Number 57, December 1998

ELSEVIER'S ScienceDirect

After several months of negotiation with Elsevier Science, one of the major publisher of STM (scientific, technical and medical) journals, ScienceDirect has finally been brought to our desktops. ScienceDirect is an online Web host to the full text of about 1100 Elsevier titles, and will be extended to cover journals from other participating publishers. This now replaces EES (Elsevier Electronic Subscriptions), which was locally stored data and delivered over the local network.

ScienceDirect'scapabilities include abstract, index, and full-text searching, the ability to create personal profiles and alerting services, journal issue browsing, links to editorial information and, in some areas, additional discipline-specific databases and related information. Users have the option to retrieve full articles or enhanced article summaries, which consist of bibliographic citations and abstracts plus article outlines, all graphic images (tables, charts, photographs, etc.) with lists of references. The bibliographic database layer has links to full text online and document delivery services. Links to commercial databases, such as Elsevier Science'sEMBASE, are also in place.

As a special offer until the end of 1998, users can gain full-text access to all the journals in ScienceDirect including all the backfiles back to 1996. From 1999 onwards, users can enjoy full-text access to our subscribed titles, while special arrangement will be announced in due course on full-text access to the non-subscribed titles.

ScienceDirect can be accessed by individual journal title from WebPac. The ScienceDirect site can be found in the Libraries Homepage under Libraries Electronic Resources and subsequently under Electronic Databases.

NEW ELECTRONIC DATABASES

• Keesing'srecord of world events is a comprehensive digest of current affairs, compiled from the world'spress and information services. Recognized as an essential resource for researchers, librarians, journalists, businesses and governments, Keesing'sprovides information on political events of global significance, economic trends and natural disasters. The coverage is from 1960-1998.

• Refworld is a collection of full-text databases representing the most comprehensive and reliable refugee information resource available. Sources include United Nations official documents, country information and legal materials.

• Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy CD is the first multivolume electronic encyclopedia on philosophy. It brings philosophy reference up to date with entries on new concepts and themes such as feminist philosophy and post-structuralism.

• TableBase provides access to tabular information on companies, industries, products, countries and markets. Data is drawn from privately published statistical annuals, trade associations, government agencies, international organizations, industry reports prepared by investment research groups, and more than 900 publications.

News

Academic Universe provides today'snews from selected news sources from around the world. It covers also company news, industry and market news, company financial information, country profiles, biographical information, political and legal news.

Science

Biosis GenRef on Compact Disc is the premier reference source for multi-disciplinary genetics information, covering plant, animal, human and microorganism genetics. It monitors nearly 6,000 scientific journals, 1,500 meetings, and 300 business industry publications.

How to Access

From our Libraries Homepage <http://www.hku.hk/lib> go to <Libraries Electronic Resources>.

UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 95

Several months ago, all of the PCs for Libraries staff were upgraded to Windows 95. PCs for patrons are now also being upgraded to Windows 95. This is a mammoth undertaking, as each of the approximately 150 PCs must be re-installed with new software. Other software and new procedures must also be installed to properly control security on these PCs, enable statistics collection and frequent mass distribution of software updates. The ¡¥back-end¡¦ is also being upgraded to be compatible in this new environment on the users¡¦ PCs. All of the approximate 400 titles of databases, electronic journals, and other online resources now available through the Libraries¡¦ PC LAN are now being converted to work with new server software, WinFrame, that will allow HKU clients on PC, Mac and the World-Wide Web to access these titles.

The Libraries has recently received from Commonwealth Higher Education Management Services (CHEMS) a complete set of their printed publications on higher education management. Topics cover benchmarking in universities, the use of performance indicators, MIS, and performance appraisal. They are now kept together as a Higher Education Management collection in our Reserve Book Room for one-week loan. Administrative departments and faculty are invited to consult them. Included in these additions are printed copies of smaller publications CHEMS Paper 4 to 25 which the Libraries has downloaded free of charge from the CHEMS Website at <http://www.acu.ac.uk/chems/chems.html>. Among the publications received is The Management of Higher Education - An Annotated Bibliography against which we are checking with a view to purchasing those items not yet held by the Libraries. We aim to expand our collection on higher education management.

OPEN DAYS

The Libraries took part in the University Open Days on October 17 and 18 to promote to prospective students the facilities and resources of the Libraries. Besides offering interactive multi-media quizzes and some souvenirs, we conducted guided tours for the many visitors who dropped by the Libraries.

^{DENTAL LIBRARY}

At the invitation of the Faculty of Dentistry, the Dental Library participated in the Grand Opening of the Dental Problem-based Learning Suite at the Prince Philip Dental Hospital on November 3. With the help of the Dental Illustration Unit, three beautifully designed display boards were mounted at the Opening Exhibition to highlight the Dental Library'scollections, services and facilities in support of ¡¥problem based learning¡¦ at the Faculty of Dentistry. A display of BDS first year textbooks, together with a multimedia interactive CD-ROM on a MacIntosh workstation, was also set up in one of the resource rooms of the PBL Suite. This attracted much interest.

As usual, this year'sorientation programmes have kept the Dental Library very busy in September and October. Altogether, a total of nine sessions of orientation programmes were conducted for all the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes of the Faculty of Dentistry and the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, and the trainee dental surgery assistants and hygienists. Electronic resources were especially highlighted in the orientation sessions to familiarise students to their usage.

Tenders have been sent out at the end of November for the construction of four discussion/PBL rooms on the 5/F of the Dental Library. This extension is expected to begin work in mid-January and will be finished by mid-March.

EDUCATION LIBRARY

28 videotapes were donated to the Education Library in memory of Mr P. D. Reynolds, the first Dean of the Faculty of Education (1984-1986). The new additions will strengthen our collection on Shakespeare.

The Education Library conducted a series of orientation programmes for new students of the Faculty of Education during September to familiarise them with the services and facilities of the Library. Bibliographic Instruction sessions were also organised for M.Ed. and higher degree students in October and November.

LAW LIBRARY

The Unreported Hong Kong Judgments is a recent addition to the Library'sstrong contingent of electronic resources on Hong Kong law. This CD-ROM contains unreported judgements (1996- ) of Hong Kong courts previously only available in hard copy held in the Library. Another new addition is the EIU China Hand which is a full text database of China business intelligence, including translations of laws and regulations of related subjects.

The Library's floor plans have been substantially revised and updated to include the locations of ACEnet connection points on both floors. Floor plans leaflets are available from the library foyer. You may also find it in the Law Library Homepage at <http://www.hku.hk/lib/LawLib/lawfloor.html>

More pathfinders have been added to help users navigate through the web of legal research. These include Legal research tools, Selected sources of PRC law, How to search for Chinese legal materials on OPAC, and many more. We welcome your suggestions for new topics.

Library orientation sessions at the end of September were well-attended by 84 freshmen. A new Music Library Guide was prepared and distributed to the participants. The Music Librarian has embarked on the selection of music materials in the Chinese language to build up the Chinese music collection. To accommodate the growing collection, additional shelving and several new CD cabinets have been acquired to house the new books, scores and audio-visual materials and the Library is in the process of shifting the entire collection. Part-time helpers are busy doing stock taking of the collection.

Four members from the Research Institute of Music (Beijing) visited the Library and donated some of their publications to the Music Library.

378 visitors dropped by the Music Library during University Open Days on October 17 and 18.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

We are pleased to announce that the Table of Contents Project for materials held in Hong Kong Collection has moved forward to the second phase, that is from contents in conference proceedings to the contents of compiled or edited works. Bibliographic data of 48,627 papers contained in 1,448 compilations have been added to the Libraries¡¦ OPAC. Users may now retrieve both the contents of edited works and conference proceedings from the OPAC or WebPac of the Libraries.

The current periodical display racks of the Special Collections have been re-arranged, making room for the installation of low bookshelves. Large books, large serials, and some regular size books have been moved to these low bookshelves to relieve the overcrowded condition of the book stacks.

The Special Collections recently received from the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong a deposit of Hong Kong Stock Market Archives and Artefacts Collections on a permanent loan basis. More than 125 cartons of Far East Stock Exchange archival materials and 90 cartons of other Stock Exchanges documents were received. These archives provide valuable primary research materials on the history of the Hong Kong stock market.

EXHIBITIONS

An exhibition entitled "HKU Libraries into the next Millennium" was held from October 16 to November 20. It focused on the advancement in information technology in the last decade and the shift in paradigm of the HKU Libraries from a storehouse of printed books to a virtual and digital information hub. Electronic books and journals, online catalogues and indexes, as well as Internet sources were some of the resources highlighted in the exhibition.

The Main Library held an exhibit of books and materials on Overseas Chinese in the library lobby from November 25 to December 2.

The University of Hong Kong Libraries has been collecting materials on the Overseas Chinese since the early days. More recently, together with Jinan University Library at Guangzhou, the Libraries established a Joint Documentation and Information Centre on Overseas Chinese Studies. We aim to make available via the Internet bibliographical information and some full-text data on Overseas Chinese, and to build up a collection of both primary and secondary materials. In addition to commercial publications in Chinese and western languages, we are acquiring theses and dissertations from foreign universities, publications from various overseas Chinese organizations, conference and symposium papers from the authors, etc. We also search and locate electronic resources on the Internet. At present, we are in the process of establishing various databases, and we target some new electronic products for 1999.

All the exhibited materials are from the University of Hong Kong Libraries, with the exception of a group of photographs, the originals of which were collected by the Chinese Heritage Centre of Singapore. The Joint Publishing (HK) Company, Ltd. has kindly lent us copies of the photographs for this exhibition.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

On behalf of the University, Deputy Librarian (Technical Services), Mr Lawrence Tam, attended the Commonwealth University Management Benchmarking Club (CUMBC) workshop at the University of Queensland, Brisbane from September 8-11, 1998. Mr Tam attended all the sessions on the areas under review ¡V library and information services, student administration, international-ization, estates and facilities management. He also gave a presentation on the management practices of the University of Hong Kong Libraries. The presentation was based on a submission to the CUMBC by the University Libraries which scored the highest rating in the library and information services area among the CUMBC members in 1998. At the workshop Mr Tam exchanged views on administration with participants from Commonwealth universities and made useful contacts. His report to the Vice-Chancellor has been circulated to the relevant departments for their information.

Dr Ma Tai Loi, Deputy Librarian (Fung Ping Shan Library), was invited by the Department of Social Culture and Library, Ministry of Culture of PRC to visit libraries and archives in Beijing, Tianjin, Nanjing and Shanghai from November 6-15 together with some East Asian librarians from the U.S. Among the institutions they visited were National Library of China, Peking University Library, Nankai University Library, Nanjing Library, Nanjing University Library, Fudan University Library, Shanghai Library, 2nd Historical Archives of China (Nanjing) and Shanghai Municipal Archives.

Dr Ma gave a Chinese Civilisation Lecture entitled "The Fun and Challenge of Textual Criticism ¦Ò¾Ú¾Ç ªº½ì ¨ý ©Ê ©M ¬D ¾Ô©Ê at the City University of Hong Kong on November 11, 1998.

CONFERENCES AND VISITS

Dr Kan Lai-bing and Julia Chan, Senior Sub-Librarian, attended the International Conference on New Missions of Academic Libraries in the 21st Century, held in Peking University Library, Beijing, from October 24-28, 1998. A joint paper entitled "Moving Towards the New Millennium: University of Hong Kong Libraries Initiatives" was delivered. There were over 160 participants, with library leaders from round the world. The Conference was organized to celebrate Peking University'scentennial and its new library building. The occasion also served as excellent opportunity to share ideas on management of academic libraries in the new millennium.

Prior to the Conference, Dr Kan, Julia Chan and Lau Yee Fui of Fung Ping Shan Library visited a number of libraries in Tianjin and Beijing including the National Library of China (¥_¨Ê¹Ï®ÑÀ]), Capital Library (­º³£¹Ï®ÑÀ]), Tsinghua University Library (²MµØ¤j¾Ç¹Ï®ÑÀ]), Tianjin Library (¤Ñ¬z¥«¹Ï®ÑÀ]), Library of Tianjin Normal University (¤Ñ¬z®v½d¤j¾Ç¹Ï®ÑÀ]), Nankai University Library («n¶}¤j¾Ç¹Ï®ÑÀ]), Bureau of Social Culture and Libraries, Ministry of Culture (ªÀ·|¤å¤Æ¹Ï®ÑÀ]¥q), Documenta-tion and Information Centre of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (¤¤°ê ¬ì ¾Ç°|¤åÄm ±¡³ø¤¤¤ß), and the Documentation and Information Centre of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (¤¤°ê ªÀ·| ¬ì¾Ç°| ¤åÄm«H®§¤¤¤ß).