1. Introduction to the EDINA Bibliographic
Services
John Murison
Manager, EDINA Bibliographic Services

2. EDINA Bibliographic Services
• EDINA bibliographic services are specialist Abstracting and
Indexing services, geared towards particular subject areas
• Most require institutional subscriptions, but are free to the
academic end-user
• Some are JISC-funded and negotiated via CHEST agreements
• Many are additional services, provided by EDINA to the tertiary
education community
• Presented within subject ‘faculties’:
– Agriculture, Environment and Life Sciences
– Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
– Engineering, Informatics and Physical Sciences
– General reference services

3. Bibliographic Services
Development Strategy
• Contribute to the development of the DNER
– to take a leading role in the establishment of the DNER
– to provide cross-searching and linking facilities, and service
improvements, that enhance the accessibility and
interoperability of resources offered in the DNER (5/99 projects)
• Collection development
– to sustain leadership in the provision of specialist bibliographic
services
– to offer JISC-funded and additional bibliographic services that
complement existing services
• Enhancement of services for learning and teaching

4. Agriculture, Environment and
Life Sciences
• BIOSIS Previews
– Premier life sciences index, with abstracts
• AGDEX
– Agricultural index, with abstracts
• CAB Abstracts
– Natural resources index, with abstracts
• ESPMD
– Environmental sciences index, with abstracts

5. Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
• Art Abstracts
– Visual and performing arts index, with abstracts
• Art Index Retrospective
– Visual and performing arts index (1929-1984)
• EconLit
– Economics index, with abstracts and some full
text
• PAIS International
– Political and public policy index, with abstracts

6. Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
• Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts
– Language studies index, with abstracts
• MLA International Bibliography
– Critical scholarship index of language, linguistics
and literature
• Sociological Abstracts
– Sociology and related disciplines
• Social Services Abstracts
– Social work index and abstracts
• Palmer’s Index to The Times
– Index only, 1790 - 1905

7. Engineering, Informatics and Physical
Sciences
• Ei Compendex® [and Ei Page One™]
– Applied engineering index, with abstracts
• INSPEC
– Physics, electrical engineering, electronics and
computing index, with abstracts

8. General Reference Services
• Ulrich’s™ International Periodicals Directory
– Directory of information on selected periodicals
and serials published throughout the world
• SALSER (free service)
– Union catalogue of serials holdings of Scottish
University libraries, municipal research libraries
and other research libraries and the National
Library of Scotland

9. EDINA Links
• Links to holdings and, where available, to full text
services
• Local site representatives consult end-users and
arrange with EDINA to customise Links for individual
institutions
• Available in most EDINA bibliographic services
• Will be developed further in the ZBLSA project,
funded under 5/99, which seeks to develop a Z39.50
broker to locate serials and articles for use across
the DNER

10. Using Bibliographic Services in Learning
and Teaching
Moira Massey
EDINA Learning and Teaching Support
Officer/Learning and Teaching Projects Co-ordinator

11. EDINA can:
• Actively contribute to the development of the DNER for
learning and teaching, by the provision of:
– brokers that allow cross-searching facilities
– brokers for the discovery of journal articles, holdings and
full-text service
– learning and teaching portal
• Work with our site representatives, lecturing staff, LT staff
and Subject Centres to:
– Understand the L&T/information literacy/information skills
agendas
– Provide supportive materials
– Enhance the service interfaces for use in learning and
teaching

12. EDINA cannot:
• Be expert in all the subjects covered by our
specialist A&I databases
• Be expert in learning and teaching issues
• Act alone - we need your help!

13. The Under-Use of Bibliographic
Resources in L&T
• JISC reports find low take-up of bibliographic sources in
learning and teaching and low levels of use among
undergraduates
• JISC provides funding for enhancing services to increase take-
up in learning and teaching - Request for Proposals (RfP)
projects and JISC 5/99 projects
• Athens registration system prevents datacentres having
access to user details
• Therefore difficult for us to assess exact use of bibliographic
services (different from geo-data services, which require
registration with EDINA too)
• However, information we do have also suggests under-use in
learning and teaching

14. Why use bibliographic services in
learning and teaching?
“In the context of […reading lists and course packs provided for
undergraduates], electronic bibliographic services seem to
have little to contribute … But this ignores the status quo, and
ignores both the fact that bibliographic tools can increase
access to existing library sources, and that being able to use
these tools is a useful skill for students to acquire. Spoon-
feeding in the form of readers does not promote independence
of thought.”
[Zeitlyn D, David M and Bex J. Full reference available in
notes]

15. Learning about bibliographic databases can
assist in the development of:
• Skills:
– information/information literacy/critical thinking
– becoming a self-directing researcher
– evaluation, both of sources of information and individual
information objects
• Knowledge:
– how information is structured in databases
– the existence of numerous electronic information sources -
including services that students could meet in the workplace
– selecting databases according to fitness for purpose
– comparing results from different databases in the same subject
area
– greater understanding of how to use library resources, and
where to find print and electronic full-text resources

16. - and on a practical level, electronic bibliographic
resources can be:
• Used from home and off-campus locations
• Used outside normal library hours
• All you need - sometimes, services provide such detailed
abstracts that undergraduates do not need to locate the
original document
• Supportive for undergraduate use of the Web - learning
searching techniques really helps with using Web search
engines more effectively - and learning how to evaluate your
sources more carefully
• Helpful later in life - learning about electronic bibliographic
resources now assists in understanding the structure of
databases later encountered in the workplace … and prepares
for online, lifelong learning …

17. The Vision ...
“As researchers, teachers and students increasingly look to the
Internet for information, it is essential that high quality
resources be provided in an environment that enables
searches to be conducted conveniently and with confidence
that suitable material is available, can be found and is
accessible. This is a daunting task: in effect we look to a time
when all the world’s scholarly and educational material will be
available on-line. The JISC will lead this endeavour for the UK
and this vision is a major strategic objective.”
(Source: JISC draft strategy, 2001 - 2005. See handout for
details.)

18. How the services could be used in learning and
teaching
• Research shows that library courses divorced from the
classroom do not work well and don’t reach many students
• Library staff can help, but the optimum solution seems to be
incorporation of information skills teaching into the curriculum
• For an example of use of bibliographic services in an
undergraduate course, see: http://www.teaching-
biomed.man.ac.uk/student_projects/2000/mnqc6rac/
• For a full discussion about the importance of information skills
to students in HE, and the role that learning about
bibliographic services can play in their development, see
Information Skills in Higher Education: a SCONUL Position
Paper, available at:
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/publications.htm#1
• See handout provided in your workbook for further information

19. The Statistical Accounts of Scotland,
1791-1799 and 1845
Barbara Morris,
Digimap.Plus Project Manager/Helpdesk Co-ordinator

20. Summary of forthcoming service
• New EDINA service, The Statistical Accounts
of Scotland, 1791-1799 and 1845, to be
launched in January 2001
• Service suitable for learning and teaching
and research uses
• Keyword searching of 900 parish
commentaries
• Maps and tables
• Short demonstration of old interface
(currently being replaced)

21. Contacts
EDINA Director: Peter Burnhill
Email: p.burnhill@ed.ac.uk
Manager, EDINA Bibliographic Services: John Murison
Email: j.murison@ed.ac.uk
EDINA L&T Support Officer/L&T Projects Co-ordinator: Moira Massey
Email: moira.massey@ed.ac.uk
EDINA web site: http://edina.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 (0)131 650 3302
Fax: +44 (0)131 650 3308