**apologies for cross-posting**

The University of Birmingham is pleased to announce the following:

An Online Archive Catalogue allowing access to archive collections
held in the Special Collections of the University of Birmingham will
be available as of 1st June, 2001.  Thanks to access funding provided
by the Research Support Libraries Programme, we have been able to
develop the OPAC feature of the CALM archives management database to
allow online and Internet access to our collections.  The objective of
the Online Archive Catalogue is to increase awareness and usage of the
University's archives and special collections, both nationally and
internationally.

The Catalogue may be accessed via the Internet at
http://calm.bham.ac.uk/DServeA/.  As the University of Birmingham will
be among the first large institutions using the CALM archives
management system to mount a successful archive OPAC and to provide
Internet access to archival collections, this is quite an exciting
accomplishment.  Users will now be able to electronically access
collections such as the Joseph and Austen Chamberlain papers, the
Church Missionary Society archives, and many other prestigious
collections held by the University.  We are confident that the Online
Archive Catalogue will provide a valuable research resource for users
of Information Services as well as for researchers both nationally and
internationally.

Linda Needham
Information Services
University of Birmingham