Radio Broadcast on Copyright and the Internet

Not exactly compulsory listening for the holiday season, but there was a very interesting discussion on Chris Laidlaw's Sunday programme on National Radio on the challenges to copyright law posed by the Internet. Among those speaking is Dr Steven Harnad who is a keen proponent of the idea of the Creative Commons and the need for universities to take control of the intellectual property they produce. You can listen to it here.

New Zealand Newspapers and Magazines

We have become used to the free availability of current issues of newspapers online through such sites as Stuff but you will usually be charged a fee to read older articles from their archives. I was asked yesterday about free access to newspaper articles and was happy to report that it is available though the Newztext Database. The titles covered are

• Waikato Times (1/5/96 to date)
• Sunday Star Times (8/12/95 to date)
• Sunday News (8/12/95 to date)
• The Dominion (1/1/95 to 6/7/02)
• The Dominion Post (8/7/02 to date)
• The Evening Post (1/1/95 to 6/7/02)
• The Press (7/6/96 to date)
• The Timaru Herald (1/7/96 to date)
• Evening Standard (15/6/96 to date)
• The Daily News (12/8/96 to date)
• Truth (8/12/95 to date)
• The Southland Times (1/3/97 to date)
• Taupo Times
• Nelson Mail (1/7/97 to date)
• Whangarei Leader
• Stuff
• NZ Herald (ca.1998 - date)
• NZ Herald Classifieds (5 June 2002 - date)
• Radio New Zealand Newswire (1999 - date)

Newztext is not an archive in the sense that you cannot look at complete issues of newspapers but it is a searchable fulltext database. This means that you can find all articles containing the words sustainable, horticulture and Massey. A huge amount of material relevant to university research, particularly in the applied sciences, appears on fish and chip wrappers and to be able to track it all down can be really useful.

A companion product Newztext Magazines covers such major business titles as the NBR and the Independent as well as NZ Dairy Exporter and a number of other specialist trade titles.

Both databases can be found through the Article Databases link on the Library home page.

Waltham Veterinary Videos

We have recently received three videos from Waltham Veterinary which are suitable for both teaching and independent viewing by students -

Basic canine dentistry

Waltham Forum video. Vol. 10, no. 2

Topics include Bone plate stabilization of the ilium - Rectal polyp removal - Urethral obstruction and cystotomy - Parenteral nutrition

Waltham Forum video. Vol. 11, no. 2

Topics include Nasal planum resection - Fine-needle aspirate - Lymph node cytology - Supplemental feeding for kittens and puppies

2005 - the Year in Retrospect

Seasons greetings to you!

This blog Science News from Massey Library has been in operation since October 2004. It was developed as a useful way of archiving the email messages sent to academic staff - we are aware that the majority of emails are deleted sight unseen and that people will generally want them only months after they have been trashed! We only recently discovered that we may have the distinction of being New Zealand's first library bloggers - and it doesn't come much bigger than that, folks! (We may also be the only blog anywhere to feature the Encyclopedia of Meat Sciences).

Here are some of the highlights of 2005 (we've left out the nagging and there wasn't any bad news) -

Eight new Nature journals added to the Library's collection (December)

BioOne journal collection (November)

Elsevier ScienceDirect backfiles (November)

Extended coverage for Web of Science (November)

Encyclopedia of Information Systems (November)

SciFinder Scholar 2006 available (November)

Are Journal Citation Reports Distorting Science? (October)

Encyclopedia of Meat Sciences (October)

Bailey's Industrial Oils (September)

Massey's most cited science journals (August)

New Zealand Science Database (August)

Nine new encyclopedias from Elsevier (March)

JAMA Online (February)

Encyclopedia of Agricultural, Food and Biological Engineering (January)

Library teaching and research consultations 2006

The beginning of semester is a very good time for grounding your students in the use of the library and information resources. If the Library has taught your students in the past please remember that you will need to reconfirm this soon. If you haven't made use of this service, we are able to take new bookings but will need time to prepare a session that will suit the specific needs of your paper. It is always a good idea to get in early to make sure that our Training Room is available at the time you want it. We are of course happy to come out to speak to students within lectures as well.

Please contact

Noelene White (Palmerston North undergraduate)
Bruce White (Palmerston North postgraduate)
Rae Gendall (Albany)
Kirsty McNeill (Wellington)

Postgraduate students can benefit from a one-on-one research consultation. We will outline the main information resources available to them and teach them the use of databases and electronic sources in detail. A research consultation can provide the basis for ongoing contact between a student and the Library over the course of their degree. A research consultation is especially useful at the beginning of their thesis or research project, before they have wasted a lot of time or fallen into bad habits! Contact Bruce, Rae or Kirsty.