And now for something completely different

I often refer to pretty weighty articles or websites in this section. Not so this month. Instead, here is a handful of tips and shortcuts.

1. Google Help : Cheat Sheet
http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html
A one-page summary of Google Search syntax.

2. Press F11 and the menu bars will be removed from your browser. Press F11 again to bring them back.

3. Google Advanced has a feature for finding pages that link to an already known page.

4. Alexa http://www.alexa.com/ gives traffic rankings, with traffic graphs, and you can compare the rankings of sites.

5. You can use Google to search within a site, e.g. entering the query:
research site:www.hw.ac.uk
will find "research" within the Heriot Watt University website.

Correction

In the last IRN I mentioned the Spanish Biblioteca Electrónica de Ciencia y Tecnología initiative to develop a new electronic library, to be set up at an estimated €80 million, which will provide nearly 150,000 researchers in Spain with instant access to scientific articles and books. Unfortunately, I hyperlinked this with an Argentinian website. The Spanish initiative does not yet have a website, as far as I can see.

Update

Internet Resources Newsletter by email and RSS

Over 38,000 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: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.rss
To add this RSS feed to Bloglines, Feedster, etc, you can use the RSS subscription buttons towards the top left on IRN web pages.

-----

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

21st Century Information Professional

http://www.aukml.org.uk/conf2006.htm

The 2006 AUKML (Association of UK Media Librarians) Conference - Point Hotel, Edinburgh, 22nd-24th September 2006.

24-7 Press Release Newswire

http://www.24-7pressrelease.com/

Press release distribution and news syndicate services.

Academy of Urbanism

http://www.academyofurbanism.org.uk/public/

The Academy of Urbanism is a high level, cross-sector group of individuals from a wide range of disciplines brought together to champion the cause of good quality urbanism throughout Great Britain and Ireland. Through discourse, research, education and awards, the Academy actively seeks to promote good urbanism and works towards delivering best practice in partnership with other agencies and organisations.

Alacra Wiki

http://www.alacrawiki.com/

The Alacra Wiki is a guide to business information companies, publishers and databases. Anyone can contribute, but you must create an account in order to do so. Marketing materials, product reviews, product announcements and executive bios are all welcome.

Australasian Digital Theses Program Database

http://adt.caul.edu.au/

A comprehensive metadata repository of Australian PhD and Masters [research] theses. To be augmented over time by New Zealand theses.

Access to 150,000 Australian PhD and Masters [research] theses

over 5,000 available full-text online

link directly to home institutions for access to non-digitised theses

unrestricted open access serving the national and international research community.

Awareness Watch Newsletter

http://zillman.blogspot.com/2006/04/v4n5-may-2006-awareness-watch.html

The May issue of Awareness Watch Newsletter, covering Biotechnology Resources on the Internet including related resources and sites, is available.

Biodiversity Science

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

Biodiversity Science (formerly Chinese Biodiversity) published its first issue in October 1993. It is sponsored by the Biodiversity Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and jointly managed by Institute of Botany, Institute of Zoology and Institute of Microbiology, CAS. It is the first nationwide academic journal that specifically addresses the issues of biodiversity, aiming to enhance information exchange between Chinese and international scholars.

An Open Access journal.

Britain in the EU

http://www.europe.gov.uk

From the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website, a Guide to the EU.

Change Management

http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/change-management

An infoKit developed with the University of Luton which is now live on the JISC infoNet site.

colLib

http://collib.info/index.php?title=Main_Page

A collaborative platform for organizing Open Access materials in Library & Information Science.

Connecting-Africa

http://www.connecting-africa.net/

Connecting-Africa is the web portal for African Studies in the Netherlands.

DataPlace

http://www.dataplace.org/

A site from the USA: DataPlace aims to be your one-stop source for housing and demographic data about your community, your region, and the nation. The site not only assembles a variety of data sets from multiple sources, but it also provides tools and guides to assist you in analyzing, interpreting, and applying the data so you can make more informed decisions.

Digital Libraries a la carte: New Choices for the Future

http://www.ticer.nl/06carte/

The course will take place at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, from Tuesday 22 up to and including Friday 25 August 2006.

Digital Universe

http://www.digitaluniverse.net/

The Digital Universe is a network of interlinked web portals intended to become — over time — the largest reliable public information resource in history.

Currently available in an initial pilot test release, the Digital Universe reveals the “UniNav” visual directory navigation system and a unique method for organizing the best of the Web, through “Activities” such as Explore, and soon, Communicate, Watch, Blog, and Play.

DRoster Employee Scheduling Software

http://www.kappix.com/

Kappix Employee Scheduling Software Producer – offers DRoster employee scheduler. Free fully functional copy available at Kappix. Creates shifts, duties, rosters, availability times, rules, and exportable reports that integrate with other data sources.

eConf: Electronic Conference Proceedings Archive

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/econf/

“This site provides a fully electronic, Web-accessible archive for the proceedings of scientific conferences in High-Energy Physics and related fields. In its present stage, the site is maintained by Technical Information Services at SLAC as a free service to the scientific community. Our intention is to provide a home for electronically published conference proceedings. Through this, we hope to promote a permanent change in the way that scientific conference proceedings are published and accessed.”

Emerald Engineering

http://engineering.emeraldinsight.com/

“Emerald Engineering showcases practical and theoretical insightful articles, interviews, case studies, viewpoints and more…

Whether you are an academic, researcher or industry practitioner, Emerald Engineering can help you find solutions to problems and keep up to date with current research, industry news, trends and debates by providing access to quality engineering information. Join us and stay at the forefront of your discipline!”

En-power

https://www.en-power.co.uk/

“The portal combines the experience of Einstein Network's video based CPD content with the power, convenience and flexibility of Internet based delivery. Offering unrivalled access to the content of Einstein Network as well as allowing complete in house management of CPD, all in a cost effective and configurable solution.”

Europass

http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/

Europass is a new way of helping people to:

make their skills and qualifications clearly and easily understood in Europe (European Union, EFTA/EEA and candidate countries);

move anywhere in Europe.

Evaluation of the JISC’s Open Access Funding Initiative Spring 2006

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/OA_Funding_Initiative_Evaluation_Report.doc

“The JISC’s involvement had the effect of raising awareness of open access publishing among the UK author community through the promotional activities of publishers.”

Flow Meters

http://www.iqsdirectory.com/flow-meters/

Flow meter manufacturers, including peak flow meters, flowmeter, water flow meters, ultrasonic flow meter, mass flow meters, and air flow meter.

This is part of the Industrial Quick Search Directory, which was mentioned in issue 133 of Internet Resources Newsletter.

Google Trends

http://www.google.com/trends

“With Google Trends, you can compare the world's interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they've been searched for on Google over time. Google Trends also displays how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and which geographic regions have searched for them most often.”

Google Video

http://video.google.com/

An open online video marketplace, where you can search for, watch and even buy an ever-growing collection of TV shows, movies, music videos, documentaries, personal productions and more.

Home Information Packs

http://www.homeinformationpacks.gov.uk/

“Home Information Packs are launching on 1 June 2007 to help improve the home buying and selling process.

This Government website is designed to give those in the Industry more information on the new Home Information Packs. There are also useful details provided for home Buyers & Sellers, although a dedicated consumer website will be launching in 2007. The site will be updated regularly, reporting on news and progress of the Home Information Pack Programme.”

How the financial world goes round - a primer on financial information resources

http://www.freepint.com/issues/180506.htm#feature

An article in FreePint, by Dave Dixie

iBoogie

http://www.iboogie.com/

iBoogie is a search site developed and owned by CyberTavern. This site using Clusterizer™ - a clustering engine developed by CyberTavern. You now have a way to navigate through large numbers of search results. Clusterizer puts documents with similar content or with related topics into the same group. Each group is assigned a label based on the content of the documents. You can easily see the main topics and focus on the ones that are of interest to you, without being forced to scroll through a very long list of ranked documents.

Mentioned in Phil Bradley’s weblog

Identity and Passport Service

http://www.ips.gov.uk/

The Identity and Passport Service was established as an Executive Agency of the Home Office on 1 April 2006. The Agency builds on the strong foundations of the UK Passport Service (UKPS) to provide passport services and in the future, as part of the National Identity Scheme, ID cards for British and Irish nationals resident in the UK. Foreign nationals resident in the UK will also be included by linking the scheme to biometric immigration documents.

Info*Nation

http://www.cla.ca/infonation/

Info*Nation is a website designed to promote the library and information professions in Canada.

Info@UK

http://www.britishcouncil.org/info62.doc

Issue 62, May 2006 is available.

Information World Review

http://www.iwr.co.uk/

IWR have redesigned their website.

Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management

http://ijikm.org/

Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management is an academically peer reviewed journal. All submissions are blind refereed by three or more peers. IJIKM is published in print.

International Research Journal of Finance and Economics

http://www.eurojournals.com/finance.htm

International Research Journal of Finance and Economics is available free of charge as an Open Access journal on the Internet.

Internet publications

http://techxtra.tradepub.com/?pt=cat&page=Inet

Free publications about Internet business, design and technology, from Tradepub via TechXtra.

ISRIC - World Soil Information

http://www.isric.org/

ISRIC - World Soil Information is an independent foundation funded by the Netherlands Government. We have a strategic association with Wageningen University and Research Centre. Our aims:

To inform and educate - through the World Soil Museum, public information, discussion and publication

As ICSU World Data Centre for Soils, to serve the scientific community as custodian of global soil information

To undertake applied research on land and water resources.

James Clerk Maxwell

http://www.maxwellyear2006.org/

The year 2006 marks the 175th anniversary of the birth of James Clerk Maxwell, a Scot whose ideas increasingly electrify, magnetize and change the world today.

Journal of Sustainability Science and Managementy

http://journal.kustem.edu.my/

A new journal from the Kolej Universiti Sains dan Teknologi Malaysia

Journal of the Iranian Chemical Society: JICS

http://www.ics-ir.org/jics/

All contributions in the form of original papers or short communications will be peer reviewed and published free of charge after acceptance.

Knowledge & Content UK: KCUK

http://www.kc-uk.co.uk/

4-6 July, London. This year’s KCUK focuses on two main themes; innovation and advancement in the enterprise information arena and adding value to your whole organisation through cutting-edge KM methods and techniques.

Learning and Teaching Scotland

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/

Learning and Teaching Scotland is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Scottish Executive Education Department, with a remit to:

actively promote a climate of innovation, ambition and excellence throughout the Scottish education system

support teachers, schools and local authorities in improving the quality of education and raising levels of achievement of all learners

ensure that the curriculum and approaches to learning and teaching, including the use of ICT, assist children and young people in Scotland to develop their full potential

work in close partnership with the Scottish Executive and other key stakeholders to build capacity and support the delivery of a first-class education that is recognised as such nationally and internationally.

Librarians Without Borders

http://www.lwb-online.org/index.html

An organization that wants to address the vast information resource inequity existing between different regions of the world.

Library Student Journal

http://informatics.buffalo.edu/org/lsj/index.html

Library Student Journal is a new peer-reviewed open access journal, supported by the University at Buffalo School of Informatics, Department of Library and Information Studies, Graduate Student Association and the DLIS Club.

mad.co.uk

http://www.mad.co.uk/

mad.co.uk delivers business insight to professionals in marketing, media, new media, advertising and design.

mad.co.uk contains the web sites of a number of magazines and newsletters including Marketing Week, Design Week, Precision Marketing, Creative Review, In-Store, Televisual, and Brand Strategy.

Magazines for Libraries Update

http://www.bowkersupport.com/mfl/update/

Magazines for Libraries Update is a quarterly e-mail service. The MFL Update is dedicated to the review and analysis of journals of note that have been published since the last edition of Magazines for Libraries has gone to press, as well as selected other titles.

managing digital assets in tertiary education: mandate toolkit

http://www.jwheatley.ac.uk/mandate/Toolkit/index.htm

This toolkit is aimed at managers, administrative and technical staff considering the management of digital assets in colleges. This toolkit is the primary output of the mandate project, funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) as part of its Supporting Digital Preservation and Asset Management in Institutions Programme, itself part of its wider Continuing Access and Digital Preservation Strategy.

Medical Technology Business Europe

http://www.mtbeurope.info/index.htm

An online magazine covering developments in electromedical technology, medical imaging and related technologies.

Molecular Biology Protocols and Bioinformatics

http://www.molecularstation.com/

A portal for molecular biology which contains immunology methods and protocols, bioinformatics, and news categorized by DNA, RNA, protein, and proteomics. Also discuss and ask questions about molecular research techniques in the forum.

Name and Address Search

http://www.askbobrankin.com/name_and_address_search.html

Bob Rankin gives some advice on which people search directories he thinks are the best, and also what to do if you don’t want to be found in an online directory.

New Urbanism

http://www.newurbanism.org/

“We stand for the restoration of existing urban centers and towns within coherent metropolitan regions, the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods and diverse districts, the conservation of natural environments, and the preservation of our built legacy.”

Nordic Journal of African Studies

http://www.njas.helsinki.fi/

Nordic Journal of African Studies is an interdisciplinary journal published by the Nordic Association of African Studies (NAAS) with a focus on Africa, including various fields of African language studies, literature, sociolinguistics, cultural and social anthropology, population, history, and art. Each article submitted for publication is independently refereed, before articles are selected for publication.

Nordic Journal of African Studies is available free of charge as an Open Access journal on the Internet.

Open Content and the Emerging Global Meta-University

http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0630.asp

An article in Educause Review by Charles M. Vest.

OriginLab

http://www.originlab.com/

OriginLab produces professional graphing and data analysis software for scientists and engineers.

Peoples Archive

http://www.peoplesarchive.com/

Peoples Archive is dedicated to collecting for posterity the stories of the great thinkers, creators, and achievers of our time. The people whose stories you see on this site are leaders of their field, whose work has influenced and changed our world.

PhDforum.eu

http://www.phdforum.eu/

PhDforum.eu is an informal online discussion board where PhD candidates can discuss freely with their peers about their PhD work and experiences.

Photonics Engineering Doctorate Centre

http://www.photonics-engd.hw.ac.uk/

The Photonics Engineering Doctorate Centre has recently been established by Heriot-Watt University and the Universities of Strathclyde and St. Andrews.

Play the Regs

http://www.playtheregs.com/

Part L of the Building Regulations is changing in England and Wales from 6 April 2006. NEHR and the Construction Products Association have provided this interactive site to help understand the impact of the changes.

Real Recruitment Solutions.com

http://www.jobcentre.realrecruitmentsolutions.com/

Real Recruitment Solutions is one of Scotland’s recruitment solutions companies.

RefWorks

http://www.refworks.com/

RefWorks - an online research management and collaboration tool - is designed to help researchers easily gather, manage, store and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.

Research India Publications

http://www.ripublication.com/

Publish several sci-tech journal titles.

Rollyo

http://rollyo.com/

Create personal search engines using only the sources you trust.

Search Engines: Where We Were, Are Now, and Will Ever Be

http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue47/search-engines/

An article in Ariadne, in which Phil Bradley takes a look at the development of search engines over the lifetime of Ariadne and points to what we might anticipate in the years to come.

Searchforipod

http://www.searchforipod.com/

Searchforipod makes it easy to get iPod compatible video into iTunes in one click.

Searchforvideo

http://www.searchforvideo.com/

A video search engine.

Second International Joint Conferences on Computer, Information, and Systems Sciences, and Engineering: CISSE 2006

http://www.cisse2006online.org/

December 4 - 14, 2006. Technically Co-Sponsored by: Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) University of Bridgeport, USA

Sphere

http://www.sphere.com/

“Sphere's advanced search algorithm helps you discover high-quality, relevant, and timely blog posts that match what you're looking for.”

Spotback

http://spotback.com/

An interesting personalisable news portal.

Sustaining Repositories: newsletter of the APSR project

http://www.apsr.edu.au/news/newsletter2006april/newsletter.pdf

The April 2006 issue is available.

Talis Developer Network

http://www.talis.com/tdn/

This resource exists to support innovators across the global library domain. It is open to all and it is free.

Content includes advice, documentation, scripts, APIs, Web Services, SDKs and other relevant resources. It is applicable to users of any library automation solution.

Technical Acoustics

http://www.ejta.org/

Purely electronic (on-line) journal. Free for readers.

The oil & gas industry

http://www.loc.gov/rr/business/BERA/issue5/issue5_main.html

Business and Economics Research Advisor, Issue 5/6, Winter 2005/Spring 2006. One of a series of guides from The Library of Congress.

Top 10 Sources

http://toptensources.com/

“Top 10 Sources is a directory of sites that bring you the freshest, most relevant content on the Web. We know it's impossible for anyone to keep track of the 20 million+ online sources of information. So our editors search Web 2.0 -- blogs, podcasts, wikis, news sites, and every kind of syndicated source online -- by hand. Our Top 10 lists are updated frequently as great new sources come online.“

Trends in business information, provision and use

http://www.freepint.com/issues/040506.htm#feature

An article in FreePint by Pam Foster.

Trumba

http://www.trumba.com/

Website calendars.

UK Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology

http://www.setwomenresource.org.uk/

This is the official website funded by the Department of Trade and Industry as part of their Strategy for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) and includes:

statistics

information for employers

women in SET database

mentoring information

courses for women in SET

links to women's groups.

UKeiG Wiki

http://ukeig.xwiki.com/

An experimental wiki from the UK eInformation Group.

Web Search for Beginners

http://websearch.about.com/od/internetresearch/a/searchstarters.htm

A Beginners Guide to the Web, by Wendy Boswell.

WhereCanWeGo

http://www.wherecanwego.com/

Britain’s what’s on guide.

World Soil Surveys Archive and Catalogue: WOSSAC

http://www.wossac.com/

The mission of the World Soil Surveys Archive and Catalogue (WOSSAC) is to provide a secure home for soil survey reports and maps produced by British companies and surveyors overseas in the last 80 years in 250 countries, with a view to ensuring their enduring availability and protection.

YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/

YouTube is a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience.

[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.

Alacra Wiki
http://www.alacrawiki.com/

Top 10 Sources
http://toptensources.com/

Traditional web directories seem to be gradually disappearing. Even the Yahoo directory, originally the main part of the site, is now hard to find in amongst all the other information now available on Yahoo, including (by the way) the very interesting House Price Centre http://uk.houseprices.yahoo.net/

Instead, there are initiatives such as Top 10 Sources: http://toptensources.com/
Top 10 Sources editors search 'Web 2.0' -in other words, blogs, podcasts, wikis, news sites, and other syndicated sources online by hand - and then produce lists of the best sources which are updated frequently

And then there are joint efforts such as the Alacra Wiki: http://www.alacrawiki.com/ The Alacra Wiki is a guide to business information companies, publishers and databases. Anyone can contribute, but you must create an account in order to do so. Marketing materials, product reviews, product announcements and executive bios are all welcome.

Community-type initiatives which combine effort from numerous interested individuals have surely an important role to play in the future of the Web.

RM

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

BLOGORAMA

News about Blogs, RSS, etc:

You already know what blogs are, but for more information about RSS see the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(protocol) or Webopedia 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

Sphere
http://www.sphere.com/
A new blog search engine

BlogPulse
http://www.blogpulse.com/
BlogPulse is an automated trend discovery system for blogs

Using RSS to increase user awareness of e-resources in academic libraries http://www.higheredblogcon.com/index.php/using-rss-to-increase-user-awareness-of-e-resources-in-academic-libraries/
An informative presentation by Jay Bhatt, Drexel University

GeoRSS
http://georss.org/
This site describes a number of ways to encode location in RSS feeds.

Selected interesting blogs and RSS feeds

TASI Lightbox
http://www.tasi.ac.uk/blog/

Mantex
http://mantex.blogspot.com/
News and reviews on writing, typography, design, reference books, music, literary studies, and language

eGov monitor - Education
http://www.egovmonitor.com/taxonomy/term/16/0/feed

Science and Engineering News
http://ucalgarysciengnews.blogspot.com/
This blog delivers library news and information of interest to Science and Engineering students and faculty at the University of Calgary.

Library Juice
http://www.libraryjuicepress.com/blog/

Information World Review Blog
http://blog.iwr.co.uk/
A very informative blog for those in the information industry.

COS Funding News
http://fundingopps.cos.com/news/
COS Funding News is published each week and includes a sampling of new and updated award information from COS Funding Opportunities.

The Liminal Librarian
http://www.lisjobs.com/liminal/

Science Resources
http://liblogs.albany.edu/science_resources/
Science Resources will list and describe new online and print resources in science. New services will also be described. Some of the resources will be available only to the University at Albany community.

Share Library Ideas
http://sharelibrary.blogspot.com/

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

PRESS RELEASES

**** New Web Portal for Engineering from Emerald ****

Emerald Group Publishing is launching a new web portal. The Emerald Engineering web portal is an online, comprehensive and focused information resource for engineers: http://engineering.emeraldinsight.com.  To celebrate the new service, Emerald is offering free access to the full content until September 2006.   

The Emerald Engineering web portal draws on Emerald’s international focus to ensure global perspectives on all aspects of engineering.  It aims to appeal both to practising engineers and academics with quality, peer-reviewed content drawn from its 15 engineering and materials science journals, complemented by material from Emerald’s technology and management titles. Content is split into four major disciplines to ease navigation:  advanced automation; computational mathematics; electronics manufacture and packaging; and materials science. 

Contact: Gill Crawford, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Tel: 01274 777700, email:  gcrawford@emeraldinsight.com  or Catherine Dhanjal, TheAnswer Ltd, Tel: 0208 655 0953/0794 166 9925, Catherine.dhanjal@theansweruk.com

**** SAGE signs agreements with CLOCKSS and Portico to Preserve E-Journal Content ****

As a publisher of over 400 scholarly journals, SAGE Publications is committed to ensuring the long-term stability of its valuable journal content so future generations of scholars, researchers and student will always have access to it. In order to accomplish this goal, SAGE is participating in CLOCKSS (Controlled LOCKSS – Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) and has signed an agreement with Portico, a new, not-for-profit electronic-archiving service launched last year.

In the event of a disaster that would prevent the delivery of content, CLOCKSS will assure that access to the journals is maintained. A joint advisory board, made up of societies, publishers and libraries, will determine if the content is orphaned and whether it should be made publicly available. Since it’s collectively managed, publishers are ensured that content is controlled and no one entity has authority over orphaned digital materials in the system. During the two-year pilot, participants will collect and analyze data for use in developing a proposal for a full-scale archiving model. As part of a longer-term strategy to permanently preserve published work, CLOCKSS will report the results to the research community and begin a dialogue about a global infrastructure to ensure preservation of all past, present, and future scholarly content.

Portico will provide an ongoing, permanent online archive of SAGE journals, ensuring that an accessible copy of each issue will exist for decades to come. The service also offers the migration of the content into future technological formats as they are developed. Portico’s archiving service meets library demand for a trusted, third-party archive and perpetual access while providing SAGE with insurance against loss of the journal content.

About SAGE
SAGE Publications is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. http://www.sagepublications.com/

About CLOCKSS
CLOCKSS is a collaborative, community initiative to build a trusted large dark archive. The CLOCKSS governance and administration structure is distributed to insure no one-single organization controls oversight of the archive or has the power to compromise the long-term viability of the content's safety. http://www.lockss.org/clockss

About Portico
Portico is a new, not-for-profit electronic-archiving service established in response to the library community’s need for a robust, reliable means to preserve electronic scholarly journals. http://www.portico.org/

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

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

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

006.76 KAP
Web engineering
Edited by Gerti Kappel, et al
John Wiley and Sons, 2003

A complete list of new books added to Heriot-Watt University Library is available at: http://hw.lib.ed.ac.uk/cgi-bin/newbooks.cgi

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

BOOK REVIEW

The Institutional Repository
Richard Jones, Theo Andrew and John MacColl
Chandos Publishing, 2006
ISBN: 1843341387 £39.95

At a time when many academic libraries already have an institutional repository, or are working on establishing one, this book will do much to help the latter group. In offering cutting edge knowledge and practical experience, it will also aid those yet to embark on the process.

According to the authors, in the digital age the institutional repository could become the library’s saviour. In the institutional repository model the library is central to the institution’s research publication and dissemination process. In this model the role of the library as a consumer of published goods for internal consumption is transposed to one in which the library gathers internal publications for output to the wider world.

One key to the success of this model is the strength of the library’s outreach and influence across the institution. The authors stress the need to be able to win people over (e.g. academics and management), and the difficulties attached to this process are covered in detail.

In highlighting this and other issues, the book identifies and addresses the major questions surrounding institutional repositories. The need for continued institutional commitment and significant long term funding is stressed in a text which gives an excellent insight into the complete process of establishing and maintaining an institutional repository.

The book presents a very realistic account of the work involved. However, it achieves a positive tone with the enhancing role of repositories at its foundation. Suggested positives, in terms of the institution, are increased visibility of research and the institution in general (with resulting positives in attracting staff, students and funding), and increased efficiency of existing systems through integration of the repository with, for example, the virtual learning environment. In terms of the wider publishing arena, one suggestion is that once there is a critical mass of deposited content, the balance will tip in favour of free access to research, so pushing publishers to lower subscription prices in response to remaining competitive. In this sense, in addition to practical insights, The Institutional Repository also offers springboards for debate on the role of institutional repositories in the future of libraries and in the wider publishing forum.

The book’s contents include, Chapter 1: The Institutional Repository in the Digital Library (offering material for debate on whether free research output managed by librarians is the natural model); Chapter 2: Establishing a Repository (covering practicalities including costs in some detail); Chapter 3: Technologies and Technicalities (covering specifications, local requirements, evaluation, etc); Chapter 4: Workflow and Administration (giving breakdown of tasks involved with useful workflow diagrams); Chapter 5: Advocacy (vital to the success and economic viability of the repository); Chapter 6: Intellectual Property (covering need for a robust legal framework for depositors and end-users); Chapter 7: Case Study-The Edinburgh Research Archive. Throughout the text the authors succeed in presenting a good mix of theoretical and practical content written with an easy to absorb, accessible style.

The authors state that “most University and research institutions should now be actively considering the establishment of an institutional repository” – and this book should be read by those involved in this process.

MK

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GET A LIFE! - LEISURE TIME

8notes.com
http://www.8notes.com/
Free Sheet Music & Lessons

Bands etc

Rock Ness
http://www.rockness.co.uk/
24th June. The village of Dores is approximately 5.3 miles from Inverness.

Isle of Skye Music Festival
http://www.skyemusicfestival.co.uk/
16 - 17 June 2006

Ian Sclater
http://www.iansclater.com/SongWriter/songwriter.htm
Edinburgh based songwriter

Hope of the States
http://www.hopeofthestates.co.uk/
Playing in Edinburgh soon.

Send me your band websites, and if they're good, I'll try to mention them in future 'Book This Band' sections.

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