EDINA Newsline

Vol 5.3: Autumn 2000

In Newsline 5.3

New Projects to Develop DNER for Learning and Teaching
Services for the New Academic Year
Profile: EDINA Helpdesk
Request for Case Studies
Forthcoming Events
About EDINA

New Projects to Develop DNER for Learning and Teaching

John Murison and Moira Massey, EDINA

The JISC aims to make the Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) both a reality and a set of services of relevance to Learning and Teaching. As a JISC national datacentre, EDINA has taken an active interest in the DNER since its inception, and put in a number of proposals for development work in response to JISC circular 5/99 "Developing the DNER for Learning and Teaching". The following five projects are being funded:

New Tools for Learning and Teaching with Digimap®

The EDINA Digimap service provides access to online Ordnance Survey (OS) digital map data and maps. This project will develop three sets of software tools and web-based tutorials:

This project will also make available:

Geo-Crosswalk

Geo-Crosswalk is a collaborative project between EDINA and the History Data Service, with MIMAS and the Archaeology Data Service. The project will assess the feasibility of developing an online Z39.50-compliant British and Irish gazetteer service, to support geographic searching in the DNER.

A gazetteer service would identify geographic names and convert them into geographic 'footprints' expressed in a standard spatial coding scheme, such as latitude and longitude or the Ordnance Survey National Grid.

Geo-data Browser

The Geo-data Browser project, with the same partners as the Geo-Crosswalk project, explores the feasibility of establishing a Z39.50-compliant geo-spatial portal as part of the DNER.

Two barriers confront the user of geo-spatial data resources: finding out what geo-spatial data exist, and ascertaining their quality and suitability for use.

One solution is to provide comprehensive, standardised metadata, available through a geo-spatial portal for UK he and fe, forming part of the National Geo-spatial Data Framework Gateway. This would also bring the ever-increasing amount of geo-spatial data to the attention of the research, teaching and learning communities.

Xgrain and ZBLSA

EDINA submitted proposals for two bibliographic projects, 'Xgrain' (pronounced 'cross-grain') and 'ZBLSA' (pronounced 'zi-balsa'). They have been grouped under an umbrella programme called 'Join-Up', along with two other proposals, one from King's College London, and one from the British Library and MIMAS.

Project Xgrain will develop a Z39.50-compliant broker for use by the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) subject portals and by local portals serving the specific universities. This broker will carry out cross-searching of specialist Abstract and Indexing (A&I) Z39.50-compliant databases which are hosted at the JISC national datacentres. Xgrain will also develop a web-based portal, which will offer cross-searching of these specialist A&I databases, together with the ability to transfer the user to a native user interface for in-depth searching of a particular database. The project will also include prototyping of an A&I portal for learning and teaching.

The ZBLSA project will develop a Z39.50 broker which will help connect a journal article citation (found, for example, in any of the A&I databases hosted by the JISC datacentres) to services giving access to the whole text of that article, whether in a printed issue of the journal or in electronic form. ZBLSA will be of utility to the A&I database services run at the JISC datacentres, and to the RDN subject portals.

Services for the New Academic Year

EDINA 'Links'

'Links' is a customisable http-based links-to-holdings and, where relevant, links-to-full-text service, now available in most of our bibliographic services. If you are a site representative and have not responded to our recent invitation, please do so - your users will find 'Links' extremely useful.

Bibliographic Services

Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences

Art Abstracts
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
All aspects of visual and performing arts, ranging from archaeology to television and video.
Document types:
Art periodicals, journals, museum bulletins and yearbooks. Reproductions of works of art that appear in the periodicals are also fully detailed.
Dates of coverage:
Indexed from 1984 and abstracted from 1994 onwards.
Art Index Retrospective
Type:
Index only.
Subjects:
All aspects of visual and performing arts, ranging from archaeology to television and video.
Document types:
Periodicals in French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Dutch, yearbooks, and museum bulletins. Indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals.
Dates of coverage:
1929 to 1984.
Note:
If your institution has a site licence for both Art Abstracts and Art Index Retrospective, you will be able to search across both databases at the same time, as they share a common interface.
EconLit
Type:
Index, abstracts, and some full text.
Subjects:
Accounting, consumer economics, monetary policy, labour, marketing, demographics, modelling, economic theory, planning.
Document types:
Journal articles, essays, research papers, books, dissertations, book reviews, and working papers from over 550 international economic journals.
Dates of coverage:
1969 to present.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
All aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Coverage also given to various fields of linguistics including descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics.
Dates of coverage:
1973 to present.
MLA International Bibliography
Type:
Index only.
Subjects:
Critical scholarship on literature, language, linguistics and folklore.
Document types:
Journal articles, series, monographs, dissertations, bibliographies, proceedings and other materials.
Dates of coverage:
1963 to present.
PAIS International
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Political, social, and public policy issues, including economic, political, and social issues, business, finance, law, international trade and relations, public administration, government, political science.
Document types:
Journal articles, books, statistics, yearbooks, directories, conference proceedings, pamphlets, reports, government documents, and microfiche.
Dates of coverage:
1972 to present.
Palmer's Index to The Times
Type:
Index only.
Subject:
History, politics, scientific and cultural matters of the 19th and early 20th century, as viewed through the pages of The Times.
Document types:
Articles in The Times newspaper.
Dates of coverage:
From October 1790 to December 1905.
Social Services Abstracts
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development.
Dates of coverage:
From 1980 to present.
Sociological Abstracts
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Sociology and related disciplines such as anthropology, economics, education, health and medicine, social psychology, and much more.
Document types:
Journals and other serials publications, plus conference papers, books, and dissertations.
Dates of coverage:
1963 to the present.
Note:
Sociological Abstracts also contains the Social Planning/Policy & Development Abstracts database in its entirety.

Agriculture, Environment & Life Sciences

AGDEX
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subject:
Agricultural issues.
Document types:
Farming press, trade and business literature, advisory publications, research and development literature, and scientific journals.
Dates of coverage:
1971 to present.
BIOSIS Previews
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Ranging from traditional areas of biology such as botany, zoology and microbiology to related fields such as agriculture, pharmacology, biophysics, ecology, bio-engineering, and experimental clinical medicine.
Document types:
Life science journals, as well as international meetings and books.
Dates of coverage:
1985 to present.
CAB Abstracts
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Agriculture, forestry, nutrition, animal health and the management and conservation of natural resources.
Document types:
Journal articles, conference papers, abstract only, books, theses, book chapters, conference proceedings, annual reports, patents, correspondence, standards, editorials.
Dates of coverage:
1974 to present.
Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management Databases
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Air, land, water, and noise pollution as well as bacteriology, ecology, toxicology, risk assessment, waste management, water resources, environmental policy and regulations, us environmental impact statements.
Document types:
Journals, conference proceedings, reports, monographs, books, government publications.
Dates of coverage:
1981 to present.

Engineering, Informatics & Physical Sciences

Ei Compendex® and Ei Page OneTM
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Applied engineering, coverage also extending to manufacturing, quality control, and engineering management issues.
Document types:
Compendex: summaries of journal articles and conference proceedings; Page One: tables of contents in world engineering literature.
Dates of coverage:
Compendex: 1971 to present; Page One: 1991 to present.
Note:
The EDINA Compendex service has been extended to include, among other things, interoperability with the Edinburgh Engineering Virtual Library (EEVL) database. At the time of writing, this version of Compendex is being beta-tested, prior to going into full service at the start of October.
Inspec
Type:
Index and abstracts.
Subjects:
Physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computers and computing and information technology.
Document types:
International journals, conference proceedings, reports, dissertations, books, and periodicals.
Dates of coverage:
1969 to present.

Geo-spatial Services

Digimap®
Type:
Ordnance Survey® maps and map data.
Description:
Online mapping for use with appropriate application software such as GIS or cad, or to generate maps at pre-set scales for downloading.
Note:
Full coverage of Great Britain for all OS products except the large scale Land-Line.Plus®. There is a process for institutions to choose how much of this data will be available. Contact edina@ed.ac.uk for more details.
UKBORDERS™
Type:
Digitised boundary datasets of the UK.
Description:
Data is available for downloading in many GIS formats (MapInfo MIF/MID, ArcView Shape, Arc/Info Export and several others). Allows users to map Census data or any other dataset that can be aggregated to conventional Census geographies (counties, districts, wards, and enumeration districts).

General Reference

Ulrich'sTM International Periodicals Directory
Type:
Directory of information on selected periodicals and serials published throughout the world.
Document types:
Abstracting indexing services, scholarly publications, bibliographies, bulletins, catalogues, consumer publications, corporate reports, directories, government publications, etc.
Note:
Bibliographic citations, with buying and ordering information, subject information, and Dewey Decimal classification number for all currently available issues.
SALSER
Type:
Union catalogue of serials holdings.
Document types:
Holdings in all 13 Scottish universities, the municipal research libraries of Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scottish research libraries and the National Library of Scotland.
Note:
Users can connect to the participating libraries' Online Public Access Catalogues for more detailed holdings information. A library directory giving useful information about addresses, phone numbers, opening hours and lending services is included.

Profile: EDINA Helpdesk

Barbara Morris, EDINA

The Helpdesk is the first point of contact for users of all the EDINA services.

When contact is made, we identify the appropriate level of help required to resolve the query and respond, initially, within four working hours for email. All queries and responses are logged and monitored. We liaise closely with our Support Services and Service Delivery Groups.

Most EDINA services are accessed through Athens accounts. But others, such as Digimap, require additional registration procedures, which involve Helpdesk staff. We work closely with EDINA Site Representatives, updating them on new EDINA services and developments, as well as answering their questions on interface use, usage statistics, site subscriptions, etc. We also assist with beta-testing and the promotion of EDINA national services.

The EDINA Helpdesk is co-ordinated by Barbara Morris and staffed by Helen Kerr, Paula Cuccurullo, and Stuart Macdonald from 9am - 5pm, Monday to Friday. We also have a telephone answering machine service.

Barbara Morris divides her time between co-ordinating the Helpdesk and the JISC eLib Digimap research project. A geographer and librarian by training, she has had a varied career ranging from diplomat, archaeologist, computer programmer, and running a British Library project on map catalogue automation to planning the production of the digitally-produced Times Concise Atlas of the World.

Helen Kerr staffs the Helpdesk full-time and co-ordinates its day-to-day duties. Previously, Helen was involved in the ESRC-funded Rapid Project here in the Data Library. Before joining the University of Edinburgh she worked for a private investigation agency.

Stuart Macdonald divides his time between the Helpdesk and the Data Library Local Services. With a biochemistry background, he has worked at The National Library of Scotland, the Daily Record, and University of Edinburgh Library in various capacities since qualifying in Information and Library Studies.

Paula Cuccurullo staffs the Helpdesk full-time. She is an art historian by training, but her main work experience is as a book and slide librarian. She has always been interested in computers, programming and the Internet, in part due to her undergraduate years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is originally from Boston, Massachusetts, and has lived in the Edinburgh area for the past five years.

Request for Case Studies

As part of our effort to show the relevance of JISC services in learning and teaching, we want to offer online case studies, showing how EDINA services are being used in the classroom.

Please contact us with a description (however long or short) of how you are using one or more of the EDINA services to support teaching or student learning of your materials. (Personal names and departments will only be acknowledged with permission).

Send summary details to Moira Massey, who is heading our Learning and Teaching Initiative, via the EDINA Helpdesk.

Forthcoming Events

Exhibitions

Online Information exhibition at Olympia, London, 5-7 Dec 2000. EDINA will be at stand no. 34. For a free entrance ticket and further information, see: http://www.online-information.co.uk

Information for Scotland 7, at the University of Edinburgh Library, 16 Nov 2000. EDINA will have a stand at this one-day conference.

New Digimap Training Dates. Modules One and Two only. Middlesex Uni. 30/11-1/12/00, Edinburgh Uni. 18-19 /1/01.

About EDINA

EDINA, based at Edinburgh University Data Library, is a JISC-funded national datacentre. It offers the UK further and higher education and research community networked access to a library of data, information and research resources. All EDINA services are free of charge at the point of use. For information on institutional subscription fees, visit the EDINA web site, or contact us by email (details below).

EDINA services are:

EDINA subscription and registration

Most EDINA services require the completion of a licence agreement before those services can be made available to users. Free 30-day trials are available for most of these services. Please see the EDINA web site for details of the requirements of individual services.

For UKBORDERS™, there is no fee for academic institutions within the UK, but a licence agreement must be signed (email edina@ed.ac.uk), and individual users must sign an End User Licence.

SALSER is a completely free service, with no subscription fee. No licence or prior registration is required.

EDINA contacts
Helpdesk: Helen Kerr, Stuart Macdonald, Paula Cuccurullo and Barbara Morris,
Alison Bayley (Manager, EDINA National Services)
Peter Burnhill (Director of EDINA)
Tel: 0131 650 3302
Fax: 0131 650 3308
Email: edina@ed.ac.uk
URL: http://edina.ac.uk

EDINA Newsline is published four times a year by the University of Edinburgh Data Library. Suggestions and comments on Newsline may be sent to edina@ed.ac.uk.

The next issue of Newsline will appear in Winter 2000.

Editor: Paul Milne