Implementing UNICORN at the UK Department of Health

Abstract

Department of Health (DH) Library and Information Services (LIS) exist to meet the operational and strategic information needs including training, education and material which promotes awareness of work‐related matters of approximately 5,500 Department of Health staff, including the National Health Service Executive staff in multiple sites across the country. Four libraries in London and Leeds are stocked with approximately 200,000 books and pamphlets and 2,000 current periodicals on key areas of Departmental interest covering health service management, public health and the personal social services. There are 28 staff in these libraries. Frequently‐used online search services include Justis Parliament, Knight‐Ridder DataStar, Dialog and Medline services, HMSO and FT Profile. These remote search services are supported by locally held CD‐ROMs including Parliamentary Database, Medline, Eurolaw, UKOP, HMSO and Global Bookbank. Departmental staff are linked by a mature Office Information System (OIS) which runs on a server platform of 90 or so Netware 3.11 servers. As well as Windows‐based, location‐independent access to standard Wordperfect, Route400 e‐mail and a bespoke Staff Location Database, individual users or groups of users have network access to a variety of products including spreadsheets, desktop publishing and statistical/financial modelling packages. Concurrently with the UNICORN implementation, work was in progress elsewhere in DH to put up a Press Index Service, a Hansard SumMary Service, and Electronic Directory of Business as well as ongoing efforts to network successfully CD‐ROMs.

Citation

Cree, J.S. (1996), "Implementing UNICORN at the UK Department of Health", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 279-284. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb047233