December 2005 - LIS-Forum - ncsi.iisc.ernet.in

Webology: Volume 2, Number 4, December, 2005
by Alireza Noruzi 28 Dec '05

28 Dec '05

Dear All, Apologies for cross-posting firstly. We are pleased to inform you that Vol. 2, No. 4 of Webology, an OPEN ACCESS journal, is published and is available ONLINE now. This issue contains: ------------------ Editorial: The HTML Title Tag and Its Importance -- Alireza Noruzi -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/editorial6.html ----------------------------------------- An Online Multi-Lingual, Multi-Faith Thesaurus: A Progress Report on F-THES -- A. Neelameghan & K.S. Raghavan -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/a19.html ----------------------------------------- Information Seeking Behaviour of Faculty Members of Rajabhat Universities in Bangkok -- Kingkaew Patitungkho & Neela J. Deshpande -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/a20.html ----------------------------------------- Internet and Its Use in the Engineering Colleges of Punjab, India: A Case Study -- Rajeev Kumar & Amritpal Kaur -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/a21.html ----------------------------------------- Book Review of Theories of Information Behavior -- Hamid R. Jamali -- http://www.webology.ir/2005/v2n4/bookreview2.html ----------------------------------------- ========================================= Call for Papers: http://www.webology.ir/callforpapers.html ========================================= Regards, A. Noruzi Dep. of Information Science University of Paul Cezanne France __________________________________________ Yahoo! DSL Something to write home about. Just $16.99/mo. or less. dsl.yahoo.com

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InfoWatch - December 2005
by M.R Lalitha 27 Dec '05

27 Dec '05

Dear LIS-Forum member, The December 2005 issue of InfoWatch is now online, bringing you the details of new Internet sites related to Science and Engineering. You can access the complete issue on the NCSI Web server at the URL : http://www.ncsi.iisc.ernet.in/infowatch/iw.php You will also find earlier issues of InfoWatch here. For your convenience, the table of contents is given below. If you wish to be on the mailing list of InfoWatch to receive the complete issue by e-mail, let us know. Also mention your format preference - html or text. Regards -Lalitha M.R (lalitha(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ InfoWatch Tracking Networked Scientific Information Sources and Services (An electronic update service brought to you by NCSI) December 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Best picks from InfoWatch 2005 This issue features selected sites from recent previous issues of InfoWatch. These sites also provide an overview of the different topics covered in the newsletter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In This Issue: 1. 125 Questions - What don't we know? [Science magazine's current survey of 'scientific ignorance'] 2. AllRefer Health [A medical and health information resource] 3. Center for Biological Sequence Analysis (CBS) 4. CiteULike [A free service to help academics to build a personal library] 5. Daily rotation [Headlines from 300+ technology news feed sites] 6. Discover circuits - Free electronic circuits schematics 7. Earthquake Information Network (EQNET) 8. ElectronicsInfoline - Free electronics schematics from around the world 9. Electronic waste guide - A knowledgebase on sustainable recycling of Electronic wastes 10. Enviropedia - An encyclopedia of environment 11. Genetics home reference [National Library of Medicine's web site for information about genetic conditions] 12. InterOperability Laboratory KnowledgeBase [A resource for networking and data communications products] 13. itmWEB - Information technology management WEB 14. mindat.org - The MINeral DATabase 15. National Semiconductor - The power of analog 16. OAIster [A collection of freely available, academic digital resources] 17. Pauling File- Basic database for crystal structures 18. ProcessLibrary.com - Free process information 19. Pureperformance.com - Tweaks and tips for Windows XP/2000, Windows 9x/ME 20. ResearchChannel - A consortium of research universities and corporate research divisions 21. Reshaping scholarly communication [Alternatives for cost effective publishing] 22. Singularity Institute for artificial intelligence 23. Special Topics - Summarized publication and citation data from ISI for the analysis of research trends & performance 24. Technical compendium by Wildpackets [Essays and papers on technical issues of interest to networking professionals] 25. TechOnLine - Educational resources for electronics engineers 26. Tiempo climate cyberlibrary - Global warming and the Third world 27. Top 500 World Universities - Academic ranking of world universities 2005 [The Institute of Higher Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China] 28. Web developers' handbook [ A reference tool for cascading style sheets, web development, search engine optimization] 29. Whole Building Design Guide (WBDG) - A building professional's gateway to design techniques and technologies 30. World Biodiversity Database (WBD) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ About InfoWatch : InfoWatch is a monthly electronic newsletter, brought out by the National Centre for Science Information (NCSI) Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore - 560 012, INDIA. Information in the newsletter is collected and verified by NCSI staff.The newsletter aims to raise awareness of new sources of information on the Internet, particularly those which are relevant for higher education and research. Some items may be of relevance only to the IISc community.Resources reported here have been taken from various discussion lists and other network tools and no special claims are made for accuracy or originality. Most of the sources cited in the newsletter were checked at the time of publication, however it is possible that some of the resources are no longer available. We welcome comments about the newsletter and suggestions for resources to be featured. Please e-mail your comments to Infowatch editors: Ms. K. Thulasi (thulasi(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in) & Ms. M. R. Lalitha (lalitha(a)ncsi.iisc.ernet.in) ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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A new digital library in B'lore
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: Here is a news story on a digital library initiative in Bangalore. Can anyone give a detailed account? Thanks and best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam] ----------------------- Digital library for Bangalore Medical College to launch this week Unique digital library opening on December 28, Deccan Herald, December 26, 2005. An unsigned news story. Excerpt: The soon to be inaugurated state-of-the-art digital library at Bangalore Medical College (BMC) is unique in scale and concept. A gift by the alumni of the college to mark its golden jubilee celebrations, users of the library can have access to full text articles from leading international and national journals, multimedia presentations by leading doctors and can also access materials in other libraries like the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Nimhans. The information is catalogued using open sources database Dspace. BMC Alumni Association claims the facility is the best and biggest in any medical college in the country. Association President Dr H C Satya and Vice-President K M Srinivasa Gowda told reporters that the entire library was wi-fi-enabled.

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Africa will do well to focus on OA archives
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: Peter Suber's blog carries this news story. African workshop on OA repositories and libraries UNESCO supports training for building digital libraries in Africa, UNESCO News, December 20, 2005. A brief report on the Greenstone workshop at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, November 30 - 1 December 2005. Excerpt: The meeting that was co-organized by UNESCO, the Coalition of South African Library Consortia (COSALC) and Sivulile, a South African open access initiative, brought together 30 participants from Ethiopia, Lesotho, Namibia, New Zealand, Swaziland, Sudan and host country South Africa. This workshop was the third in a series of activities organized by COSALC and Sivulile (we are open in isiXhosa) aimed at raising awareness on open access models for information exchange, and ICT capacity building of information professionals in Africa institutions. These efforts are aimed at supporting the creation of digital libraries and providing archivists, librarians in Africa with skills to utilize electronic information tools and resources in their work and enhance access to online resources. --- In my view, it would be better to focus on setting up interoperable institutional open access archives in African universities and research laboratories than talking about all-embracing digital libraries. We in India have been having many national and international conferences on the topic of digital libraries and these have not taken us far. There is hardly anything to show on the ground. On the other hand, setting up archives cost much less and the results are there for all to see. Right now India cannot boast of great success in setting up OA archives, but there are some which are filling in fast. The best Indiaj effort is the GNU EPrints archive at the Indian Institute of Science. The National Institute of Technology at Rourkela is planning to mandate archiving all research papers. The National Informatics Centre's OpenMED archive is a central archive for biomedical research. These are only examples and there are a few more. And 2006 is expected to see many more archives coming up. Best wishes. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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OWSA archive on ICT-enabled development
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: A central archive on the subject of ICT-enabled development is set up by OneWorld South Asia (OWSA). Please visit <http://open.ekduniya.net/information.html>. Your comments and suggestions for improvement may be sent to Dr B Shadrach at <shaddy.shadrach(a)oneworld.net> or to Mr Narendra Deo of OWSA. Best wishes. Arun

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Open Course Ware & Indian universities
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Friends: Here is an excerpt from the MIT Open Course Ware website. There are many Chinese universities making their course ware availble at no cost to anyone who has an internet connection. Needless to say most of the courses are in Chinese. What it is important is that there is great awareness in China that such material should be made available free to whoever wants to use it. Higher educational institutions in other developing countries will do well to follow the Chinese (and MIT) example. Best wishes. Subbiah Arunachalam --------------------- Opencourseware Projects (around the world) The MIT OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW) project has always had a dual mission: * Provide free access to virtually all MIT course materials for educators and learners around the world. * Extend the reach and impact of MIT OCW and the opencourseware concept. The vision of the MIT faculty who first developed the opencourseware concept at MIT was that one day, there would exist a vast network of universities around the world offering open access to high-quality educational materials in a variety of different disciplines, in a variety of different languages, creating a global Web of knowledge that will improve education around the world. So MIT is very pleased to be joined by other institutions around the globe in openly sharing educational materials as it helps us fulfill the second part of the OCW mission -- to extend the OCW concept to other leading universities. The collective body of high-quality educational materials made available by these institutions provides a remarkable free and open network of resources for educators, students, and self-learners everywhere. The institutions listed below have publicly committed to the open publication of their materials in OCW initiatives, and are devoting resources to support these OCW projects. China Visit the portal page for 156 Chinese university OCW projects, featuring the following universities * Peking University * Tsinghua University * Zhejiang University * Xi'an Jiaotong University * Central South University * Beijing Jiaotong University * Sichuan University * Beijing Normal University * Dalian University of Technology * Central Radio and Television University * Shanghai Jiaotong University * Nanjing University * Jilin University * Northwest Polytechnic University * Southeast University * Sun Yat-Sen University * Fudan University * Huazhong University of Science and Technology * Renmin University of China * Huazhong Agricultural University France The engineering institutions (Grandes Ecoles) which form ParisTech have published the ParisTech OpenCourseWare project. The ParisTech institutions include: * École Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (ENGREF) * École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC) * École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers (ENSAM) * École Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Paris (ENSCP) * École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (ENSMP) * École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications (ENST) * École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA) * École Polytechnique (EP) * École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris (ESPCI) * Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon (INA P-G) * École Nationale de Statistique et d'Administration Économique (ENSAE) (associate member) Japan Visit the portal page for the following Japanese university OCW projects: * Keio University * Kyoto University * Tokyo Institute of Technology * Osaka University * University of Tokyo * Waseda University United States * Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health * Tufts University * Utah State University Vietnam * Fulbright Economics Teaching Program OCW

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Henk Moed's article in Current Science
by Subbiah Arunachalam 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Dear Gene: The 25 December 2005 issue of CURRENT SCIENCE (published by Current Science Association and the Indian Academy of Sciences) carries an article by Henk Moed on citation analysis of scientific journals and a review of his recent book by me. Please visit: <http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/dec252005/1990.pdf> and <http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/dec252005/2171.pdf>. Thanks and regards. Arun [Subbiah Arunachalam]

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India Reads - Best of 2005
by ++ Mukesh Anand ++ 26 Dec '05

26 Dec '05

Click on the link below to know which are the bestsellers in Non-Fiction Category during 2005 India Reads - Best of 2005 compiled by - - MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES - books + cd-rom's + e-books - Head Office: 203, Moghal Marc Ratan Complex Opp. Deepak Theatre, Narayanguda Hyderabad - 500 029 Telephone: 040-55787065 / 27552390 Facsimile: +91-40-27552390 Branches : New Delhi & IIT- Kharagpur http://www.monitorinfo.com Library Suppliers of Science, Technology & Management Publications - - Mukesh Anand Director - Marketing MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES Click on the link below to know which are the bestsellers in Non-Fiction Category during 2005 http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/RT0MB7KKGC0R2/104-99822… India Reads - Best of 2005 compiled by - - MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES - books + cd-rom's + e-books - Head Office: 203, Moghal Marc Ratan Complex Opp. Deepak Theatre, Narayanguda Hyderabad - 500 029 Telephone: 040-55787065 / 27552390 Facsimile: +91-40-27552390 Branches : New Delhi & IIT- Kharagpur http://www.monitorinfo.com http://www.monitorinfo.com Library Suppliers of Science, Technology & Management Publications - - Mukesh Anand Director - Marketing MONITOR INFORMATION SERVICES

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Mandating OA for publicly funded research
by Subbiah Arunachalam 24 Dec '05

24 Dec '05

Friends: The Italians are forging ahead with a national open access repository. India, China and Brazil should follow suit and lead the way for the rest of the world! For a start, DST, DSIR, DBT and other government agencies funding research may insist that all papers resulting from public funding should be archived in an open access archive - either a central archive (e.g. OpenMED) or an institutional archive (e.g. IISc, NIT-Rourkela). The Ukrainian Parliament has recently mandated open archiving of all publicly funded research papers. Arun Profile of the PLEIADI Project Ugo Contino and three co-authors, PLEIADI, un portale per la letteratura scientifica "Open Access", Bollettino del Cilea, 99 (2005) pp. 11-16. Self-archived December 22, 2005. In Italian but with this English-language abstract: The PLEIADI Project (acronym for "Portale per la Letteratura scientifica Elettronica Italiana su Archivi aperti e Depositi Istituzionali", a portal for Italian scholarly e-literature in open archives and institutional repositories) originated from the collaboration between two major Italian university consortia, CASPUR and CILEA, within the framework of the AEPIC project. PLEIADI aims at building a national platform that offers centralized access to the scholarly literature archived in Italian repositories. Friends: The Italians are forging ahead with a national open access repository. India, China and Brazil should follow suit and lead the way for the rest of the world! For a start, DST, DSIR, DBT and other government agencies funding research may insist that all papers resulting from public funding should be archived in an open access archive - either a central archive (e.g. OpenMED) or an institutional archive (e.g. IISc, NIT-Rourkela). The Ukrainian Parliament has recently mandated open archiving of all publicly funded research papers. Arun Profile of the PLEIADI Project Ugo Contino and three co-authors, http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00005153/ PLEIADI, un portale per la letteratura scientifica "Open Access" , Bollettino del Cilea , 99 (2005) pp. 11-16. Self-archived December 22, 2005. In Italian but with this English-language abstract: The http://www.openarchives.it/pleiadi/ PLEIADI Project (acronym for "Portale per la Letteratura scientifica Elettronica Italiana su Archivi aperti e Depositi Istituzionali", a portal for Italian scholarly e-literature in open archives and institutional repositories) originated from the collaboration between two major Italian university consortia, CASPUR and CILEA, within the framework of the AEPIC project. PLEIADI aims at building a national platform that offers centralized access to the scholarly literature archived in Italian repositories.

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Connotea
by Subbiah Arunachalam 24 Dec '05

24 Dec '05

Friends: Please visit http://www.connotea.org/ to learn about how a new free software help you in organizing your literature. Please alert your scientist friends. Arun Friends: Please visit http://www.connotea.org/ http://www.connotea.org/ to learn about how a new free software help you in organizing your literature. Please alert your scientist friends. Arun

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