New book lists - web site and RSS feeds

Posted on behalf of UKeiG member Steve Burgess (stevepburgess@gmail.com) .

New Book Lists - New Website and RSS Feeds - Affiliates Sought

One of the recent developments of the free RSS generating site publicised on here a while ago (http://www.my-rss.co.uk/) is the ability to create book lists simply by specifying the ISBN. The website extracts the rest of the information automatically from online book databases.

I have now launched a website - http://www.Just-Published.co.uk - as a home for new book lists on an ever growing list of subjects. This service is supplied in association with Blackwell's Online Bookshop.

Just-Published provides a graphical HTML interface to the New Books RSS feeds. Book covers are displayed (when available) and live cost and availability data is displayed. Users can link directly from the site to Blackwell's to purchase the latest books in their field of interest.

I am looking for contributors - preferably information professionals with a subject specialism - to compile new book lists on MY-RSS.CO.UK which can then be featured on Just-Published.co.uk

Although I am unable to pay people, contributors who are Blackwell's Affiliates, or wish to sign up for the programme, can generate commission from any sales arising from the book lists they create. If you are not an affiliate and don't wish to sign up as an affiliate, any sales that are generated from your lists will contribute to the running costs of the MY-RSS and the Just-Published websites.

My aim is to create a useful resource for librarians (particularly those in solo/specialised units), students, researchers, academics and readers in general of the latest books published in a wide variety of disciplines. Take a look at the RSS site ( http://www.my-rss.co.uk) and the Just Published site to see how the two sites are related and the different ways in which they present the same information.

If you would like more information - or want to get involved - please get in touch. If you want to earn commission - you must sign up for Blackwell's Affiliate programme (I cannot link the site to other affiliate programmes such as Amazon).

Most of the development work I do on the Internet has the objective of solving problems I come across in my day job as a solo information professional in a specialised library. I welcome suggestions for future projects. If there is a web-based tool that would really help you out in your day to day work - and you think others would find it useful too - but you don't have the time or the web-skills to develop it please let me know.

I hope you find the new books lists useful - any suggestions are, as ever, gratefully received.
--
Steve Burgess
stevepburgess@gmail.com

Intranets Network Meeting

What’s on your intranet home page?

Free informal intranets forum meeting to be held at TUC, Congress House, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3LS

Thursday, 22nd June 2006, 16.00-17.30hrs

Come and meet your intranet colleagues!

This is the first informal meeting of the UKeiG Intranets forum. If you are working in intranets and would like to meet your colleagues, this is the meeting for you. Our first meeting is a chance to look at other intranet home pages. Janet Corcoran, Imperial College London and Helen Davies from the TUC will be showing their intranet home pages.

We will also be looking for volunteers to host future meetings, in London or elsewhere.

If you would like to attend this meeting, please contact:

Helen Davies, Information Manager
Trades Union Congress
Congress House
Great Russell Street
London, WC1B 3LS
Direct line: 020 7467 1207
Email: hdavies@tuc.org.uk

Location: 2 minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road tube station

Map: http://www.tuc.org.uk/the_tuc/about_contact.cfm

If you are interested in hosting a meeting in another part of the UK, please contact:

Claire Pillar
Web Liaison, UKeiG Management Committee
Direct line: 01228 814159
Email: claire@outofthebox.nu

eLucidate May/June issue now available

The May/June issue of eLucidate is out now:
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/elucidate/index.html

Feature (members only)
The NPRIE Website - A Glance Behind the Scenes by Steve Burgess (West Yorkshire Probation Board) An account of a purpose-built content management system for the National Probation Research and Information Exchange.

Online (members only) by the Aberystwyth Online User Group. Essential updates on new online resources....

Internet (members only)
Library 2.0 - more questions than answers, by Susan Miles, Kingston University. Library 2.0: various views of what it is, and how it can be used.

Intranets (members only) by Martin White, Intranet Focus Ltd. An account of the 2006 Search Engine Meeting, held this year in Boston, USA, in April 2006.

Public Sector News (members only) by Jane Inman, Warwickshire County Council. Public Sector News is supplied by ALGIS (The Affiliation of Local Government Information Specialists) which represents information professionals providing information services to local authority staff and elected members. Update on e-local authority websites, and developments in Europe.

Letters Response to the piece in the last eLucidate on Institutitional Repositories and a recent posting on the JISC-REPOSITORIES list.

Meeting reports Searching the Internet: Google and beyond and Taming your Intranet

Current Awareness (members only) This column contains summaries of articles (print and electronic) about information access and retrieval, electronic publishing, preservation and virtual libraries etc. including, with permission, abstracts identified with an * next to the author initials, drawn from Current Cites, the monthly publication distributed electronically by a team of Librarians and library Staff and edited by Roy Tennant. This issue covers content management, digital libraries, education, electronic publishing, information access and retrieval, legal issues, preservation, security and web design.

Book Reviews Peopleware: Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment: a Guide for Librarians, reviewed by Russell Burke.

Press Releases and News
News on SAGE agreements with CLOCKSS and Portico to Preserve E-Journal Content, PerX (Pilot Engineering Repository Xsearch), and the UK and New Zealand ICT agreement.

Update on My-RSS.co.uk

Steve Burgess has announced some new developments on his My-RSS site. My-RSS enables you to generate your own RSS feeds and host them on the My-RSS site. It is an ideal service for those who are not allowed to host feeds on their own web sites.

The site has been moved to a dedicated server and the domain name
my-rss.accessions.co.uk is now no longer in use. The site now lives at
http://www.my-rss.co.uk/.

Statistics

The site now collects information on how frequently feeds have been accessed, monthly statistics on how many times the XML file has been requested, and also how often the HTML version of the feed has been viewed.

Developments

The site has had a minor design overhaul and some changes have been made to the menu system. Authors who have more than one feed can access them from the "Your Feeds" menu rather from the drop down select box used previously. The next change will be to allow you to select items from associated feeds by checking all the relevant articles then submitting - rather than having to submit one by one.

UKeiG events feed

As well as an events feed on the UKeiG web site, listing the seminars and workshops in our training programme, we have a similar feed on My-RSS, feed URL http://www.my-rss.co.uk/feed32.xml. Alternatively, you can view an HTML version of the feed by selecting UKeiG from the drop down menu on the My-RSS home page.

If are thinking of setting up your own RSS feed and are not sure what to do, My-RSS is a good place to start. Just sign up for a free account, and fill in the boxes when prompted. My-RSS does the rest.

UKeiG's Wiki

At long last we have restarted the experimental UKeiG wiki. It was originally set up to develop and share support materials for the UKeiG workshop on RSS, blogs and wikis held in Newcastle on February 22nd, 2006.

We got off to a shaky start, mainly because we had not quite sussed how wiki access rights worked. We got it completely the wrong way round with the result that spammers started bombarding the comments and blog areas. So, we have started all over again. The UKeiG wiki has now been set up so that anyone can view the information, but if you want to edit pages or comment you will have to register.

You do not have to be a member of UKeiG to become involved - everyone is welcome. If you are a member of UKeiG your existing UKeiG user name and password have not been automatically enabled for the wiki. Just click on Register and fill in the form.

The intention now is to see how the wiki can be used by us all as a collaborative tool for developing fact sheets, FAQs, resource lists etc. Suggestions for topics are welcome.

Nomination invited for UKeiG Tony Kent Strix Award

The UKeiG Tony Kent Strix Award is given in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the field of information retrieval. The Award is sponsored by Sage Publications.

Nominations are now invited for the 2006 Award. Nominations should be for achievement that meets one or more of the following criteria:

* development of, or significant improvement in, mechanisms for the retrieval of information, either generally or in a specialised field;
* development of, or significant improvement in, accessibility to an information service;
* a sustained contribution over a period of years to the field of information retrieval; for example, by running an information service or by contributing at national or international level to organisations active in the field;
* a major and/or sustained contribution to the theoretical or experimental understanding of the information retrieval process;
* a major contribution to fostering the education, training and/or general awareness of the importance and the technicalities of information retrieval.

Key characteristics that the judges will look for in nominations are innovation, initiative, originality and practicality. The Award is open to individuals or groups from anywhere in the world.

Nominations should take the form of a short description (no more than 3 sides of A4) of the work in question, together with full contact details of both the nominee and the nominator. Do not forget to include any documentation, references or URLs which may support the nomination.

Nominations should reach the judges by Friday September 15th 2006.

Nominations will be judged by a panel of experts, and the statuette of an owl will be presented to the winner during the annual Online Information Meeting in London in late November.

The Strix Award is presented in memory of Dr Tony Kent, a past Fellow of the Institute of Information Scientists, who died in 1997. Tony Kent made a major contribution to the development of information retrieval and information services both in the UK and internationally, particularly in the field of chemistry. The name Strix was chosen both to reflect Tony's interest in ornithology, and the name of one of the last and most successful information retrieval packages which he created.

Past winners have been:
2005 Jack Mills
2004 Professor Cornelis Joost (Keith) van Rijsbergen
2003 Dr Herbert van Sompel
2002 Malcolm Jones
2001 Professor Peter Willett
2000 Dr Martin Porter
1999 Dr Donna Harman
1998 Professor Stephen Robertson

Further details can be found on the UKeiG website at:
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/awards/tonykentstrix.html

Nominations for the 2006 Award are now invited, and should be sent with full supporting documentation to:
Alan Gilchrist,
32 Friar Road,
Brighton BN1 6NH
UK.
Tel: 01273 705226
E-mail: cura@fastnet.co.uk

The closing date for nominations is Friday September 15th 2006.

Notes:
SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com) is a leading international publisher of journals, books and electronic media for scholarly, educational and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers,
and students. SAGE Publications, a privately owned corporation, has principal offices in London, United Kingdom; Thousand Oaks, California; and New Delhi, India.

UKeiG AGM

A reminder to all UKeiG members that the UKeiG AGM will take place on Wednesday 14th June 2006, at 1.30 pm. Venue: Bloomsbury Suite, Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG.

On either side of the AGM, UKeiG are running a one day event on Desktop Tools - Managing the Flight Deck. See the web site or the earlier blog posting for further details.

The event costs £80 + VAT (total £94.00) for UKeiG members, and £100 + VAT (total £117.50) for non-members.

The AGM is free.

Desktop Search - coming to your PC soon

Whether you like it or not, desktop search (DS) will be landing on a PC near you in the very near future. It will play a central role in Microsoft's new operating system, Vista, and will enable users to quickly locate files and search the content of documents stored on their computers.

Combined with web search it offers Microsoft the opportunity to give Google a run for its money in the search engine stakes. No wonder, then, that the other major players in this market have already entered the fray with their own versions of Desktop Search. The serious contenders are Google, Yahoo, Ask, Copernic, Exalead, Blinkx, ISYS and of course Microsoft. Most of them are free and they are all pitching for access to your desktop.

All have strengths and weaknesses, but it may not be Google or MSN that win the day. Copernic's free DS and the priced option from ISYS are well established and have a loyal following. Yahoo's document support is unsurpassed - important as so many people are switching to Open Source software and Microsoft alternatives - and Exalead has unique search features such as proximity, phonetic and approximate spelling options. Blinkx and Ask are also strong players and continually developing and improving their products.

As information professionals, we must understand and be aware of what is happening in this arena. It is no longer just about web search with an option to install and use desktop search for those of us who are geekishly inclined. The two, by default, will become inextricably entwined and we need to know who is doing what and understand the implications for both our users and ourselves.

UKeiG is running a one day event on Desktop Search - managing the flight deck on June 14 in London. It promises to be an interesting day with speakers from Copernic, Microsoft and ISYS, and Karen Blakeman will be presenting the users point of view with a session on "Desktop search tools compared: the good, the bad and the ugly". The day will be chaired by UKeiG's Gary Horrocks, so here's your chance to meet the man behind the IWR interview and stay ahead of the game.

Further information and a booking form are on the UKeiG web site.

Nominations invited for the Jason Farradane Award

The UKeiG Jason Farradane Award is offered to an individual or a group of people in recognition of outstanding work in the field of information science. The Award is sponsored by Sage Publications. Nominations are now invited for the 2006 Award. Nominations should be for achievement that meets one or more of the following criteria:

• raising the profile of the information profession within an organisation or field of endeavour in a way which can or has become an exemplar to others;
  
• raising the awareness of the value of information in the workplace;
  
• development of a significant new information product or service;
  
• development of a product or service that has made a significant impact on the availability and accessibility of information.
  

Key characteristics that the judges will look for in nominations are innovation, initiative, originality and significance. The Award is open to individuals or groups from anywhere in the world.

Nominations should take the form of a short description (no more than 3 sides of A4) of the work in question, together with full contact details of both the nominee and the nominator. Do not forget to include any documentation, references or URLs which may support the nomination. Nominations should reach the judges by Friday September 15th 2006.

Nominations will be judged by a panel of experts, and the award will be presented to the winner during the annual Online Information Meeting in London in late November.

Previous award winners have included:

• 2005 - Michael Koenig, Dean of the College of Information and Computer Science at Long Island University
  
• 2004 - Julia Chandler, Internet and Intranet Manager at the Department for International Development
  
• 2003 - London Metropolitan University and the TUC for the web site "The Union Makes us Strong: TUC History Online"
  
• 2002 - William Hann for Freepint
  
• 2001 - Professor Bruce Royan for SCRAN
  

Further details can be found on the UKeiG website at: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/awards/farradane.html

Nominations for the 2006 Award are now invited, and should be sent with full supporting documentation to:

Christine Baker
The Old Chapel
Walden, West Burton
Leyburn
North Yorkshire
DL8 4LE
Tel & Fax: 01969 663749
E-mail: cabaker@ukeig.org.uk

The closing date for nominations is Friday September 15th 2006.

Notes:

1. Sage Publications
SAGE Publications is a leading international publisher of journals, books and electronic media for scholarly, educational and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students. SAGE Publications, a privately owned corporation, has principal offices in London, United Kingdom; Thousand Oaks, California; and New Delhi, India.

2. Jason Farradane
Jason Farradane graduated in chemistry in 1929 at what is now Imperial College and started work in industry as a chemist and documentalist. He was instrumental in establishing the Institute of Information Scientists (IIS) in 1958 and the first academic courses in information science in 1960 at the precursor of City University, where he became Director of the Centre for Information Science in 1966. On the research side his main contributions lay in relational analysis, which can now perhaps be seen as providing a precursor to work in the area of A.I., and the concept of information. He saw information science as a step towards understanding and better organizing ourselves. The IIS first presented the award in 1979, to Jason Farradane.

UKeiG browser share for April 2006

For those of you following the browser wars, and the trends in usage on the UKeiG web site, April's web stats show that Firefox usage has gone back up to just over 25%. IE 6 remains in first place with 62%, but Safari is creeping up and reached 5%. The other minor contenders were IE 7 and 5, Netscape 4 and 5, Mozilla and Opera 8 and 9.