Contents
LexisNexis - 2.8 Billion Documents on You Desktop!
UNE
Libraries Information Literacy Policy
ISI's
Web of Knowledge
Value
for Dollar Database$
ABI/Inform
Archive in Proquest 5000
Document
Delivery to the Desktop
What's
New Sciences
General
Reference Online
UNE
Libraries Customer Survey 2002
Lois
Retires After 30+ Years
What's
New - EHPS
Earlier Issues
Your Contacts at Dixson Library
LexisNexis - 2.8 Billion Documents on Your Desktop!
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Cambridge dictionary of astronomy / Mitton, J. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, shelved at R520.3/M179d/2001. Held up by the heliopause? Intimidated by MACHOs? With this dictionary there is no need to be defeated by such astronomical jargon. These terms, along with almost 3200 others, are explained clearly and concisely in a style that is authoritative but accessible. In addition to a comprehensive selection of specialist terms, entries include all the constellations, all the planets and moons of the solar system, many individual comets, stars and asteroids, observatories and spacecraft. There are 57 line diagrams and seven tables of additional information at the back of this book. |
LexisNexis is a major acquisition of news, business and legal information. It consists of a range of electronic resources across a broad span of disciplines. It gives access to thousands of worldwide newspapers, magazines, trade journals, industry newsletters, tax and accounting information, financial data, public records, data on companies, legislative records, law reviews and law reports.
The Lexis service, the first commercial, full-text legal
information service, began in 1973 to help legal practitioners research
the law more efficiently. The companion Nexis news and business
information service was launched in 1979 to enhance research with recent
and archival news and financial information. Since that time, the service
has grown to become the largest news and business online information service.
The LexisNexis All News (Nexis) component is of potential interest to staff and students in a wide range of subjects. LexisNexis All News contains 2.8 billion searchable documents, including 30,000 news, business and legal information sources, including ABIX and the text of national and regional Australian newspapers. Features of LexisNexis All News include:
- Easy to use customised interface
- Convenient dropdown menu to high-use titles
- Current Awarenes searches including the current day's Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian
- Advanced Business search interface.
The Lexis component is of potential interest to staff and students who require primary or secondary legal information. Lexis has wide coverage of case law from around the world. Features of Lexis include:
- Advanced Legal search interface
- Convenient dropdown menu to most recently accessed sources
- Source description and coverage for each file
- Directory of searchable files according to jurisdiction or area of law.
LexisNexis can be accessed from the UNE Libraries E-Resources page at: http://www.une.edu.au/library/elecres/indexes2.htm. Select >LexisNexis from the Quick Links on the left-hand side of the page. This takes you to the LexisNexis All News customized interface.
To access Lexis click on Legal Search from the customized interface,
or from the UNE Libraries E-Resources page, go to Law>Indexes> LexisNexis@Lexis.com
UNE Libraries Information Literacy Policy
The Library has adopted an Information Literacy Policy to guide library staff and the University community as to Library aims in this area and the work we are doing to assist in encouraging students to develop this Graduate Attribute.
The Library supports the adoption of the CAUL Information Literacy Standards, Council of Australian University Librarians, Canberra, 2001 at http://www.caul.edu.au/ (click on CAUL Information Literacy Standards to open document) as a guide to the outcomes expected in an information literate person.
It states that the information literate person can:
- recognise an information problem and be able to define the problem
- determine the questions posed by the problem
- identify the information necessary to solve the problem and/or answer the questions find the information
- evaluate the information
- organise the information
- synthesise the information into a solution or answer.
The Library aims to: provide opportunities and resources for all UNE staff and students to develop information literacy knowledge and skill; and to assist in the integration of information literacy into the teaching and learning of the University.
Dixson's Faculty Librarians welcome opportunities to assist in integration of an information literacy component into each course with a sequential developmental approach. They are happy to give advice on content and examples of assessment methods. See page four for your Faculty Librarian's contact details.
ISI's Web of Knowledge
ISI has just announced the upcoming launch of ISI Web of Knowledge and concurrent upgrades to ISI Web of Science v.5.0. This is in response to users' requests for a more sophisticated interface and an integration of ISI's products into an integrated research environment.
The powerful ISI Web of Knowledge interface streamlines the research process by providing access to integrated content and tools in a single Web environment. From the homepage, users will be able to access all of the ISI resources to which UNE subscribes in addition to content from ISI partners and external sources. ISI Web of Knowledge will provide seamless links between different types of content and new tools and technologies to help use, analyse and manage research information.
UNE users will soon have access to CrossSearch, enabling natural-language searches from a single interface across multiple content sources: journal articles, proceedings, papers, patents, chemical reactions and compounds. Additionally, coming soon, UNE users will be able to cross-search external databases such as AGRICOLA and PubMed along with ISI content. As UNE also subscribes to Current Contents Connect, you will have access to this database via the ISI Web of Knowledge platform.
New enhancements to ISI Web of Science include powerful new features and search capabilities such as:
- The Combine Searches feature which enables users to create set combinations from the Search History, and combine a cited reference search with a general search. Self-citations can now also be eliminated.
- The Advanced Search feature which has been created for more experienced users
- The Search History feature, which enables users to save and retrieve search histories for future use.
It is expected
that the upgrade to this new version of Web of Knowledge and Web
of Science will take place in late September
Value for Dollar Database$
Rising book prices and paper serial subscriptions have made it extremely difficult for academic libraries across Australia to meet the needs of their users. In an era of flat or declining library budgets and increasing cost pressures, meeting the information requirements of staff and students is often a thankless task. But there are some consolations. The growing availability of affordable electronic resources at UNE is one of these.
Members of the university community are often surprised to discover just how great are the savings involved in the acquisition of full-text electronic material.
Full-text journal articles from ProQuest 5000 cost the University as little as $1.33 per article downloaded. Full-text journal articles from local indexes such as Australian Public Affairs Full Text, Meditext and AGIS Plus Text cost about the same as those from ProQuest. Emerald Library and Wiley Inter-Science are more expensive, at $2.76 and $5.35 per full-text article respectively. Although these figures seem high, they bear comparison with the costs of inter-library loan. Obtaining a single article from another library attracts a charge of $13.20 (GST included), a figure which does not include administrative overheads at UNE.
Even more impressive are the savings which flow from the use of Expanded Academic ASAP. Full-text articles downloaded from this source cost as little as 15c each. This difference partly reflects the under-utilisation of ProQuest and other full-text journal indexes by UNE students and staff. Expanded Academic ASAP has a formidable following, largely because it has been on campus the longest. However, if members of the UNE community made more use of alternative resources, the average cost per article downloaded from these indexes would fall accordingly.
Equally
good value is provided by indexing and abstracting databases, which provide
bibliographical information rather than full-text content. Typical costs
for a search are 15c (ERIC), 23c (PsycINFO), 34c (CINAHL),
23c (Philosopher's Index) and 61c (EconLit). Some databases
are relatively more expensive. For example, a search of Sociological Abstracts
costs $1.20. However, when you remember that a single search can retrieve
hundreds of relevant hits, it is clear that electronic citation indexes
represent a lot of value per dollar.
Document Delivery to the Desktop
The Library has, for some time, been aware of the benefits of electronic desktop document delivery and has been working towards the introduction of such a service. Now that the software is available and installed in the Library, our Document Services staff are gearing up to put the new software through its paces.
The Document Services Unit has been using Ariel 2.2 for some time to ftp documents from one library workstation to another to speed up the delivery of documents requested on inter library loan. Until quite recently this software could only be used to deliver documents between libraries rather than to individuals. The recently released Ariel 3.3 software now provides for direct, electronic delivery to the requester. The Document Services Unit is now trialling this service.
The first stage in the trial will be to forward documents received via Ariel from another library to the requestor. Ariel will be used to generate an email to the requester with the document attached as either a pdf or tiff file. The Document Services Unit will be canvassing users involved in the trial on their file type preference.
Once the software has been trialled for on-campus delivery of ILL documents, and the Library is confident that the processes are robust, the Document Services Unit will move to establish a similar service to transmit documents to UNE external students.
Researchers who wish to take part in the trial, and use an early version of Eudora, please go to the ITD software site at http://www/une.edu.au/itd/software/software.html and download Eudora 5.1. This later version of Eudora handles attachments much better than earlier versions.
| If you wish to take part in the desktop delivery trial please contact Sandra Rothwell, Document Services Coordinator, on ext 2069, or Russell Nicholson, Lending Services Librarian, on ext 2168. |
UNE Libraries Customer Survey 2002
Valuable feedback and strong approval ratings were received by the libraries from the 2002 customer survey. 654 people completed the survey which was conducted in April and May. Of these, 422 were undergraduate students and 187 postgraduate. 457 people identified themselves as enrolled predominantly in external mode.
All of our variables were in the top 50% when benchmarked against other Australian and New Zealand libraries which run this survey. In many cases we ranked in the top 25% or we created new highs in the benchmarking database.
According to our users, our strongest area is our staff who are judged to be fair, friendly and professional. The areas ranked as most needing improvement were: information resources (books, electronic, etc) are easily accessed; access to electronic databases is easily available; and library catalogue provides clear and useful information.
Library staff have determined a number of actions to improve services in response to the feedback received. Please see http://www.une.edu.au/library/menu/customer_survey_2002.htm for information on improvements we are implementing, including changes to the catalogue and use of EZproxy to simplify access to electronic resources.
External students made a number of comments regarding the difficulties and complexity involved in accessing online journals. As well as simplifying procedures through use of EZproxy, we need to work in partnership with other staff in the university to improve students' knowledge and skills in locating information. A Library Information Literacy Policy has been drafted to state what the Library is doing in this area and how we can underpin integration of the information literacy graduate attribute into the curriculum.
Lois
Retires After 30+ Years
Lois Beaton retired on Thursday 5th September, after thirty-plus years of service to this university. Her work at Dixson was focused on creating and maintaining a library catalogue of substantial quality, benefiting generations of academic staff and students. Lois' reputation also extends into the Australian library community. Her work in contributing original cataloguing and authority records to the national bibliographic database has made her a recognised and respected name. Lois also contributed to the university in both teaching and scholarship. She holds the University Medal for studies in the Classics, and has worked in the School at their request. These interests have helped ensure that our library collections in this area are catalogued and available to researchers both locally and nationally. Lois' contribution to the library and UNE community will be felt for years to come. Her experience and knowledge will be impossible to replace. We wish her a very happy and rewarding retirement.
General Reference Online
The UNE libraries host a wide range of electronic reference resources on its suite of pages. The types of resources that can be found at this page, http://www.une.edu.au/library/elecres/e_reference.htm, include electronic atlases, dictionaries, directories, encyclopaedias and style guides. Have a look at this page and you may find the type of resource that you have been looking for. If you come across any other resources that you think should be a part of this collection, send your recommendation to Greg Kelleher.
| Comments
and suggestions about Shelf Life should be directed to the
editor, Sandra Rothwell. ext 2069 or email: srothwel@une.edu.au |
YOUR CONTACTS AT DIXSON LIBRARY
General
 |
Information Desk |
+61 -(02)-6773-2458 |
|
Telephone Renewals | +61 -(02)-6773-2167 |
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Document Delivery | +61 -(02)-6773-2184 |
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Technical Services | +61 -(02)-6773-2030 |
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Photocopying | +61 -(02)-6773-2785 |
Faculty Librarians
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Arts - Meredith Duncan | +61 -(02)-6773-3111 | Email: mduncan3@une.edu.au |
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EBL - Kim Harris | +61 -(02)-6773-2209 | Email: kharris@une.edu.au |
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EHPS - Sylvia Ransom | +61 -(02)-6773-3774 | Email: sransom@une.edu.au |
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Sciences - Greg Kelleher | +61 -(02)-6773-3038 | Email: gkellehe@une.edu.au |
Shelf Life Editorial Staff:
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Sandra Rothwell | Editor |
|
Lisa Russell | Editorial Assistant and design |
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Tracy Cooper | Web version |
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Peggy McCleneghan | Photography |