I was at a seminar yesterday on refworks which motivated me enough to go and have a look at it again, and how it interoperates with a lot of the bibliographic databases.  There was a lot of the use of the information word, and a lot of use of the database word, in all cases meaning different things to different people, but it does seem the core issue of intellectual properties rights and rights registration actually determines what who can do.

it also seems clear that it will impact on the concept of knowledge, and what passes for pro poor knowledge and pro poor policies, as well as course, on international development.

I suspect that in most third would countries, even in the universities, no one will have access to refworks, apart from whether they have access to the blibliographic records or the full text articles to which they refer.


But we do need some evidence.

Is there anyone there who has used refworks or is doing the sort of work where you might be able to try it in something like real blood, and perhaps know something about it?

It is sitting on top of Z39.50, probably Dublin Core, and maybe a couple of other bits too.  It interoperates with Microsoft Word through the write n' cite feature which is a further level worth exploring.

It might be something we need to involve the ifip 9.4 group on too.