Welcome to the April 2007 issue of the Internet Resources Newsletter. There's the usual collection of Internet-related material below, including, this month, quite a lot of information of interest especially to librarians - e.g. library bloggers, communities, etc.

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Random quote
"Easy and effective access to and use of information outputs depends on the interlocking roles and partnerships between publishers, libraries, and intermediary service providers; data centres and repositories; search and navigation services; and network services. All depend on each other in creating an information infrastructure to ensure that researchers and others are made aware of, and can readily discover, access and use the information outputs of interest to them."
Source: Research and the Scholarly Communications Process: Towards Strategic Goals for Public Policy A Statement of Principles

Open Access - some pointers

I've put together some pointers to sites dealing with Open Access (OA), on the Heriot Watt Library blog Spineless?
http://hwlibrary.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/open-access-some-pointers/
with an update at: http://hwlibrary.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/open-access-an-update/

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

A-Z NEW & NOTABLE WEB SITES

2007 Statement - updating Scotland's policy on architecture

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/02/19145552/0

From the Scottish Executive.

Admiralty EasyTide

http://easytide.ukho.gov.uk/Easytide/EasyTide/index.aspx

A tidal prediction service on the Web.

The service provides tidal data for over 6,000 ports worldwide together with a host of other useful information.

AIRway

http://airway.lib.hokudai.ac.jp/index_en.html

“The AIRway (Access path to Institutional Resources via link resolvers) is a research and development project, which is aimed to achieve the navigation to open access documents collected in institutional repositories etc. by link resolvers. As its character, the AIRway is also possible to be widely applied to resolve the location of a open access document through OpenURL request.”

AlouetteCanada

http://www.alouettecanada.ca/home-e.php

“As Canadian society shifts increasingly to a digital environment it is vital to have a national vision and a comprehensive plan to present our cultural heritage, documents and artefacts online, to our citizens and to the world, and to provide for enduring access to that heritage.

The goal of AlouetteCanada is to create, disseminate, preserve and sustain the knowledge base of Canadian memory organizations in digital form, for the purpose of benefiting all Canadians.”

American Planning Association

http://profile.myspace.com/american_planning_assoc

The American Planning Association has a MySpace profile.

Asgard Employee Scheduling Software

http://www.asgardsystems.com/

Asgard Systems staff and employee scheduling software manages shift schedules, time off, attendance, absence and vacations. It tracks, analyses and automates schedule maintenance.

Avian Literature Database

http://nrelpubs.nrel.gov/Webtop/ws/avianlt/www/web_data/SearchForm

The Avian Literature Database is a bibliographic database of documents of effects of wind energy development (including towers, power lines, and other wires) on birds.

Awareness Watch Newsletter

http://zillman.blogspot.com/2007/02/awareness-watch-newsletter-v5n3-march.html

The March issue is available. The Awareness Watch Featured Report this month features Script Resources.

BiosciEdNet

http://www.biosciednet.org/portal/

The BEN Portal provides access to education resources from BEN Collaborators and is managed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Over 4,701 reviewed resources covering 77 biological sciences topics are available.

Break.out!

http://www.culture.gov.uk/breakout/

A new website for parents and carers of 5-14 year olds.

Business Information Trends: The Times They Are a-Changin'

http://www.freepint.com/issues/080307.htm?#feature

An article in Free Pint, by Pam Foster.

CAIRN

http://www.cairn.info/

An online collection of French language journals in social sciences.

Careerjet.nl

http://www.careerjet.nl/

Careerjet.nl is an employment search engine for the Netherlands.

China Optics & Optoelectronics Manufactures Association: COEMA

http://www.coema.org.cn/English.htm

An organisation sponsored by institutions engaging in optics and optoelectronic science R&D and manufacturing.

Computer and Information Technology Interactive Digital Education Library Repository

http://csta.villanova.edu/CITIDEL/

A digital library of reviewed resources for teaching computer science.

Cross Archive Search Services for Indian Repositories: CASSIR

http://casin.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/oai/

“This service is a part of the ongoing project "Development of OAI-Based Institutional Research Repository Services in India", sponsored by Department of Scientific & Industrial Research, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India. This project is being carried out at National Centre for Science Information (NCSI), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. The service will harvest metadata as per the OAI-PMH protocol from the registered OA respositories in India. It also provides a web-based search/browse functionality over the harvested metadata.”

CASSIR currently has 19309 records from 15 archive(s) indexed.

Current Cites

http://lists.webjunction.org/currentcites/2007/cc07.18.2.html

Always an informative source - The February 2007 issue is available.

A team of librarians and library staff monitors information technology literature in both print and digital forms, each month selecting only the best items to annotate for this free publication. The results are 8-12 annotated citations of current literature.

Data Planet

http://www.data-planet.com/

“Researchers wanting to quickly compare, trend, profile or map data from multiple federal agencies no longer need dozens of sites and several software applications. Data-Planet(TM), a new service of Conquest Systems Inc., offers current and historical public statistical data from many of the federal statistical producing agencies, as well as data from non-government organizations.”

Database of African Theses and Dissertations

http://www.aau.org/datad/database/login.php

The DATAD database contains citations and abstracts for theses and dissertations completed in African universities. The launching database includes works from all subject areas in ten leading universities and includes abstracts written by the authors.

In order to search, you must register and then login before you will be able to access brief citations in the DATAD database. To search the entire database you will need to subscribe or connect from a subscribing institution.

DfES Higher Education Gateway

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/hegateway/

This site is for professionals interested in the Government's higher education policy.

DirectgovKids

http://kids.direct.gov.uk/

Activity based lesson plans, with clear curriculum links, enable teachers to use DirectgovKids in the classroom in a cross-curricular way.

ELPUB 2007

http://www.elpub.net/

Vienna University of Technology, Austria, 13-15 June 2007.

The 11th International Conference on Electronic Publishing, focusing on challenges for the digital spectrum.

EngineeringBuzz.com

http://www.engineeringbuzz.com/

A website for engineering and product design professionals.

ePrints@Catalysis

http://203.199.213.48/

ePrints@Catalysis repository collects, preserves and disseminates in digital format the research output created by the National Centre for Catalysis Research (NCCR) and also other catalysis research publications from India on behalf of the Catalysis Society of India (CSI).

EUobserver.com

http://euobserver.com/

The EUobserver.com is the largest online daily news site focused on the European Union.

European Journal of Industrial Engineering

http://www.inderscience.com/ejie

A new journal from Inderscience.

EJIE is an international quarterly journal aimed at disseminating the latest developments in all areas of industrial engineering, including information and service industries, ergonomics and safety, quality management as well as business and strategy, and at bridging the gap between theory and practice.

European Research Council: ERC

http://erc.europa.eu/

“The creation of the European Research Council (ERC) by the common action of the political institutions of the European Union (the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers) represents a landmark event for science policy in our continent. By this action, Europe is taking a decisive step towards the formation of a common European Research Area.”

Evaluation of Web Search Engines

http://www.um.es/gtiweb/wesen/

This web site is dedicated to gather all scientific literature published in the web about the evaluation of the search engines, more particularly about the information retrieval effectiveness.

Falkands 25

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/InDepth/TheFalklands25YearsOn.htm

A site commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Falklands Conflict.

FAO Research and Extension Portal

http://www.fao.org/sd/sdrr/portal/

This Portal provides a gateway to sound information on research, technology, extension and their linkages in order to enable decision-makers, research institutes, extension services and regulatory bodies, to make informed decisions.

Finding Facts: The European Union after 50 Years

http://www.freepint.com/issues/220307.htm#tips

An article in Free Pint, by Adrian Janes.

Future of the Data Centre 2007

http://www.fdc2007.com/

June 12th-13th 2007 in London.

Gnosh

http://www.gnosh.org/

Gnosh is a meta-search tool. Gnosh pulls morsels from all over the web and organizes them on one plate for you.

Goals for Public Policy - Scholarly Communications Statement of Principles

http://www.rin.ac.uk/sc-statement

A statement from representative organisations in the UK.

Google SketchUp

http://sketchup.google.com/

Google SketchUp is a powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software tool that combines a simple, yet robust tool-set with an intelligent drawing system that streamlines and simplifies 3D design.

Grey Literature, Grey Water

http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Borrowing/Podcasts/greylit.mp3

A podcast from George C. Gordon Library, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, about grey literature. One of a series, found here.

Heist

http://www.heist.co.uk/

Heist offers specialist marketing and market research services to meet client needs intelligently, economically and effectively with further and higher education institutions and public sector organisations.

ICT Best Practices Forum West and Central Africa

http://www.ictbestpractices.net/

Regional ICT Best Practices Forums will serve as a practical way for high level officials from the different regions in Africa to share their own specific experiences and demonstrate practical examples of successful technology solutions in their respective countries.

If the Academic Library Ceased to Exist, Would We Have to Invent It?

http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm07/erm0714.asp?bhcp=1

An article by Lynn Scott Cochrane, who is Director of Libraries at Denison University.

Incisive Media

http://www.incisivemedia.com/

Incisive Media is a fast growing specialist business information provider operating in eight core markets, financial risk management, retail investment, insurance, mortgage, capital markets/financial IT, marketing, photographic and Private Equity.

Index Data: Open Content

http://www.indexdata.com/opencontent/

Index Data has launched a new service to help libraries expose open content resources to their users. The initial phase of this service offers ebooks, open access digital repositories, encyclopedia articles, and human-reviewed Internet resources. This service is being offered without charge.

INFORUM 2007

http://www.inforum.cz/en/

INFORUM 2007 - the 13th Annual Conference on electronic information resources will be held on the premises of the University of Economics in Prague, Czech Republic, from May 22nd to 24th, 2007.

Infosecurity Europe 2007

http://www.infosec.co.uk/

24-26 April, London, UK.

Instructional Architect

http://ia.usu.edu/

“The INSTRUCTIONAL ARCHITECT allows you to find, use, and share learning resources from the National Science Digital Library (NSDL) and the Web in order to create engaging and interactive educational web pages”

Intellect

http://www.intellectuk.org/

“Intellect is the trade association for the UK hi-tech industry. Our members comprise organisations both large and small from the UK's information technology, telecommunications and electronics sectors.”

IR-Managers

http://oaresearch.org/

IR-Managers website, with its associated forum is a resource and communications tool for librarians, programmers, and other professionals running digital repositories, with an especial focus on institutional repositories (IRs) in colleges and universities in the United States.

ISKO UK

http://www.iskouk.org/

“Founded in 1989, the International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO) is the leading international society for the organization of knowledge. The Society has a broad and interdisciplinary scope. Its mission is to advance conceptual work on knowledge organization in all kinds of forms, and for all kinds of purposes such as databases, libraries, dictionaries and the Internet.“

Jacobs

http://www.jacobsbabtie.com/

Jacobs Engineering Group Inc is one of the world's largest and most diverse providers of professional technical services.

Jobrapido

http://www.jobrapido.co.uk/

Jobrapido enables you to search through over 400,000 jobs posted on job boards, recruiting agency and company websites.

jobs-in-transport.com

http://jobs-in-transport.com/

A UK site for transport recruitment.

JonathanBriggs.com

http://www.jonathanbriggs.com/about/

This site is an educational resource, a research project and a publication channel written by Jonathan Briggs, Professor of New Media Design at Kingston University.

Journal for Global Business Advancement

http://www.inderscience.com/jgba

A new journal.

The aim of JGBA is the advancement of contemporary research in the field of global business from the standpoint of both western and emerging countries vigorously participating in the globalised world. JGBA is an international refereed journal dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practice of global business with an emphasis on developing countries attempting to assert themselves on the global stage.

JGBA provides a vehicle to help professionals, academics, scholars, policy makers, entrepreneurs, consultants, and international civil servants working in the field of global business to disseminate information and to learn from each other’s work.

Journal of Gambling Business and Economics

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ubpl/jgbe

A new journal. There is free access for a trial period.

Journal of Prediction Markets

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ubpl/jpm

A new journal. There is free access for a trial period.

Just One More Book

http://www.justonemorebook.com/

“Just One More Book is a thrice-weekly podcast in which we take a few minutes out of our morning coffee ritual to discuss one of our many favourite children’s books.”

Laser Focus World

http://www.laserfocusworld.com/index.html

Laser Focus World, a monthly magazine for engineers, researchers, scientists, and technical professionals, has launched a new version of its web site.

Free copies of the print Laser Focus World are available to qualifying individuals worldwide.

Librarian's World

http://www.librariansworld.com/

Librarian's World is a network of Librarians & Information Scientists.

LibraryThing

http://www.librarything.com/

“LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.”

Some librarians also find this useful for cataloguing purposes.

Thanks to Celia Hukins, BAE, for telling me about this.

Local Transport Today

http://www.lttonline.co.uk/

“Local Transport Today is dedicated to providing you with the detailed knowledge that is essential to informed transport planning and project delivery. Our ability to do so is grounded in an editorial team with first-hand experience not only of technical writing, but also of local government, politics, research and analysis. LTT has provided an unrivalled fortnightly service of news and analysis for 17 years. LTT offers you a comprehensive fortnightly news service, with independent, authoritative analysis, in-depth features on the latest issues, and the largest and brightest recruitment section in the transport planning field: jobs-in-transport.com “

Lyell Collection

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/lyellcollection

To mark its 200th Anniversary in 2007, the Geological Society of London is launching a completely new electronic publishing service. Available from May 2007 the Society’s new online Lyell Collection - whose creation has been made possible by the generosity of our Bicentennial platinum sponsors BP and Shell - will feature the full content of its wholly owned journals, Special Publications and key book series. This completely new service will be available to the Earth science community worldwide, with the support of Schlumberger.

Manufacturing Diploma

http://www.manufacturingdiploma.co.uk/

A Diploma is a new qualification aimed at providing young people between the ages of 14-19, with the skills and knowledge they need to gain a job in UK industry.

There will be 14 Diplomas, launching across schools in England from 2008, covering broad subject areas as diverse as retail, manufacturing, hair and beauty and media. These qualifications will run in parallel with the traditional GCSE/A-Level and Apprenticeship routes and will consist of a new formula of blended learning – combining vocational on-the-job training with traditional academic study. The Manufacturing Diploma will roll out in schools from 2009.

Meetpie.com

http://www.meetpie.com/

“Meetpie.com is the meetings and events industry portal - bringing you the best ingredients: news, jobs, venue and supplier search databases, a bulletin board, links, magazines and much more.”

Metadata for Architectural Contents in Europe: MACE

http://www.mace-project.eu/

The MACE project sets out to transform the ways of e-learning about architecture in Europe. It will integrate vast amounts of content from diverse repositories created in several large previous projects as well as from existing architectural design communities.

Nanonow

http://www.nanonow.co.uk/nanonow_issue1.pdf

The IoN - a leading global nanotechnology information provider - is proud to announce the launch of a new monthly nanotechnology magazine.

National Academies Press

http://www.nap.edu/

The National Academies Press (NAP) was created by the National Academies to publish the reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, all operating under a charter granted by the Congress of the United States. The NAP publishes more than 200 books a year on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health, capturing the most authoritative views on important issues in science and health policy.

National Knowledge Commission – Government of India

http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/

The National Knowledge Commission is a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, with the objective of transforming India into a knowledge society. It covers sectors ranging from education to e-governance in the five focus areas of the knowledge paradigm.

Nature Network

http://network.nature.com/

“Nature Network is the online meeting place for you and fellow scientists to gather, talk and find out about the latest scientific news and events. Science is an international endeavor and deserves a global stage for discussion. Scientists can also benefit from interactions at the local level. That's why you'll see an increasing number of local city hubs on Nature Network, starting with Boston and London.”

Nereus

http://www.nereus4economics.info/

Nereus is a network of leading European economics information providers.

NewspaperDirect

http://www.newspaperdirect.com/

NewspaperDirect has become a centralized global repository for content of daily newspapers. It has agreements to receive content from publishers around the world and make it available in the original design and page layout to readers globally.

Ning

http://www.ning.com/

“Ning is the only online service where you can create, customize, and share your own Social Network for free in seconds.”

OilGasArticles.Com

http://www.oilgasarticles.com/

OilGasArticles.Com features up-to-date, searchable oil and gas industry articles, online oil and gas publication service, and a full-text article database covering all areas of the oil and gas industry.

The articles are submitted by authors that participate in building an archive of oil and gas related articles free for all to read.

Online Educa Berlin 2007

http://www.online-educa.com/

November 28 – 30, 2007, Berlin.

Online Educa Berlin brings together the top professionals and experts in technology-supported learning and training of all sectors: corporate training, higher and professional education, compulsory education and lifelong learning.

ontheweb

http://www.nfer.ac.uk/latest-news/ontheweb/ontheweb-current-awareness-service.cfm

ontheweb is a monthly current awareness service, produced by the NFER Library. It highlights recent reports, publications and useful documents from prominent educational research and Children's Services related websites which are available to download or view without payment.

OpenID

http://openid.net/

OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.

Openlearn

http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/

From the Open University. Browse units and register for extra free resources.

Planets Project Newsletter

http://www.planets-project.eu/newsletters/

The first issue of the Planets Project Newsletter is now available.

The Planets Project (Preservation and Long-term Access through NETworked Services) will deliver a sustainable framework to enable long-term preservation of digital content, increasing Europe's ability to ensure access in perpetuity to its digital information.

Podiobooks.com

http://podiobooks.com/

The term podiobooks describes serialized audio books which are made available in podcast format.

Rare Book Room

http://www.rarebookroom.org/

The "Rare Book Room" site has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.

RECIPE

http://www.eurecipe.com/

RECIPE is a European Community funded project.

The objective of RECIPE is to provide European plastics processors with the knowledge, justification and tools needed to reduce energy consumption through the implementation of best practice and the introduction of new technologies.

RINewsline

http://www.researchinformation.info/subscribe.html

Useful monthly e-newsletter from the team at Research Information magazine.

RINewsline provides the latest research, technology and business news, alongside announcements of key hardware and software products.

SINTO Information Partnership wiki

http://sinto.wetpaint.com/

“This wiki has been set up by and for SINTO - the information partnership for South Yorkshire and north Derbyshire. We are a partnership of library and information services in this area with the aim of promoting networking, training and partnership working.”

Six Cities Design Festival

http://www.six-cities.com/

17 May - 3 June 2007

The Six Cities Design Festival is an initiative aimed at unlocking Scotland’s creativity and innovation as a means of competing in the global marketplace; developing a future for design in Scotland through education and early business investment; increasing public engagement with design in its broadest definition.

South Edinburgh Crime Prevention Panel

http://www.secpp.org.uk/

The South Edinburgh Crime Prevention Panel is one of 20 Panels in the Lothian & Borders Police Area.

Swivel

http://www.swivel.com/

Swivel lets you explore data and share your insights with others. Swivel has data about politics, economics, weather, sports, business and more.

Tales from the Terminal Room

http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2007/feb2007.shtml

Issue No. 77 is available. TFTTR includes reviews and comparisons of information sources and search engines; updates to the RBA Web site Business Sources and other useful resources; dealing with technical and access problems on the Net; and news of RBA's training courses and publications.

Tartan Day in America

http://www.tartanday.gov.uk/

April 6th is tartan day.

The Best of Technology Writing 2006

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.5283331

An ebook.

The British Library

http://www.bl.uk/

New British Library Website

TOCRoSS

http://sourceforge.net/projects/tocross

The Open Source Server component from the TOCRoSS Project TOCRoSS a JISC supported project to use RSS standards to place journal tables of content (TOC) data into a library catalogue without human intervention.

Top 25 Web 2.0 Search Engines

http://oedb.org/library/features/top-25-web20-search-engines

Found via Maeve’s Blog.

Triarchy Press

http://www.triarchypress.co.uk/

Triarchy Press was founded in 2005 to publish exciting new books on organizations and how they work. In particular, it aims to bridge the gap between academic and research work on the subject and the daily practice of managing and running an organization. It also offers authors and institutions all the benefits of streamlined publishing.

Triarchy are offering 10% discount on Management f-LAWS and The 3 Ways for readers of the Internet Resources Newsletter. Enter triarchy-ten at the checkout to take advantage of this offer.

UK Airport News

http://www.uk-airport-news.info/

A daily updated airport news website plus a news archive. There are news pages for each of the UK's major airports, plus a unique live flight information page and parking details for every airport (including disabled and motorbike parking details).

UK Green Building Council

http://www.ukgbc.org/

The UK Green Building Council's mission is: To dramatically improve the sustainability of the built environment by radically transforming the way it is planned, designed, constructed, maintained and operated.

University of Warwick

http://myspace.com/warwickuniversity

The university’s MySpace site.

WikiProteins

http://www.wikiprofessional.info/

WikiProteins is the first Wiki Professional serving scientists working on biology and disease.

[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.

What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/techwatch/tsw0701bword.doc
by Paul Anderson

This is a TechWatch report which was commissioned to investigate the substance behind the hyperbole surrounding ‘Web 2.0’. It reports on the implications this may have for the UK Higher and Further Education sector, with a special focus on collection and preservation activities within libraries.

Well worth reading for its clear explanations and insights. Its author also has a blog at: http://techlun.ch/

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
To add this RSS feed to any feedreader, go to: http://tinyurl.com/39sg5j

Techstreet has been redesigned by Thomson
http://www.techstreet.com/

Wikio
http://www.wikio.com/
Wikio is a personalized page of news, including a news search engine that searches media sites and blogs.

Lis-bloggers
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/lis-bloggers.html
Discussion list for library and information services bloggers

Guide: Using Blogs in Economics
http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/showcase/ayres_blogs.htm
By Paul Ayres

RSS for current awareness
http://www2.gsa.ac.uk/library/induction/RSS/rss.htm
A demo movie on how to subscribe to a feed in Bloglines. It’s in the Movies section and was made using Adobe Captivate.

Expert Voice
http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/
Expert Voices uses weblog technology to support collaborative STEM conversations among content experts, scientists, teachers, and students from key NSDL audience groups

Results of the ‘Online Tool Use Survey’ undertaken by the JISC funded SPIRE
project
http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/jisc_spire_surveyresults.pdf
Interesting findings on Web 2.0 use.

Fact Pitch Blog Directory
http://www.fastpitchnetworking.com/blog/

BUMPzee
http://www.bumpzee.com/
BUMPzee is a niche blog aggregator with a community on top. BUMPzee is organized into bite-sized communities into which we pull the latest relevant blog entries from around the Internet. Members of those communities keep up with the latest news, vote on the best stories, and discuss them, either here on BUMPzee or over at the blog itself.

EBSCO and Newstex announce Alliance for Blogs
http://www.newstexblog.com/blog/2007/03/ebsco_and_newst.html
We are very excited to announce our alliance with EBSCO Publishing (EBSCO), the world’s premier database aggregator, to deliver Newstex Content On Demand™ and Newstex Blogs On Demand™ via nearly 100 EBSCO databases to customers worldwide. As part of the distribution agreement, full-text blog content from Newstex's premier Weblogs (Including archives) will be made available to academic libraries for the first time.

This month's selected interesting blogs and RSS feeds

LibraryThing
http://www.librarything.com/blog/

UK Web Focus
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Although mentioned before, in issue 146, this blog is worth noting again, as Brian Kelly has some interesting posts on various aspects of Web 2.0, blogs for libraries, instant messaging, etc etc.

Interchange
http://www.planetizen.com/interchange
Planetizen's daily blog featuring opinions and commentary from leaders in the field.

Library Web
http://www.libraryweb.info/
Library Web is a rolling Internet news site for library professionals.

EducationState
http://www.educationstate.org/
An education news blog

Innovating Research!
http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/lriu/
From the University of Warwick Library's Research and Innovation Unit

ISKO UK
http://iskouk.blogspot.com/
A blog space of the British chapter of ISKO (International Society for Knowledge Organization)

LI Issues
http://ligissues.blogspot.com/
News, musings and issues relating to Legal Publishing and Legal Information Provision.

Science @ UCD Library
http://ucdscience.blogspot.com/
From the Science Librarians at University College Dublin.

Research @ UCD Library
http://ucdlibraryresearch.blogspot.com/

Readers Services @ UCD
http://ucdreaderservices.blogspot.com/

Open Access @ UCD
http://oaucd.blogspot.com/
Developments in scholarly communication at UCD Dublin

UCD Library 2 Go
http://virtualstudyspace.wordpress.com/
This blog is currently under development. Its intention is to suggests tools that UCD students can use to collaborate, write, manipulate graphics, keep track of bookmarks, and lots of other goodies that might help to make their study more productive.

Librarians Matter
http://librariansmatter.com/blog/index.php
A blog by Kathryn Greenhill.

From the information literacy website - designed and developed by information professionals from key UK organisations actively involved in the field of information literacy, there are two feeds:
Latest news
http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/News.aspx
and
Events
http://www.informationliteracy.org.uk/Events.aspx

OilGasArticles - The Oil and Natural Gas Industry Knowledge Base - Articles
http://www.oilgasarticles.com/articlerss.php

Curious Capitalist
http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/

Chemistry World blog
http://www.rscweb.org/blogs/cw/
News, opinions and discussion about the chemical sciences

University of Bath Library :: Science News
http://bathsciencenews.wordpress.com/

RCM Library midwifery information
http://midwifery-info.blogspot.com/

Public Knowledge Policy Blog
http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog

SciAm Observations
http://blog.sciam.com/
Opinions, arguments and analyses from the editors of Scientific American

Perth College Library Blog
http://perthcollegelibrary.blogspot.com/

Moira's Info Lit Blog
http://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/moira.bent
Moira Bent is Faculty Liaison Librarian, Newcastle University

Musings of a chartering librarian
http://charteringbookmouse.wordpress.com/

A directory of Newcastle University blogs is available:
http://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/directory.html

Information Literacy meets Web 2.0
http://infolitweb.blogspot.com/
By Peter Godwin - "An academic librarian who likes expertise to be shared!"

UK Military Operations in Iraq
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/InDepth/rss.aspx?feed=recentoperationsiniraq
From the Ministry of Defense

TALL
http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/
The Technology-Assisted lifelong Learning (TALL) group is part of the University of Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education, responsible for developing online courseware and providing consultancy in e-learning.

Sintoblog
http://sintoblog.blogspot.com/
A blog on library and information management issues for members of SINTO - the information partnership, a consortium of library and information services in South Yorkshire and the surrounding area.

Paul Coyne
http://intouch.emeraldinsight.com/paulcoyne/weblog
Scholarly publishing news, etc

Hampshire and Isle of Wight library land
http://hiow.blogspot.com/

Facet Publishing
http://www.facetpublishing.blogspot.com/

Triarchy Press: Changing the shape of the organization
http://www.triarchypress.co.uk/blog/blog.html

Newstex
http://www.newstexblog.com/

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PRESS RELEASES

**** NPG launches networking website for scientists ****

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) announces the launch of Nature Network (http://network.nature.com), a new free online networking website for scientists worldwide. This Web 2.0 toolkit will help scientists everywhere to meet like-minded researchers, hold online discussions, showcase their work via personal homepages, share information with groups (open or private) and tag content. Participation is free to all, requiring little more than nature.com registration. User-driven upgrades will roll out regularly from now on.

**** Theses unbound: towards a national e-theses service for the UK ****

A fully integrated national electronic theses service moved a step closer with the announcement that a two-year project - EThOSnet - is to be funded to establish a live service run by the British Library in two years’ time. 

JISC and CURL (Consortium of Research Libraries), with the support of participating libraries, are funding the project to widen access to what is a rich and vast but up to now almost invisible and untapped resource for researchers. By contrast EThOS, the service that will be established by the project, will make UK theses openly available for global use, providing an international showcase for some of the best of UK research. 

The project builds on earlier exploratory work, also funded by JISC and CURL, which between 2004 and 2006 developed a prototype for the service. Independent evaluation has since given the prototype strong backing and suggested further developments, while a recent consultation resulted in expressions of interest from over 70 HE institutions to participate in the emerging e-theses service.  

EThOSnet builds on these firm foundations and through collaboration with the British Library and the HE community will transform access to theses in the UK by providing the full text of theses through a single point of entry. In addition, in tandem with the emerging network of institutional repositories in the UK, it promises to become a central element of the national infrastructure for research.  

For further information, please go to: EThOSnet 

Contact details: Philip Pothen (JISC) on 07887 564 006 or p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk

Lawrence Christensen (British Library) on 020 7412 7114 or lawrence.christensen@bl.uk

**** Two centuries of civil engineering knowledge made available free to UK colleges and universities ****

A new JISC Collections agreement makes the largest collection of full text civil engineering papers in the world available free of charge to all further and higher education institutions. Some of the most important articles on civil engineering are now available in perpetuity to those communities.

An agreement between JISC Collections and the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) now makes ICE’s massive archive of some 18,000 illustrated papers and over 200,000 pages easily accessible to all further and higher education institutions. The Institution of Civil Engineers Virtual Library contains every peer-reviewed technical paper published by the ICE between 1836 and 2001.

For further information, please go to: Institution of Civil Engineers Virtual Library at http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/catalogue/coll_icevirtuallib.html

**** Intute Announces New Materials Science and Engineering Section ****

Intute Science and Technology section now has a combined Materials Science and Engineering section (at http://www.intute.ac.uk/sciences/cgi-bin/browse.pl?id=25708 ).

Materials Sciences (formery part of PSIgate) has been merged with Materials Engineering (formerly part of EEVL). It is a searchable and browseable database of free resources on the Internet which have been evaluated and classified by specialist librarians in UK universities.

It contains 2400 records describing tutorials, e-books, journals, bibliographic databases, government publications, professional association sites, standards, datasheets and other websites under the headings: Chemicals and Materials Safety, Construction and Building Materials, Materials Engineering General, Materials Science General, Materials Properties, Materials Testing and Characterisation, Metals, Metallurgy & Corrosion, Polymers, Ceramics and Composites and also Other Materials.

For further information contact n.j.harrison@hw.ac.uk

**** Tribal Coordinates High Profile Science, Engineering, Mathematics and Technology Portals ****

Tribal is proud to announce its work on three high profile educational portals, the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM), Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Centres (STEM) Support Centres and the National Network of Science Learning Centres.

http://www.ncetm.org.uk/
http://www.stemcentres.org.uk/
http://www.sciencelearningcentres.org.uk/

For further information, please contact the Tribal Group communications team on 01285 886020 or by email: media@tribalgroup.co.uk

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

005.276 WEL
PHP and MySQL Web development
3rd edition, by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson
Sams, 2005

025.04 COX
Portals
edited by Andrew Cox
Facet, 2006

025.04 DUR
Negotiating licences for digital resources
by Fiona Durrant
Facet, 2006

025.52 LAN
The virtual reference desk
edited by R David Lankes et al
Facet, 2006

301.243 CAS
The rise of the network society
2nd ed, by Manual Castells
Blackwell, 2000

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

Negotiating Licences For Digital Resources
by Fiona Durrant.
London: Facet Publishing, 2006. 149pp
978-1-85604-586-5; £39.95

Taking out or renewing a licence to an online subscription? Do you want to feel confident in entering into the licence negotiation process? If yes, then this book by Fiona Durrant is for you.

Written from personal work experience, this book is about getting the best deal for your organisation and getting the most from the negotiating process. It distils down the essential elements of the negotiation process universally applicable across settings and situations. As a result, information professionals, publishers and procurement personnel in all sectors will find it a relevant and helpful text.

Durrant’s writing style is accessible and easy to understand. The introduction sets the scene clearly by explaining who the book is for, what negotiation is and why it is done. The book’s contents are logically organised covering the negotiation process, step by step.

The book’s content is divided into four main chapters covering preparation, contract, negotiation and finally staff development & communicating outcome. Key areas covered in these chapters include -

The author stresses that negotiating is not a unilateral activity undertaken by one individual alone in the organisation. Rather, it describes a holistic view of the process involving budget holders, purchasers, information professionals, trainers and users. Practical advice abounds. This includes advice on being realistic and preparing contingencies for best alternative outcomes. One section even gives tips on the best phrases to use when negotiating. For example, to be positive and keep your audience with you, reply with “Yes . . . and... “ rather than the more negative “But . .”

The practical nature of the book continues with very useful checklists of questions or points to cover at the end of each chapter. The appendices also include a helpful FAQ, a negotiation timeline and a record sheet to log your own personal experiences of negotiation.

As the publisher’s blurb suggest, this book will be a useful “reference tool for experienced negotiators” but also a good “primer for those who have never before been involved in the process.”

Fiona Durrant is Library and Information Centre Manager at the Knowledge Management Department, Baker & McKenzie, LLP, Solicitors, London.

MK

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GET A LIFE! - LEISURE TIME

TorqueCars
http://www.torquecars.com/

Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative
http://www.edinburghbicycle.com/

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

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