Search results

Haworth Press, the well known publishers in the library and information science field, have recently cottoned on to an interesting idea: devote a special issue of one of their journals to a special theme, and at the same time produce a hardback book, reasonably priced, that reproduces the articles. The idea is to appeal to a market other than the libraries that will typically subscribe to the Haworth journals. Success depends upon the collection of chapters forming a coherent whole. This book, reproduced from a special issue of The Reference Librarian, partly succeeds. The 150 page hardback book comprises seven articles, from five different authors (two authors supply two articles each) with an editor's introduction. The articles are fairly typical journal articles, reporting research results; some could easily have graced the pages of Online and CD‐ROM Review. The articles vary somewhat in length and style, but generally either review the literature of a particular topic, or describe some recent research work. The title is somewhat misleading, as the book is NOT comprehensive; a better subtitle would have been ‘Aspects of Use and User Behavior’.

The principal organisational issues relating to the creation, validation and maintenance of the University of Exeter's Web site are discussed from the viewpoint of the University Library. Important issues include the effective allocation of responsibility, the timely formation of working groups, and the fostering of a spirit of cooperation amongst all departments and services responsible for providing or authorising information. Given the Web's popularity amongst users and the wealth of opportunities it provides for the dissemination of information, the commitment to its development already shown by library staff must continue.

At first glance, this A4 size guide looks very much like the UKOLUG newsletter, sharing as it does the same cover design. However, this book is one of a number of publications from the group aimed at users of online and CD‐ROM resources, and builds upon two previous UKOLUG guides to CD‐ROMs.

Several articles in the journal Campus‐Wide Information Systems have been devoted to describing the different directories which link to library catalogs on the Internet and the World Wide Web. Some of the directories reviewed in this ongoing series on OPACs were Hytelnet and Libgopher for telnet based catalogs as well as WebCats, Libweb, LC Z39.50 Gateway and the WWW Library Directory‐Framed Edition for the web‐based OPACs. Gives current descriptions of some of the major directories; namely, LibWeb and WWW Library Directory which list and link to library homepages as well as Hytelnet and WebCats which are devoted to listing and linking to the library OPACs. In addition, summarizes the techniques used in finding new directories.

The University of Exeter Library, in conjunction with NatWest UK and Mondex, commenced a pilot smartcard project in October 1996. The smartcard functions as a campus card, combining many different features such as identification, student voting, building access, registration, electronic payment — and a library card. Of all these applications, the library card is compulsory. The pilot project concentrates on identification features of current smartcard technology but recent developments, especially an International standard multiple operating system (MULTOS), will increase potential applications for libraries and other agencies. Despite encountering many operational and technical obstacles, the University of Exeter project is now in its second year of operation.