Over the past two months, in cooperation with the Bureau of Communication and information specialists in the various faculties, the library management staff has been developing plans to implement two new digital services. Drs. Joke ter Hellen, the library's operational manager, said the main reason for offering these digital services was twofold: `Ria Nowosielski, our Landscape Study Coordinator, observed a strange phenomena, the print editions of foreign newspapers were not being read on a regular basis. We are always trying to offer optimal services to the community and many requests were flooding in from information specialists which led us to conduct trails on new databases available in the market.'
On any given day, University employees and students, working from anywhere in the world, can have access to the digital library through any internet service provider via the Virtual Private Networking (VPN) system. In the past decades, the University Library has purchased licenses for a growing number of digital services, including 275 databases, 14,000 e-journals and 4,000 e-books, making electronic information readily available with the click of a mouse.
The library coordinator of Document Delivery, Lineke Roepers, who helped develop plans to launch the two programs, said `It's not that you say, “Now I'm going to relax and settle in to read the newspaper.” It's more a question of first trying out the program and then discovering how the program can best suit your needs- whether it be to reconnect with news in your home country; as a research tool or to keep informed about world news.'
The program's one small disadvantage is that it lacks the actual `look and feel' of a print edition newspaper and does not display visuals that users typically find in a digital or print version. `Everything has its disadvantages and advantages,' commented ter Hellen. `The advantage of the program we finally purchased is that you can conduct a really thorough search on a particular topic and have access to almost 9,000 newspapers worldwide. In addition, you can search for almost any topic and receive thousands of results back.'
Five national Dutch newspapers - De Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad, Patrool, Trouw and NRC Handelsblad- were already accessible online for some time at the library.
Roepers described the basic procedure to navigate the database, `First choose if you want to work in Dutch or English language. If you want to search the database of international newspapers then you need to click on international and the Dutch newspapers disappear from the screen. You can then search by a specific term and the search engine checks the database for related articles. You can refine the search further by clicking on the advanced search feature.'
Ter Hellen said another search function called `Boolean search' operates to narrow the search further with the option to leave out or include terms. For example, program users could type in `Obama and Washington, but not Obama and Chicago.' She noted, `If you have researchers, they find this specific function works the most efficiently for research and study projects.'
A sampling of the international titles available include- El Mundo, Die Welt, The Independent, La Stampa, New York Times, The International Herald -to name but a few of the thousands of newspapers stored in the database.
In addition to this digital service, the library also offers a massive collection of dictionaries, including the recently available Oxford Advanced Learner's Compass. Ter Helen advises students, `You need to first install the program on your own PC before you're able to access it. It's not the case that you can visit the library's website and have immediate access. Both Mac and Windows users need to follow different links to download the program. If you run into problems with installation, we can help you with this process or refer you to technical support.'
When working with digital programs from behind your PC, one of the guaranteed perks is having a wide range of source books at your fingertips. Arguably, the Compass program offers its users endless opportunities to expand their knowledge of the English language - from over 10,000 entries on every aspect of British and American culture to 22,000 entries listing word origins. The product's features are expansive, said Roepers. `It gives examples of the usage of words in a sentence, word pronunciations and all the specific subtopics of your subject are handled in the cultural guide feature.'
For information on all digital services, visit the University Library website: http://www.utwente.nl/ub/
