OPEN ACCESS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN CHINA AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND, JULY

Library Connect reached 180 librarian customers in nine cities across Australia and New Zealand. Seminars covering topics from industry concerns to product updates were hosted in Perth, Adelaide (pictured here), Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The “Publishing and Open Access” presentation by Tony McSeán, Elsevier’s Library Relations Director, and “Digital Library Projects in China and E-Resources Development in Shanghai Jiaotong University Library” presentation by Lin Haoming, SHJT’s Deputy Library Director, created the most interest.

USAGE AND USER TESTING THE NETHERLANDS, JULY

Félix de Moya Anegón (pictured left), Vice-Rector at the Universidad de Granada, one of the first Scopus development partners, visited Eugenio Garcia, Elsevier Account Manager (pictured right) and the Scopus team in Amsterdam. Granada is one of the largest universities in Spain and a leader in many subject areas, including bibliometric analysis. As part of the Andalusia consortium, Granada was an early adopter of Scopus. Their decision was based on positive feedback from extensive user testing. “As a development partner,” Félix explained, “we have seen Scopus usage rising tremendously and would like to continue our cooperation with Elsevier and the Scopus team in order to offer our end users even better functionality.”

CHALLENGES IN THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT, USAGE AND THE USER EXPERIENCE MALAYSIA AND THAILAND, JULY

Library Connect Seminars attracted around fifty librarians in each country to share new information and discuss challenges in the digital environment. Librarians appreciated hearing from Ho-Nam Choi of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Library. In his presentation “What We Korean Libraries Have Done with E-Content,” he shared his experiences in leading the successful Korean consortium KESLI. Alex Lankester, Head of Account Development for Elsevier Asia Pacific shared insights from ScienceDirect usage analysis in her presentation “The End-user Experience — Yesterday and Today.”

Awards presented for Highest ScienceDirect Usage and Highest Growth in ScienceDirect Usage went respectively to Universiti Putra Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi MARA (for Malaysia) and to the Chulalongkorn University and the National Institute of Development Administration (for Thailand).

USER CENTERED DESIGN (UCD) JAPAN, AUGUST

Andrea Kravetz, Vice President of Elsevier’s User Centered Design Group gave presentations on the concept of UCD and the development of Scopus at the International Advanced Digital Library Conference at Nagoya University, the National Institute of Informatics (Tokyo) and Hiroshima University. More than 300 librarians attended Andrea’s presentations and were interested and impressed to learn how the UCD approach makes a difference in the resulting user interface. One librarian stated, “The presentation shows the importance of the UCD approach. Only products that really understand users’ needs will be able to survive in this competitive age.” Andrea concluded, “It was exciting to see the interest and enthusiasm of attendees for the value a user centered design team can bring to improve the usefulness of products.”

FUTURE OF LIBRARY SERVICES AND SPACES NORWAY, AUGUST

King Harald V of Norway opened the 71st IFLA conference to a large crowd of press and librarians from across the globe. The ceremony was followed by a party in the exhibit hall where many participants visited the Elsevier booth for answers to our Scopus True Blue Quiz, to attend a product presentation or to browse a selection of Elsevier’s publications in library and information science. Scopus and Meridian (a library management solution from Endeavor) attracted much attention.

The conference buzz centered on the future of library services and spaces supporting undergraduate study. There was concensus that radical change will occur but no consensus on the form changes will take.

SINGAPORE, OCTOBER

2005 sees the centenial celebrations of the National University of Singapore (NUS), marking 100 years of tertiary education in Singapore. Established in 1905, NUS is acknowledged as one of the finest universities in the world. A series of celebratory events including a pictorial and electronic exhibition, "NUS Libraries: A Hundred Years of Transformation," kicked off in June (www.nus.edu.sg/centennial/events/calendar.htm).

2005 also marks the 125th birthday of Elsevier and the 425th anniversary of the publishing house of Elzevir from which the modern company takes its name. Elsevier is proud to have donated a rare Elzevir imprint as a gift to the NUS Libraries. The rare book (pictured here) presented to the NUS Libraries is Adagiorum by Erasmus, printed in 1650.