Apologies for cross posting
ALISS (ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES)AGM AND CONFERENCE
REPORT-UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK 29-30TH JUNE
The ALISS Annual conference/AGM at took place at the University of
Warwick 28th-30th June 1998. The accommodation, facilities, the
hospitality and the campus in general were first class and will take
some matching at future events.
The AGM was held on the evening of Sunday June 28th. Many issues were
discussed including the future programme and the possible merger with
ASSIG. Full Minutes of the AGM will sent to lis-socialscience and be
posted on the ALISS website, (details below), as soon as possible.
The programme for the next 2 years was worked out and involves a trip to
London in November 1998 to discuss the relationship with ASSIG and
hopefully to visit the library at the LSE and also the new British
Library.
Next Summer the Conference will be at Bangor University in June.
Programme to be agreed. We are then hoping to visit Glasgow later in
1999 and Exeter in the Summer of 2000. Full details will be included on
the website as they are firmed up.
The ALISS chairman John Naylor and Yasmin Adeeb from Warwick had
organised the conference and were heartily thanked for their
organisation and hospitality. After the AGM the delegates visited a
local hostelry and imbibed some beverages. It was noted that the
hostelry had various learned and other written slogans around the walls
that were of a similar nature to those in the pub we visited in
Manchester at last years conference.
Is this a trend?
On Monday 29th the main body of the conference programme proceeded with
a series of papers on the theme of electronic publishing. .
These papers will all be available shortly in electronic format via the
ALISS website at
http://www.lse.ac.uk/blpes/aliss/past.htm
The following are brief resumes of the various sessions:
Recent developments in academic publishing and their impact on academic
libraries
Fytton Rowland (Loughborough University)
Fytton Rowland discussed definitions of academic publishing and the
economics of electronic publishing. The functions of academic journals
include dissemination, preservation, quality control and
recognition/priority of academic work. Publishers were an oligopoly and
their profit margins ranged from 40% to 60% on print journal sales.
Electronic journals are cheaper to produce but only if they are not
produced in paper. No electronic journal appeared to be making a profit
at the moment.
The National Electronic Site Licensing Initiative(NESLI), funded by
JISC, should provide access to electronic journals and is similar,
though not a successor to the Pilot Site Licensing Initiative(PSLI).
SWETS and the Manchester University Computing Department are the
managing agents of this project. They aim to produce a standard
agreement between all publishers and the UK academic community. The
implicit position behind NESLI is that commercial publishers are to stay
in the future of academic journal publishing.
Despite the interest in electronic journals from librarians, publishers
and postgraduate students Fytton Rowland has found little evidence of
use of electronic journals by academic researchers.
Learning Support partnerships: information providers/academics in the
social sciences
Richard Biddiscombe Head of Information Services (Birmingham University)
Richard Biddiscombe discussed learning support partnerships, which
provide a rational justification for librarians. Learning support
partnerships develop relationships between the academic departments, the
librarian and IT staff. He argued that convergence between libraries
and computing services is the best model as it brings the "conduit" and
"content" together.
The Birmingham library model uses hybrid teams for a holistic approach,
including Web pages, a user friendly interface and advice on information
sources, but stock selection is reserved for the academic staff.
Chadwyck Healey
Andrew Hall
Andrew Hall discussed the services provided by Chadwyck Healey and
emphasized that future developments would be Web based, avoiding
problems of CD-ROM networking. The products are, UKOP Online
http://www.ukop.co.uk:8085/, Policy File providing information for (US
orientated) public policy research http://www.policyfile.com/ ,
Literature Online (CHEST) providing information on English and American
Literature http://lion.chadwyck.co.uk:8085/ , International Index to
Music Periodicals, http://music.chadwyck.co.uk:8085/ You can apply to
him by e-mail for a trial username and password for these services to
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Journal of Information, Law and Technology
Wiebina Heesterman CTI Law Technology Centre
JILT is an example of a successful Electronic Libraries project which is
about to become self-financing . This electronic journal has won a
number of awards for design and content. It can be located at
http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/jilt/ or http://elj.strath.ac.uk/jilt/
Wiebina Heesterman emphasized the problems of locating online electronic
journals in social sciences At the moment it is not possible to limit a
search in SOSIG to electronic journals. By subscribing to the NewJour
mailing list, librarians can receive a list of new journals and
newsletters available on the Internet, although, this means receiving a
list of absolutely everything which is published! Subscribe to the
NewJour mailing list NewJour archive, http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/ The
alternatives to this include searching the CTI centers, the subject
gateways.
The excellent conference dinner was held on the Monday evening followed
by a social session in the University Staff Bar.
On the Tuesday the 29th of June the ALISS members, who came from all
areas of the UK, were given a guided tour of the Modern Records Centre
at Warwick. We were treated to a tour of the temperature controlled
archive and saw the many historical records that exist on the Trade
Union Movement and other institutions. We also saw the famous box of
earth that was brought back from Russia and is said to be "stained with
the blood of the workers".
At Lunchtime on the Tuesday the very successful conference came to an
end.
ALISS has grown very quickly and now has over 30 institutions as paid up
members and this is growing all the time. Things look set for further
growth and success in the next two years. If your institution has yet to
join ALISS then please e-mail Michelle Davies the ALISS Treasurer at
Swansea University with details of who to send the invoice to and she
will arrange for this to be done. An annual Institutional fee of £20.00
covers all library staff working in anyway in the area of the social
sciences. You get access to the mailing list and the website as well as
discounted rates at conferences and training events.
E-mail
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Ann Smith
Phil Shewring
Steve Lee
ALLIS Secretary
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