Notes From The Library, Issue No. 29

Issue No. 29 September 1998 http:/ /library.ust.hk/

Library Digitization Proiects:

Digital Archives and Electronic Theses now Live!

Digital Archives

What other possible locations were considered for the HKUST campus? Where is the HKUST Time Capsule buried? What were the initial admission requirements for HKUST when it opened in 1991? Starting in the Fall of 1998, the answers to these and other questions can be found in the HKUST Digital Archives

(http://library.ust.hk/cgi/db/archives.pO.

The Digital Archives is an ambitious project undertaken by the Library to revolutionize traditional access to archival documents. The goal is to provide effective searching and immediate online display of a large body of documents held in the University Archives. To achieve this goal, library staff have been working diligently for almost a year to customize BASIS, a commercial software acquired to meet the functional requirements of the digitization project. Via HKUST's Intranet, users can now search

I

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT:

New Electronic Resources

After almost a year of negotiation and efforts to resolve technical problems, three databases are finally available:

Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia Online (1998 ed.) is based on the printed Academic

American Encyclopedia. It contains 35,000 articles, 6,000 pictures, photographs, and

Spotlight -continued on page 4

The Library of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

archives materials by keyword or phrase in the fulltext, the title of the document, and/or by the date of the event.

Two categories of records have been selected for scanning in the first phase of the project: public documents of general interest, and important administrative records which are frequently consulted by offices and departments throughout the university. The former contains publications such as the

HKUST Newsletter and Genesis from the first issues, and press releases from the beginning of the University. The latter includes records of the University Administrative Committee, and the University Council and Senate dating back to their first meetings. The scope of information covered in the digital archives, though limited at this point, should provide a useful tool for tracking down important and interesting information on the history and development of the University.

Digitization -continued on page 3

I

INTERNET: Finding Chinese Sources

F.aF.j [(0(---,:::;-Uk:f'. i-!¥1 · -l'f-1~ r:lz rh -&->~ i!~I

J:z':! I'-'"' .!::L.J-JW 1111 LJ • Jjz .?r~ 'I' ...,x.,. J'a! Jj'-'f

Searching for Chinese sources on the Web has always been a difficult task. However, this is now simplified with a number of powerful search tools which have appeared on the Web.

Yahoo! Chinese ffftt'E

r:p

j( provides two Chinese interfaces: ~~$ X(Big5)Wi (http://

chinese.yahoo.com/) and i3JHl'!$ X(GB)lt& (http:/

/gbchinese.yahoo.com/). Suppose you want to

look up

1/

::Jtg:*:~s!if.~~

II

in~ffli::p::$z:(Big5)

h&

,

type

"

::!

t

Jl:l::*:~s!if.~~

,,

and choose

"search". The first item on the result list will

link you to

"::!t

Jl:l::*:~s!if.f!:~

".

Besides

searching, you can also find this site by browsing through several layers of

information: ~ti-> i::p

~:*:~.i

->

~w

->

:*:W

[~{~ ->

::!

t

Jl:l::*:~

->

::Jtg:*:~s!if.~~

-

To view the page, set your browser's Chinese

encoding to GB (~tltiilHt~ffl).

Alta Vista- Let's say you are interested in

information on

"

RttiJJJfwHJ

".

You could use

Yahoo and find 3 results. However, for more

results, you should turn to AltaVista (http://

altavista.digital.com/) since it indexes many

more Web sites than Yahoo. Before searching, choose "Search in Chinese" under "International" at the bottom right of Alta Vista's homepage. Select "BIGS (Chinese) encoding" or "GB (Chinese) encoding". Now select the corresponding Big5 or GB setting for input in your computer (e.g. in Rich Win),

type

"

R#iJJJiwHJ

"

and choose "search". You'll

find about 100 results. Most results on the first couple pages are relevant and those on later pages may be only marginally useful.

If you want to try other Chinese search

engines, see "i::p::$z:tf~s

I

~

Chinese Search

Engines" at http://www.luc.org/misc/more.html

which lists about 20 Chinese GB and Big5 search engines. Some of the best ones on the

list include "GoYoYo 1~mt" and "~ t!ts

I

~

"

.

11

GoY0Yo f/Zj/jj" (http://www.goyoyo.com. hk/) covers over 400,000 Chinese sites and

has a resourceful subject directory. For

example, many interesting sites including "

Wii)BR~?~Jt~

"

and

"

1!J~tfz:)BR*

"

can be

found under

"

~-v!tr

->

-~

II.

However, its

search capability is disappointing. A search on

"

WiiI.i1*

"

will lead to many unrelated

sites including

"

WiiJ\B"J~-1.~~~$

".

Searching AltaVista on the same topic

retrieved many more relevant sites.

Jff tft5 I

!t

(h ttp://gais. cs. ccu. edu. tw/

cwww2.html) is highly recommended if you

are looking for information on Taiwan. For

example, a search on "$ :l~j~$11

will yield several hundred Taiwanese sites on the topic.

2

Digitization - continued from page 1

For documents which are to be digitized, inventories have been prepared and can be

found on the archives homepage (http://

library.ust.hk/archives/). Please take a look

and see what collections are available. To

comply with the policies concerning the use of archival records, access to certain docu-ments is restricted to authorized users through

"Staff Login." Details on obtaining a user

name and password are included in the FAQ

section of the Archives homepage. If you

have any questions, please contact [email protected].

The Archives plans to hold workshops for university staff on how to use the Digital

Archives, beginning in the Fall of 1998.

Electronic Theses

During the past year, the Library has been creating an electronic database containing the scanned images of all of the HKUST Theses. This database is now available at http://library.ust.hk/cgi/db/thesis.pl

The electronic theses database can be

accessed using a web browser from any

machine on the campus network. Retrieval is provided through standard author, title, and keyword searching. Each Thesis is

available in a single PDF file, including low

resolution versions of all charts and graphics.

High resolution grey-scale or color versions

of these graphics are also available in a

separate PDF file, to reduce overall file sizes. There are also links from the web interface of the Library Online Catalog to the Electronic Theses Database, so that anyone retrieving thesis records in the Catalog can immediately call up the full text of the work. These are just two of the digitization projects being developed by the Library. Upcoming projects include the Reference section's 'Vertical Files' database of pamphlets

and other high-turnover materials; and a

fully searchable database of the Public Affairs

Office's Media Reviews. The latter will be

expanded to link to the indexed and scanned images of the articles on which the summaries are based.

I

INFORMATION SERVICES

Personalized Faculty Orientation

To familiarize our faculty members with the most up-to-date services and techniques in searching databases for research and teaching, the Library offers customized faculty orientation all year round. All faculty are welcome to take advantage of this hour-long program. In general, these programs consist of an introduction to the Library services, a

demonstration of databases in the areas of interest, and a Library tour. The orientations are given by the Library's School Contact Persons who are librarians specializing in serving a particular school in the University. Library Classes

Throughout the year, the Library holds

a variety of classes to meet the diverse interests

and needs of our students and staff. In 1997 I 98, the Library offered 143 classes to 4, 7 55 students and staff. In a sample of 31 classes,

577 participants (95%) commented that they would recommend the class to their friends. These classes fall into three main categories:

Classes for New UG Students: In the first

two weeks of September 20 classes will be offered to new undergraduate students.

Course/Subject Specific Classes: Faculty

may request specialized Library instruction programs for their students. These requests have included "Workshop for Computer Science PG Students", "MARK 531: Marketing Research", "BIOL 301: Advanced Seminars", and "SOSC 343: Urban Geography".

Open Workshops: In addition to those

requests by faculty, the Library offers a variety

of classes on topics of common interest. These included "Navigating the World Wide Web", "Using Microforms", "Searching Chinese Information", etc. Similar classes will be organized this year.

Online Tutorials

Self-learners and those who miss a

Library class may find the class' handouts under 'Library Instruction Notes' at http:// library.ust.hk/serv/lin/ 30 instruction notes

are currently available. You may also learn techniques to search for various kinds of information with our Pathfinders at http://

library.ust.hk/res/resource.html#path These

include "Ten Steps to a Research Paper",

"Company Information", and "Job Hunting". In addition, over 40 database search guides have been prepared to facilitate your searching of the databases. They are accessible at http://library.ust.hk/res/guides/

For more information, or to arrange classes, please contact the Reference Counter at x6760 or by email to [email protected]

I

Systems Updates: INSPEC on

Ovid and 25 Dynasties Update

INSPEC on Ovid - The INSPEC database

has moved from the ustlib server to the Ovid server. On ustlib, it could be accessed either through telnet or through the web. On the Ovid server, access is no longer available through telnet, but the coverage is expanded. There were several reasons for this switch. Most important are the additional search capabilities including allowing users to efficiently search other works of individual authors; works in the same subject areas; and to narrow the search by years. It also offers much more sophisticated boolean operators. In addition, we anticipate that Ovid will soon be adding full text to a number

of the indexed journals. We also benefit from

a much lower subscription cost under the

new plan. Please be reminded that, as with many online resources, you must dial in through the HKUST campus network or you will be denied access.

25 Dynasties Update - An updated and

expanded version of the 25 Dynasties History Database (= +li;e~)tjjl4$:) has been successfully installed on the Library's Web Server. Please point your browser to http://library.ust.hk/

cgi-dynasty/ftmsw3 to explore this rich resource.

Spotlight - continued from page 1

artwork, and 830 maps. Nearly half of the

articles are linked to carefully selected Internet

sites which provide additional information.

Encyclopedia Americana Online (1998 ed.)

contains the complete full-text of its printed edition, with over 25 million words in 45,000 articles. About 7 5 percent of the articles are linked to relevant Internet resources.

Both encyclopedias can be accessed

through the Web. On the Library Home page

(http://library.ust.hk/), select Library Resources, then choose the category Miscellany under Electronic Resources by Subject.

Applied Science and Technology Plus (AST Plus (1994-)) is a new PowerPages database. It provides citations and abstracts to articles appearing in about 400 leading English language periodicals in applied science and

technology. The database also contains full

images of articles from over 120 of the periodicals indexed. To access AST Plus from a PC, select 'Online Databases' in the Library Online System menu, then choose

PowerPages. As with other PowerPages

databases, AST Plus sends all print requests of full images to the laser printers at the Library Circulation Counter for collection.

Who to Contact

ProQuest Direct: In addition, the Library is making arrangements to provide access (on a trial basis) to Proquest Direct along with PowerPages. This is a service which provides web access to all our existing PowerPages databases, including Business Periodicals Ondisc (BPO), General Periodicals Ondisc (GPO), Social Sciences Ondisc (SSO),

and AST Plus mentioned above. ProQuest

Direct has many advantages over Power Pages.

The most important are: accessibility from Macintosh computers and Unix Workstations, not just PCs; off-campus access; faster updating of information; the ability to send article text and citations to any email address; the full images of articles can be viewed in PDF format; users can print full images of articles using their own printers; and it also includes the ability to perform full-text searching.

However, as Proquest Direct's databases are hosted in the United States, the speed of retrieving full images of articles during peak hours may be slow. Please try it and let us

know of your experience. Your comments

will be very useful for our evaluation of this new service.

University Librarian 2358-6702 MM CHANG

LBMKWONG LBHOLLIN LBDONW LBCAROL LBLTLEE LBJOTSUI Min-Min Chang Ming Kan Wong Richard Hollinger Don Wassink Carol Liheng Linda Lee Josephine Tsui Louisa Kwok Victoria Caplan Diana Chan Acquisitions 2358-6711

Archives & Special Collections 2358-6785

Bibliographic Services & Projects 2358-6709

Cataloging 2358-6 7 3 7

Circulation 2358-6771

Collection Development 2358-6 704

Document Supply Service 2358-6 7 55

Media Resources 2358-6 786 Reference 2358-6765 Systems 2358-6741 4 LB LOUISA LBCAPLAN LBDIANAC LBLKT K. T. Lam