College Library News

PLoS, the Public Library of Science, have launched their third open access journal: PLoS Computational Biology. The Public Library of Science is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world’s scientific and medical literature a public resource.

In its announcement, PLoS says: “The Public Library of Science (PLoS) and the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) are pleased to announce the June 24 launch of PLoS Computational Biology, a new open-access, peer-reviewed journal reporting major biological advances achieved through computation. Unique in its scope, the journal publishes research from one of the most rapidly growing and exciting areas of scientific inquiry. As a collaboration between a scholarly society and an open access publisher, the journal also provides further momentum to the shift towards unrestricted access and use of all scientific and medical literature.” PLoS Computational Biology joins PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. It is the first of three new titles planned for 2005. PLoS Genetics will launch (or ‘go live’) on July 25. PLoS Pathogens will debut in September 2005.

In an announcement on 27th June, PLoS Biology revealed that it has an ISI 2004 Impact Factor of 13.9, making it the number 1 general biology journal in the ISI rankings.

In a related announcement, another open access publisher, the U.K.-based BioMed Central announced ISI impact factors. BioMed Central is a for-profit independent publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research. Five BioMed Central journals received their first impact factors this year. BMC Bioinformatics, with an impact factor of 5.42, has reinforced its reputation as one of the top journals in its field. Launched in 2000, it is the second highest ranked bioinformatics journal, and already has an impact factor comparable to that of Bioinformatics (5.74), the most established journal in the field, which has been publishing for more than two decades and is supported by a major society. BMC Genomics enters the Journal Citation Report with a respectable 3.25. This puts it in the top third of the genetics titles, and the top 20% of biotechnology journals. BMC Molecular Biology has an impact factor of 3.12, and BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders an impact factor of 1.00, putting it in the top half of the orthopaedics listing.

These numbers are very good and go some way in laying to rest accusations of Open Access journals accepting lower quality research. In fact both PLoS and BioMed Central reject around 90% of the papers submitted to them (see quote by Mr Vitek Tracz of BioMed Central, Chairman, Current Science Group at MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE: “It is a bigger in journals which reject a lot and it is a smaller problem for journals which do not reject so many. A top quality journal like PLoS and our journal, Current Biology, reject 90 per cent or so of papers, but for many journals which reject 30 or 40 per cent of papers the problem is smaller.”

Phew!! Trying to keep up with developments at Google is hard work. Just when you think it’s safe to relax they go and launch a whole new pile of applications. Today’s offerings are Google Earth and (much less exciting) Google Video Search and video player.

Google Earth, which as Stephen Downes modestly notes, “is essentially a three-dimensional representation of the entire Earth” is now available FREE!! - at least for the basic version. For a mere US$20 you can get the enhanced ‘Plus’ version which adds GPS device support, the ability to import spreadsheets, drawing tools and better printing. There is also the ‘Pro’ version which costs US$400. [NB: there has been some recent limiting of the downloading and access to Google Earth - Google seem to be trying to roll it out more evenly. However, I believe this has now been sorted out?]

A 3D interface to the planet, Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps, Google search and so on. Now you too can ‘fly from space to your neighbourhood’, view cities in 3D and a whole bunch of other stuff: video playback of driving directions, tilt, rotate, and activate 3D terrain and buildings for a different perspective on a location, easy creation and sharing of annotations among users. You need to download a (10MB) application to make it work, it requires a reasonably powerful machine to run it, but it’s fun to try! [from Phil Bradley’s Blog]

In October 2004, Google acquired Keyhole Technologies. Google Earth is basically an adaptation of this software:

“With Keyhole, you can fly like a superhero from your computer at home to a street corner somewhere else in the world - or find a local hospital, map a road trip or measure the distance between two points. This acquisition gives Google users a powerful new search tool, enabling users to view 3D images of any place on earth as well as tap a rich database of roads, businesses and many other points of interest. Keyhole is a valuable addition to Google’s efforts to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Almost simultaneously, Google has launched a video viewer to go with its recently launched Video Search. The viewer works directly from the web page when you want to view videos that you’ve found. On this, Phil Bradley writes:

“I’ve installed it and it’s quick and easy - don’t even notice it. It works very well with video search - if you can find a video to play! I’ve done a lot of searching and found what I would imagine are very interesting videos, except that they’re not available. Seems kinda pointless, and not a little irritating to me, but there you are. Google video now with video but without uh.. video.”

Google is on the rise - its stock is reaching new closing highs this week, topping the US$300 mark for the first time on Monday at US$304.10. Its web search engine reportedly grabs 52 percent of the U.S. search market. [heads up from Google Blogoscoped].

Back to Stephen Downes to wind up this item by waxing philosophical about Google Earth (I rather like his observation):

“Toss your old paper-based atlas into the dustbin. What Google Earth demonstrates more than anything else is the difference between paper-based and digital content. It is to this difference we should be aspiring in online learning.”

First announced to the world by, I believe, and hat tip to, Blog News Channel Inside Google.

UPDATE: Guess what? Check this out: MSN Virtual Earth to take on Google Earth !!! Microsoft sends news today that founder Bill Gates has announced a MSN Virtual Earth service is to debut in the summer. The service is promised to provide:
*Satellite images with 45-degree-angle views of buildings and neighborhoods
*Satellite images with street map overlays
*Ability to add local data layers, such as showing local businesses or restaurants [etc., etc…]

And before we all I get too excited about Google Earth, Brad Hill (author of Google For Dummies no less) in his Unoffical Google Weblog says:

“I keep seeing references to Google Earth as a “3D mapping tool”. I love Google Earth, but please, journalists, chill on the 3D angle. As a 3D renderer, Google Earth is not ready for prime time. In many (possibly most) scenarios, the 3D terrain feature does not work - though when it does (check out Mount St. Helens, or the hills behind Sausolito, CA) it is spectacular. The 3D effect in selected cities was tossed into the program just before its release, and must generously be described as an early work in progress. Without any texturing, the ghostly gray images of buildings are a distraction, to be invoked only when absolutely necessary. They compare especially poorly to Microsoft’s 3D work-in-progress, which features high-rez photos of buildings at a 45-degree angle.”

This can be answered thus [thanks to Adam Podolnick]: “Microsoft’s photos of buildings at a 45-degree angle are just that, photos. No 3D rendering there.”

The 25th Cambridge Film Festival starts on Thursday 7th July, covering 10 days until Sunday 17th July. Highlights include a focus on New German Cinema and new (to the UK) films by the likes of Peter Greenaway and Ingmar Bergman and many many more who I have never heard of. There is a downloadable PDF day-by-day film calendar. I have seen a thick glossy A5 booklet around College - this does not seem to be referred to on their site.

From the Arts Cinema mailing:

“The Festival opens with the UK premiere of The Last Mitterand, a delicately nuanced French drama that tells the true story of President Mitterrands’ final months before his death in 1996, and we’re delighted to welcome producer Frank Le Witta and star Jalil Lespert for the Opening Night Gala presentation. Also receiving its UK premiere is American drama Crash, featuring a stellar cast including Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Ryan Phillipe and Thandie Newton, which closes the Festival. There are plenty of other UK premieres to choose from: Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers starring Bill Murray; epic action thriller from Russia Night Watch; the satirical Childstar starring Jennifer Jason Leigh; Mamoru’s Oshii’s exquisite Ghost in the Shell - Innocence; and the beautiful Japanese period drama The Hidden Blade. Not to mention the retrospectives, revivals, special seasons, or Q103 [local commercial radio sponsor] Childrens Film Festival with Dubble! [a chocolate bar sponsor]”

Much praise has been showered on Google Scholar, Google’s specialized ’scholarly’ search engine, since it launched last November. And for those without access to very expensive mega-databases such as Web of Science (WoS) from ISI (subscribed by the University Library) and the recently launched Scopus from Elsevier, Google Scholar is (being free of charge) better than nothing.

However, Peter Jasco (Associate Professor at the Library and Information Science Program University of Hawai’i at Mänoa) is not impressed. He first reviewed Google Scholar back in November 2004 after it launched and he wasn’t too keen on it then. He reviewed it again recently and, if anything, is even less keen now. He concludes, rather damningly:

“There are certainly many journals of many publishers covered [by Google Scholar] to keep casual users, high-school and undergrad students, TV talking heads and shallow journalists happy, but for scholarly research the breadth of coverage is not sufficient, the implementation is sloppy and the software options are inferior.”

He even says that, in many cases, you may be better off using standard Google rather than Google Scholar to find ’scholarly’ material! And many others are not too keen on GS. For instance, another detailed review of Google Scholar by Martin Myhill, Deputy University Librarian at University of Exeter, appeared recently in The Charleston Advisor. Although more favourable than Peter Jasco, Myhill also has reservations:

“The vast majority of academic literature is found in the ‘hidden Web’. While Google Scholar has made valiant attempts to include a range of resources in this category, it is apparent that coverage leans heavily on the sciences, rarely includes all the offerings even from partner publishers and misses many of the quality resources which are more usually accessible to scholars through institutional subscriptions.”

The same criticisms come up repeatedly: lack of search options available, no indication of the sources Google Scholar accesses or of how often they are updated, search results too variable containing too much ‘noise’ and what, exactly, does Google consider to be ’scholarly’?

A recent improvement by Google is that libraries can now link their holdings through Google Scholar - any library or institution that has the proper link resolving software can hook into Google Scholar and provide direct links to Google Scholar search results. So, if our library adopted the system and had access to a particular reference in the GS results page, the correct link to our appropriate full-text copy would be provided. Currently, you may be denied access to articles which you should have access to because Google Scholar cannot know the correct link. I asked Patricia Killiard (Head of Electronic Services and Systems at the UL) if there were any plans for the UL to provide this GS linking service. She replied:

“The set-up needs to be done in OCLC FirstSearch. We will either do this over the summer or set about procuring an OpenURL resolver, if funding becomes available. However, the poor quality of Google Scholar’s search facilities hasn’t encouraged us to make a priority.”

A UL Websites and Subject Gateways web page states the problem, warning you not to pay for access to an article which may already be subscribed by the UL:

“Google Scholar - a new search service focused on academic content - is also available. As well as search results, Google Scholar will also give you links to articles citing the item found - providing extra lists of relevant articles. Please check our Electronic Resources pages before paying for any item - we may have a subscription to it, meaning that staff and students of the University can access it free.” [my emphasis]

A useful summary of how to use Google Scholar and the caveats that apply is available at Emory University Libraries of Atlanta, Georgia.

In summary, as with any resource, Google Scholar has its uses - but it is important to know about its limitations.

The Guardian newspaper’s planned conversion to a smaller format has been brought forward to this autumn from a previously planned date of April 2006. Its sister sunday paper, The Observer, will make the switch early next year. The announcement was made public on Wednesday 15 June.

Back in February 2004 the The Guardian decided to go ahead with a reduction in page size, a few months after both The Independent (on 30 September 2003) and then The Times (on 26 November 2003) started publishing ‘compact’ (tabloid) sized versions - initially as an alternative or London only edition. However, unlike both those titles, The Guardian has decided to convert to so-called ‘Berliner’ format - a slightly larger page size than the standard UK tabloid. Berliner format is popular in continental Europe, for example France’s Le Monde, Germany’s Die Tageszeitung, Spain’s La Vanguardia, and Italy’s La Repubblica.

Both The Independent and The Times recently completed a phased-in conversion from broadsheet to tabloid format (or ‘compact’ as they preferred to call it) after an experimental period of producing both versions. The Guardian, however, will undergo a major one-off full redesign of whilst both The Times and The Independent simply transferred the same page layout to a smaller size. It has to be remembered that, for The Independent (as it was the first) and The Times (with its long tradional heritage), a size change was a bold move into uncharted territory back in the autumn of 2003 when they emabarked on the venture. For a quality newspaper an all-out compact launch was risky: in the UK, compact (or tabloid) size has traditionally been associated with more downmarket celebrity-based newspapers.

The Independent first published a compact version in London only on 30 September 2003 with a stated aim to go fully compact over a period of time. The Times followed two months later with a compact version on 26 November 2003 but continued with the broadsheet veriosn as well - both being on sale side by side in many areas. The first national compact only issue of The Independent was published on 17 May 2004 when it was finally redesigned to more suit the smaller page format. The Times finally dispensed with its broadsheet version almost six months later on 1 November 2004. At least The Independent underwent a redesign - The Times, seemingly a broadsheet cut up to fit a tabloid page size, looks just awful. The Independent underwent a more recent redesign on 12 April 2005 based, apparently, on Italian newspapers - not much differnt from the previous look, apart from a new style masthead, in my opinion - and dispensing with extra sections making one rather thick and unwieldy tabloid.

The Guardian is very enthusiastic about its Berliner size, believing it to be less constricting than the pure tabloid “where there is always the temptation to go for a single picture and dominant story on each page”. The Guardian’s designers believe the Berliner format will give them a distinctive product, with cooler typography than a tabloid and a serious feel. It will also get round the dominance of the conventional advertisement sizes in the tabloid format.

Changing from broadsheet to tabloid is a fairly easy conversion: the tabloid page size being exactly half of a broadsheet. But the unusual (for the UK) dimensions of Berliner size means The Guardian has had to purchase new printing presses, at a cost of £50m, now being installed by Germany’s MAN Roland, to print the 470 x 315 millimetres (~ 18.5″ x 12.5″) page size. The picture below shows the relative sizes of broadsheet, Berliner, and tabloid with images of today’s actual front pages (whenever you might be reading this - except on Sundays!) thanks to Newseum which displays over 400 newspaper front pages from around the world every day.

The Berliner has around 65% (approx two-thirds) area of a broadsheet page, a tabloid has 77% (around three-quarters) area of a Berliner page.

Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Newspapers Ltd (GNL), said the early move was testament to the remarkable progress the newspaper group and its press and printing partners had made:

“Just over a year ago we made one of the most important decisions in the 184-year history of The Guardian, and the 213-year history of The Observer. To design both papers again completely from scratch. To launch them in a new format never before seen in the UK. To build our own print centre and install the most modern presses in the newspaper industry. To position our papers as the first of a new generation of full-colour national newspapers. The remarkable progress we have made is testament to the professionalism and commitment of our staff, our press partner, MAN Roland, and our print partners, Trafford Park and Newsfax International.”

An important factor in The Guardian’s decision to change size has been its continued loss in sales compared to The Independent and The Times which seem to have picked up market share since going compact. The sales figures for December 2002-May 2003 (pre any changes) compared with the latest December 2004-May 2005 figures (after The Independent and Times went fully compact) show both The Independent and Times gaining between 8 and 9% extra share of daily newspaper sales, whilst The Guardian lost around 7% share. Note that because the market as a whole is declining, this means that actual sales figures remained roughly the same for The Independent and The Times. The Daily Telegraph, the only general broadsheet not to have made any commitment to resizing, maintained its share and may decide to remain as a broadsheet for now. The latest 6-monthly sales figures are Daily Telegraph 862,000 (7.5% share of general daily sales), The Times 636,000 (5.5%), The Guardian 342,000 (3.0%), and The Independent 224,000 (1.9%). The Guardian does a good analysis of newspaper circulation trends on its excellent website (free registration required).

Newspaper size change is happening everywhere: more than 50 newspapers worldwide have made the shift to a smaller format, according to the World Association of Newspapers.

EEVL Xtra is a new free Web service from EEVL: the Internet Guide to Engineering, Mathematics and Computing. EEVL is one of the eight subject-based ‘hubs’ of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) - a superb UK-based non-profit directory of high quality online information. EEVL Xtra cross-searches 20 different collections in engineering, mathematics, and computing. Rather than just pointing you to these databases, it ‘deep mines’ them so that you can search them direct from EEVL Xtra. [via Information Today]

SOSIG Subject News is a new weblog from SOSIG, the Social Science Information Gateway, one of the eight RDN subject-based ‘hubs’ along with EEVL (see above). “SOSIG Subject News links to the research sites behind the latest news stories, including Government publications, research reports and existing key websites. Users can view entries by subject whether it is Education, Politics or Business and Management, giving 17 blogs in one and all are available via RSS”. [via EdTechUK]

A new version of the Dublin Core User Guide was issued at the end of May. Dublin Core is a specification for using metadata to describe electronic documents. It has been adopted by, amongst others, the archiving (including Open Access ’self-archiving’) community to describe the material archived in their repositories. Dublin Core specifies up to 15 metadata elements (such as author, title, date, URL, etc) which can be applied to each article in an archive/repository. It was adopted as an International Standard (ISO 15836) in 2003. The updated version includes guidance for new terms approved by the Usage Board, as well as new sections on the DCMI Abstract Model and references to newly recommended documentation available for implementers.

A new edition of the ISBN standard was published on 1st June. The new edition, which has been in preparation for over three years, contains the most far-reaching changes to the ISBN since it was first standardised in 1972. With effect from 1st January 2007, the ISBNs will increase from a 10-digit number to a 13-digit number and for the first time they will be identical to their relevant barcode numbers. [via Catalogablog]

Acryclic is the codename for Microsoft’s first entry into the world of advanced image-editing software. Currently ‘in beta’ (in development), it is available as a time-limited free download from Microsoft’s site, expiring Saturday 1 October 2005. Note that it’s a large download (77MB) and is designed to run on Windows XP SP2 (but may also work on Windows 2003). Microsoft’s Acrylic is a direct threat to Adobe’s industry-standard Photoshop, coming only a month after it revealed Metro, a tool that could face-off Adobe’s Acrobat PDF suite. According to Microsoft, Acrylic is a professional illustration, painting, and graphic design product targeted at designers working in print, web, video, and interactive media, and is based on Creature House Expression 3 (a vector drawing application resurrected from the ashes of Fractal Design Expression by Creature House, then acquired by Microsoft in 2003. It is based on unique ’skeletal strokes’ technology which brings a natural painterly style to vector art). Acryclic combines both pixel-based painting with raster- and vector-graphic editing features, and features panoramic photo-stitching. Considering that Photoshop sells for over £450 on Amazon, the final Microsoft product is unlikely to be cheap - so try it out for free while you can! [via Digit]

YouTube - a digital video repository, sort of like flickr for moving images. [via Michael Fagan’s del.icio.us bookmarks]

YubNub: a command line for the Web OS, an app that lets you access any number of web apps from one screen: a (social) commandline for the web. Creator, Jonathan Aquino: “I was tired of setting up the same Firefox keywords on each of the 5 computers that I use. By putting my keywords into YubNub, I can hit ‘am mark twain’ for an Amazon search, or ‘gmap vancouver’ for a Google Maps search, no matter which computer I’m on. But on a bigger scale, YubNub is the realization of a very big idea: the URL command line of the web OS”. It seems to be creating quite a stir amogst the geekier web community. I haven’t got the energy to get my head around it just now - but simply using it like a web search engine immediately brings up pretty impressive 100% relevant web pages - WOW! this is quite amazing! Also see Aquino’s weblog. [via Hotlinks]

Rmail: RSS to EMail - Not a new idea, but a new free app for doing it. It ‘does what it says on the tin’ - emails you the latest posts from subscribed weblogs. At first I thought surely most people just use RSS Feed Readers such as the excellent web-based Bloglines (and many others available). But… there must be many who do not know and could not care about RSS, so Rmail offers them a familiar method to get updates and effectively increases the audience of any weblog which offers it. You just add a bit of (supplied) code to your weblog. When a new message/story is posted, subscribers to an Rmail ‘feed’ get a short descriptive message about it in their mailbox, with a link to the the full post. [via blog news channel/inside Google]

ELF Library Books - avoid late fees and fruitless trips to the library with ELF. ELF is a free web-based and email tool for library users to keep track of their library borrowings. Think of ELF as a personal assistant whose task is to help you keep track of your library loans. It generates a feed to inform you when books you’ve requested are available at your local branch (including a link to operating hours) and when your checked-out books are almost due. It checks everyday and sends you email notices when items are coming due, overdue or when reservations are ready for collection. You can also get up-to-date realtime information by browser. They even have a demo on their website. Annoyingly, they do not explain anywhere why they are called ELF. Mostly just American libraries are covered by ELF at the moment, but already a couple of UK libraries have joined this scheme - libraries in Plymouth and Bristol. Maybe someone will start up a UK-based ELF? Or, for all I know, perhaps libraries already operate their own alert system? [via The Shifted Librarian]

Personal PDF file storage on CiteULike - Do you keep copies of the PDFs of some of your articles on your hard drive? Can you never find the right one when you want to? Or, do you keep these files on a machine at work and sometimes want access to them at home? Now you can keep a personal copy of the PDF on the CiteULike server. When you’re logged in, just navigate down to any article with your web browser and you’ll get the option to upload the PDF from your hard drive. After that, you’ll have access to the content wherever you can log in to CiteULike. [via CiteULike weblog]

check out WikiPulse: “In the last 59 minutes there have been 54 new articles, 199 new pages, 2799 new edits. On the English Wikipedia there are currently 588477 total articles, 624 featured articles, and 1738262 total pages, with 16813116 total edits and 9.67 average edits per page. There are 291812 registered users and 484, or 0.17% are administrators. 180 people are currently chatting in #Wikipedia, and over the last 286 days there have been 7331 nicks.” [via Weblogg-ed]

The World, a long-planned project of Stephen Glover’s to launch a new very upmarket newspaper, has lost its managing director Vicky Unwin. She left her (unpaid) post with The World after two years to become chief executive of arts publisher Third Millennium Information. Stephen Glover, a freelance writer and one of the founders of The Independent, remains optimistic: “It’s not the end of The World“. He assures that the long-awaited serious celebrity-free tabloid will be launched. All that’s missing is the money, apparently to the tune of £20m.

Botany - National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) has created a wonderful portal of botanical information with copious links to a wide variety of sources. Covers most apsects of botany. The rest of the NBII site includes resources on current biological issues, geographic perspectives, and resources for kids and teachers.

Eclipse Resources - Searching for a specific lunar or solar eclipse? Want to see maps of recent and upcoming eclipses? Check out these two sites USNO Eclipse Portal and Eclipses of the Sun and Moon. The USNO Eclipse Portal allows you to enter in a year, choose the eclipse of interest, and see a diagram and map of that eclipse. Eclipses of the Sun and Moon has links to recent and upcoming pdf maps of solar and lunar eclipses [via Georgia State University Library weblog]

The JISC’s Scholarly Communications Group study on author self-archiving behaviour final report Swan, Alma and Brown, Sheridan (2005) Open access self-archiving: an author study is now available. This important and long-awaited JISC Report, destined to be very influential, is also available at http://cogprints.org/4385/ and at http://www.keyperspectives.co.uk/OpenAccessArchive/ 2005_Open_Access_Report.pdf.
Excerpts of a summary by Professor Stevan Harnad, Southampton University, a long-time advocate of Open Access to publicly funded scholarly research:

“Almost half (49%) of the respondent population have self-archived at least one article during the last three years. Use of institutional repositories for this purpose has doubled and usage has increased by almost 60% for subject-based repositories […] There is still a substantial proportion of authors unaware of the possibility of providing open access to their work by self-archiving. Of the authors who have not yet self-archived any articles, 71% remain unaware of the option. With 49% of the author population having self-archived in some way, this means that 36% of the total author population (71% of the remaining 51%), has not yet been appraised of this way of providing open access.
“Authors have frequently expressed reluctance to self-archive because of the perceived time required and […] another worry is about infringing agreed copyright agreements with publishers, yet only 10% of authors currently know of the SHERPA/RoMEO list of publisher permissions policies with respect to self-archiving, where clear guidance as to what a publisher permits is provided […] The vast majority of authors (81%) would willingly comply with a mandate from their employer or research funder to deposit copies of their articles in an institutional or subject-based repository. A further 13% would comply reluctantly; 5% would not comply with such a mandate.”

The JISC site includes a useful Questions and Answers on Open Access.

PubMed Central hits UK - 08 Jun 2005: Six biomedical research funding bodies and charities, headed by the Wellcome Trust, have formed an alliance to create the UK’s own version of the American National Institutes of Health (NIH) PubMed Central, a repository of openly available peer-reviewed scientific research. [via Open Access News weblog]

The University of Connecticut Libraries site has a useful collection of links to Open Access web sites.

This is from six months ago, but it is still available: Publish Or Be Damned, a BBC Radio 4 programme broadcast on Tuesday 21 December 2004. An excellent introduction to the issues surrounding Open Access -

“Scientific publishing is undergoing a revolution. Scientists and policy makers, fed up with valuable research being locked away in expensive subscription only journals, are mounting a challenge to the publishers. They are launching their own competing journals and giving away the results for free. But not everyone is happy.”

Hamlet Works - a superb site collecting every known critique of the Shakespeare play plus this article about ‘Hamlet Works’ in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Seekport UK (Euro search engine), a new European-based search engine.

For the budding writers amongst us, The New Writing Partnership (NWP) is a new East of England enterprise about encouraging new writers. It has been set up by Booktrust, whose website is an excellent resource of everything about books.

Amongst other intiatives, NWP has launched New Writing Ventures where you may submit original unpublished works of up to 3,000 words and prizes are possible. Winners will be given professional literary backup and mentoring. But be quick: the closing date for entries is Friday 1st July.

“This is for unpublished writers of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, with the hope that these categories may be extended in subsequent years.With prizes of £5000 for the winners in each category…”

Another venture from the NWP is My Writing World, now open for literary discussion and sharing of short fragments (250 words max) of prose (fiction and non fiction) and poetry by new and established writers for professional feedback. Quote:

“My Writing World is a specially created website, designed to let you share your writing. Whether you have never written before, or are an experienced author, this is a chance to contribute to an exciting new project, and receive valuable feedback from one of our on-line editorial experts.”