Newsletter No. 52
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Free Pint
"Helping 27,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
ISSN 1460-7239 16th December 1999 No.52
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"Free Pint in 1999"
by William Hann, Managing Editor
BOOKSHELF
"Blown to Bits: how the new economics
of information transforms strategy"
Reviewed by Lesley Robinson
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Review of Online Information 99"
By Dr Anne L Barker
FREE PINT BAR
http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar
FREE PINT FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/161299.htm
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*** LEARN HOW TO SEARCH SMARTER ***
Having the right information is vital to working smarter rather than
harder. Are you getting buried under the results of your Web searches?
At the half-day training course Advanced Searching on the Web, Danny
Sullivan, Editor of Search Engine Watch, will show how to get answers
fast. Dates: January 18th, repeated Jan. 19th. Price: 150 pounds exc.
VAT. Contact Maureen Heath, tel. 020 7412 7470, e-mail
maureen.heath@bl.uk.Web www.bl.uk/services/stb/courses.html
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>>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<<
Free Pint is a free newsletter with tips on using the Web for your
work. It is published by email every two weeks and your regular free
copy can be reserved at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/>. The site also
gives free access to the substantial archive of articles, book
reviews, and discussions at the Free Pint Bar. Please do distribute
the newsletter to colleagues, and view it using a font like Courier.
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EDITORIAL
OK, so you're sick of it already. I promise not to mention the "M"
word (or is it the "MM" word?), but it does mark the end of another
fun year for Free Pint. A lot has happened in the last twelve months
and so I've included my annual roundup in this edition and sent the
full index of all past articles and book reviews separately.
We had a great time at Online Information 99 in London last week
meeting many of you again. As well as giving out thousands of
Free Pint beermats, sticky note pads and leaflets, it was great to
find out that you really do enjoy being a member of our community.
Anne Barker has kindly written a fabulous in-depth review of the
event in case you didn't make it, and the presentations from our
practical "Working the Web" seminars and my talk at the conference
can be downloaded in full at <http://www.freepint.co.uk/online99.htm>.
As you know, Free Pint has an exciting future ahead of it and we are
currently talking to partners to invest in its continued growth and
the development of brand new services. If you've found Free Pint
useful for your work then please do consider sending me a short note
about how it has helped you. My direct email address as always is
<william@freepint.co.uk> and your privacy is assured.
Well, I hope you manage to get a decent holiday break this year, and
we'll see you in three weeks to welcome in the new M ... nearly said
it ... new year!
Kind regards,
William
William Hann BSc MIInfSc
Founder and Managing Editor, Free Pint
e: william@freepint.co.uk
w: http://www.freepint.co.uk/
t: +44 (0)1784 455435
f: +44 (0)1784 455436
Free Pint is a trademark of Free Pint Limited
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EVERYTHING YOU EVER NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT DOING BUSINESS IN EUROPE
BUT DIDN'T HAVE TIME TO ASK. For the latest developments and
detailed reference information on doing business in Europe then
look no further than http://www.eubusiness.com. Our ground-breaking
EUBusiness Alert service offers subscribers vital information
customised according to your business profile. You won't have to
wade through piles of irrelevant documents and grapple with heaps
of Euro-jargon. We will deliver exactly what you need direct to your PC
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>>> WANT DIRECT ACCESS TO BUSINESS INFORMATION USERS ON THE WEB? <<<
Advertising here will reach the widest possible audience
of influential users of business information on the Internet
http://www.freepint.co.uk/advert.htm
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TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
"Free Pint in 1999"
by William Hann, Managing Editor
Here is my annual roundup of all that's been happening at Free Pint
during this very exciting year. I've sent the full index to articles
and reviews as a separate email and so please do print it out or
distribute it freely (in whole or in part) as you wish. I hope you
find it useful.
Procurement
-----------
I'm not a great fan of statistics, but I thought you might like to
know a bit about what is involved in publishing each edition of the
newsletter. For instance, we sent out over half a million emails this
year, equating to 22 Gigabytes (or 22,000 Megabytes) of data. Compare
this to the 5.5 Gigabytes we sent in 1998 and you can see it's not
a trivial undertaking.
The newsletter this year has contained around one million characters,
double that of last year, and has never been published late. There
are now 27,000 subscribers (compared to 10,000 at the end of 1998)
and 93% of those who were subscribing 40 issues ago are still
subscribers today.
The Web site has grown in popularity too, serving over 150,000 unique
visitors this year. These users viewed half a million pages
(equal to 2 million hits) transferring over 12.5 Gigabytes of data.
The site is now receiving twice as many visitors a month as it was
at the beginning of the year, and people are looking at three times
as many pages.
As you know, Free Pint can remain viable and free because it is
sponsored by advertising. Indeed, the newsletter has contained twice
as many adverts this year, with the Web site displaying over 700,000
banners (four times as many as 1998).
This has largely been due to our development of new features for the
site, the most prominent of which is the Free Pint Bar. Launched in
May, there have already been 1400 postings, and more than 500 people
have signed up to receive the email digest of postings every other
day. <http://www.freepint.co.uk/bar>
The site search facility <http://www.freepint.co.uk/search> has also
made it much easier to access all our content, including sophisticated
features like "sounds like", relevance ranking, word operators (plus
and minus sign) and the display of keywords in context.
Proceedings
-----------
Since we've highlighted over 2,000 Web addresses this year, we
thought we'd review some of the more unusual ones!
Web site acronyms are as varied as always, including "CURL"
(Consortium of University Research Libraries
<http://www.curl.ac.uk/>), "EARL" (Electronic Access to Resources in
Libraries <http://www.earl.org.uk/>) and not forgetting "GABRIEL",
which is memorably identified as the "GAteway and BRIdge to Europe's
national Libraries" <http://portico.bl.uk/gabriel/en/welcome.html>.
As well as the normal useful Web sites, we seem to have somehow
managed to cover a range of less business-oriented offerings.
Apparently ...
"It may sound corny, but surfers surf the web to find where the
surf is. Surf System <http://www.surfsystem.co.uk/> has a constant
update of surf conditions throughout the country.
Lazy surfers may want to check how the surf is around the globe
(including Cornwall of course) by looking at the surfcam site:
<http://goan.com/surfcam.html>." Issue 37
... or how about some wacky patents (Issue 38) ...
"Some examples include an eye protector for chickens, pat on the
back apparatus, sanitary appliances for birds and an ambulatory
sleeping bag (what to do when 'nature calls' during a chilly sleep
out). Wacky patent of the month <http://colitz.com/site/wacky.htm>"
Our older subscribers seem to have enjoyed our coverage of sites for
seniors. In fact you should know from issue 31 that the world's oldest
surfer at 96 is Dr. Jason Grinnell of LA Feria, Texas
<http://www.seniorssearch.com/contest.htm>. Indeed, the very same
enlightening article informed us that The Garden Gate
<http://garden-gate.prairienet.org/> ...
"... includes a section named "The Holding Bed" - where new links
are heeled in until they are transplanted into their permanent
spots. Or composted ..."
Venturing past the senior years seemed impossible, until we found out
in issue 41 about The Virtual Mummy <http://www.uke.uni-hamburg.de/
institute/imdm/idv/forschung/mumie/mumie.en.html> which ...
"... is not an experience for the faint-hearted! This site
provides virtual reconstructions of a 2,300 year old female mummy.
It is also possible to download a virtual reality model showing
the unwrapping of an Egyptian mummy's head on screen ..."
On the subject of parenthood, my daughter Imogen (otherwise known as
"Half Pint") is now a bubbling 18 month old. I'm not sure how long
the fun will last though as in issue 40 we were told:
"Those readers with children will be familiar with the speed at
which babies change into toddlers. In no time at all, that
innocent baby has metamorphosed into a teenager looking for
different ways of raising extra cash. And so with the Internet."
and in number 32 that ...
"Even the most misfitting child,
Who's chanced upon the library's worth,
Sits with the genius of the Earth
And turns the key to the whole world."
Libraries were indeed a common theme, so why not try this ...
"Walk down a bus queue containing 100 people and ask each one
whether they belong to a public library. Chances are that every
other one - plus a few more - will say yes. Now go back to the
head of the queue and ask each one again whether they use the
Internet at home. You're probably going to have to ask something
like 15 people before you get a single "yes" response." (Issue 32)
Indeed, something I've definitely learnt this year is that people
appreciate the articles in Free Pint because they don't just list
Web sites. In issue 44 we were reminded that ...
"The problem with the Internet is all the amazing amounts of
information. Certain people have the ability to navigate through
that and create their own story. But most people aren't actually
that creative. They want to be told, they want to hear stories."
Free Pint has devoted a lot of time this year in helping your
business make the most of the Web. It's a common theme at the Bar,
and various articles have given timely reminders of the opportunities:
"Apparently we are now in the grip of an ICE age (information,
communication, entertainment) hence every business nowadays is an
information business. The key attributes of the information age are
(a) digital resources - which are paradoxically abundant, and
(b) workers who can operate with knowledge rather than with
machines - who are somewhat rarer." (Issue 32)
Then there are the more practical tips ...
"Business closed for the day? Why not put up a sign:
Open 24 hours a day on the WWW - www.yourcompany.co.uk
Spooners Restaurant <http://www.spooners.co.uk> did this and
regularly get table bookings via email that they would usually
have missed."
"Look for unusual promotional items at holiday times - WWW tiepins
or brooches, computer shaped cookies, Christmas cards on disks
(with the obligatory link to your website) - the choice is endless
and it all draws attention to the fact that your company is taking
advantage of the latest technology." (Issue 33)
... or if you're in the music industry, then the trend is set by ...
"Creation Records , home of Oasis,
Super Furry Animals and Primal Scream, use trendy linear design to
inform the public about their acts and also feature a 'webcam'
direct from Creation Records' HQ." (Issue 48)
Finally, some clarity regarding definitions. Don't ask me how the
coverage of central and eastern European sites in issue 39 managed to
define a Hungarian as ...
"... someone who goes into a revolving door behind you and comes
out in front of you!"
Also, I still have Michael Isaacs of the University of Reading
to thank for quite rightly picking me up in issue 30 when I
incorrectly tried to define the capacity of a Pint for our
international metric subscribers ...
"If you ordered 4546cc of beer in a British pub thinking it was
only a "pint" you would embarrassed to see the table groaning
under the weight of 8 large glasses! 4546 cc is in fact
equivalent to a UK GALLON, not a pint.
As Delia Smith would undoubtedly confirm, in cookery and for all
other purposes, the UK or Imperial pint measure is equal to 20
fluid ounces, whereas the US pint has always been equivalent to
the traditional pound in weight, or 16 ounces. Since one ounce
(fluid or otherwise) is approximately 28.4 g (= 28.4 cc) then
one UK Pint = (28.4 x 20) or approx 568 cc. And, as we all know
from schooldays, '8 pints make a gallon...'"
There was however some consolation though from other countries ...
"... In any case, a 'Free Pint' of whatever is on tap, is always
welcome :-)." Sidney D. Peters
"No doubt the liquid evaporates as it crosses the Atlantic."
Norman Griffiths, Germany
Procurators
-----------
Of course, none of this would be possible without a great team of
people. Our fantastic editor Rex has managed to find a wide range of
quality articles for every issue, with all being original work and
not appearing anywhere else. Indeed, one reviewer of Free Pint quite
rightly said "... you can't find a lot of this information anywhere
else folks. Check it out.". All thanks therefore to Rex for his
unwavering commitment and attention to detail.
Jane's sterling work as administrator continues, quietly dealing with
subscriber queries and tallying all the new subscriptions. She has
produced over 40 detailed two-weekly tally sheets higlighting where
our subscribers are located, what they do, and how they heard about us.
On the business development side, both Lesley Robinson and Simon
Collery have been working with me on securing the future of Free Pint
with the development of new features to make your Web-working-life
even easier. As they say: watch this space.
So, a big thank you to the team and all the wonderful authors who
have helped to make each edition of Free Pint as colourful as it is.
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** InPharm.com **
Something for everyone in healthcare and pharmaceuticals
News, views, jobs, directories and information for
everyone in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries
are provided free of charge.
Please drop by anytime... www.inpharm.com
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>>> HAVE YOU RECOMMENDED FREE PINT TO A FRIEND? <<<
Allow us to send them an introduction and the latest issue
Simply enter their details on the following page
It's easy, confidential and courteous
http://www.freepint.co.uk/reco.htm
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FREE PINT BOOKSHELF
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf>
"Blown to Bits: how the new economics
of information transforms strategy"
Reviewed by Lesley Robinson
Richness and reach - you couldn't have both before but you can now.
You can be niche and reach out to a large marketplace. Another bonus
is that most of the traditional principles of strategy still apply,
but the "objects" of strategy have changed, such as supply chains,
customer relationships and organisational structures.
This book confirms what all good information professionals already
know. We are living in a knowledge economy and this new economy is
turning traditional business models on their heads. When we picture
value and supply chains, we tend to visualise a linear flow of
physical activities. But it is information, in the broadest sense of
the word, that flows across these activities and binds them
together - the "glue".
But, the authors warn, that glue is beginning to melt. Even the most
stable of industries, the most focused of business models and
strongest of brands can be blown to bits by new information
technology. The fundamental cause is the explosion in connectivity
which is enabling the almost cost-free exchange of rich information.
That makes common business structures obsolete and competitive
advantage up for grabs.
The two authors, Evans & Wurster from The Boston Consulting Group,
give examples of several industries such as the newspaper industry,
retail banking and automotive retailing to demonstrate the impact
of these changes and how they are thriving amid the rapid expansion
of connectivity and the widespread acceptance of the technical
standards on the world wide web.
As an MBA and an ex-employee of a BCG competitor, I wanted to hate
this book, but it is well written, easy to read and
thought-provoking. To keep strategic thinkers happy it also includes
some complex diagrams and charts to help along the theory. Oh, and if
you are an information professional, the future has never been
brighter. You are no longer an intermediary, you are a "navigator"
and in a position of immense power. In case you didn't realise.
Find out more about this book on the Free Pint Bookshelf at
http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf/blown.htm
Lesley Robinson works for Free Pint on the business development team.
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Related Free Pint links:
* Internet strategy books on the Free Pint Bookshelf
<http://www.freepint.co.uk/bookshelf/strategy.htm>
* Read customer comments and buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/087584877X/freepint0c>
or Amazon.com
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/087584877X/freepint00>
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>>> KNOW OF A GOOD BUSINESS WEB-RELATED BOOK WE SHOULD REVIEW? <<<
Send details to <bookshelf@freepint.co.uk>
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FEATURE ARTICLE
"Review of Online Information 99"
By Dr Anne L Barker
In his opening address to the 23rd International Online Information
Meeting, the conference which ran alongside the Online Information 99
exhibition at Olympia last week (7-9 Dec.), Dr Brian Lang, Chief
Executive of the British Library reminded delegates that "We operate
in a hybrid information environment". He contended that getting most
kinds of information to people when and how they want it could be
achieved using existing technology - the problems are legal,
financial and cultural i.e. copyright, lack of money and quirks in
people's attitudes and perceptions. The political agenda is no longer
holding things back in the UK but the culture of information
is "still very much paper-based".
This year the 54 conference papers over three days covered topics
such as portals, intranets, pricing models for online information,
information/knowledge management, digital libraries and legal issues.
Disappointingly for some, only about 20% of the papers could be
deemed of an "academic" standard and about 10% consisted at least in
part of "How we do it good" hype from exhibitors. By all accounts,
the session on legal issues was one of the best, covering copyright,
data protection and personal information. There were several papers
on lifelong learning, linking nicely into the Annual UKOLUG Lecture
(organised by UK Online User Group <http://www.ukolug.org.uk>, who
judged the "Best Stand" award this year, won by
Westlaw <http://westlaw.com>) and who also staff the exhibition help-
desk(s). Chris Yapp, Managing Consultant, ICL Lifelong Learning,
spoke on "The joined up learning environment", suggesting that the
joins we need are not local, regional, national or even global but
psychological joins between education, training and learning. The
old linear model of education, training, work and retirement is
being replaced by a parallel one. He examined the current climate of
global change, concluding it's not a good time to be in charge of
anything! Yapp's rules for predicting the future are:
1 You'll never get there if you don't start.
2 You can't get there from here.
3 You can't get there anyway.
What are portals, anyway? David Green in his paper defines portals as
"those web sites that are jockeying for pole position as starting
points for the Internet user's experience". Other speakers talked
about publishing portals, personal portals, commercial portals,
vortals (either vertical or virtual portals), startels (only "star"
content); other terms around include channels, gateways, resource
centres, subject centres, virtual library, jump stations? Pick your
own preferred terminology and definition! In his paper on portals,
Martin White of Intranet Focus <http://www.intranetfocus.com>
suggested that users come to the Internet to do just three
things: 1) to find information, 2) to be entertained, 3) to make a
transaction. He quoted a Plumtree Software <http://www.plumtree.com>
survey which found that within organisations corporate portals are
used for knowledge management (32%), competitor intelligence (21%),
sales support (14%), best practice propagation (12%), research &
development (11%) and field support (8%). He predicts that many of
the high profile consumer portals will fall by the wayside but the
business sector will see considerable growth and market
opportunities. Another speaker, Frederick Bowes III of PubList.com,
warned publishers that their content must be where people will look
for it i.e. in major indexing/abstracting databases and on the web.
Know your Internet users - they want articles, not whole journal
issues, they will accept their second choice if their first choice is
not readily available and will pay for convenience and timely access.
The Exhibition Event Guide promised "three exhibition floors packed
with exhibitors", two and a half would be nearer the mark as only
around 250 stands materialised, compared with last year's 300 or so.
There were some notable absentees - business information companies
such as Primark, OneSource, Investext, ICC, for example. Anyone care
to speculate why? Is the exhibition becoming too expensive for too
small a return, are they exhibiting elsewhere or relying on other
methods of meeting old and new clients? Once again online
vendors/publishers and business/market information purveyors
dominated the scene, but there was a fair number of stands dedicated
to knowledge management solutions, still more e-publishing systems
and, new this year, several e-commerce systems on show.
The (in)famous "Information Trails" featured again but this year I
for one didn't even notice how stands displayed which trails they
belonged to! As there were tens of stands per category
(Accountancy & Finance (38), Health & Pharmaceutical (64),
Investment & Securities (29), Sales & Marketing (38), Scientific,
Technical & Medical (80), Legal & Government (57), Education &
Academic (61), Knowledge Management (69), Library Technology (51) and
Digital Publishing Technology(51)), you'd have been hard pressed to
complete any trail in the time available. The free product
presentation sessions in six locations followed the same themes. As
usual, some of the larger companies ran product presentations on
their own stands and others hired various conference rooms for
additional meetings. Various User Group meetings were timed to
coincide with the exhibition and there were special sessions in
German, Spanish, French and Italian. Analysis of the conference
participants list indicates that about 25% were UK-based, 35% from
Europe, 25% from Scandinavia, with others from North America (1%),
Eastern Europe, the Middle East and other parts of the world. At the
time of writing, numbers of exhibition visitors have not been
announced. New this year were free workshops presented by your very
own Free Pint <http://www.freepint.co.uk/online99.htm>, free
technical tutorials with Intel <http://www.intel.com>, a free careers
clinic with TFPL <http://www.tfpl.com> and a free Workplace Libraries
Clinic with the Library Association <http://www.la-hq.org.uk>.
No new "information overload" report from Reuters this year; they
were present at the exhibition only in the form of Factiva
<http://www.factiva.com>, their new business information company and
service owned jointly with Dow Jones. There didn't appear to be any
outstanding new developments in technologies or services, although
the VoiceWrite stand was always crowded during demonstrations!
Launches and announcements comprised some new services
(e.g. ThomsonDirect <http://www.thomsondirect.com>,
Chadwyck-Healey's KnowEurope, see below), new Internet versions of or
access to existing services and databases (e.g. EMBASE.com
<http://www.embase.com>, JUSTIS <http://www.justis.com>), new
versions of services (e.g. EMERALD 2000, see below) and new alliances
or hyperlinking initiatives increasing the move to linking from
bibliographic databases to the full text of articles (e.g.
BIOSIS <http://www.biosis.org> with Ovid ,
CSA <http://www.csa.com> to ScienceDirect
<http://www.sciencedirect.com>, CAS <http://www.cas.org> to EBSCO
<http://www.ebsco.com>). A number of vendors are now offering search
access and downloading of specific chunks of larger documents with
payment by credit card (e.g. Dialog <http://www.dialog.com>,
Economist Intelligence Unit <http://www.eiu.com>). Such companies
must be hoping, then, that British Internet users' fears of giving
their credit card details online (see Fletcher Research report at
<http://www.fletch.co.uk/about/bottom_press031299.html>) do not apply
when the credit cards belong to their employers'!
Supplies of freebies seemed to flow less readily than in previous
years; the press packs were slimmed down (not even a pen, no
conference proceedings) and the omission of Learned Information's
year planner was noted by quite a few. Even pens moved to
inaccessible places within stands after Day One and quite a few
stands had nibbles (sweets, crisps etc) instead of the traditional
pens, post-it pads, mouse mats (there were a few) etc. For those who
may have missed out, here are details of free services and free
trials (but note you may have to get your organisation's
library/information service to set up some of these for you):
Free services
Companies House <http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk>
Search free for disqualified directors and basic company information
via the web site.
Dun & Bradstreet <http://www.dnb.com/uk>
For the first time, D&B is supplying free business information via
its web site; the UK Marketing File database of 1.8M businesses may
be searched using company name, business category and location
criteria, to find name, address, phone number and business category.
Business information reports, prospecting information and credit
decision-making data will be available via credit card payments on
the web.
Free trials
Butterworths Direct (UK legal and tax information services), register
via <http://www.butterworths.co.uk>
CatchWord access to full text of over 300 journals - for libraries
only, <http://www.catchword.com>
Country Risk Group's Country Risk Forecast database, register via
<http://www.crg.com>
Chadwyck-Healey's KnowEurope EU information service, register at
<http://www.knoweurope.net/info>
Electric Library, full text reference materials for schools and
libraries, register via <http://www.education.elibrary.com>
Emerald 2000, MCB's ejournal library, register via
<http://www.emerald-library.com> (libraries and organisations only)
LAWTEL ("the UK's leading on-line legal database"), register via
<http://www.lawtel.co.uk>
LEXIS-NEXIS Universe (news and business information), email
competitive.advantage@lexis-nexis.com or telephone 0171 464 1340
Microinfo <http://www.microinfo.co.uk> and Fenwood Systems Ltd
<http://www.fenwood.co.uk> have set up the Fm ServerCentre, providing
Internet access to database resources from SilverPlatter
(12 databases in the Health & Safety collection) and DialogOnDisc
(77 databases). "For information professionals only" free 30-day
trials are available, go to <http://www.fenwood.co.uk/servercentre/>
ProQuest (from Bell+Howell Information & Learning), access to
databases and some full text full image format, for academic,
special, government, public, and school libraries only; register at
<http://www.bellhowell.infolearning.com/proquest/FreeTrial/>
WilsonWeb databases - for libraries only, register via
<http://www.hwwilson.com>
World Market Research Centre's World Markets Online, register via
<http://www.wmrc.com>.
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Anne Barker has been involved in the online information world for
nearly 25 years, as a searcher/intermediary and information services
manager in industry, then as university lecturer and researcher. She
is currently working as part of the team on the JUSTEIS (JISC Usage
Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services) Project
<http://www.i-a-l.co.uk/JUSTEIS/JISCTop.htm>, funded by the Higher
Education Funding Councils' Joint Information Systems Committee
<http://www.jisc.ac.uk> to monitor and evaluate user behaviour in
information seeking and use of electronic information services in UK
Higher Education. The research is being undertaken by the Department
of Information & Library Studies at the University of Wales
Aberystwyth in conjunction with
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About this Newsletter
- Publication Date: 16th December 1999
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- Link: https://www.jinfo.com/go/newsletter/52
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