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Heriot-Watt University Library

Issue 120 - September 2004

Edited by: Roddy MacLeod (R.A.MacLeod@hw.ac.uk), Catherine Ure and Marion Kennedy.

[Contents] - [ IRN Home Page ] - [HWU Library Home Page] 

Ten years of the Internet Resources Newsletter !

The Internet Resources Newsletter is ten years old! Hard to believe, but we've been at this for exactly ten years, the first issue being published in October 1994. During that period many thousands of websites and other resources have been reviewed, and the newsletter readership has grown and grown.

To celebrate, next month we hope to update the look and feel of the Newsletter website.

The editors would like to thank everyone who has contributed to past issues, submitted sites, or sent words of encouragement. Its all very much appreciated. If you are responsible for a website or service which is of interest to academics which has not been mentioned before in the Newsletter, please send us details for possible inclusion in a future issue. Remember, its only quality resources of interest to academics that we are interested in.

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Random Quotes

"Access to these vast amounts of information presents the challenge to professionals of finding what they need and trusting its accuracy. For publishers, the skills of subject-specific knowledge and editorial review to create authoritative information need to be complemented by organising and enhancing the content." Sir Crispin Davis, Reed Elsevier CEO, in FT Creative Business, 3 August .

Internet Resources Newsletter by email and RSS

Over 27,000 people now subscribe to the free email version of this Newsletter. Very many thanks go to Willco who distribute the email version. To subscribe, at no cost, go to http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html

The Internet Resources Newsletter has an RSS feed. This means that you can read its 'headlines' (essentially the Table of Contents) through a feedreader or service such as Bloglines' My Blogs, and then link through to the sections of interest. The RSS feed is available at: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.rss This is a .rss file and therefore it must be processed (or 'parsed') before it can be displayed. The easiest way to do this is via Bloglines' My Blogs, or via a feedreader, such as those listed in the RSS Primer.

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Text version

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

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Extracts from 'Scientific Publications: Free for all'

The following extracts from the recently published House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report Scientific Publications: Free for all
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399.pdf which was mentioned in the last issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter, give a flavour of some interesting findings.

“Libraries are atypical consumers. Rather than purchasing more goods until the benefit they receive is balanced by the cost, they spend up to the limit of their budgets. If prices rise, libraries will purchase fewer journals, if prices fall they will purchase more. Similarly, if research output rises but library budgets remain static, libraries will purchase a smaller proportion of total journal output. The ceiling on budgets means that publishers of “must have” journals can lift their share of spending and the market when they raise prices, as lesser journals are discarded by publishers.” P.10

“The total UK publishing industry has a turnover of at least £18.4 billion…It has more than 8,000 companies employing approximately 164,000 people…there are currently over 2,000 STM publishers worldwide, between them publishing over 1.2 million articles per year via approximately 16,000 journals” p.12

“Many researchers are affiliated to an academic institution and thus have access to all the journals subscribed to by their library. Some benefit from subscriptions purchased by their company. As a consequence, researchers tend to be satisfied with current levels of journal access. Such contentment is not an accurate reflection of the state of the market for scientific publication. The problems with the market are experienced, not by academics, but by librarians, who do the buying and manage the budgets.” P.23

“We recommend that future licensing deals negotiated by the Joint Information Systems Committee explicitly include provision to enable journal articles, whether print or digital, to be used for teaching purposes.” P.25

“Not only has library funding declined as a proportion of overall institutional spend, it has not kept pace with either research output or journal prices.” P.49

“Pressure on library journal acquisitions budgets has resulted in cancelled subscriptions and has contributed to a decline in book purchasing. This compromises the library's ability to provide the full range of services required by its user community.” P.51

“It is disappointing that many academics are content to ignore the significant difficulties faced by libraries. Until they start to see the provision of journals as, in part, their problem, the situation will not improve.” P.55

“It was clear to us that the main focus of academics was on the initial publication of their articles in a recognised journal and that subsequent self-archiving was relatively low on their list of priorities. We found it worrying that academics did not take an interest in what happens to their research after it has been published.” P.59

“We recommend that the Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all their articles in their institution's repository within one month of publication or a reasonable period to be agreed following publication, as a condition of their research grant.” P.59

“The commercial and industrial sectors currently contribute significant funds to the publishing process through payments for journal subscriptions. Much of this money would be lost to the system if an author-pays model were to prevail. This is one of the key issues that needs to be addressed before the wholescale transition to an author-pays model can be supported.” P.83

“It is of concern to us that learned societies could stand to lose a substantial portion of their income in a move to the author-pays publishing model.” P.84

“The perception that the RAE rewards publication in journals with high impact factors is affecting decisions made by authors about where to publish. We urge HEFCE to remind RAE panels that they are obliged to assess the quality of the content of individual articles, not the reputation of the journals in which they are published.” P.96

For the complete report, see: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399.pdf

Here is this month's selection of news items of interest

£3 million national framework for UK research information announced
A new national initiative - the Research Libraries Network (RLN) - is set to transform the way research information is collected, organised, preserved and accessed across the UK.
http://www.bl.uk/cgi-bin/press.cgi?story=1442

European Business Information Conference In March
TFPL Ltd, the international information services company, will hold the 15th European Business Information Conference (EBIC) in Spain on 2-4 March 2005.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=2998
From Managing Information

Open access to the benefit of Scottish research and education
The Scottish Science Information Strategy Working Group, whose representatives comprise Learning Resource Centre managers and librarians from key institutions and libraries within Scotland and who are members of the  Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries  (SCURL), have recently drawn up a draft Open Access Declaration.
From JISC News: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=open_access_scottish_news_180804

£500,000 Grant For Scottish Museums And Libraries
The Big Lottery Fund, the largest of the National Lottery good cause distributors, recently announced a grant of £500,000 made to a consortium led by the Scottish Museums Council.
http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=2973
From Managing Information

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[Contents] - [ IRN Home Page ] - [HWU Library Home Page] 

A-Z NEW & NOTABLE WEB SITES

4International Careers

http://www.4icj.com/job/United-Kingdom.htm

4International Careers & Jobs is a directory of quality job sites and career resources and a free starting point for international job seekers, employers and recruiters.

9th International Conference on CSCW in Design

http://2005.cscwid.org/

May 24-26, 2005, Coventry, UK. Design of complex artifacts and systems requires the cooperation of multidisciplinary design teams. The 9th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD 2005) provides a forum for researchers and practitioners involved in different but related domains to confront research results and discuss key problems.

Artificial Intelligence

http://www.freepint.com/issues/290704.htm#tips

A Tips article by Jonathan Crowhurst, in a recent issue of the Free Pint Newsletter.

ASIDIC Newsletter

http://www.asidic.org/meetings/newsletters/archive.php

An archive of newsletters is available here. The goal of ASIDIC (Association of Information and Dissemination Centers) is “To foster, encourage, and improve the development, production, processing, storage, retrieval, dissemination and use of electronic information.”

BazTech Polish Technical Journal Contents

http://baztech.icm.edu.pl/indexeng.html

New address for this site. The "Technical Journal Contents" BazTech is a freely available bibliographic database containing citations from the Polish technical journals on engineering, technology, sciences and the environment.

Black Information Link

http://www.blink.org.uk/

The 1990 Trust's independent community interactive site for black communities.

blinkx

http://www.blinkx.com/

“blinkx automatically links information from files on your hard disk, and can suggest content from news sites, the internet, video and blogs. It is not designed to replace current search engines like Google or Yahoo, but is a completely new way to use information on the internet.”

Bookhills

http://www.bookhills.com/

Books summary reviews, etc.

Buildings at Risk Register for Scotland.

http://www.buildingsatrisk.org.uk/

The Register is maintained by the Scottish Civic Trust on behalf of Historic Scotland, and provides information on properties of architectural or historic merit throughout the country that are considered to be at risk.

CampusStarter

http://www.campusstarter.com/

An online magazine for careers and education.

CILIP

http://www.cilip.org.uk/default.cilip

CILIP have relaunched their website. CILIP is the leading professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers.

Country based search engines

http://www.philb.com/countryse.htm

Phil Bradley has updated his useful list, which now has 2,086 search engines and 216 countries, territories and regions.

Creative Commons

http://creativecommons.org/

“Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them.”

Digital Object Identifiers for Publishing and the e-Learning Community

http://www.tsoid.com/downloads/JISC%20Report%20V2.pdf

A report by TSO (The Stationery Office).

Distributed Learning Object Repository Network: DLORN

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/dlorn/dlorn.cgi

A one-stop source for learning object syndication. DLORN retrieves learning object metadata from across the web and stores it here.

Draac.com's Character Stripper

http://www.draac.com/stripper.html

Strip away unwanted characters in emails and codes.

DTI Technology Programme

http://www.dti.gov.uk/technologyprogramme/

Underpinned by a long-term funding commitment, initially around £150M over the next 3 years, the Programme is focused on key technologies identified by business via the Technology Strategy Board as critical to UK strength.

e-Learning Centre

http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/

Helps organisations and individuals understand e-learning and provide practical advice on how to build effective e-learning solutions.

E-Newsletters: What's the point? And how do you make it?

http://www.freepint.com/issues/120804.htm#feature

An article in FreePint by Robin Neidorf

EPA Research & Development

http://www.epa.ie/r_d/

Research and development activities past and present undertaken with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency are described in these pages.

ERPANET

http://www.erpanet.org/

The ERPANET site has been relaunched. The European Commission funded ERPANET Project will establish an expandable European Consortium, which will make viable and visible information, best practice and skills development in the area of digital preservation of cultural heritage and scientific objects.

Feed-Directory.com

http://www.feed-directory.com/

Feed-Directory.com is a directory of syndicated feeds.

Flow Meters Manufacturers

http://www.flow-meters.biz/

A site for those interested in flow meters and other related topics.

Geological Survey of Ireland

http://www.gsi.ie/

GSI was founded in 1845, and is the National Earth Science Agency. It is responsible for providing geological advice and information, and for the acquisition of data for this purpose.

Glasgow Science Centre

http://www.glasgowsciencecentre.org/

Glasgow Science Centre is concerned with the resurrection of Scotland's proud spirit of innovation and creativity through the establishment of a scientifically aware and technologically capable society as the foundation for renewed and sustainable social, economic and cultural prosperity.

Glasgow Tower

http://www.glasgowarchitecture.co.uk/glasgow_tower.htm

In the news recently, this is Scotland's tallest free-standing construction.

GRADSOURCE.com

http://www.gradsource.com/

GRADSOURCE.com provides a database of over 1,200 grad schools with detailed information on graduate programs. Featuring grad programs in business, engineering, nursing, health, and teaching.

ICErecruit

http://www.icerecruit.com/

The jobs website of the UK Institution of Civil Engineers. Civil engineering, structural engineering and geotechnical engineering job vacancies online.

IceRocket

http://www.icerocket.com/

Interesting search engine which gives ‘snapshots' of sites listed. Amongst other things, you can submit searches by email and view search history.

ICONdirect.net

http://www.icondirect.net/

ICONdirect.net is a community website for the international construction and development industry. It consists of profiles of companies and individual experts that can be searched by sophisticated matching software so that users can find the right skills, knowledge and experience for international projects. It contains news, events and vacancies related to international infrastructure and development projects, and also includes the online version of the International Directory of Consulting Engineers.

IDzap Site

http://www.idzap.com/

This web site provides technological solutions to protect the privacy of visitors and customers in using the world wide web.

Inspire

http://www.inspire.gov.uk/

The Inspire England initiative aims to provide a seamless cross-sectoral pathway for learning by adults across public, academic and national libraries.

The ultimate aim of Inspire is to create seamless access across over 4000 public, 3 national, almost 700 higher education libraries, as well as special libraries and those in further education colleges and schools, and to build an effective interface to resources for learning with museums, galleries and archives.

Institute of Employment Rights: IER

http://www.ier.org.uk/

The Institute of Employment Rights was established in February 1989. It is an independent organisation acting as a focal point for the spread of new ideas in the field of labour law. In 1994 the Institute became a registered charity.

Institutional Archives Registry

http://archives.eprints.org/index.php?action=browse

A list of GNU EPrints sites.

Irish Concrete Society

http://www.concrete.ie/

The Irish Concrete Society was established in 1973 to cater for the needs of all who have an interest in concrete, in its widest sense. Thus, it is the primary organization in Ireland concerned with the technical aspects of design and construction in concrete.

Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship

http://www.istl.org/04-summer/index.html

The Summer 2004 issue is now available.

ITI Energy

http://www.itienergy.com/

Intermediary Technology Institutes (ITIs) have been created to stimulate greater entrepreneurial dynamism in Scotland. The ITIs have been established in three key areas: Life Sciences, Energy and Communications Technologies & Digital Media (Techmedia).

ITI Life Sciences

http://www.itilifesciences.com/

Intermediary Technology Institutes (ITIs) have been created to provide a platform for greater economic success across the major knowledge-based sectors in Scotland - Life Sciences, Energy and Communications Technologies & Digital Media (Techmedia).

ITI Techmedia

http://www.ititechmedia.com/

Intermediary Technology Institutes (ITIs) have been created to provide a platform for greater economic success across the major knowledge-based sectors in Scotland - Life Sciences, Energy and Communications Technologies & Digital Media (Techmedia).

LeTTOL

http://www.sheffcol.ac.uk/lettol/

LeTTOL stands for Learning To Teach On-Line. It is an award winning course that helps participants gain the skills needed to develop and deliver on-line courses of all kinds.

LMC Press

http://www.leemizell.com/lmcpress

LMC Press distributes high-quality research and technical reports. Visitors are able to download free resource materials on topics such as program evaluation, and linking research and practice. LMC Press also offers complimentary copies of in-depth studies on arts education, music preferences, and more.

Material Health

http://www.materialhealth.com/

Material Health: A resource flow and ecological footprint of the NHS. This innovative project consists of a baseline environmental impact study of the NHS using resource flow and ecological footprint analysis methodologies.

MLA Future Library

http://futurelibrary.mla.gov.uk/

The Government's report, Framework for the Future, sets out a strategy and vision for public libraries – from the services they offer to the presence they create.

MLA is now working to turn Framework for the Future's vision into reality, and this means changing how our libraries are seen.

This online space has been created so library staff can find out what is happening in the project and make sure that their voices are heard.

National Archives

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

Relaunched website. Explore over 1,000 years of history from Domesday to the present day.

Networkshop 33

http://www.ja.net/conferences/networkshop/Networkshop33/call-for-papers.html

March 22 – 25, 2005. Organised by UKERNA and The University of Manchester

Call for Papers and Suggestions for Discussion Sessions. Networkshop is the annual technical conference organised by UKERNA in association with another Higher Education Institution. Aimed at network managers and technical staff from the JANET community, the conference provides a forum for technical updates and discussions on current and developing networking technologies, bringing together expertise from all fields of networking.

OJOSE: Online JOurnal Search Engine

http://www.ojose.com/

“OJOSE (Online JOurnal Search Engine) is a powerful free scientific search engine enabling you to make search-queries in different databases by using only 1 search field. With OJOSE you can find, download or buy scientific publications (journals, articles, research reports, books, etc.) in up to 40 different databases.”

Open 4 All

http://www.open4all.org

The Disability Rights Commission's Open 4 All campaign micro-site.

PC Soft Land

http://www.pcsoftland.com/

Bills itself as “The Largest Software Archive on the Internet.”

PeoplesArchive

http://www.peoplesarchive.com/

PeoplesArchive is dedicated to collecting for posterity the stories of the great thinkers and creators of our time. Biologists or filmmakers, physicists or craftsmen, the people whose stories you see on this site are leaders of their field, whose work has influenced and changed our world.

Personalisation in presentation services

http://www.therightplace.plus.com/jp/

A report commissioned by JISC. The report focuses on the academic community in the UK.

Platinum Metals Review

http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/

As from the July 2004 issue, Platinum Metals Review will become an E-journal with the editorial team offering a free quarterly E-journal on the dedicated website.

Precisionnews.com

http://uk.precisionnews.com/

The Precisionnews.com website is dedicated to the publication of market news and editorials concerning high precision technology products targeting the research and industrial markets.

SIME 2005

http://www.eurosime.com/docs/cfp05.pdf

This conference deals with thermal & mechanical simulation and experiments in micro-electronics and micro-systems and takes place from April 17-20, 2005, in Berlin (Germany).

Singingfish

http://www.singingfish.com/

Singingfish develops, markets, and licenses audio/video search services to Web portals, search and directory sites, broadband service providers, content aggregators, news organizations, entertainment networks, and other online destination sites.

Southern African Book Development Education Trust: SABDET

http://homepages.poptel.org.uk/sabdet/

“We are a UK-based charitable education trust, working in support of indigenous publishing in Africa.”

Sport England

http://www.sportengland.org/

Sport England is an organisation committed to creating opportunities for people to start in sport, stay in sport and succeed in sport. We provide the strategic lead for sport in England and we are responsible for delivering the Government's sporting objectives.

STARnet, the NATO Science, Technology and Research Network

http://starnet.rta.nato.int/

In order to cope with the vast diversity and tremendous amount of information available within the NATO community and the NATO nations, the RTA Information Management Committee (IMC) is developing a science, technology and research network (STARnet). This network brings together common information elements in terms of science, technology and overall research, by providing a virtual library with special emphasis on topics of collective international security within the NATO area of interest.

Szabo Publishing

http://www.weldbook.com/

“Szabo Publishing is a research business that is currently developing technical publications for the welding industry from our technical library and other current sources. Our plans are to market these publications primarily through the internet.”

Text Email Newsletter (TEN) Standard

http://www.headstar.com/ten/

Designed to ease navigation of plain text email newsletters by all readers, including people with visual impairments using special access technologies.

The Book Cooperative

http://www.book-cooperative.co.uk

This site aims to bring together people looking for books and journals with those looking to dispose of them.

The Book Cooperative is primarily used by University, Public and Commercial libraries who wish to dispose of their unwanted items. Listing is free of charge, anyone wishing to obtain a book or journal listed will pay a small nominal fee to obtain the contact details - and they take it from there.

The Guardian Jobs

http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/

Recently relaunched job service.

The Vital Link

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/vitallink/

“The Vital Link is an exciting library-led programme which promotes reading for pleasure as a way of motivating and sustaining adult basic skills students and reaching new learners. Run by The Reading Agency in partnership with the National Literacy Trust and the National Reading Campaign, it forms part of the Government's Framework for the Future strategy for public libraries which is being implemented by the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA).”

The-Science-Lab.com

http://www.the-science-lab.com/

“We are trying to make The-Science-Lab.com a comprehensive directory of science related websites.”

TinyURL.com

http://tinyurl.com/

Making long URLs useable. This is a popular site which allows you to enter a very long URL and generate a short ‘tiny' one, which will still work.

TISA4: Better lives, better communities

http://www.britishcouncil.ro/tisa/

Bucharest, 14-15 October 2004. “Towards an Information Society for All" TISA4: Better lives, better communities builds on the three successful British Council conferences held in 2001 in Bologna, in 2002 in Berlin and in 2003 in Paris where practitioners and policy makers from around Europe met to consider the present state of development of the emerging Information Society across Europe.

UK Web Archiving Consortium

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/

A consortium of six leading UK institutions is working collaboratively on a project to develop a test-bed for selective archiving of UK websites.

Understanding Metadata

http://www.niso.org/standards/resources/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf

A National Information Standards Organization (NISO) publication.

Urchin RSS Aggregator

http://urchin.sourceforge.net/

Urchin is a Web based, customisable, RSS aggregator and filter. It's primary purpose is to allow the generation of new RSS feeds by running queries against the collection of items in the Urchin database. However, other arbitrary output formats can be defined and generated using XSL transformations or HTML::Template templates.

URLinfo

http://www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo/

URLinfo is a tool for handling web pages: finding information about it, translating it, finding related pages, etc. This is a very interesting resource.

We have the technology

http://www.wehavethetechnology.co.uk

From scenta, the online gateway to the best in Science, Engineering and Technology.

Web ranking tool

http://www.microsoft-watch.org/cgi-bin/ranking.htm

A website ranking tool, from ‘Microsoft Watch'

WIDWISAWN

http://widwisawn.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/issues/vol2/issue2_3_1.html

Issue Vol 2 No 3 of WIDWISAWN is available. WIDWISAWN provides an open forum for discussions on research and development initiatives relevant to the development of a coherent electronic information environment to support 'Virtual Scotland'.

Wireless University Forum: TWUF

http://www.twuf.com/

The Wireless University Forum (TWUF) is an online community created for companies, lecturers and students at universities interested in wireless and software development.

WoList.com

http://www.wolist.com/

Search engine and directory.

Writing for the Profession

http://www.freepint.com/issues/260804.htm#feature

An article in FreePint by Rachel Singer Gordon.

Writings about e-book publishing, 2004

http://www.i-a-l.co.uk/resource_ebook2004.html

Information Automation Limited's 2004 bibliography of writings about e-books has been updated with several new references.

ZapMeta

http://www.zapmeta.com/

ZapMeta is a meta-search engine, a search tool that provide users the ability of simultaneously search multiple search engines under one interface. Meta-search engines benefit users by saving them time and effort from having to individually visit multiple search engines in order to find the desired result. Along with web search, ZapMeta currently offer a directory based on data from The Open Directory Project and Product Search powered by Pricegrabber.

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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.

No Nice Web Site this month, but instead, three sites which caught the eye:

IceRocket
http://www.icerocket.com/
An interesting search engine.

OJOSE: Online JOurnal Search Engine
http://www.ojose.com/
It makes a bit of a meal of it, but this site allows you to search some interesting databases from the one interface.

URLinfo
http://www.faganfinder.com/urlinfo/
Play with this site and see if it produces results of interest.

RM

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PRESS RELEASES

**** UK Ratifies Commitment to Global Internet Standards ****

The UK is at the forefront of the development of common global standards for the Internet and has played a pivotal role in the development and adoption of the Dublin Core – the most widely used international standard for metadata description. Now, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the further and higher education funding bodies have signed a joint agreement with the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) enabling the UK to become formally involved in the standard’s continued development. MLA and JISC are the UK’s official representatives, presenting the views of all UK public sector institutions at an international level.

At the heart of any search on the Internet is metadata – the words that describe the content of web pages. Unless the rules for implementing and formatting metadata are common to all users, information will be untraceable and therefore lost. Named after the location of its initial development – Dublin, Ohio – the Core has been adopted by seven national governments – including the UK, has participants in 25 countries and has been translated in 25 languages.

Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary to JISC, said, “Common and open standards are central to a networked environment. JISC has been committed both to these standards and to close partnership with MLA and others in this area for many years, and JISC is delighted to formalise this relationship and this commitment in this way.”

For further information please contact:
Fiona Cameron at MLA on +44 (0)20 7273 1459, email fiona.cameron@mla.gov.uk;
Philip Pothen at JISC on +44 (0)20 7848 2935 or 07887 564 006; email p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk.

**** Historic Chemistry Resource Made Available to All Universities ****

JISC and the Royal Society of Chemistry announced an agreement which will allow all universities in the UK to access for a peppercorn fee of £50 the entire digital backfile of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

This historic resource covering the years 1841 to 1996 contains over 200,000 articles, all fully searchable, in some 1,200,000 pages and covers many of the most significant discoveries in the history of Chemistry.

Dr Pat Crocker, Head of Services at JISC, whose Collections team negotiated the agreement, said: "This is an important agreement for the higher education community. It means that universities can get free access to a unique resource, and one that contains many of the key developments in its field over the last 150 years. JISC is delighted to have worked with the Royal Society of Chemistry to make this possible."

For further information:

Liam Earney (JISC) on 020 7848 1716 or mailto:l.earney@jisc.ac.uk

Brian Emsley (RSC) on 020 7440 3317 or 07939 918557
http:// www.rsc.org/archive
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_rscarchive.html

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NETWORK NEWS

Athens News

Athens is an Access Management System for controlling access to web-based subscription services. The latest Athens news is available at:

http://www.athensams.net/news/

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 news from EEVL, plus the latest additions to EEVL, The Hub for Engineering, Mathematics and Computing, is available at:

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

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/

Eduserv Chest News

Eduserv Chest negotiates for all forms of commercially available electronic resource (abstracts, full text, journals, software, courseware, etc) for the education and research communities in the UK and Republic of Ireland, and it manages the resultant agreements. The latest news from Eduserv Chest is available at:

http://www.eduserv.org.uk/chest/news/

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/index.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

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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

004.62 SOL
Mobile IPv6 : mobility in a wireless internet
by Hesham Soliman.  
Addison-Wesley, 2004

005.82 RHE
Internet security : cryptographic principles, algorithms and protocols
Man Young Rhee.
Wiley, 2003

006.7 PER
RTP: audio and video for the internet
by Colin Perkins
Addison-Wesley, 2003

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

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BLOGORAMA

News about weblogs, RSS, etc:

A weblog (Blog for short) is an online diary of sorts that usually features daily or regular postings providing commentary, plus links to other sites.

For more information on blogs, the article: Search Engines: Weblog search engines http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue36/search-engines/ is a good place to start.

Webopedia gives a definition of RSS http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RSS.html

Blogs and blogging: advantages and disadvantages
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_08_23_blogging.htm
An article by Gerry McGovern

Bots, Blogs and News Aggregators a White Paper by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.
http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/BotsBlogs.pdf

Urchin RSS Aggregator
http://urchin.sourceforge.net/
Urchin is a Web based, customisable, RSS aggregator and filter. It's primary purpose is to allow the generation of new RSS feeds by running queries against the collection of items in the Urchin database. However, other arbitrary output formats can be defined and generated using XSL transformations or HTML::Template templates.

Feed-Directory.com
http://www.feed-directory.com/

Selected interesting blog's and RSS feeds

Guardian Online Games Blog
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/

C&I Updates
http://cical.blogspot.com/
Cites and Insights, by Walt Crawford

SQA Computing Blog
http://sqacomputing.blogspot.com/
The web log of Computing staff within the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

What's New at the e-Learning Centre
http://elearningcentre.typepad.com/whatsnew/

Altis News Round-up: a selection of topical news items related to hospitality, sport, leisure and tourism.
http://altis.ac.uk/rss/altis_news_roundup.xml

The Career Engineer Live Job Feed
http://www.thecareerengineer.com/n/rss/rss_latest_live.php?

EContent RSS Feeds
http://www.econtentmag.com/rss/rss_feeds.aspx

Nature
http://www.nature.com/rss
This page lists new RSS feeds for Nature, Nature Research Journals, Nature Reviews Journals, NPG Journals, Nature Jobs, etc. There are now RSS feeds covering all
Nature-branded journals in the life sciences.

[Contents] - [ IRN Home Page ] - [HWU Library Home Page] 

BOOK REVIEW

Stop Press! Thanks to an arrangement between Pearson Education and EEVL, you can buy this month's reviewed book for only £24.69 (normal price £37.99) including postage (within UK and Europe), from: http://www.pearson-books.com/eevl
That's less than at Amazon! This offer is available for a limited period only.

Firewalls and Internet Security - Repelling the Wily Hacker
2nd ed, by William R Cheswick, Steven Bellovin and Aviel Rubin Addison
Wesley, 2003
ISBN 0-201-63466-X

This book describes how computer and Internet technologies are used and the ways in which they are vulnerable to malicious hackers. The main focus is UNIX systems, but it also aims to demonstrate an overall strategy for security which can be applied to any system. It explains the various network protocols and lists their vulnerabilities. There is a summary list of major danger points, a list of acronyms and an extensive and well cross-referenced index.

The authors point out that perfect security is impossible. The best that can be achieved is to increase the difficulty of overcoming security measures to the point where it becomes too costly or time consuming for intruders to get past them. There is always a trade off between the importance of what is being protected, the cost of security measures and the convenience of the people who have to use the system. Human factors are important considerations. If security measures get in the way of people doing their jobs or are simply are too complicated then users will try to avoid them, making the overall system much less secure.

The highest security may not be the most appropriate in all cases. There is the potential for a loss of access to data if a system is too secure and passwords are forgotten, or critical people are unavailable. A balance of security and usability has to be achieved in working systems.

Key pieces of advice are that considering security as part of the initial design is better than adding it on later, and that many layers of defence should be used. Also, it is important to consider the whole system and all possible access routes to it, whether these are digital or physical, as a system is only as secure as its weakest point.

This book is aimed at network administrators and people with a moderately high level of knowledge of the fundamentals of computer systems. It includes detailed technical descriptions of problems and solutions. I would not recommend it as general background reading for average computer users or for students and lecturers in other disciplines such as Law who might have an interest in the subject of computer security
in general.

There is a webpage associated with the book at http://www.wilyhacker.com

Nicola Harrison
Cataloguing Officer, EEVL

You can buy the above book from http://www.pearson-books.com/eevl for £24.69 Also available are many other new and recent titles at large discounts.

The advanced internet searcher's handbook
3 rd edition, by Phil Bradley
Facet Publishing, 2004
ISBN 1-85604-523-4
£34.95

Phil Bradley is a well-known information professional and independent consultant who runs training courses, gives presentations and writes articles and books. His Questions and Answers column features in each issue of Library + Information Update, and his weblog http://www.philb.com/blog/blogger.html is an excellent source which I check regularly for the latest news and low-down on search engines. More information is available at his website http://www.philb.com

This is the third edition of The advanced internet searcher's handbook. I reviewed the 2nd edition in the Internet Resources Newsletter, and said at the time “Every information professional with even the slightest involvement in the internet should make sure they have access to a copy of this book”. This remains true – even more so as options for finding material on the net increase in number. Those who are not information professionals can also benefit tremendously from Bradley's book, which clearly and precisely guides readers to the best search tools, search engines, ‘hidden web' directories, newsgroups, virtual libraries and gateways, people finders and weblogs.

The advanced internet searcher's handbook is written in plain English. ‘Did you know' and ‘Hints & tips' text boxes highlight interesting facts, and each chapter has a summary and a list of URLs mentioned. As well as describing the main tools for finding various categories of information, how they work and, where applicable, their limitations, Bradley often explains why these tools actually exist and their sources of funding. This can very much assist the reader in evaluating the most appropriate search tool for any particular purpose. Perhaps the most interesting chapter in the book is entitled ‘The information mix and into the future'. Here, Bradley gives some real-life examples of finding information, and also uses his crystal ball to look at future possible developments. It has a short section on ‘academic publishing' in which he alludes to institutional archives and open source publishing. I imagine that this section will need to be much expanded in the next edition.

I was pleased to see that Bradley cites both the Internet Resources Newsletter and Pinakes: the subject launchpad http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/pinakes/ as useful sources, and many other favourites, such as Gary Price's ResourceShelf http://www.resourceshelf.com and the Librarians' Index to the Internet http://lii.org/ are included. A few more which have not previously been mentioned are included in this month's newsletter.

RM

Effective information retrieval from the Internet: an advanced user's guide
By Alison Stacey and Adrian Stacey
Chandos Publishing, 2004
ISBN 1 84334-077-1

This is the second book about information retrieval on the Internet to be reviewed in this month's Internet Resources Newsletter. Effective information retrieval from the Internet is, however, quite different to The advanced internet searcher's handbook. Whereas Bradley's work gives practical advice, and notes many hundreds of potentially useful websites, Alison and Adrian Stacey's book deals more with strategies for searching the Internet efficiently. As they state themselves, “…we develop a framework for navigating the Internet which incorporates ways of thinking about how to ‘get at' the required information”. In addition, they look at ways to assess the information found for bias and accuracy. They also have two other themes, involving advice on automating Internet searching, and techniques for teaching Internet skills to novice users. The Staceys' book therefore compliments Bradley's, rather than competes with it.

Why are these texts on information retrieval on the Internet necessary? Mainly, it is because the growth in the amount of information available nowadays makes good retrieval technique vital. Alison and Adrian Stacey also maintain that it is important that retrieval skills should be applicable to a wide range of technologies. Therefore, some theory is just as important as current practices for dealing with existing search tools (which may well become dated very quickly as those tools disappear and new ones appear).

I found Effective information retrieval from the Internet a stimulating read. It helpfully analyses four types of information request: General topic (for which the top search engines are often useless tools, apart from their ability to locate more appropriate tools); General topic (for which precise phrasing of queries can be important; Derived information (where answers may not typically be contained in a single website); and Resource search (for non-textual resources). It looks at the best strategies for answering such queries, and in several chapters these strategies are analysed in some depth. It also shows when, and how, to use search engines and directories, giving excellent examples to illustrate various points.

Effective information retrieval from the Internet does not just cover the more obvious topics. There is also a section on automating information retrieval, using scripting languages such as Perl or Python, and another one on developing a simple spider. In addition, the chapter on assessing websites for accuracy and bias contains some new, but relevant, ideas. The only areas I would like to see more emphasis on are use of gateways, such as those listed in Pinakes; A Subject Launchpad http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html and use of subscription-based databases such as ScienceDirect, Web of Knowledge and those produced by CSA.

There is much else of interest in this book and I hope that busy information professionals in all sectors will find time to read it. It will also be of interest to those studying information science, though, because it is aimed at ‘advanced users', those students with previous practical experience will benefit from it most.

RM

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GET A LIFE! - LEISURE TIME

DansCartoons
http://www.danscartoons.com/
Cartoons by Dan Rosandich are available for a negotiable fee, to license for any usage.

Flavour of Scotland
http://www.scotland-flavour.co.uk/

Wav files and sound files
http://www.wavcentral.com/

MusicScotland
http://www.musicscotland.com/
Scottish and Celtic music

For a drop of the hard stuff, see:

http://www.whiskylive.com/

http://www.whisky.fr/

http://www.celticmalts.com/

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This page is: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn120/irn120.html

© 2004 Heriot-Watt University

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