I’m half-way through reading a very entertaining book: “Diplomatic baggage: adventures of a trailing spouse” by Brigid Keenan (John Murray, 2005, ISBN 0719567254), which relates the experiences of the author, as the wife of a diplomat, in various countries. Keenan spent time in Ethiopia, the West Indies, India, and various other countries. Some of her stories brought back fond memories of my own, from time working in Botswana and Malawi, and the people I worked with in library services in those countries.

It’s very interesting that Scotland, through the efforts of its First Minister Jack McConnell, is renewing links with Malawi. Scotland, of course, has close historical ties with Malawi. McConnell recently visited the country, and has pledged aid for the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’. Details of his visit are at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/News-Extras/MalawiSpeech and details of the Scottish Malawi Appeal Fund are at http://www.scottishcommunityfoundation.com/malawi/

There is great interest in African issues arising out of the G8 Gleneagles Summit http://www.g8.gov.uk/ See for example http://www.g8.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1094235520151 There’s also the Live 8 concerts, of course http://www.live8live.com/ and Make Poverty History http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/

There’s the Malawi Millenium Project http://www.strath.ac.uk/projects/malawi/

Other links relating to African initiatives that I noticed in the June Issue of Africawomen are:
Mercy Ships http://www.mercyships.org/
Mary Slessor Foundation http://www.maryslessor.org/
Wonder Welders http://www.wonderwelders.org/
World Swim for Malaria http://www.worldswimformalaria.com/
ACTSA Scotland http://www.actsascotland.org.uk/
Books Abroad http://www.booksabroad.net/
ComputersForAfrica http://www.computersforafrica.com/
Equal Exchange Trading http://www.equalexchange.co.uk/
Link Community Development http://www.lcd.org.uk/
Interact Worldwide http://www.interactworldwide.org/
Community Can Cycle http://www.communitycancycle.org.uk/ is to open a new branch in Ghana.

I also recommend http://www.bookaid.org/ which is a very useful charity.

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Internet Resources Newsletter by email and RSS

Over 30,000 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 (essentially the Table of Contents for each issue): http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.rss

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

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

A-Z NEW & NOTABLE WEB SITES

2005 actKM Conference: Managing Knowledge for Better Performance

http://www.actkm.com/actkm_2005_conference.html

The actKM Forum will hold its sixth annual conference on Wednesday 26 & Thursday 27 October at Rydges Lakeside, Canberra, Australia.

ACORN programme

SDSS Development Federation

The ACORN programme, worth ~£4.2M over 3 years, is an industry-led series of projects aimed at producing nano-sized particles.

Acronyma

http://www.acronyma.com/

An acronym and abbreviation database.

Algo SEO

http://www.algo.gs/

Search Engine Optimisation service.

Applied Mathematics and Science Education Repository: AMSER

http://amser.org/

A collaborative NSDL Pathways project designed to help meet the resource and service needs of community and technical colleges and forge a link between these communities and the NSDL. AMSER will consist of a focused metadata repository and a variety of integrated services designed specifically to enhance the learning experience of the community college students and the teaching capabilities of instructors at those institutions.

http://www.arrow.edu.au/

The ARROW project objectives are to:
identify and test software to support best-practice institutional digital repositories at the ARROW Consortium member sites to manage e-prints, digital theses and electronic publishing, and to:
develop and test a national resource discovery service using metadata harvested from the institutional repositories by the National Library of Australia.

ATP Instrumentation Ltd

http://www.atp-instrumentation.co.uk/

ATP Instrumentation Ltd is a specialist supplier of all forms of test and measurement equipment and instrumentation.

British Battery Manufacturers Association

http://www.bbma.co.uk/

The British Battery Manufacturers Association was formed in 1986 and represents the manufacturers of portable batteries, both primary (non-rechargeable) and secondary (rechargeable).

Ceramics Today

http://www.ceramicstoday.com/

Ceramics Today is a comprehensive independent ceramics site.

Claroline

http://www.claroline.net/

Claroline is an Open Source software based on PHP/MySQL. It's a collaborative learning environment allowing teachers or education institutions to create and administer courses through the web.

Collections Australia Network: CAN

http://www.collectionsaustralia.net/

“The Collections Australia Network (CAN) portal is intended to be the public gateway to collecting institutions across Australia including the small to medium regional institutions.

Besides providing access to nationwide information on Australia's cultural heritage, members of the public can also access an individual institution's own CAN website to explore their specific content.”

ConnectViaBooks

http://www.connectviabooks.com/

This is a website that connects readers who like the same (or similar) books.

Basically you build a list of books you like and the system can connect you with other people with similar taste in books.

Construction Industry Environmental Forum: CIEF

http://www.ciria.org.uk/cief_intro.htm

Established in 1991, the CIEF’s mission is to help companies involved in construction improve their environmental and sustainability performance.

Cream of Science

http://www.creamofscience.org/en/page/language.view/keur.page

Cream of Science is the showcase of Dutch prominent research. More than 200 top scientists in the Netherlands with 25.000 publications are accessible for everyone. About 60% is full content available.

De–unifying a digital library

http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_5/sale/index.html

An article in First Monday, by Arthur Sale.

Differential Equations and Nonlinear Mechanics

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/denm/

Differential Equations and Nonlinear Mechanics is an open access journal.

The journal will publish original research papers that are devoted to modeling, analysis and computational techniques. In addition to original full length papers, the journal will also publish authoritative and informative review articles devoted to various aspects of ordinary and partial differential equations and their applications to sciences, engineering and medicine.

DomainsBot

http://www.domainsbot.com/

“DomainsBot was built to solve a couple of the most annoying problems facing anyone who wants to start a website on the Internet – finding decent domain names; figuring out who to register them with; and keeping track of them once you do.”

dvanced Distributed Learning: ADL

http://www.adlnet.org/

Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) is a collaborative effort to harness the power of information technologies to modernize structured learning. ADL, therefore, employs a structured, adaptive, collaborative effort between the public and private sectors to develop the standards, tools and learning content for the learning environment of the future.

e.learning age

http://www.elearningage.co.uk/

Monthly publication for the learning organization.

Earthsciencejobs

http://www.earthsciencejobs.co.uk/

UK and worldwide earth science job vacancies and CV's online listed by graduates, professionals, companies and organizations.

Electronic Journal Miner

http://ejournal.coalliance.org/

The Electronic Journal Access Project is part of a development effort by the nonprofit Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (The Alliance).

The e-journal project and web site are the result of work begun in the fall of 1995 and partially funded by an LSCA grant. This home page provides a title and subject organization of electronic serial publications (e.g. journals, newsletters, magazines, e'zines, webzines) on the Internet.

Engineering -- An Endless Frontier

http://www.creatingtechnology.org/

This website supplements the book “Engineering -- An Endless Frontier”, by Sunny Auyang, published by Harvard University Press. Besides a long list of references, it contains information about the characteristics of engineering and its relations to science and business.

Engineering Case Studies

http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/ECL/

This is a collection of information on engineering cases. These are accounts of real engineering projects that are written for use in engineering education. The accounts are not highly technical, and are quite readable by those with the appropriate interest.

European Marine Sand and Gravel Group: EMSAGG

http://www.ciria.org/emsagg/

A forum for those involved with marine sand and gravel.

European Women in Mathematics Newsletter

http://www.math.helsinki.fi/ewm/news/News05.doc

Issue 12 is available.

Focus on MIMAS

http://www.mimas.ac.uk/focus/05jun/index.htm

The June issue is now available.

Funnel

http://www.funnel.co.za/funnel.php

South African search engine.

GC 2005expo

http://www.gcexpo.com/

GC 2005expo is the UK’s leading technology event for the public sector. Attended by thousands of the leading ICT professionals in the UK, it’s a meeting place, learning zone, and educational arena with endless opportunities, and it’s free to attend.

GeoLib

http://www.geolib.org/

Aims to maintain a website that displays easy-to-use geographic information of relevance, for library planning for a wide audience of (e.g., library researchers, librarians, and policymakers.)

To encourage awareness of the value of geographic information in library decision making.

Gmane

http://gmane.org/

“Mailing lists are funneled into news groups. This isn't a new idea; several mail-to-news gateways exist. What's new with Gmane is that no messages are ever expired from the server, and the gateway is bidirectional.”

Google Print

http://print.google.com/

Search the full text of books (and discover new ones).

Heatsoft Corporation

http://www.clonecleaner.com/

Heatsoft Corporation develops and publishes software solutions for Windows.

Homeland Security Institute.

http://www.homelandsecurity.org/

Mission - To assist the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Science and Technology Directorate and the DHS Operating Elements, in addressing important homeland security issues, particularly those requiring scientific, technical, and analytical expertise.

Archives of the Institute’s Newsletter are available.

Human-Search-Engine

http://www.human-search-engine.com/

“We have created the Human Search Engine as one more gateway to the results that you seek for your searches”

Hunter Dunning Recruitment

http://www.hunterdunning.co.uk/

Job Search for Architects, Technicians, Assistants etc.

ICRISAT

http://www.agri-sciencepark-at-icrisat.org/ICRISAT.htm

ICRISAT is a global center of scientific excellence in biotechnology and related sciences working in 48 developing countries. We pursue Science with a Human Face to focus on pearl millet, sorghum, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut- crops that support the livelihoods of more than 800 million people, chiefly the world's poorest farmers. Our resources include a world-class scientific pool and physical facilities located in a 1,400 hectare research farm near Hyderabad. Our Genebank, one of the world's largest, has over 113,000 accessions.

IMechE TRIZ Network

http://www.imeche.org.uk/manufacturing/triz.asp

TRIZ is the Russian acronym for Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. TRIZ originated in Russia more than 50 years ago and is a well-established system of tools for problem solving, failure analysis and prevention, and idea generation.

Immediacy

http://www.immediacy.co.uk/

UK based Immediacy develops .NET content management systems and solutions that enable non-technical users to create and manage content, carry out administrative tasks and add functionality to websites, intranets and extranets.

Instrumentation News

http://www.instrumentationews.com/

Sensors, measurements, data acquisition, automatic cotrol and related news.

Internet Librarian International 2005

http://www.internet-librarian.com/programme.shtml

The full conference programme for Internet Librarian International 2005 is now available. Internet Librarian International 2005 takes place on 10 - 11 October at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London.

Kayak

http://www.kayak.com/

A travel search engine to combine real-time searches of dozens of travel websites with user-provided hotel ratings and reviews.

Lovereading

http://www.lovereading.com/

Book recommendation site.

Marketing Treasures: June Issue

http://www.chrisolson.com/marketingtreasures/vol14/Vol14N6JUNE05.html

The June issue of Marketing Treasures, the free library marketing newsletter, has been published.

Mathematical Problems in Engineering

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/mpe/

Mathematical Problems in Engineering is an open access journal.

The journal Mathematical Problems in Engineering is a broad-based journal which publishes articles of interest in all engineering disciplines.

The primary aim of this journal is rapid publication and dissemination of important mathematical work which has relevance to engineering.

Metrica

http://www.metrica.net/

Metrica is an international media analysis, media evaluation, PR planning, and market research consultancy.

MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base

http://www.tkb.org/

The Terrorism Knowledge Base is sponsored by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing terrorism or mitigating its effects.

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/TePapa/

Te Papa's key tasks are to preserve and present the taonga (treasures) of New Zealand's peoples and to interpret the country's heritage for national and international audiences.

National Aids Control Council of Kenya: NACC

http://www.nacc.or.ke/

The corporate objective mission of National Aids Control Council of Kenya (NACC) is to reduce the spread of HIV, improve the quality of those infected and affected and mitigate the socio-economic impact of the epidemic.

National Foundation for Educational Research

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/index.cfm

Redesigned website. The National Foundation for Educational Research is the largest independent educational research institution in Europe.

Network for Construction Collaboration Technology Providers: NCCTP

http://www.ncctp.net/

The network will help to promote the effective use of online technology to support collaborative working on projects and capital developments in UK construction.

Neu Media Technologies

http://www.neumediatech.com/

Neu Media Technologies, a software company that specializes in small business applications, offers a Free Software Initiative. From the site you can download the MIMv2.3 Ecommerce software as well as other software completely free of charge and/or obligation. The MIMv2.3 allows entrepreneurs to build their own professional websites without having to know anything about programming, website design or marketing on the web. It also includes a shopping cart, product/customer management system; content management system, promotions/discount management system and many more features.

Open access self-archiving: An author study

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=jcie_scg

Available from this page is a report produced for the Scholarly Communications Group.

Plastics & Rubber Weekly

http://www.prw.com/main/index.asp

PRW.com is a publication by EMAP for the global plastics industry.

PubChem

http://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

PubChem provides information on the biological activities of small molecules. It is a component of NIH's Molecular Libraries Roadmap Initiative.

Questions and answers about opening up access to research results

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/issue_qaopen.html

“Our four organisations believe that, as a matter of principle, the outputs of publicly funded research should be made available as widely and rapidly as possible. Hence we are taking steps to encourage free on-line access to research results.”

Rebat

http://www.rebat.com/

Rebat stands for REcycling BAtteries. REBAT is an initiative managed by the British Battery Manufacturers Association to encourage collection of nickel cadmium batteries in the UK, as required under European legislation.

Reproductive Health Gateway

http://www.rhgateway.org/

“Reproductive Health (RH) Gateway gives you quick access to relevant, accurate information about reproductive health on the World Wide Web.

RH Gateway lets you search a group of websites carefully selected for accuracy, authority, & relevance - much quicker, easier, & more trustworthy than either a Web-wide search, which can yield many irrelevant or unreliable sites, or a time-consuming site-by-site search.”

Researching Medical Literature on the Internet - 2005 Update

http://www.llrx.com/features/medical2005.htm

By Gloria Miccioli, in LLRX.com

Rigzone Field Development Projects

http://www.rigzone.com/data/projects/default.asp

A database of worldwide offshore field development projects. There is no charge to access this data. With dozens of projects spanning the globe and covering every type of offshore production concept, this database offers a wealth of knowledge and insight into how the industry is producing today's offshore fields.

RinR: Researchers in Residence

http://extra.shu.ac.uk/rinr/site

Researchers in Residence is a placement programme funded by RCUK and the Wellcome Trust. Managed by the Centre for Science education, Sheffield Hallam University it encourages science, technology, engineering and maths researchers (PhD and post doctoral) to spend some time in a secondary school anywhere in the UK.

RyderHKS

http://www.ryderhks.com/

RyderHKS is a UK based architectural practice serving core markets in Europe and key projects worldwide.

Science Budget Allocations 2005-06 to 2007-08

http://www.ost.gov.uk/research/funding/budget05-08/allocations.pdf

From the dti.

ScienceResearch.com

http://scienceresearch.com/search/index.php

“Deep Web Technologies is proud to present ScienceResearch.com™ - a free, publicly available web portal allowing access to numerous scientific journals and public science databases. It allows students, teachers, professors, researchers, and the general public to access pertinent science information quickly and easily.”

SDARTS

http://sdarts.cs.columbia.edu/

A Protocol and Toolkit for Metasearching

SDSS Development Federation

http://www.sdss.ac.uk/

The SDSS project at EDINA is building a development Shibboleth federation for managing access to UK academic online resources.

Search 4 RSS

http://www.search4rss.com/rssextras.php

RSS search engine.

SearchScanner

http://www.searchscanner.com/

SearchScanner allows you to scan through the results delivered by different search engines in one single window.

Setting Up as an Independent Consultant

http://www.freepint.com/issues/160605.htm#feature

An article in FreePint, by Jela Webb.

Skills for Access

http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/

“This web site provides you with a comprehensive resource on issues relating to multimedia, e-learning and accessibility. Whether you're new to e-learning, want to know more about specific accessibility issues, or are an expert multimedia developer, we believe you'll find information relevant to your needs.”

SLA Europe's Summer Soiree

http://www.sla-europe.org/Events/Summer-Soiree-2005.htm

The City Club, Broad Street, EC2N 1DS, Tuesday 12th July 2005.

SLA Europe's Summer Soiree is an annual event where SLA members can catch up with colleagues and meet new SLA members and other invited guests informally in the pleasant surroundings of the The City Club, Broad St. Drinks and refreshments will be available throughout the evening.

Social Capital in African Studies

http://www.socialcapitalgateway.org/NV-eng-africa.htm

This section collects papers, already listed in other parts of the reading list, having in common a focus on topics related to social capital and development in Africa.

Specialist Tribunals - Your Guide to Informal Justice

http://www.freepint.com/issues/260505.htm#feature

An article in Free Pint, by David Ogden.

The effect of open access and downloads ('hits') on citation impact: a bibliography of studies

http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html

Very useful bibliography, by Steve Hitchcock.

The European Library

http://www.theeuropeanlibrary.org/

The European Library webservice is a portal which offers access to the combined resources (books, magazines, journals.... - both digital and non-digital) of the 43 national libraries of Europe. It offers free searching and delivers digital objects - some free, some priced.

The Internet TOURBUS

http://www.tourbus.com/

Still going strong.

”Get the scoop on computer viruses, search engines, spam, cookies, urban legends, and the most useful sites on the Net.”

Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox.

Twingine

http://twingine.com/

I saw this mentioned in Karen Blakeman's Blog. It compares Google and Yahoo results, side by side.

TypeOnline

http://www.typeonline.co.uk/

Touch typing tutorial.

UK Data Archive: UKDA

http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/

The UKDA has a new website. The UK Data Archive (UKDA) is an internationally-renowned centre of expertise in data acquisition, preservation, dissemination and promotion; and is curator of the largest collection of digital data in the social sciences and humanities in the UK.

Used2bee

http://www.used2bee.co.uk/

Used2bee specialises in collecting materials for reuse, and recycling.

Writings about e-book publishing, 2005

http://www.i-a-l.co.uk/resource_ebook2005.html

The IAL "Writings about e-book publishing, 2005" bibliography has recently been updated with a number of new titles.

Xplora

http://www.xplora.org/ww/en/pub/xplora/

Xplora is the European gateway to science education. It is aimed at teachers, pupils, scientists, science communicators and science educators.

xsite architecture

http://www.xsitearchitecture.co.uk/

“xsite architecture provide a high quality design service aiming to delight clients with solutions that step beyond the ordinary. xsite architecture is a new architectural practice that aims to enhance projects through a focused, high quality approach to design as well as delivering what every client wants - good value and appropriate timescale.”

Yellowikis

http://www.yellowikis.org/

“We want to be like Yellow Pages (http://www.yellowpages.com), Dun and Bradstreet (http://www.dnb.com/us/) and Hoovers (http://www.hoovers.com) all rolled into one - but open, free to both companies and users, global, multilingual and a lot more ecologically friendly.”

Via ResearchBuzz.

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

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.

Arrow National Discovery Service
http://search.arrow.edu.au/apps/ArrowUI/

The discovery part of the Australian Research Repositories Online to the World site allows you to search or browse across the corpus of Australia’s scholarly research output which has been deposited into individual repositories at universities, the National Library of Australia and other research agencies such as Australian Policy Online.

Seems to be a well organised site, with over 6,000 records available, and lots of full text.

RM

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

BLOGORAMA

News about weblogs, RSS, etc:

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

The Internet Resources Newsletter has an RSS feed (essentially the Table of Contents for each issue): http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.rss

"In May, there were 20m 'clickthroughs' to news and sport stories on the BBC website [from the BBC RSS feeds]" The Sunday Telegraph, June 26.

Papers from Blogtalk Downunder, which was held in Sydney, in May
http://incsub.org/blogtalk/?page_id=38

Bloglines developing a Blog Search Engine
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=1760
Article in SearchEngineJournal

RSS Network
http://www.rss-network.com/

EFF: Legal Guide for Bloggers
http://www.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Publisher's guide to RSS
http://publisher.yahoo.com/whatis.php
From Yahoo.

LiveJournal
http://www.livejournal.com/
LiveJournal is a simple-to-use (but extremely powerful and customizable) personal publishing ("blogging") tool, built on open source software.

The bloggers have all the best news
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1500174,00.html

Rojo
http://www.rojo.com/
Rojo is a free web-based service that lets you efficiently read RSS feeds. There is no software to download

Search 4 RSS
http://www.search4rss.com/rssextras.php
RSS search engine.

Bloggator
http://www.bloggator.com/
"Our exclusive bloggator search lets you make your own keyword-based blogfeed, creating an ever-changing, ever-growing source of information on the topics you care about."

Selected interesting blog's and RSS feeds

Library Clips
http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/

Johnson Press RSS feeds
http://rss.jpress.co.uk/
Johnston Press plc is a major publisher of quality local newspapers and local internet sites, basing its publishing philosophy on local service to local communities.

Club Afrika Blog
http://www.clubafrika.com/weblogs/clubafrika/

BlogSavvy
http://blogsavvy.net/

Latest Xerox News
http://a1851.g.akamaitech.net/f/1851/2996/24h/www.xerox.com/downloads/usa/en/x/XeroxNewsRSSFeed.xml

Fontys Mediatheek Weblog
http://www.fontysmediatheek.nl/

Times Online RSS feeds
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,21669,00.html

Karen Blakeman's Blog
http://www.rba.co.uk/rss/atom.xml
News and views on search tools and Internet resourcs for business information. Also information on updates to the RBA Information Services web site.

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

PRESS RELEASES

**** Virtual Training Suite launches five free tutorials for adult and community learners ****

Adult and community learning tutors from across the country have helped expand the RDN’s Virtual Training Suite, which helps people to get the most out of the Internet. Five new tutorials are now available online for free, aimed at adult learners, researchers and enthusiasts in the following areas:

Arts and Craft
Digital Photography
Gardening
Health and Well Being
Job Searching

Access the tutorials at www.vts.rdn.ac.uk/acl/

As there’s such a vast amount of information on the Internet it’s often hard to know where to look for relevant websites and reliable sources. The tutorials aim to teach people how to find the best sites for a particular area of study or research, how to quickly recognise the value of a website and how to conduct wider web searches. They are added to an existing suite of over 60 tutorials in a variety of subject areas.

The Virtual Training Suite is part of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) (http://www.rdn,ac.uk), an online catalogue of Internet resources for teachers, researchers and students. All resources have all been checked by subject specialists and organised into browsable collections, allowing easy access to the best of the web for various subject areas.

Executive Director of the RDN, Caroline Williams said: “There’s a high demand for good Internet search skills, both in the workplace and for personal study and research. We’re delighted to have been able to extend our training services into the Adult and Community Learning sector.”

For further information about the VTS contact

Virtual Training Suite - Emma Place on 0117 928 7183,

email rdn-vts@bristol.ac.uk

**** British Library launches new research resource ****

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and independent researchers are to benefit from a versatile new pay-as-you-go service launched today by the British Library. BRITISH LIBRARY DIRECT provides, for the first time, access to a fully searchable database of article titles from the top 20,000 international research journals. These records go back five years and currently number around nine million – with 150,000 new entries added each month.

Upon finding the relevant article, the user can then order it online and pay by his/her credit card to have the full text delivered to their desktop within as little as 2 hours. There is no need to subscribe in order to use the service and articles can be ordered singly or several at a time. Nearly 20% of the articles available can be downloaded instantly. To sample the new service, visit: http://direct.bl.uk

British Library Direct will be particularly attractive to occasional users such as SMEs and independent researchers and innovators. The pay-as-you-go option offers easy access to the very latest research articles without the need to open an account.

Subject strengths include medicine, pharmacy, engineering, science, food and agriculture, economics, environment, law and education. An additional feature allows users to view abstracts of the articles found by rolling their mouse over the article details.

For further information please contact:
Ben Sanderson at the British Library Press Office (telephone +44 (0)1937 546126, email: ben.sanderson@bl.uk) or
Lawrence Christensen (telephone +44 (0)20 7412 7114, email: lawrence.christensen@bl.uk)

**** Ingenta introduces new service for libraries: OpenURL-enabled alerting for 29,000 titles ****

Ingenta Inc., the technology and services provider for the publishing and information industries, recently announced a major enhancement to its existing alerting services for libraries. Ingenta library customers can now upgrade their new issue and search alerts to include OpenURL links back to their own holdings, enabling users to link directly from an alert to the “appropriate copy” of the article’s full text wherever it may reside.

The new service was developed in response to feedback from Ingenta’s institutional customers, for whom context-insensitive links are a major cause of concern that can discourage libraries from passing on static alerts to their users. OpenURL-enabled alerting allows libraries not only to offer patrons a current awareness programme, with over 29,000 publications from a wide scope of disciplines, but also a service which is fully integrated with local full text holdings. Users will be directed outside their library’s holdings only if an item is not available in their collection, thus reducing the potential for duplicate orders.

The service can be purchased as an upgrade to an existing alerting licence, or as part of a package for customers who currently have no alerting licence. If you would like to find out more about this service, please email libraryinfo@ingenta.com.

For more information, please contact:
Charlie Rapple
Ingenta plc
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 799060
Email: charlie.rapple@ingenta.com

The full press release is at:
http://www.ingenta.com/corporate/company/news/trade/openurl_alert.htm

**** Sharing knowledge, widening access ****

New £4m JISC programme will support the growth of digital repositories across the UK

It was announced by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) that a new £4m programme will continue JISC’s work to encourage the growth of repositories in universities and colleges across the UK.

A repository is a digital store of principally research outputs and journal articles, but also potentially a wealth of other information, created by teachers, academics and researchers and made openly available to all who wish to access them. Their great advantage is that they enable the free sharing of information, encouraging collaboration and the widespread communication of UK education and research activity.

In its 2004 report Scientific Publications: Free for All? the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology hailed the creation of institutional repositories as a means of making research articles more freely available. Furthermore, it specifically praised JISC’s work in exploring new models for accessing and sharing such resources. Building on these and other recent developments, the twenty-three projects within the Digital Repositories programme will explore the many cultural, technical and management aspects of creating and managing institutional and other repositories.

Although the development of repositories has up to now focussed largely on making accessible the outputs of the research community, this new programme will develop the concept still further by encouraging the growth of repositories for learning materials, data and much else. Repositories have the potential to help institutions to manage their assets more effectively and to encourage the development of collaborative communities across UK education and research. The UK leads the world in recognising the potential of repositories and this JISC programme will ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of international developments in this area.

Dr Reg Carr, Chair of JISC’s Integrated Information Environment (JIIE) committee, and Director of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, one of the institutions awarded funds under the programme, said: ”Repositories offer immense potential to bring about real and positive changes in the way that academics, researchers and others collaborate and make available their resources. This is a time of change for scholarly communications worldwide and this programme is therefore an important and timely development.”

For further information, see: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=programme_digital_repositories

Contact Philip Pothen p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk

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For more news items in business information products we recommend VIP: http://www.vivavip.com/

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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

025.04 STA
Effective information retrieval from the Internet
by Alison Stacey and Adrian Stacey
Chandos, 2004

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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BOOK REVIEW

Melling, M. (ed)
Supporting e-learning: A guide for library and information managers.
Facet Publishing, London 2005.
192pp. ISBN: 1-85604-535-8

Published in February this year, this title offers a valuable and layered discussion on e-learning. It takes the form of six essays tackling different aspects of learning in the electronic environment, all neatly tied together in Melling’s introduction.

The resumés of the ten contributors offer an impressive set of credentials, lending authority and validity to the texts. Although not explicit in the title, the content is almost exclusively based in Higher Education. Eight of the ten contributors work in, or have backgrounds in, HE and all but one are based in the UK.

It is not surprising, then, that many of the points made will resonate with those in UK academic libraries. While the book is aspirational it is also practical both in the advice it gives and in its portrayal of e-learning with HE. The picture painted is one of an evolving concept at differing stages of maturity across the sector. It is also noted as an area where the fashioning of a role for the library and information service (LIS) is very much a work in progress.

As with so many texts on information related topics the book starts by giving a working definition of e-learning while recognising a lack of clarity in the terminology. The essays or chapters then go on to cover Managed Learning Environments (focusing on strategy, planning and implementation); Process and Partnerships (highlighting the need for LIS staff to develop pedagogic and technical skills and a more interdisciplinary method of working); Change Management (where the need for staff development is highlighted); Support in the Use of New Media (in which emphasis is placed on adding value to the learning experience through technology); E-literacy (based on experience of integrating library resources in a VLE and creation of information skills materials); and Collection Management (giving an insight in to the issues and complexities of managing, integrating and optimising access to electronic resources).

The text offers a good balance of theory and practice. There are interesting sections on the learning process and the nature of students’ motivation to learn. However, there is also practical advice on, for example, how to build a culture of engagement with academic staff through workshops and contributions to institutional newsletters as well as tips such as targeting senior academic staff. Evidence suggests they are more receptive to the messages on e-learning coming from library and information professionals.

Melling’s introduction gives useful chapter outlines and identifies common themes in the texts. Although the title of the book targets library and information managers, the key themes identified will be useful to any library and information professional involved in preparing themselves, their colleagues or their teams on how to best to respond to the impact of e-learning. If set out as manifesto-style maxims some of these themes might read: - Access is not knowledge; Shape according to need – there is no off-the-peg model for e-learning support; Embrace the pedagogy of e-learning; Technology is a facilitator; Resist technology for technology’s sake; Collaboration is survival.

In discussing both the seamless linking of library resources within VLEs and the creation of information skills modules using VLE software, this book also highlights the dichotomous relationship between LIS and e-learning. LIS may use VLE software to create and promote information skills training. However, they may also advocate direct linking to databases and full-text publications from within VLE courses, so diminishing the need for students to acquire information seeking skills. The issue of how these parallel trends may be reconciled is not tackled in the book.

E-learning and LIS support for e-learning is a current and pressing issue in HE and academic libraries. In taking a holistic approach this book succeeds in tackling some of the key areas to be considered in responding to the needs of learners, academics and LIS staff. It would be useful reading for anyone dealing with LIS organisational change in relation to the implementation of e-learning.

MK

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NETWORK NEWS LINKS

Pinakes: A Subject Launchpad
http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/pinakes/pinakes.html
Pinakes has links to over 50 subject gateways. Direct links to the news pages of some important sites are listed below.

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

JISCmail News
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/news/index.htm

UK Data Archive news
http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/news/current.asp

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GET A LIFE! - LEISURE TIME

Spill Online
http://www.spillonline.com/
Music mag

BALTIC
http://www.balticmill.com/
BALTIC, the major new international centre for contemporary art, Gateshead

Tyne & Wear Museums
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/
Tyne & Wear Museums (TWM) is a major, regional museum and art gallery service.

SoundClick
http://www.soundclick.com/

TravelRomp.com
http://www.travelromp.com/
Description: Online reservation site featuring discount rates to thousands of hotels, cheap car rentals, and discount flights.

FutureSport Edinburgh
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/futuresport/

Cricket Scotland
http://www.cricketscotland.com/

Book This Band

Colin Steele
http://www.colinsteele.com/
Based in Edinburgh. Modern jazz. A new album is available.

Send me your band website, and if it's good, I'll try to mention it in a future 'Book This Band' section.

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