INTERNET RESOURCES NEWSLETTER The free, monthly, newsletter for academics, students, engineers, scientists and social scientists.
Latest issue: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn123/irn123.html Edited by: Roddy MacLeod ([EMAIL PROTECTED] ), Catherine Ferguson and Catherine Ure. Heriot-Watt University Library ISSN: 1361-9381 Web: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html ------------------------------- The Internet Resources Newsletter is only distributed to readers who have subscribed to the service. To subscribe or unsubscribe please visit the homepage at http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html or to unsubscribe by email please reply to this email with unsubscribe in the subject field. -------------------------------- ISSUE 123- CONTENTS 1..COMMENT Random Quotes Internet Resources Newsletter by email and RSS News items of interest If you only read one thing this month, read... And, erm...if you only read two things (and you are a librarian), also read... 2. A-Z NEW AND NOTABLE WEB SITES Information and reviews of new and recent Web sites 3. NICE WEB SITE(S) This month: CSA Illumina 4. PRESS RELEASES Renaissance Library Calendar 2005 Emerald Releases Emerald Management Xtra 5. NETWORK NEWS Athens, EEVL, SOSIG, EDINA, Eduserv Chest, MIMAS, PSIgate, BIOME, Netskills, ELDIS, BIZ/ed, AHDS, JISCmail, UK Data Archive, Chemical Database Service, Academic Info, RDN, Humbul 6. RECENT INTERNET BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY Recent arrivals 7. BLOGORAMA News of Weblogs, RSS etc. 8. BOOK REVIEWS Review of: Ethics for the Information Age by Michael J. Quinn 9. GET A LIFE! LEISURE TIME After hours ------------------- 1. COMMENT ------------------- Random Quotes "Surveys say that 17,000m spam messages are sent on an average day and spam represents 60%-80% of today's e-mail." Sunday Times, October 31. "The world of online "scholarly" research is changing today as Google introduces Google Scholar." Gary Price, ResourceShelf, November 18. http://www.resourceshelf.com/2004/11/wow-its-google-scholar.html ----- Internet Resources Newsletter by email and RSS Over 28,000 people now subscribe to the free email version of this Newsletter. Very many thanks go to Willco who distribute the email version. To subscribe, at no cost, go to http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html The Internet Resources Newsletter has an RSS feed. This means that you can read its 'headlines' (essentially the Table of Contents) through a feedreader or service such as Bloglines' My Blogs, and then link through to the sections of interest. The RSS feed is available at: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.rss This is a .rss file and therefore it must be processed (or 'parsed') before it can be displayed. The easiest way to do this is via Bloglines' My Blogs, or via a feedreader, such as those listed in the RSS Primer. ----- Text version A text only version of the Internet Resources Newsletter is available at: http://www.hw.ac.uk/cgi-bin/parser.pl/0304/www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn.html ----- Here is this month's selection of news items of interest Scopus Launched Scopus is a single Abstract and Indexing (A&I) database, which covers 14,000 scientific, technical, medical and social sciences titles from 4,000 STM publishers. Also 167 million scientific web pages going back forty years. http://www.biblio-tech.com/uksg/SI_PD.cfm?PID=10&ArticleID=1551&issueno=79&XSection=Business >From UKSG Serials e-News Google launch scholarly search engine Google have launched a new version - Google Scholar - of their search engine. It indexes scholarly material held in subscription databases, citations and books and will link to library holdings via WorldCat. The system is available as a beta version now. http://www.biblio-tech.com/uksg/SI_PD.cfm?PID=10&ArticleID=1577&issueno=80&XSection=Business >From UKSG Serials e-News MPs condemn Government response to report The UK Government has responded to Parliament's report on scientific publishing with a detailed response which MPs have called obstructive in a press release. The response from the MPs clearly shows they are frustrated with what they see as "kowtowing" to the publishing lobby. http://www.biblio-tech.com/uksg/SI_PD.cfm?PID=10&ArticleID=1575&issueno=80&XSection=Business >From UKSG Serials e-News STM responds to NIH Open Access proposal The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) has responded to the NIH proposal for open publication with concerns that "it does not appear to consider fully the implications of its proposed solution". In a detailed statement STM sets out its views and recommends that any decision-making "should only be done after thorough market investigation". http://www.biblio-tech.com/uksg/SI_PD.cfm?PID=10&ArticleID=1576&issueno=80&XSection=Business >From UKSG Serials e-News CyberMatrix Class Scheduler, simple affordable class scheduling! CyberMatrix Corporation has released version 4.00 of CyberMatrix Class Scheduler, a Windows-based software package for student class scheduling. The most significant change in version 4 is the new requirements-based scheduling feature. With requirements-based scheduling, class times and the assignment of rooms and instructors are automatically setup before student scheduling actually takes place. Several other important features have been added as well. http://www.cyber-matrix.com/press/classsched4.html Digital Curation Centre Launched In Edinburgh The UK funding bodies for universities, colleges and research councils have combined to fund the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), with an annual budget of over �1m a year. http://www.managinginformation.com/news/content_show_full.php?id=3255 From: Managing Information ----- If you only read one thing this month (and you are a librarian), read... Beyond Google: The Invisible Web in the academic library by Jane Devine ad Francine Egger-Sider The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol 30, Number 4, pages 265-269 And, erm...if you only read two things (and you are a librarian), also read... Librarians vs. technology: Expertise in an age of amateur researchers By Sue Bowness http://www.econtentinstitute.org/issues/ISarticle.asp?id=157664&story_id=42362113250&issue=11012004&PC= --------------------------------------------------- 2. A-Z NEW & NOTABLE WEB SITES --------------------------------------------------- Artifact http://www.artifact.ac.uk/ Artifact, which guides you to the best of the Web in the Arts and Creative Industries, has a new design for its website, and also a new Artist�s Index. -------------------------------- Astobiology Magazine http://www.astrobio.net/ Information and discussion groups devoted to Extrasolar life; Extreme life; Life and Giant Planets; Mars Life; Meteors, Comets, and Asteroids; Missions; New Planets; Stellar Evolution; Terrestrial Climate History; Terrestrial Origins. -------------------------------- AZoNano Online Journal of Nanotechnology http://www.azonano.com/nanotechnology.asp AZoM.com Pty. Ltd. Sydney Australia and the Scottish-based Institute of Nanotechnology are pleased to announce the forthcoming launch of the Online Journal of Nanotechnology. -------------------------------- Bfi national library http://www.bfi.org.uk/nationallibrary/ �We provide access to a major national research collection of documentation and information on film and television. Our priority is comprehensive coverage of British film and television, but the collection itself is international in scope.� -------------------------------- BIONIS: The Biomimetics Network for Industrial Sustainability http://www.extra.rdg.ac.uk/eng/BIONIS/current_issues.htm This Current Issues page features recent news of interest. -------------------------------- Brazilink http://www.brazilink.org/ Brazilink is an educational portal covering a wide range of development issues in Brazil. -------------------------------- BRENDA http://www.brenda.uni-koeln.de/ Comprehensive Enzyme Information System -------------------------------- British Steam Car Challenge http://www.steamcar.co.uk/ The British Steam Car Challenge was conceived with the twofold aim of breaking the land speed record for steam powered vehicles as well as creating excitement in the arena of alternate fuels. It is hoped that the project will create interest among the next generation of engineers and designers to work toward cleaner and safer forms of transportation, both public and private. -------------------------------- CADFind Sketch & Search http://www.sketchandsearch.com/ CADFind Sketch & Search is the first commercial design retrieval system in the world that can find 2D engineering drawings from a sketch. Uniquely, it works for any kind of mechanical engineering component. -------------------------------- CANARIE Inc http://www.canarie.ca/ �CANARIE Inc. - Canada's advanced Internet development organization - is a not-for-profit corporation supported by its members, project partners and the Federal Government. CANARIE's mission is to accelerate Canada's advanced Internet development and use by facilitating the widespread adoption of faster, more efficient networks and by enabling the next generation of advanced products, applications and services to run on them.� -------------------------------- CAREO http://www.careo.org/ CAREO is a project supported by Alberta Learning and CANARIE that has as its primary goal the creation of a searchable, Web-based collection of multidisciplinary teaching materials for educators across the province and beyond. -------------------------------- Centre for Bioscience, the Higher Education Academy http://bio.ltsn.ac.uk/ Previously an LTSN, now a Centre. -------------------------------- ChemicalRegister.com http://www.chemicalregister.com/ Online searchable directory of 15,000 chemical suppliers enabling buyers to easily source manufacturers for capacity and price of commodity and specialty chemicals. -------------------------------- Chronicle World http://www.chronicleworld.org/ Internet magazine on changing Black Britain. -------------------------------- Cultural Objects in Networked Environments: COINE http://www.coine.org/ Empowering European citizens to tell their own stories lies at the heart of the COINE (Cultural Objects in Networked Environments) Project. -------------------------------- Dictionary of the History of Ideas http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/DicHist/dict.html �The Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, edited by Philip P. Wiener, was published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, in 1973-74. The Dictionary of the History of Ideas also appeared in Chinese- and Japanese-language editions. However, the DHI has been out of print for many years. Aware of the new potential offered by electronic access to texts, the Directors and Board of Editors of the Journal of the History of Ideas authorized a grant to support digitization of the DHI. Substantial support has also been provided by the University of Virginia Library through its Electronic Text Center. The project has been undertaken with the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons and of The Gale Group, of which Scribner's is a part.� -------------------------------- Dissertation.com http://www.dissertation.com A way to get theses published. This site provides abstracts of a number of published dissertations. -------------------------------- Education Media OnLine http://www.emol.ac.uk/ Film and video for download. For UK HE and FE. -------------------------------- E-MmITS http://www.slainte.org.uk/mmits/files/pdf/emmits/winter04.pdf The Autumn issue of E-MmITS the electronic newsletter of the Multimedia and Information Technology Group Scotland is now available. -------------------------------- Enhancement Themes http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/ The Enhancement Themes initiative aims to enhance the student learning experience in Scottish higher education by identifying specific areas (themes) for development. The themes encourage academic and support staff and students to share current good practice and collectively generate ideas and models for innovation in learning and teaching. -------------------------------- Esmerk http://www.esmerk.com/ Esmerk supplies senior executives and decision-makers in leading international companies with a flow of intelligently selected essential business information to improve their mental maps of their business environments. -------------------------------- Europe Unit http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/home/ The Europe Unit is a sector-wide body working in the interests of UK higher education. It has three objectives: To raise awareness of the European issues affecting UK higher education. To coordinate the UK's involvement in European initiatives and debates. To strengthen the position of the UK higher education sector in debates over the Bologna Process and EU policies and initiatives. -------------------------------- European Conferences http://www.europeanconferences.co.uk/ Edinburgh-based European Conferences was established in June 1997 to provide an experienced and professional event management service. The team at European Conferences has combined experience of over 25 years in the business. -------------------------------- Flexitek Ltd http://www.flexipclink.com/ PC peripherals USB solutions. -------------------------------- Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/ �Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.� For a detailed analysis of this very interesting new service, see:ResourceShelf -------------------------------- Harvesting the benefits of Open Access http://www.biomedcentral.com/openaccess/archive/?page=features&issue=22 Interview with Fytton Rowland, from Open Access Now. -------------------------------- ICErecruit http://www.icerecruit.com/ Jobs in civil engineering, structural engineering, chemical engineering and geotechnical engineering from graduate to board level positions. Official engineering jobs website of ICE, The Institution of Civil Engineers. -------------------------------- ICT Literacy Assessment http://www.ets.org/ictliteracy/ ICT is an online test that measures students' ability to find, use, manage, evaluate and convey information through the use of commonplace computer technology in academic and workplace settings. -------------------------------- Information Highways http://www.econtentinstitute.org/issues/table_of_contents.asp?issue=11012004&RType=&PC= The November-December 2004 issue is now available. -------------------------------- Intelligentedu.com http://www.intelligentedu.com/ intelinfo.com is Now Intelligentedu.com Computer Training, Computer Education, & Computer Tutorials. -------------------------------- International Conference on Technology, Knowledge and Society http://technology-conference.com/ University of California, Berkeley, Friday 18 - Sunday 20 February 2005 -------------------------------- IP2Phrase� - Free Customized Phrase for Websites and Visitors http://www.ip2phrase.com/ IP2Phrase� allows you to dynamically insert customized welcome messages on to your web page. -------------------------------- ISDD http://www.isdduk.com/ ISDD has developed OmniQ�, a powerful automatic retrieval technology that eliminates the need to manually process information. -------------------------------- Journal for the Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology http://www.jiia.it/ Italian electronic publication on archaeology, ancient sciences and archeology-related sciences. -------------------------------- Koders http://www.koders.com/ Koders is a search engine for source code. It enables developers to easily search and browse source code in thousands of projects hosted at hundreds of open source repositories. -------------------------------- Location Register of 20th-century English literary manuscripts and letters Http://www.locationregister.com The Location Register team in the University of Reading Library has now completed work on a project funded by the Laser Foundation, surveying the holdings of modern literary manuscripts in British public libraries. -------------------------------- Morgan & Claypool Publishers http://www.morganclaypool.com/ Morgan & Claypool is a new company, with new product in a new format, aimed at researchers and developers in engineering and computer science. �Our mission is to deliver innovative "next generation" digital information products that combine authoritative content with state-of-the-art technology and customer oriented business models� The product name is: Synthesis. -------------------------------- NAFEMS Student Awards 2005 http://nafems.org/awards/ In recognition of the importance of the University Sector to the advancement of Finite Element Modelling and Computational Fluid Dynamics, and to encourage Undergraduate Students to work in these fields, NAFEMS has established three awards for Outstanding Final Year Projects. -------------------------------- National Measurement System http://www.dti.gov.uk/nmd/ The DTI is responsible for the NMS, which provides world-class measurement standards and calibration facilities to the UK. These enable UK businesses and public authorities to make accurate measurements that are nationally and internationally accepted. -------------------------------- NextGRID http://www.nextgrid.org/ NextGRID is part of a major initiative to ensure that Europe is a world leader in this technology which is so vital to the new knowledge-based economy. -------------------------------- Nonlinear Dynamics http://www.nonlinear.com/ Nonlinear Dynamics is a leading worldwide provider of bioinformatics solutions to the life science industry. -------------------------------- Office of Government Commerce http://www.ogc.gov.uk/ This site came in for criticism recently, in a newspaper, for being too complex. -------------------------------- Online Research Browsers http://virtualprivatelibrary.blogspot.com/Online%20Research%20Browsers.pdf By Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. -------------------------------- Panda Search World http://www.pandia.com/searchworld/ Search engine news. -------------------------------- Partek http://www.partek.com/ A leading provider of pattern recognition software in science and engineering. -------------------------------- pfijobs http://www.pfijobs.com/ �pfi.jobs.com is the only one-stop portal on the web that caters specifically for the PFI and PPP job marketplace� -------------------------------- PlanetLab http://www.planet-lab.org/ PlanetLab currently consists of 445 machines, hosted by 208 sites, spanning over 25 countries. Most of the machines are hosted by research institutions, although some are located in co-location and routing centers (e.g., on Internet2's Abilene backbone). All of the machines are connected to the Internet. The goal is for PlanetLab to grow to 1,000 widely distributed nodes that peer with the majority of the Internet's regional and long-haul backbones. -------------------------------- Scottish Coal http://www.scottishcoal.co.uk/ Scottish Coal is the UK's second largest coal producer, producing over 4m tonnes of environmentally friendly coal per annum. -------------------------------- ShoppingBots http://www.shoppingbots.info/ A Subject Tracer� Information Blog developed and created Internet expert, author, keynote speaker and consultant Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. for monitoring ShoppingBots and Online Shopping Resources on the Internet. -------------------------------- SMEALSearch http://smealsearch1.psu.edu/ Academic Business Literature Digital Library. -------------------------------- Tendersinfo.com http://www.tendersinfo.com/ Tendersinfo.com is one of the largest database of international tendering opportunities in the world related to various industrial segments. These opps are funded by multilateral agencies, county, state and federal governments from all across the globe be it from United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and other countries -------------------------------- The Higher Education Academy: Information and Computer Science http://www.ics.heacademy.ac.uk/ Previously known as LTSN. -------------------------------- The Society of Mining Professors: SOMP http://www.mineprofs.org/ The aim of the Society is to promote contacts between the Professors in Mining Engineering worldwide. The Society's base is Europe, but membership is open to all countries. -------------------------------- thePFI.net http://www.thepfi.net/ Offers free news and free email newsletter subscription on all matters relating the UK Government�s Private Finance Initiative. -------------------------------- UCISA2005 http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/events/events/2005/conference/index_html UCISA2005 Annual Management Conference: 21st Century thinking Wednesday 9 to Friday 11 March 2005, Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. -------------------------------- WIDWISAW Vol 2 No 4 http://widwisawn.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/issues/vol2/issue2_4_1.html COSMIC (The Confederation of Scottish Mini-Cooperatives) has launched Vol.2 No.4 of WIDWISAWN, a 'webzine' covering various developments in the Scottish library, museums and archives communities. -------------------------- 3. NICE WEB SITE -------------------------- In the course of finding sites of interest for this Newsletter, we sometimes come across Web sites which we feel deserve slightly more than a passing mention. Each month we will pick out one or more such sites, and give them a short review. The sites will normally be UK based, may be small or large, and be of interest or potential interest to academics. After lengthy discussions we have decided, with incredible creativity :-), to call these: Nice Web Sites. Details of previous Nice Web Sites are available in the Nice Web Site Archive. No, this month's Nice Web Site is not Google Scholar, as you may have expected, because you've probably read about it elsewhere. This month's Nice Web Site is: CSA Illumina http://beta.csa.com/preview/ This month's Nice Web Site is unusual in that it is a subscription-based service, meaning that you won't be able to view it unless you, or your institution, subscribes. It is also unusual in that, at the time of writing (23nd November), it is not yet available (I understand CSA will switch over to it at the end of January 2005), and so the above link will take you to the beta version. So this is more like a preview than a review. More than a year ago, I found myself thinking about what, exactly, would be an ideal interface for a subject-based service which searched across different types of resources. This was in the context of working on the Subject Portal Project (which finished in October). After various investigations, and after visiting many, many sites, I was impressed by the way the search function worked at the BRE site. Insert a search term at BRE and results are presented in a 'post-co-ordinated' way. For example, search for 'sustainability' and you are informed that there are 5 Services hits, 29 News hits, 2 Events, 0 Training, 37 Books, and 83 Projects hits. How very simple and helpful! Another site which works in a similar way is the National electronic Library for Health, and there are now several other services using similar ideas, such as the TripDatabase. CSA Illumina, the new Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) platform, which provides access to more than 75 databases published by CSA and its publishing partners, uses a similar principle, and is the best example I've seen. Why? Because they KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) ;-). The search page for CSA Illumina could hardly be simpler, given that the content behind it is impressively extensive, and is a big improvement on the old CSA Internet Database Service interface. It consists of a search box, two drop-down options (the second of which has a preselected and sensible default), and two 'index tabs' which lead to more options. A screen shot of the CSA Illumina search page is at http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn123/csa1.gif The beauty of the new CSA Illumina interface is that you don't have to understand all that much about searching, or even what it is that you are searching, in order to get some meaningful results. Insert a search term, select a subject area, click on Search and you get results which then invite further investigation. CSA Illumina returns results under several helpful categories. For example, when I searched the technology database under the term 'partnering' the results returned were: All publication types 393 results Journals 331 Peer-Reviewed Journals 63 Conferences 27 Web Sites 1 Books 1 News 16 Other 26 A screen shot of the CSA Illumina results page is at http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn123/csa2.gif The first ten of the 393 results are listed underneath the search results, and others follow. However, in order, for example, to retrieve only the 22 Conference results, all I would have to do is click on the 'Conference' tab . These features make CSA Illumina very simple to use. I regularly direct students to subscription-based information retrieval tools, and often I feel that they may well get 'lost' or confused by the complexity of the interfaces they find. I don't think this will happen with CSA Illumina. I'd be pretty confident that even 'novice' users would be able to find useful material from this new interface. Those who prefer advanced search techniques can click on the 'Advanced Search' tab in CSA Illumina where all the normal Boolean options and such like are available. Clicking on the 'Search Tools' tab will give more options, such as a Thesaurus term search and a traditional Command Search box. So even though the main CSA Illumina interface is particularly simple, search features which many information professionals and some researchers like using are still available. The final feature of CSA Illumina, which is also impressively simple to use, is the 'Select Specific Database' page, which allows you to easily select which databases to search, if you do not want to search all of them by default. If only other information retrieval tools could be as simple to use as CSA Illumina! RM -------------------------------- 4. PRESS RELEASES -------------------------------- **** Renaissance Library Calendar 2005 **** The 12 historic and beautiful libraries featured in the Renaissance Library Calendar 2005 are: St. Florian Monastery Library, St. Florian, Austria, 1745-1751 Suzzallo Library, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA, 1926 Hereford Cathedral Chained Library, Hereford, UK, 1611 Einsiedeln Abbey Library, Einsiedeln, Switzerland, 1738 Central Library of the St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, MO, USA, 1912 Klosterneuburg Abbey Library, Klosterneuburg, Austria, 1834-1842 National Library of Malta, Valletta, Malta, 1796 The Monastic Library at Yuso, San Mill�n de la Cogolla, Spain, 1665 City and University Library of Bern, Bern, Switzerland, 1794 Franciscan Monastery of Friars Minor, Dubrovnik, Croatia, 1695 Library of the Boston Athen�um, Boston, MA, USA, 1849 Library of the Palace of the Conde d�Obidos, Lisbon, Portugal, unknown The Renaissance Library Calendar is in its fifth year. The 2005 edition contains libraries from eight countries - Austria, Croatia, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the USA. It is published by ISIM of Stockholm, Sweden. For additional information on the Renaissance Library Calendar Contact: Stuart Urwin, ISIM, Torsvagen 7b, 192 67 Sollentuna, Sweden Tel. +46 8754 15 55 Fax: +46 8754 13 33 e-mail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Copies of the calendar can be obtained at the Renaissance Library website at http://www.renaissancelibrary.com **** Emerald Releases Emerald Management Xtra **** Emerald Group Publishing Limited announces the launch of its flagship knowledge portal Emerald Management Xtra, to be unveiled at Online Information 2004 in London, November 30 � December 2. As the largest, most comprehensive collection of peer reviewed management journals and online support, Emerald Management Xtra has been created to meet the specific needs of educators, students, researchers, and information professionals working in the business management community. Emerald Management Xtra combines core content from over 100 select Emerald journals with practical working tools and resources. It expands upon the Emerald Fulltext and Emerald Management Reviews databases by integrating newly enriched content including a Conference Central, Research Register, the EMX Library Resource, Teaching Tips, and numerous book reviews, case studies, and interviews. The renowned Emerald Literati Club is included as well, making Emerald Management Xtra an unparalleled resource for academics. Emerald is offering free trials of the beta version of Emerald Management Xtra at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/emx. Librarians and academic researchers are invited to test drive and to review the product for industry publications. ----------------------------- 5. NETWORK NEWS ----------------------------- Athens News Athens is an Access Management System for controlling access to web-based subscription services. The latest Athens news is available at: http://www.athensams.net/news/ EEVL News The latest news from EEVL, plus the latest additions to EEVL, The Hub for Engineering, Mathematics and Computing, is available at: http://www.eevl.ac.uk/news.htm Search the content of over 250 freely available full text ejournals in Engineering, Mathematics and Computing via EESE http://www.eevl.ac.uk/pressrelease/pressrelneweese.htm SOSIG News The latest additions to SOSIG (Social Science Information Gateway) are available at: http://sosig.esrc.bris.ac.uk/roads/whats-new.html EDINA Newsline The latest issue of Edina (Edinburgh Data & INformation Access) Newsline can be found at: http://edina.ed.ac.uk/newsline/ Eduserv Chest News Eduserv Chest negotiates for all forms of commercially available electronic resource (abstracts, full text, journals, software, courseware, etc) for the education and research communities in the UK and Republic of Ireland, and it manages the resultant agreements. The latest news from Eduserv Chest is available at: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/chest/news/ MIMAS News MIMAS is a JISC-supported national data centre run by Manchester Computing, at the University of Manchester, to provide the following range of services to the academic community: Flexible on-line access to strategic research and teaching datasets. Access to key bibliographic information. Access to specialist support and training. Access to software packages and large-scale computing resources. The latest news from MIMAS can be found at: http://www.mimas.ac.uk/news.html New additions to PSIgate PSIgate (Physical Science Information Gateway) is the physical sciences hub of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN). http://www.psigate.ac.uk/newsite/whatsnew.html BIOME News BIOME is a collection of gateways which provide access to evaluated, quality Internet resources in the health and life sciences, aimed at students, researchers, academics and practitioners. The latest news from BIOME can be found at: http://biome.ac.uk/whatsnew/ Netskills: News Netskills aims to help the UK HE community make effective use of the Internet for teaching, research and administration. The latest news from Netskills can be found at: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/news/ What's new on Eldis Electronic Development and Environment Information System. A gateway to information sources on development or the environment. What's new on Eldis can be found at: http://nt1.ids.ac.uk/eldis/wnew.htm What's New on Biz/ed Biz/ed is a dedicated business and economics information gateway for students, teachers and lecturers. http://www.bized.ac.uk/homeinfo/whatsnew.htm AHDS Newsletter The latest issue of the AHDS (Arts and Humanities Data Service) Newsletter can be found at: http://ahds.ac.uk/newsletters.htm JISCmail News JSICmail provides electronic discussion lists for the UK higher education community. http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/news/index.htm UK Data Archive news The UK Data Archive at the University of Essex houses the largest collection of accessible computer-readable data in the social sciences and humanities in the United Kingdom. It is a national resource centre, disseminating data throughout the United Kingdom and, by arrangement with other national archives, internationally. http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/home/archiveNews.asp Chemical Data Service (CDS) CDS provides on-line access to a variety of quality databases in the field of Chemistry, plus support, training and advice. This is available (free of charge) to academics at UK Universities. http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cds/ Academic Info Your gateway to quality educational resources. Academic Info is an annotated subject directory tailored toward a college and university audience and is used by students, librarians, and researchers. http://www.academicinfo.net/new.html RDN News The Resource Discovery Network (RDN) is a cooperative network of independent subject-based service providers called hubs, coordinated by the Resource Discovery Network Executive. It is a free Internet service dedicated to providing effective access to high quality Internet resources for the learning, teaching and research community. http://www.rdn.ac.uk/news/ Humbul The latest additions to Humbul, the humanities hub of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN). http://www.humbul.ac.uk/output/new.php?int=30 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. 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 006.74 KOCS JSP and XML by Casey Kochmer and Erica Frandsen Addison Wesley, 2002 A complete list of new books added to Heriot-Watt University Library is available from the Library News page. http://www.hw.ac.uk/library/news.html ------------------------ 7. BLOGORAMA ------------------------ News about weblogs, RSS, etc: A weblog (Blog for short) is an online diary of sorts that usually features daily or regular postings providing commentary, plus links to other sites. For more information on blogs, the article: Search Engines: Weblog search engines http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue36/search-engines/ is a good place to start. Webopedia gives a definition of RSS http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RSS.html Atom and RSS Background Readings http://www.davidmattison.ca/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Atom%20and%20RSS%20Background%20Readings&day=6&mon=10&year=2004 Press release from NewsGator http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/default.aspx Noted in the media: "In August, Moreover added 700,000 blogs to its CI-Watch and CI-Metabase services." IWR, November 2004. Mining Information Gold in the Blogosphere - How to use Weblogs as reliable research tools http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_sp0411_Mining.pdf by Paul J. Moorman Selected interesting blog's and RSS feeds Wired Campus newsletter http://chronicle.com/infotech/newsletter/newsletter.htm RSS feeds from the Office of Personnel Management http://www.opm.gov/About_OPM/RSS/ Redgoldfish Construction Jobs http://www.redgoldfish.co.uk/RSS/rss_construction.xml Redgoldfish IT & Telecom Jobs http://www.redgoldfish.co.uk/RSS/rss_technology.xml Forrester Research feeds http://www.forrester.com/find/browse/rss Full text of documents available only to registered Forrester clients. ICErecruit http://www.icerecruit.com/rss/latest.xml Astobiology Magazine http://www.astrobio.net/news/backend.php All Nature Publishing Group titles now have RSS feeds http://npg.nature.com/npg/servlet/Content?data=xml/02_newsfeed.xml&style=xml/02_newsfeed.xsl iFeedYou http://www.ifeedyou.com/blog/ Written in French. Robotics Breaking News Blog http://www.breakingnewsblog.com/robotics/ Robotics Breaking News Blog is all about Robots. Big Robots, small robots, fun robots, scientific robots Yahoo! Search blog http://www.ysearchblog.com/ On Christina's Radar http://cpikas.blogspot.com A number of new feeds from the publisher vnu are available. Details at: http://www.vnunet.com/about/rss For example: http://vnuuk.typepad.com/active_blog/ A tongue-in-cheek look at computer and Internet news and some of your views. http://vnuuk.typepad.com/davethedealer/ Dave the dealer's Computer Reseller News blog. http://vnuuk.typepad.com/backbytes/ Backbytes - an irreverent and offbeat look at the lighter side of computing and technology http://vnuuk.typepad.com/itsneak/ IT Sneak rummages through the dustbin of IT events. Now in blog format. More dirt, more often. ------------------------- 8. BOOK REVIEW ------------------------- Stop Press! Thanks to an arrangement between Pearson Education and EEVL, you can buy this month's reviewed book for only �24.69 (normal price �37.99) including postage (within UK and Europe), from: http://digbig.com/4cbwg That's less than at Amazon! This offer is available for a limited period only. Ethics for the Information Age by Michael J. Quinn Addison Wesley, 2004 ISBN 0321194349 This book is aimed at higher education students in computing, business or philosophy departments who have some experience in using computers. It covers the history of computing, networking, information storage and retrieval with reference to the moral problems raised by the technologies. It also describes various ethical systems, their advantages and disadvantages. Topics discussed include privacy, freedom of information, pornography, intellectual property, social exclusion and globalisation. There is also discussion of the consequences of computer systems failing. Each chapter has a summary, review questions, discussion points and exercises for use in class as well as a bibliography and suggestions for further reading. The author makes an interesting comparison between software engineers and people in professions such as medicine, accountancy and law where there is a specific a code of ethics which practitioners are required to follow, as well as a system of registration and licencing to ensure that they keep their professional knowledge up to date. He points out that faulty software has the potential to cause substantial harm to people, including actual physical harm if safety-critical systems fail due to software problems. He also suggests that the public good, not only individual profit, should always be a consideration in ethical software design and use. Another point raised in the book is the conflicting rights and responsibilities involved in the issue of privacy. Personal privacy has to be balanced against the public good and the needs of society. There is a wide variety of legal requirements which have to be considered when designing and using computer and Internet based systems, as well as various ethical dilemmas. The book is thorough, well researched and clearly referenced. It offers plenty of opportunities for further study of the issues it raises. Nicola Harrison Cataloguing Officer, EEVL You can buy the above book from http://digbig.com/4cbwg for �24.69 Also available are many other new and recent titles at large discounts. --------------------------------------------- 9. GET A LIFE! - LEISURE TIME ---------------------------------------------- Edinburgh Pubs ... Edinburgh Pubs and Edinburgh Clubs http://www.edinburgh-pubs.co.uk/ This page is: http://www.hw.ac.uk/libwww/irn/irn123/irn123.html � 2004 Heriot-Watt University You may pass this newsletter on to others, as long as it is sent in its entirety.
