Apologies for cross-posting
BIOME NEWSLETTER AUTUMN 2003
THE BIOME SERVICE
The BIOME Service continues to grow, both in content and in use. We now describe over 23,000 resources and we serve on average over 65,000 pages per day
LTSN/RDN INTEROPERABILITY PROJECT
Interoperability for Learning and Teaching
BIOME is currently participating in a major project to enhance interoperability between the BIOME core database and those being created by our cognate LTSN Subject Centres.
The partners in the project are the RDN Hubs BIOME and ALTIS and five LTSN centres: Bioscience; Health Sciences and Practice; Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism; Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine; and Psychology.
The overall aim of this project is to provide members of the health and life science communities in the UK with richer and easier access to learning and teaching resources and to act as a starting point for future Hub/LTSN Subject Centre collaborations.
An interoperability framework will be created that will allow the partners to share data with each other, to create new resource descriptions, to add value to existing Internet resource descriptions (such as reviews and educational levels) and to allow members of our user communities to cross-search all of our catalogues.
The project will use a range of common standards to ensure interoperability between all of the partners. This will involve the use of a core set of common metadata and the Open Archive Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting as a standard for metadata exchange, ensuring that records from the LTSN subject centres and ALTIS/BIOME will be comparable and can be combined into a single database that can be searched from the Hubs and the Subject Centres.
This work is being undertaken as part of a wider RDN/LTSN project and uses funding that has been made available by the JISC to develop partnership arrangements between the LTSN and the RDN.
BIOETHICS GATEWAY LAUNCHED
BioethicsWeb (http://bioethicsweb.ac.uk/) is a new gateway to evaluated, quality Internet resources relating to biomedical ethics.
The gateway is aimed at those studying, teaching or researching in the area of bioethics, or anyone interested in the ethical, legal and social issues surrounding the conduct and implications of biomedical research. A wide range of topics covered includes cloning, animal experimentation, genetically modified foods, biotechnology, scientific misconduct, and genetic testing. The gateway is searchable by keywords and phrases, and browsable through a list of broad subject headings. Websites covered include electronic texts and journal articles, discussion lists and databases.
BioethicsWeb is affiliated to BIOME and the Resource Discovery Network (RDN), but is developed and managed by the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine at the Wellcome Trust.
THE RESOURCE GUIDE ADVISER FOR THE HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES
We are please to announce that Rachael Stacey is covering the post of Resource Guide Adviser for the Health and Life Sciences whilst Jo Badge is on maternity leave (looking after her beautiful twin girls).
The Resource Guide for the Health and Life Sciences gives an overview of quality-assured information resources to support leaning, teaching and research within higher education. The guide focuses on relevant JISC funded databases and other resources and, where appropriate, complementary resources and initiatives funded by other bodies. This information can be viewed on-line and the key resources are listed in a printed version.
A second (redesigned) edition of the printed guide is now available. To view the resources, or to order free copies of the printed guide, use the online order form at:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/resourceguides/hls
Rachael is at present organising the promotion and development of a series of health and life science training events and activities.
BIOME WEBSITE DEVELOPMENTS
BIOME will soon be introducing some changes to the look and feel of our site and to our search interface.
Because of our increasing popularity, (from 30,000 page returns per month in 1995 to 1.7 million per month in 2003) our old search interface was starting to suffer under the weight of the searches that it had to handle. We decided therefore to introduce a new search interface to coincide with the increase in searches that occurs at the beginning of each academic year.
In light of ever changing Internet accessibility and other standards we have also decided to introduce a new content management system. This uses XML and XSLT to enable us make our gateways more accessible and easier to update.
We took advantage of this situation to introduce some new features and to change slightly some existing parts of the site. This was partly in response to user feedback obtained during our recent Portal focus groups and in response to previous user comments about the look and feel of the site.
These new features include a new wildcard feature in our search interface (to replace the existing automatic stemming) and the ability to sort results by a range of options.
As a service, we are keen to make sure that these changes reflect the needs of our users and to find out what other aspects of our Webpages and service can be further developed or improved.
If you have any comments or suggestions about the new search interface or about any other aspect of our service please let us know. You can contact us through our e-mail address at [log in to unmask]
VACANCIES
At present, we have an exciting opportunity for anyone interested in the development of online services in the health and life sciences.
BIOME Portal Development Officer (Fixed-term)
This post will support the development of portal services and features within the BIOME web site. Duties will include planning activities leading to the development of core portal features within the BIOME Hub, obtaining user feedback on the establishment and ongoing development of portal services, liaison activities with partners, parallel services and data suppliers, the marketing of portal services to our users, and activities to ensure that the BIOME portal maintains our web site's current ease of use and functionality and is fully compliant with a range of required standards.
Candidates must have a first degree and/or postgraduate qualification in one of the following: librarianship/information science, IT, health, life sciences or e-learning. At least two years' hands-on post-qualification professional experience in a related area is required, as well as demonstrable experience in the use and/or development of web based information services, excellent communication and people skills and the ability to undertake a wide range of planning and marketing activities. Candidates should be able to communicate and work well with both IT staff and members of our user communities.
Salary will be within the range £21,125 - £27,339 per annum, depending on qualifications and experience. Hours of work are 36¼ per week, Monday to Friday inclusive. This post will be offered on a fixed-term contract for a period of one year and any informal enquiries may be addressed to Donald M Mackay, the BIOME Service Manager, tel: 0115 849 3251 or Email: [log in to unmask] (ref. JLM/004. Closing date: 17 November 2003)
For further details and information on how to apply, please see details
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/hr/vacancies/ar.html#JLM/004
INTERNET RESOURCE BOOKLETS
A new edition of our 16-page booklet "Internet Resources for Health and Medicine" (generously sponsored by the Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine) will soon be available. If you would like copies of this FREE booklet please contact Jenny Hall ([log in to unmask] or 0115 8493251).
Following on from the popularity of this booklet, BIOME has decided to produce similar guides in two other areas.
We are grateful to the Animal Health Information Specialists Group (AHIS) for agreeing to sponsor a new booklet containing selected resources from our animal health gateway VetGate (http://vetgate.ac.uk/). This will include key, evaluated, quality Internet resources of interest to students, researchers, academics and practitioners in animal health.
The second booklet we will be undertaking is one for our AgriFor gateway (http://agrifor.ac.uk/). AgriFor is a gateway to quality Internet resources in agriculture, food and forestry.
We have distributed over 7,000 "Internet Resources for Health and Medicine" in the last 12 months and feedback has indicated they are a great resource for teaching and learning. If you interested in sponsoring the AgriFor booklet please contact Jenny Hall ([log in to unmask] or 0115 8493251).
CHANGES AT BIOME
There have been changes to our technical team. John Stockwood departed for pastures new at the end of July 2003, and Martin Stower has joined BIOME to provide IT support and to participate in the Subject Portals Project (http://www.portal.ac.uk/spp/).
Frances Singfield, Service Officer, is currently on maternity leave and Peter Hoare has been appointed to cover this until May 2004. The BIOME team manager, Lisa Gray, re-located to Bristol for personal reasons at the end of July and we would like to thank her for all her hard work and dedication to OMNI/BIOME over the years.
Donald M Mackay
Service Manager
BIOME
Greenfield Medical Library
University of Nottingham
Queen's Medical Centre
Nottingham
NG7 2UH
0115 8493251
http://biome.ac.uk
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