| Newsletter 12, June 1996Useful Web Sites |
This is the first in a what will be a regular update of resources available through the University's web service. The resources described below are just a small selection from the many which are accessible from the "General Reference sources" page of LSS's Internet Information Service. The Internet Information Service is a service to staff and students of the University providing a straightforward access route to a carefully selected collection of Internet-based information. The resources highlighted in this issue are all of a general nature and are discipline independent.
The UK Government's information service conveniently brings together a very wide ranging and extensive collection of up-to-date material. Ministerial speeches, minutes of meetings, contact information and all department and government agency press releases are available in full text. The site, which is updated on a daily basis, is very well organized and provides a number of ways of locating information including a sophisticated keyword search facility. Much of the information held at this site is normally very difficult to track down using printed resources and quickly becomes out of date; this web resource is now considered by many to be the key resource for this sort of information.
Information direct from the PA computer in London. This very popular web service is chiefly used for its hourly updating of news stories from around the world. The PA service provides headlines for all stories and the complete text of selected news items. The service also provides a useful round up of major stories from the current day's issue of all UK newspapers.
From Times Newspapers, the contents listing, headlines, and article extracts of the current edition of The Higher. A very popular section of this is the jobs listing, which has the complete text of all job adverts available four days before they appear in the printed paper on Fridays.
The IDEAL database is the latest electronic journals collection we have subscribed to. This service gives access to articles from nearly 200 journal titles published by Academic Press. Users can search by Author, Title, Abstract keywords and date and then display the complete text of articles selected. The service is free to use but password protected - please see your Tutor Librarian or ask at a Library Enquiry Desk if you wish to use this service. The IDEAL database is another major development in the area of access to journal literature and complements our EBSCO journals service (details of which were in the last LSS Newsletter).
Mike Berrington