OVID meeting in November

Our next meeting with Ovid/SilverPlatter is pencilled in for 3rd November.

Any concerns and issues, please contact Adrian Smith 0113 3435531 so that we can take them forward.

JISC Collections

Welcome to the fifth weekly update from JISC Collections. In response to your feedback, JISC Collections is now consolidating as much information as possible into a single weekly email covering ongoing negotiations, consultations, new resources and other important updates. This weekly update is also available on the JISC Collections web site at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_weekly_update.html.

This is the last issue for August with the next update resuming in September.

You can either go direct to the web version of the newsletter
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_weekly_update.html) and browse the items from there or register to obtain your own direct alert (via an HTML email) by mailing JISC Collections at mailto:collections@jisc.ac.uk.

A PDF version http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/JISC%20Collections%20weekly%20update%20issue%205.pdf and text only version
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_week_update_text.html of this newsletter are also available.


Brian Mitchell
JISC Collections

Annual General Meeting (AGM)

The AGM is pencilled in for Wednesday 22nd November 2006, in Manchester (John Rylands Library). To be confirmed.

Ovid SilverPlatter work in progress

Ovid released the Mustang version of OvidSP in April 2006. Its purpose was to begin exposing the new search platform to a small, specially selected group of customers in order to share with them [the] design direction and to receive ... feedback on design questions.

The next stage is the mid-Summer availability of Corvette.
This pre-release version targets the librarian/info manager user community in the academic sector. Nottingham University (Wendy Stanton) expressed an interest in working with Ovid on this.

EDINA Web Pages

EDINA are looking at ways of improving their web site. They have created a survey which reflects some of their current thinking, and would value your feedback.

The survey is available via the link below, and should be completed by 18th August.

http://edina.ac.uk/edinawebsitesurvey.html

Intute Seminars

To celebrate the launch, Intute are offering the following seminar events free of charge to UK lecturers, researchers or librarians:

Internet for Business and Tourism, Bristol, Weds, 13th Sept 2006
Internet for Social Research, Birmingham, Weds, 20th Sept 2006
Internet for Health, Nottingham, Mon, 18th Sept 2006

These seminars are for university or college staff interested in improving their own use of the Internet for research, or in teaching Internet research skills to students.

Posted on behalf of Jenny Hall, Intute.

JISC Content Procurement Company

This is a reminder that institutions need to join the JISC Content Procurement Company:

JISC Collections will be a mutual trading company and as such it can only trade with its members. In order to provide institutions with sub-licence agreements and to process their subscription fees the institutions must become members of the company.

There is no fee for membership and liability is limited to £1. The institutional members will be represented on the JISC Board by two Institutional Directors. Member institutions will be able to nominate and vote for these representatives.

To check if your institution is a member, and for joining instructions, please see:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=coll_jiscreg

Posted on behalf of Lorraine Estelle
JISC Collections Team Manager

Suncat

Suncat becomes a full service at Edina from today. It is a freely-available union catalogue of journals and other publications of a continuing nature, both print and online:

http://www.suncat.ac.uk

Records are derived from approximately 50 participating libraries including the British Library, National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, plus selected university and specialist libraries including RIBA, the Natural History Museum and Wellcome libraries.

Searches may be limited to a particular region or library.

Closure of Biosis service at EDINA

The Biosis service at Edina closed yesterday. JIBS wishes to thank Edina for successfully hosting the database and in particular for their excellent customer support.

BIOSIS Previews continues under a JISC license via the Ovid and ISI Web of Knowledge platforms. JIBS liaises closely with both of these providers and would be pleased to pass on your feedback on the 'new' interfaces to BIOSIS. Just click on the 'comments' link below, or email:
l.j.humphreys@bath.ac.uk (ISI)
a.smith@leeds.ac.uk (Ovid)

JISC subscription information can be found at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=coll_biosis_previews&src=alpha

JISC Collections weekly updates

JISC Collections is now consolidating as much information as possible into a single weekly email covering ongoing negotiations, consultations, new resources and other important updates.

This weekly update is available on the JISC Collections web site at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/coll_weekly_update.html.

You can either go direct to the web version of the newsletter and browse the items from there or register to obtain your own direct alert (via an HTML email) by mailing JISC Collections at collections@jisc.ac.uk.

A PDF version and text only version of this newsletter are also available.

Posted on behalf of Brian Mitchell
JISC Collections Promotion Manager

RDN becomes:

The Resource Discovery Network (RDN) was relaunched as Intute on 13th July. This means that the 8 RDN hubs (SOSIG, EEVL, Humbul, BIOME, Artifact, PSIgate, GeSource, Altis) no longer exist. Instead, there are 4 subject categories:

• Science and Technology
• Arts and Humanities
• Social Sciences
• Health and Life Sciences

The RDN Virtual Training Suite has also moved to Intute.

JIBS are meeting with Intute representatives in November to provide feedback on the new service, and would welcome your views. Please click on the 'comments' button below this news item to add your feedback on Intute.

The Intute home page is at: http://www.intute.ac.uk/

CrossFire Renewal

The JISC licence for the Beilstein CrossFire service expires on 31st October. Renewal information was sent yesterday to those who responded to the JISC consultation. If you are intending to renew CrossFire or to take up the DiscoveryGate offer but have not received this information please contact Liam Earney: l.earney@jisc.ac.uk