bioinformatics systems.

Geoengineer

http://www.geoengineer.org/

Resources and educational infomation in Geotechnical Engineering and related fields

German Search Engine Resources

http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/02/09-german.html

From Danny Sullivan's The Search Engine Report.

Google News

http://news.google.com/

Search and browse 4,000 continuously updated news sources.

History.uk.com

http://www.history.uk.com/

"History.uk.com is the world's largest online directory of people, organisations and places associated with UK history. It includes specialist information and fun history basics. "

Housing Quality Network

http://www.hqnetwork.org.uk/

"On behalf of its local authority and registered social landlord members, the Housing Quality Network examines and evaluates measures which can lead to improvements to the performance, quality and value of housing services."

IDEMA

http://www.idema.org/

IDEMA is the trade association for the data storage industry.

Informed Librarian Online

http://www.infosourcespub.com/ilofreesubscribe.cfm

The Informed Librarian is a monthly compilation of the most recent tables of contents from over 180 valuable domestic and foreign library and information-related journals, e-journals, magazines, e-magazines, newsletters and e-newsletters.

Institute of Destination Architects and Designers

http://www.idad.org/idadh.htm

International Professional Body of Destination design and Coastal/Hydroscape Architects.

Languages & Professions, 2nd Conference on Language Proficiency in International Business, Duesseldorf (Germany)

http://www.sprachen-beruf.com/

The 2nd international conference Languages & Professions will take place from May 19 - 21, 2003, in the Radisson SAS Hotel in Duesseldorf.

This new conference is targeted towards all those who are interested in language education and training for professional purposes. The corporate sector as well as representatives from universities and training institutions will be able to seek information about the latest trends and opportunities in language training.

Materials Information Network

http://portal.grantadesign.com

A web site for materials information, from Granta Design Limited, with some useful information in it.

Microscape (recruitment)

http://www.microscape.co.uk/

"We are Europe's leading recruitment company specialising in semiconductors, e-commerce and contracting."

Online Education and Training: Introduction to Internet Course Delivery

http://www.ioe.ac.uk/english/oet.htm

London University's internet course in Online Education and Training. A non-intensive 20-week part-time programme delivered by distance online 8th November 2002 - April 2003.

our documents

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/

At the heart of this initiative are 100 milestone documents of American history.

ParaCite

http://paracite.ecs.soton.ac.uk/

"ParaCite is an experimental service, being designed at the University of Southampton, for the location of articles from raw references. When a reference is passed to the service, it is split into its component parts (e.g. author, title, year), and transferred to the search resource. Based on the subject area, and the data provided, a set of resources is presented that the system believes have the highest probability of providing the full text article at no charge."

Planning Portal

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/

The Planning Portal is an online planning service which sets out to provide an easy-to-use electronic gateway into the planning system in England and Wales.

Project RoMEO

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/ls/disresearch/romeo/index.html

The RoMEO Project (Rights MEtadata for Open archiving) is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee for one year (1 August 2002 - 31 July 2003) to investigate the rights issues surrounding the 'self-archiving' of research in the UK academic community under the Open Archive Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting.

Property People

http://www.ppmagazine.co.uk/

A magazine providing "the human voice of housing".

Property Week

http://www.property-week.co.uk/

A weekly news magazine for the property industry.

Regeneration & Renewal

http://www.regenerationmagazine.com/

A publication of Haymarket Business Publications Ltd.

Researchers' Use of Libraries and other Information Sources: current patterns and future trends

http://www.rslg.ac.uk/research/libuse/

"The purpose of the study is to provide a detailed, up-to-date picture of what stored information of all kinds researchers in the UK require access to, of how they work with the sources and use the information, and of major emerging trends in these patterns, including variations in needs between academic disciplines."

ROOF

http://www.roofmag.org.uk/

"ROOF is a bi-monthly magazine covering all aspects of housing policy. ROOF aims to provide a wide variety of in-depth comment and analysis plus hard-hitting features and revealing interviews with government ministers and other leading figures. This relaunched site is packed with information, including a new magazine archive, and is available to existing and new magazine subscribers."

Royal Town Planning Institute: RTPI

http://www.rtpi.org.uk/

"The RTPI exists to advance the science and art of town planning for the benefit of the public."

Sage Contents Alert

http://www.sagepub.com/shopping/contents_alert_journals.asp

Sage's Contents Alert allows you to receive via email the table of contents, call for papers information, special issue announcements, and other product information for any Sage Publications, Sage Science Press, or Corwin Press journal approximately four to six weeks prior to publication.

Science & Engineering Courses and Colleges UK

http://www.science-engineering.net/

"People seek careers in science or engineering for many reasons. Some have specific goals: they wish to cure diseases or combat hunger or reduce pollution; or they dream of developing the next laser, transistor, or vehicle for space travel; or they imagine building companies that capitalize on new engineering capabilities. Some choose careers in science or engineering because they are curious about the natural world. Others are motivated by the excitement and beauty of the intellectual world. Whatever your ambitions, we can help you choose the right combination of course and college in order to persue your career goals."

Scottish Higher Education Review: second consultation paper: Shaping Our Future

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/lifelonglearning/sher2-00.asp

"I am seeking a positive re-thinking to strengthen our already successful system of higher education. We shall leave well alone where the system palpably succeeds. But there are issues which need to be examined if we are to develop an agreed set of priorities and clear directions for change to shape a learning, earning, connected Scotland."

Social Enterprise London

http://www.sel.org.uk/

"Social Enterprises are financially viable and sustainable businesses that trade in the market to fulfil social aims, such as employment creation or the provision of quality local services. They bring people and communities together for economic development and social gain, having three common characteristics"

Supporting Transition by Effective Progression Strategies: STEPS

http://www.spat.ac.uk/steps.html

Conference at: Le Meridien (York) Hotel, York, North Yorkshire, UK, 21st and 22nd November 2002.

Tagish

http://www.tagish.co.uk/

"Tagish is one of the UK's foremost Information Society consultancy firms dealing in public sector applications. It has enjoyed sustained growth in the development of telematics strategy, and in the application of Internet, intranet, groupware, ecommerce and teleshopping technologies for European, central and local government, and the private sector."

Town and Country Planning Association: TCPA

http://www.tcpa.org.uk/

"The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) campaigns for the reform of the UK's planning system to make it more responsive to people's needs and to promote sustainable development. "

United States Society on Dams: USSD

http://www.ussdams.org/

The United States Society on Dams (USSD) is a nation-wide professional organization dedicated to advancing the technology of dam engineering, construction, operation, maintenance and dam safety; to fostering socially and environmentally responsible water resources projects; and to promoting awareness of the role of dams in the beneficial and sustainable development of the nation's water resources.

Wall Street Executive Library

http://www.executivelibrary.com/

A directory that lists only the most relevant and useful business sites.

WebEE

http://www.web-ee.com/default.htm

A Collection of resources for electronic engineers.

Weblogs

http://www.hi.is/%7Eanne/weblogs.html

This site includes examples of LIS Weblogs.

World Trade Organization: Documents online

http://docsonline.wto.org/

"This database provides access to the official documentation of the World Trade Organization, including the legal texts of the WTO agreements. You may retrieve and consult documents online and also download selected documents from the site to your PC, if you so wish. Note: this database does not contain WTO publications."

York St John College

http://www.yorksj.ac.uk

Used to be known as the College of Ripon and York St John.

NICE WEB SITE

In the course of finding sites of interest for this Newsletter, we sometimes come across Web sites which we feel deserve slightly more than a passing mention. Each month we will pick out one or more such sites, and give them a short review. The sites will normally be UK based, may be small or large, and be of interest or potential interest to academics. After lengthy discussions we have decided, with incredible creativity :-), to call these: Nice Web Sites. Details of previous Nice Web Sites are available in the Nice Web Site Archive.

Informed Librarian Online
http://www.infosourcespub.com/ilofreesubscribe.cfm

I can copy the description of this site straight from the 'horses mouth', as it aptly describes exactly what this Nice Web Site does.

"THE INFORMED LIBRARIAN is a monthly compilation of the most recent tables of contents from over 180 valuable domestic and foreign library and information-related journals, e-journals, magazines, e-magazines, newsletters and e-newsletters.

This current awareness service helps keep you informed and abreast of all library trends. It is an easy, timesaving way to stay on top of your professional reading by listing all current contents in one place, fully hyperlinked to the contents. Recommended for all types of library and information professionals."

Roddy MacLeod

PRESS RELEASES

**** Recognition for Faculty of 1000 ****

The online literature evaluation service, Faculty of 1000, has been recognised by The Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (http://www.alpsp.org/) as the most innovative publication of 2002. This international award is presented annually to products that display an innovative approach to publishing as judged by a panel of independent experts.

The judging panel was unanimous in choosing Faculty of 1000 as the winner, stating that, “The site is easy to use, and the sections are bang up to date and customisable to suit personal research areas.”

They also praised the concept behind Faculty of 1000, “All in all it is a wonderful idea, and so simple really – the best ideas often are.”

Faculty of 1000 is an innovative new approach to the evaluation research articles in the biological sciences based on the opinions of over 1400 leading international life science researchers. The service offers a systematic and comprehensive scheme for identifying and evaluating important papers directly by researchers, who provide both qualitative judgement and the reasons for making their choices. It is updated with new evaluations every day creating a consensus map of important papers and trends across biology, which users can view to reflect their research interests.

Faculty of 1000 is also useful for journalists who want to identify important biological research.
If you would like a complimentary trial subscription please contact Gordon Fletcher by email (gordon@biomedcentral.com).

To read further press releases from Faculty of 1000 visit:: http://www.facultyof1000.com/about/press

Faculty of 1000 is published by BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com), an independent online publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to the peer-reviewed biological and medical research it publishes. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is essential to the rapid and efficient communication of science. In addition to open-access original research, BioMed Central also publishes reviews and other subscription-based content.

**** New look RDN Virtual Training Suite ****

As the new term begins in universities and colleges across the country, we are pleased to announce that we have upgraded all of the tutorials in the RDN Virtual Training Suite http://www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/ to take advantage of new features, functionality and design, initially created for 11 new FE tutorials launched in June this year.

In response to popular demand (i.e. feedback received via the Web site and workshops) our tutorials now have the following:

A NEW LOOK AND FEEL- with the new Web design and graphics created for the FE tutorials

NEW LINKS BASKET FUNCTIONALITY - you can now view, print or email yourself your selected links; add a comments box to make notes about the links you've saved or turn the Links Basket off to see live links in the tutorial

AN ENHANCED PRINT-FRIENDLY OPTION - providing a print-optimised version of the tutorial pages, designed to make high quality printouts suitable for handouts.

IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY - in line with W3C recommendations

A NEW SYSTEM FOR UPDATING TUTORIALS - a Web-based editing system now enables the RDN hubs to regularly update tutorials remotely via the Web.

Simon Jennings
Manager
Resource Discovery Network Centre
King's College London, 3rd Floor, Strand Bridge House
138 - 142, The Strand, London, WC2R 1HH.
Email: simon.jennings@kcl.ac.uk

**** Three new Internet resource booklets now available from EEVL ****

EEVL has just published three new Internet resource guide booklets. The booklets cover Internet resources for Engineering, Internet resources for Mathematics, and Internet resources for Computing.

The colourful A5 size sixteen-page booklets give details of between 60 and 70 of the most useful Internet resources in their respective subject areas, under topics such as Learning and Teaching, Reference Material, Journals, Research, Societies and Institutions, Subject Gateways and Guides, etc. All the sites included in the booklets have been selected by subject experts.

The booklets are excellent introductions to key resources in their subject areas, and should be useful for students, staff and researchers at universities and colleges.

The booklets are available free to those at universities and colleges in the UK (up to 25 copies at no cost, and thereafter 50p per copy), and to others at 50p per copy, from the address below. Free printable pdf copies of the booklets can be downloaded from http://www.eevl.ac.uk/publications/

The booklets have been sponsored by Inderscience Publishers (Engineering booklet), Springer (Mathematics booklet), and Pearson Education (Computing booklet). Springer are giving away one of four textbooks to the first 50 individuals who return the form included on the Mathematics booklet to them.

EEVL is a UK-based not-for-profit free guide. It was created and is run by a team of information specialists from Heriot Watt University, with input from a number of other universities in the UK, including the University of Ulster, the University of Birmingham, and Cranfield University.

EEVL is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) through the Resource Discovery Network (RDN).

Roddy MacLeod
EEVL Manager
Heriot-Watt University Library
Edinburgh
0131 451 3576
r.a.macleod@hw.ac.uk

NETWORK NEWS

DNER News

 

The Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) is a managed environment for accessing quality assured information resources on the Internet which are available from many sources.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/dner/information/news/index.html

NISS News

A week-by-week listing of new information resources on the NISS (National Information Services and Systems) Information Gateway selected by experts in the subject area is available at:

http://www.niss.ac.uk/welcome/whatsnew.html

BUBL News

BUBL has retained a strong library element, but now provides a subject-based service to the academic and research community more generally, this via the BUBL LINK Subject Tree. The latest news from BUBL is available at:

http://bubl.ac.uk/news/

The latest updates to the BUBL LINK / 5:15 Catalogue of Internet Resources are available at:

http://bubl.ac.uk/link/updates/current.html

EEVL News

The latest Additions to EEVL, The Hub for Engineering, Mathematics and Computing, are available at:

http://www.eevl.ac.uk/whatsnew.htm

Search EEVL from your own site.

Engineering, Maths & Computing

To include the above search box on your own web page, follow the instructions at: http://www.eevl.ac.uk/searchbox.htm

Try it out by inserting a search term in the above box, and clicking on Search

SOSIG News

The latest additions to SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway) are available at:

http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/roads/whats-new.html

EDINA Newsline

The latest issue of Edina (Edinburgh Data & INformation Access) Newsline can be found at:

http://edina.ed.ac.uk/newsline/

EDINA has a new look site. See it at: http://www.edina.ac.uk/

CHEST News

CHEST aims to obtain quality commercial software, datasets, training materials and other IT products for the Education and Research Community at low prices and attractive licence terms. The latest news from CHEST is available at:

http://www.chest.ac.uk/news.html

MIMAS News

MIMAS is a JISC-supported national data centre run by Manchester Computing, at the University of Manchester, to provide the following range of services to the academic community:

Flexible on-line access to strategic research and teaching datasets.
Access to key bibliographic information.
Access to specialist support and training.
Access to software packages and large-scale computing resources.

The latest news from MIMAS can be found at:

http://www.mimas.ac.uk/news.html

BIOME News

BIOME is a collection of gateways which provide access to evaluated, quality Internet resources in the health and life sciences, aimed at students, researchers, academics and practitioners. The latest news from BIOME can be found at:

http://biome.ac.uk/whatsnew/

Netskills: News

Netskills aims to help the UK HE community make effective use of the Internet for teaching, research and administration. The latest news from Netskills can be found at:

http://www.netskills.ac.uk/news/

What's new on Eldis

Electronic Development and Environment Information System. A gateway to information sources on development or the environment. What's new on Eldis can be found at:

http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/wnew.htm

What's New on Biz/ed

Biz/ed is a dedicated business and economics information gateway for students, teachers and lecturers.

http://www.bized.ac.uk/homeinfo/whatsnew.htm

AHDS Newsletter

The latest issue of the AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service) Newsletter can be found at:

http://ahds.ac.uk/newsletters.htm

JISCmail News

JSICmail provides electronic discussion lists for the UK higher education community.

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/news.htm

UK Data Archive news

The UK Data Archive at the University of Essex houses the largest collection of accessible computer-readable data in the social sciences and humanities in the United Kingdom. It is a national resource centre, disseminating data throughout the United Kingdom and, by arrangement with other national archives, internationally.

http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/home/archiveNews.asp

CDS provides on-line access to a variety of quality databases in the field of Chemistry, plus support, training and advice. This is available (free of charge) to academics at UK Universities.

http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cds/

Your gateway to quality educational resources. Academic Info is an annotated subject directory tailored toward a college and university audience and is used by students, librarians, and researchers.

http://www.academicinfo.net/new.html

The Resource Discovery Network (RDN) is a cooperative network of independent subject-based service providers called hubs, coordinated by the Resource Discovery Network Centre (RDNC). It is a free Internet service dedicated to providing effective access to high quality Internet resources for the learning, teaching and research community.

http://www.rdn.ac.uk/news/

The latest additions to Humbul, the humanities hub of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN).

http://www.humbul.ac.uk/output/new.php?int=30

BOOK REVIEW

Review of:

Library and Information Professional's Guide to Plug-ins and Other Web Browser Tools: Selection, installation, troubleshooting
by Candice M. Benjes-Small and Melissa L. Just
Facet Publishing (formerly Library Association publishing)
August 2002
170pp £24.95
ISBN 1-85604-464-5

OK, I admit it: when this was handed to me to review, my first feeling was a kind of despair.

Plug-ins! Plug-ins to me are irritating, technical, much-too-difficult to understand things which produce pop up boxes on your browser just when you've found the perfect piece of information, and tell you forget about it, your browser doesn't support this. In an ideal world - I always think at that point - it would be great to be technical enough to understand, or at least not to be terrified of the things. But I'm not technically minded, and so far any information I've read about "plug-ins" has gone over my head. So I expected this book to do nothing but make me feel stupid.

However, as it turns out, this book is exactly what someone like me needs.

It starts off by explaining in simple terms what a plug-in is and what their uses are, also outlining their pros and cons. Then, it breaks them down into categories - Utility, Image, Multimedia, Maths and Science, Accessibility, staff tools for librarians - and goes through the main ones which might be of use in a library and information setting.

It describes, again in non-technical language, what each one does, providing interesting examples of web sites which use them. It gives pros and cons for each tool, as well as going through system requirements, how and where to download them, how to install them and gives some common trouble-shooting tips. It also provides a section at the end of each one, giving possible library uses.

(Just out of interest: if a pop-up box appeared, saying you needed an IPEX plug-in, and you went to the IPEX site to find out about it, this is what it tells you:

iPIX® is "...an end-to-end infrastructure that captures, processes, hosts, and distributes rich media to our customers...enabling efficient, comprehensive capture of mission-critical visual content."

This books tells you:

"iPEX provides a 3D experience on the web.")

So it's not that plug-ins are "difficult" or technical after all, just that some of us need a plain English guide to sift through the vast number, and help us assess which ones would be best for our needs.

This book is an excellent source, which would be invaluable to anyone working with the web, wondering how to get the most out of it. Or anyone mystified and aggravated by plug-ins.

Cath Ferguson

 

RECENT INTERNET BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY

The Mantex Information Design web site has reviews of some of the books mentioned in previous issues of the Internet Resources Newsletter.

Recent Arrivals

025.04 CUR
Attracting, educating, and serving remote users through the web: A how-to-do-it manual for librarians
edited by Donnelyn Curtis
facet, 2002

A complete list of new books added to Heriot-Watt University Library is available from the Library News page.

http://www.hw.ac.uk/library/news.html

GET A LIFE! - LEISURE TIME

2002 Beer Festival Calendar
http://www.beerfestivals.org/

Espace Lollini
http://www.espacelollini.com/

STOP PRESS!

How To Find Out in the Built Environment
http://www.hw.ac.uk/library/howtobuilding.html

This guide has been completely updated, redesigned, renamed and enlarged to include Planning and Housing sources of information. Whilst it is aimed primarily at staff and students of Heriot-Watt University, it may also be of use to anyone looking for printed or electronic information in this area.

This page is: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn97/irn97.html

© 2002 Heriot-Watt University

You may pass this newsletter on to others, as long as it is sent in its entirety.