Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The perfect online companion for the arts and humanities

New JISC Collections agreement for Cambridge Companions Online is now available

Cambridge Companions Online is the electronic version of the Cambridge Companions series, covering literature, philosophy, classics, religion and cultural studies. Over 270 titles are included which provide introductions to major writers, artists, philosophers, topics and periods. Institutions can subscribe to the complete collection, or to either of two sub-collections: literature and classics and philosophy, religion and culture. There is also the option to upgrade subscriptions to include Shakespeare Survey Online. This is the online version of Shakespeare Survey, which is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production.

Further details can be found here.

JISC Collections Consultation - The Encyclopedia of Popular Music

JISC Collections is considering a licensing agreement for The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music is a comprehensive reference work devoted exclusively to popular music, and is now available online.

With a broad musical scope covering popular music of all genres and periods from 1900 to the present, this resource also offers thousands of additional entries covering popular music genres, trends, styles, record labels, venues, and music festivals.

Suitable for all academic levels, this resource is useful for music, cultural studies, and media studies.

We seek your views and comments on this resource in order to gauge its usefulness. Please complete our online response form if you want to take part in this consultation.

Further details can be found here.

JISC Collections Consultation - Who's Who

JISC Collections is considering a licensing agreement for Who's Who. From 2008, Who’s Who will be published online by Oxford University Press, and will be updated throughout the year. Who Was Who, which is the archive of Who's Who, is also be available online and can be subscribed to at an additional cost.

Who's Who contains information on over 32,000 people, detailing birthdays, families, education, titles, career, publications and creative works, personal interests, clubs, and addresses. This resource can be used across all subject areas.

We seek your views and comments on this resource in order to gauge its usefulness. Please complete our online response form if you want to take part in this consultation.

Further details can be found here.

JISC Collections Consultation - VetMed

JISC Collections is considering a licensing agreement for VetMed. VetMed is an online resource which is designed for all levels of veterinary science and related subjects. It includes: a database with abstracts from over 3000 journals, books and conference proceedings; coverage of all aspects of veterinary medicine from 1972 to the present; 800 CABI-published and peer-reviewed scientific reviews; links to full text papers from major conferences; news items and an international drug database.

Subject areas covered by VetMed includes animal behaviour; animal welfare; animal management; animal science; equine studies; applied animal science; animal production science veterinary science; veterinary nursing; veterinary public health and zoonotic diseases. Therefore this resource is useful for students and practicing veterinarians, nurses, and technicians. Once you have had an opportunity to review the information below and trial the resource JISC Collections would be very grateful if you could complete the online response form.

Further details can be found here.

Digimap Goes to Sea: new resource provides marine and coastal zone data

A major new online resource which makes available marine and coastal zone digital data from SeaZone Solutions Ltd is now available. The maps and data Marine Digimap delivers provide a fascinating insight into the broad range of factors that make up the marine and coastal environment and influence its exploitation.

The new resource, made available by JISC Collections through EDINA’s Digimap platform, is very timely. The Marine Bill White Paper published last year and a forthcoming Climate Change Bill demonstrate the ever increasing concern over flooding and rising sea level which makes access to quality information about marine and coastal environments more important than ever.

Further details can be found here.

Tracing Britain's history with British History Online: premium content

JISC Collections is pleased to announce that following a highly successful consultation with the community, an agreement for British History Online: premium content is now available.

Built by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, the subscription-based premium content is offered in addition to the wealth of free content already available from British History Online. By subscribing to the premium content, institutions can benefit from access to the 122 titles of the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, Scotland and Ireland. The calendars are a critical primary source for historians of early modern Britain, for the study of central government and administration, and are a rich resource for the social, cultural, and economic history of the period.

Further details can be found here.

For the public record: new JISC Collections agreement for collection of current parliamentary papers is available

Public Information Online is a complete collection of parliamentary papers available to download as pdf files, which is updated daily. Beginning with the 2006-2007 parliamentary session onwards, the collection includes: House of Commons Bills; House of Commons Explanatory Notes; House of Lords Papers; House of Lords Bills; House of Lords Explanatory Notes; Command Papers; Public Bill and Standing Committee Debates.

Public Information Online is suitable for a wide range of subjects including: agriculture, business studies, international studies, defence studies, education studies, employment relations and studies, environmental studies, healthcare and health studies, history, management, public and social policy.

Further details can be found here.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: new JISC Collections agreement is available

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography enables users to explore the lives of over 55,000 people worldwide who have shaped the British past over the last 2,400 years – from the 4th-century BC Greek explorer Pytheas to the Queen Mother, and from the founding fathers of America to the Nawabs of Bengal. It offers over 50,000 biographies, 60 million words, and 10,000 portrait illustrations; the full text of the 60-volume new print edition plus the full text of the original 33-volume print edition.

This resource is useful for a range of subject areas including history, history of art, politics, science and the sociology.

Further details can be found here.

European Sources Online: service is now fully launched

JISC Collections is pleased to announce that the full service for European Sources Online is now available. As you will be aware, the service from July 2007 to January 2008 was a beta version, but did include virtually full content, search and browse functionality. Revised and further content, as well as additional functionality has been added over this period so that a full service has been made available from 1st January 2008.

European Sources Online (formerly Know Europe) is a single source of full text information on Europe with a primary focus on the European Union. Socio-political information on fifty European countries as well as the work of a diverse number of international organisations operating within Europe, creates an invaluable resource for a range of subject areas including area studies, business studies, earth sciences, economics, environmental management and science, European studies, history, international business, international relations and politics.

Please note that institutions that have signed the Sub-Licence Agreement to European Sources Online will be charged from 1st January 2008 but will continue to have access to the beta service free of charge until then.

Further details can be found here.

Oxford Scholarship Online: new agreement and new subject modules are available

Oxford Scholarship Online is a cross-searchable library containing the full text of Oxford University Press' books. In addition to titles covering economics and finance, philosophy, politics and religion, institutions can now access titles covering biology, business and management, classics, history, linguistics, literature, mathematics, physics and psychology in the new JISC Collections agreement. The complete collection of 13 subject modules now includes over 1,800 titles, which are worth more than £75,000 in print.

All institutions are eligible for a discount when they subscribe to more than one subject module.

Further details can be found here.

Access the BBC's rich archive of moving images with the BBC Motion Gallery

For the first time the BBC's archive of moving images is available online from the BBC Motion Gallery. Over 30,000 clips are available, spanning 70 years, which are ready for download for educational use.

This resource is useful for a variety of subject and course areas including agriculuture, area studies, biology, business studies, built environment, chemistry, cultural studies, defence studies, earth science, education studies, engineering, environmental science, health sciences, history, journalism, leisure and tourism, media production, media studies, medicine, natural history, physical sciences, politics, sociology, sports studies, technology, visual arts, war and zoology.

Further details can be found here.

Exploring Islamic Studies - new online resource is available

Oxford Islamic Studies Online is an resource which brings together the best current scholarship in the field, and promotes accurate and informed understanding of the Islamic world. It contains more than 3,000 reference articles, and covers subjects such as global Islamic history, people, politics, faith, concepts, tenets and practices, and culture. This is a reference resource covering all aspects of Islamic Studies and is suitable for both further and higher education.

Further details can be found here.

Capturing key events of the 19th century

Purchase of the 19th Century UK Periodicals Online, Series 1 content by JISC brings material from the 19th century to the widest possible audience in UK further and higher education, as institutions will not have to invest in the content themselves but can gain access to the content via the publisher’s servers by paying an annual hosting fee. This will allow them to take advantage of the search interface developed for the 19th Century UK Periodicals Online, Series 1.

19th Century Periodicals Online, Series 1 captures an important period of British history as it focuses on the birth of modern magazine publishing in the United Kingdom between 1800 and 1900; the rise of children’s entertainment and education; and increasing interest in popular sports and hobbies, with nearly 100 titles and 1.2 million pages selected by an academic editorial board.

This is an invaluable resource for history academics and students studying social change in Britain and its effect around the world. Those studying and researching in the fields of literature, historical geography, philosophy, religion, cultural studies, economic and legal history, history of art and the history of science, medicine and technology will also find the resource of value.

Further details can be found here.

Internet Archaeology: creating an Open Access success story

New JISC Collections agreement makes the current issues of Internet Archaeology free of charge to universities and colleges in the UK

Internet Archaeology was established in 1996 with funding until July 2001 from the JISC eLib programme. Innovative since its inception, it was the first refereed online e-journal in archaeology and has been very successful in gaining international recognition as a high-quality academic journal. In the UK it is fully recognised for RAE purposes and forms an integral part of archaeological teaching and research. Now in its 22nd volume, Internet Archaeology attracts a continuous stream of offers of high-quality research papers.

Internet Archaeology 2008-2009: Open Access for UK HE and FE


Two year funding from JISC Collections will help Internet Archaeology with the transition to Open Access. The funding for the period from 1st January 2007 to 31st December 2009 enables free access, from January 2008, (to issues 22-25 of the journal) to the growing number of universities and colleges that teach archaeology, as well as extending usage of the journal to a much wider range of disciplines (for example history, history of art, creative and performing arts, geography, biological and earth sciences). Internet Archaeology will also be of interest to those in information science and librarianship disciplines and to users in the further education sector. Institutions will need to complete a sub-licence in order to access the journal.

Further details can be found here.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Ovid Gateway transfer date

http://resourcecenter.ovidsp.com/

The OvidSP Resource Center is your destination for all supporting materials and information.


To ensure that customers in every global region will have access to OvidSP on the morning of Monday, February 4th, 2008, all Ovid Gateway customers will be automatically directed to OvidSP on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 3:30pm EST (8:30pm GMT).

The timing was selected after evaluating worldwide system usage to identify a specific time that minimizes the impact to user workflow and ensures that all users and administrators will be transitioned to the new platform by the morning of Monday, February 4, 2008

After transition, Ovid Web Gateway will no longer be accessible.

OvidSP stats are currently available at https://ovidspstats.ovid.com. You will continue to have access to historical Gateway usage stats at http://ovid-admin.ovid.com/stats2/ after the transition.

Transfer date to OvidSP

"To ensure that customers in every global region will have access to OvidSP on the morning of Monday, February 4th, 2008, all Ovid Gateway customers will be automatically directed to OvidSP on Sunday, February 3, 2008 at 3:30pm EST (8:30pm GMT). "

"The timing was selected after evaluating worldwide system usage to identify a specific time that minimizes the impact to user workflow and ensures that all users and administrators will be transitioned to the new platform by the morning of Monday, February 4, 2008 "

"After transition, Ovid Web Gateway will no longer be accessible. All user settings, jumpstarts, and alerts will remain intact and be fully functional in the new platform (Ovid Web Gateway Jumpstart URLs will automatically re-direct to OvidSP). Please be sure to update your bookmarks to include: http://ovidsp.ovid.com"

"The OvidSP Resource Center is your destination for all supporting materials and information."

"OvidSP stats are currently available at https://ovidspstats.ovid.com. You will continue to have access to historical Gateway usage stats at http://ovid-admin.ovid.com/stats2/ after the transition."