Issue 7

POETRY ON CD-ROM

Announced in Literature matters no. 13. May 1993 a new CD-ROM release ... English poetry full-text database the first disc in a new project from British publishers Chadwyck-Healey. The database is intended to include the work of 1,350 poets from 600 AD to the beginning of the twentieth century. It will allow keyword searching as opposed to the usual first line approach. At an anticipated price of £23,500 for the set, it is not in our league, but hopefully some of the large academic libraries in Australia will subscribe.

BULLETIN BOARDS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Some of our previous issues have discussed educational bulletin boards. Some interesting articles have appeared recently on this topic. Using bulletin boards to exchange classroom resources by John Widmer discusses why teachers should be using this electro~ic medium to share information. (Compak, no 3, June 1993, p 72-76.) If you feel inclined to have a go, Telecomputing: a tourist guide to bulletin boards by Jennifer Allen and Michael Brandon, in PC User, August 1~93, p95-98, provides some tips for novice or first time users of bulletin boards. If you still need some convincing that this is the way of future communications, Initial findings from a national survey on K-12 educators' use of telecommunications by Margaret Honey and Andres Henriquez, in Information searcher, vol 5 no 3, p 9-12 gives an overview of uses by teachers and students.

ELECTRONIC SCIENCE INDEXES

Scientific American and New Scientist publish electronic indexes for DOS-based computers. If you do not have a CD-ROM and are unable to use SAGE either on CD-ROM or on-line, these indexes maybe useful for you. Bob Aikenhead has a useful review of both indexes, including practical applications for his senior Physics and Chemistry students in Two electronic indexes to scientific articles in Read.me: PC education user group newsletter, vol 7, no 2, 1993, p 1-3.

LIBRARY AUTOMATION

An interesting article summarising the current trends in library automation in Australian academic libraries by Carmel Maguire appeared in LASIE, vol 23, no 4 & 5, 1993, p 56-61. Entitled Automation in Australian University libraries at end of 1992, the article discusses the present situation and perceived future directions which include self-charging circulation, storage and retrieval of images, CD-ROM networking and improved integration of interfaces. These trends may also be applicable to our libraries. In the same issue of LASIE (p 85-87) teacher-librarian Ailsa Holmes-Walker provides a review of a useful new title Automating school library catalogs: a reader published by Libraries Unlimited.

Multimedia

I keep reading that this is the new direction for technology. Optical media in education: a quick summary of the pros and cons of five major systems in use today by Ann E Barron in The computing teacher, May 1993, p 6-10 provides a simple explanation of the technology. This complements the article which most of you would have read, by Ian Redpath in Access, Hitchhiker's guide to multimedia: a shopper's guide to multimedia, vol 7, no 2, May 1993, p 24-25

Articles mentioned above will be available on request from SCIS