EBSCO Enhancement Group

After discussion at recent committee meetings and liaison with EBSCO, the JIBS User Group is to set up an Enhancement Group for EBSCOhost databases.

JIBS are looking for volunteers to form the new JIBS-EBSCO Enhancement Group. Ideally we are looking for an even spread of experience across the range of EBSCOhost databases. Volunteers should have be prepared to attend 2-3 meetings per year. Further details available on request.

Please let me know by 19th August if you would like to be a member of this Group. In the unlikely event of us receiving too many applicants, it would be useful if you could give me some idea of your role and experience of using EBSCOhost databases.

Graham Stone
Serials and Electronic Developments Manager
University of Bolton
G.Stone@bolton.ac.uk

JISC Database Evaluation

On behalf of JISC, Nick Andrews Consultancy are carrying out "A Study Evaluating Bibliographic and Citation Databases in use by the UK Higher Education Community". Phase 1 of this project was to draw up a shortlist of key bibliographic and citation services to be included in the study. These 20 databases are:

1 Scopus
2 WoS
3 PsycInfo
4 Lexis Nexis
5 Business Source Premier (EBSCO)
6 PubMed
7 Westlaw
8 British Education Index
9 International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS)
10 Inspec
11 British Humanities Index
12 COMPENDEX
13 MLA International Bibliographies
14 BIOSIS
15 EconLit
16 ABI Inform / ProQuest
17 Sociological Abstracts
18 EMBASE
19 Lawtel
20 Geobase

Phase 2 will be to produce an online comparison website. Nick Andrews Consultancy has put together a Library panel to advise on this project, including representation from JIBS.

British Standards Online
- enhancement group

Further to problems with BSOL which were discussed on the lis-scitech list, JISC have asked the JIBS User Group to set up an Enhancement Group for British Standards Online. BSI are very interested in taking this forward.

JIBS are looking for volunteers to form the new JIBS-BSOL Enhancement Group. Volunteers should have a good knowledge of BSOL and be prepared to attend 2-3 meetings per year. Further details available on request.

Please contact me if you would like to be a member of this Group. In the unlikely event of us receiving too many applicants, it would be useful if you could give me some idea of your role and experience of using BSOL.

Web of Knowledge quarterly update 16/07/06

JIBS have been asking for some time for an improvement to author searching on Web of Science so we were very pleased to see the MIMAS news concerning Sunday's upgrade:

"Author Finder -
You will be able to distinguish between authors of similar names, helping you to find the author you are looking for faster."

Note also the announcement regarding phrase searching. Thomson are adopting the Google approach. A search for 'needle exchange' used to retrieve the exact phrase 'needle exchange'. It will now retrieve 'needle AND exchange'. For an exact phrase search you will have to use quotes: "needle exchange"

The full announcement is at:
http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/news/2006/20060713.html

OCLC Date of Birth; Date of Demise RSS feed

For information:
www.oclc.org/rss/feeds/authorityrecords/

Closed Dates in Authority Records

The Library of Congress recently announced a change in policy about adding death dates to personal name heading and a revision to the LCRI for AACR2 rule 22.17 that allows the option for catalogers to add death dates to personal name headings with open dates (http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcri22_17imp.html)

Both the Library of Congress and OCLC are aware that many libraries will be very interested in incorporating these changes into their catalogs. Libraries that use authority control services for ongoing processing will receive these changes as part of their normal workflows but, for other libraries, OCLC is providing this service to announce headings to which death dates have been added.

Lists for each week since the new policy went into effect on February 1 are available as an RSS feed. Instructions for subscribing to RSS feeds can be found on OCLC website > RSS Feeds and Podcasts.

A list of newly changed headings will be added once each week in the future.

NOTE: Some entries require the ALA BT Courier font to display properly. Please use Internet Explorer for best results when viewing this font.

------------