The exhibition highlights the Library's Pacific Collection, a collection of national significance on the history and culture of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, based on the extensive personal library accumulated by Professor H.E. Maude, a former British colonial administrator in the Pacific and Professor of Pacific History at the Australian National University, and his wife and fellow researcher, Honor Maude. The Pacific Islands Library was purchased by the Barr Smith Library in 1972 and further items were added by the Maudes to August 1995.
The purpose of the exhibition is to publicise the collection and its richness as a resource for teaching and research, and to honour its original owners on the occasion of their final transfer of material to the collection. The exhibition has been prepared by the Special Collections Librarian, Susan Woodburn and designed by Constance Gordon-Johnson. Assistance with funding of the exhibition and an accompanying Guide has been provided by the University Foundation and by a special Library allocation for the design consultancy.
Her Excellency and Dr Alaric Maude, son of Professor and Mrs. Maude, spoke at the opening, which was attended by Adelaide members of the Maude family and the University and Library community. Both Dame Roma and Dr Maude had personal experience of the Pacific islands, Her Excellency most recently as a member of the Court of Appeals of Kiribati, and vividly evoked the spirit of the islands and their people.
The exhibition is open to 30 November, from 9 am to 6 pm Monday to Friday and from 1 pm to 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. Journeys Through Pacific History, a guide to the Pacific Collection, is available for consultation or purchase ($5.00) -- please ask at Special Collections on Level 4 of the Barr Smith Library or at the Information desk. The text of the guide is also available on the Library Information Service; the URL is http://www.library.adelaide.edu.au/ual/publ
Susan Woodburn
While general services such as Net-happenings [see the USENET newsgroup comp.internet.net-happenings, or check the home page at http://www.mid.net:80/net/] list new Australian sites, they are far from complete.
At least four Australian services attempt to monitor and publicise new Australian sites and maintain subject directories of existing ones. They include Telstra's This is Australia at http://www.telstra.com.au/meta/australia.html; Australian Internet Directories at http://www.sofcom.com.au/WWW.AU/index.html, the Australia Announce Archive at http://www.com.au/aaa/, and Australian WWW Servers at http://www.csu.edu.au/links/ozweb.html.
You can also find pointers to the This is Australia and Australian WWW Servers, with other useful sites, on the Library Information Service at http://www.library.adelaide.edu.au/net/misc.html.
While on the subject of law, there's a nice student initiative run by Daniel Austin, an undergraduate at ANU, who has produced a Legal Information Index:-- have look at http://spirit.com.au/~dan/law.
Rick Kuhn from the Department of Political Science at ANU has a Political Science in Australia page with a good section on Australian politics and links to Government, political parties and union pages:-- http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/austpol/austpol.
If you are interested in Australian Literature, two enthusiasts from Victoria have recently set up the OZ Lit page at: http://ipax.apana.org.au/~itisus/index.html.
Besides their This is Australia site mentioned above, Telstra also offers access to the Australian white and yellow pages, and a selection of overseas directories, at http://www.telstra.com.au/direct/.
Finally, for a taste of things to come in the delivery of news, have a look at News Corporation's test site for News/MCI's new global online service, Delphi, at http://www.Delphi.com.au/ or the Herald-Sun's `Info@ctive' edition at http://www.mel.aone.net.au/HWT/.
Steve Cramond
The rebuilding of catalogue indexes will continue in the new year, but most search options should be available. Lending will be possible, but there will be limitations on the placing of Holds and in answering questions about items on loan.
The new software introduces significant enhancements to the searching, indexing and acquisitions functions of the Library system. Few of the changes will be directly evident to Library users, although there should be improved response times in searching and some additional catalogue search features for the advanced user.
Stephen Beaumont
Zoological record 1978- indexes 6 500 journals and selected books, theses and conference papers. The database includes more than 1 million citations and, like the print edition, has systematic and taxonomic information for 27 animal groups.
Child abuse and neglect 1965- includes more than 18 000 citations with abstracts for journal articles, conference papers, government reports and books on physical and psychological aspects of child abuse and neglect.
Electronic versions of The Merck manual of diagnosis and treatment 16th ed. 1992, and two Australian Bureau of Statistics publications, Yearbook Australia 1995 and the ABS catalogue of publications and products 1995, have also been added to the collection.
Several new Australian databases have been added to the existing service, AUSTROM:-- ALISA: AUSTRALIAN LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE ABSTRACTS; AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE DIGEST; CONSUMER: CONSUMER SCIENCES INDEX; and DELTAA: DATABASE ON ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR ADULTS
HERITAGE AND ENVIRONMENT now includes AUSCHRON: CHRONOLOGY OF AUSTRALIAN HISTORIC AND CURRENT EVENTS.
ENGINEERING AND APPLIED SCIENCE now has:-- CHERUB: CHEMICAL ENGINEERING REFERENCE USER BIBLIOGRAPHY; NED: NEWCASTLE EARTHQUAKE DATABASE; and SCANFILE a research and development database for engineering and applied science.
Another new title (by the same publisher and on the same machine as Poetry Index) is Editions and adaptations of Shakespeare. The CD contains eleven major editions from the First folio of 1623 to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6, twenty-eight separate contemporary printings of individual plays and poems, apocrypha and related works. It also contains more than 100 adaptations, sequels and burlesques, including the whole of Bell's Acting Edition of Shakespeare's Plays (1774).
Judith Lloyd
One of the major incentives of the agreement is to organise a harmonisation of our holdings of expensive research journals. For example, there is about $1 800 000 in duplicated subscriptions between the two libraries in journals which cost more than $700 for an annual subscription (this represents 500 titles). There is considerable scope for rationalisation between the two libraries with a base this large.
When a title is held at both Libraries, it may be possible, after careful consideration and negotiation between the Libraries and the Academic Departments concerned, to cancel one of the subscriptions at one of the libraries, and then use document delivery to obtain articles from the remaining subscription at the other Library. The two libraries have been trialling a document delivery service during 1995, and we have been able to deliver articles in a timely and inexpensive manner. We are also experimenting with scanning documents for electronic transmission.
It should be possible to plan the harmonisation to free up funds in excess of the required cancellation amounts so that these additional funds can be used to take out subscriptions to new titles, which neither institution can now contemplate.
The University of Adelaide Library is also considering local harmonisation with Flinders University Library and the Library of the University of South Australia.
A letter is being sent to every Dean and Head of Department concerning the harmonisation project, and including a timetable. I should be pleased to attend Departmental or Faculty meetings to discuss this proposal in more detail.
Ray Choate
This software, which will be followed shortly by a Macintosh version, conforms to the international standard Z39.50 which allows it to interrogate, via the Internet, any database, on any platform, that conforms to the same standard.
This will mean, for example, that once our Library Catalogue becomes Z39.50 compliant early in 1996 you will be able to use the CC software to search either the Library Catalogue or Current Contents -- or both. In this way you will be able to do a Current Contents search and, at the click of a mouse, `link' items retrieved by the search to only those actually held at the University of Adelaide Library.
In addition, you can use the Ovid Windows client to access other database services which conform to the Z39.50 standard, and to which the Library subscribes, such as the FirstSearch suite of databases.
Databases available from Ovid during November for the trial, apart from Current Contents, include ABI/Inform, Biological Abstracts and Compendex.
The implications of the widespread adoption of standard Z39.50 are a greatly simplified and more uniform approach to searching databases.
It is hoped that the other major library database software provider -- SilverPlatter -- will soon be able to provide the same functionality.
Steve Cramond
The Library has put aside about $100 000 in its materials budget for purchase of literary equipment, defined as expensive back sets, microform sets, CD-ROM databases, etc. These funds are made available by competitive application to all Faculties and Departments of the University.
We ask Faculties and Departments to consider using their research accounts to match funds with the Library (remember-ing that all Faculties received some of the distribution in 1991). In this way the amount of funding can be extended, and more research material can be purchased for staff and advanced students. However, there is no obligation to provide matching funds.
Please consult your Department Head or Faculty Dean; information and application forms have recently been sent to them. Applications are co-ordinated by Faculty or Department and should be forwarded in ranked order to the Library for checking.
Further information is also available from Marie Robinson, Collection Development Librarian, Barr Smith Library (e-mail marie@library.adelaide.edu.au or telephone extension 35285).
Ray Choate
If you would like more information about any of the topics mentioned in this issue of News, please get in touch with the person named in the article, the University Librarian, Ray Choate, or Alan Keig at the Barr Smith Library.