18 May 1996 marked the official launch of SMC Ondisc, a CD-ROM
produced by the NUS Library in collaboration with Informit, the com
mercial arm of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. SMC Ondisc was issued to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the National University of Singapore. It is the first bibliographic CD-ROM produced by a tertiary institution library in Singapore.
SMC Ondisc, to be issued twice a year, will provide quick and easy access to over 100,000 bibliographic citations on Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and ASEAN (as an entity). Although the bibliographic citations are already available in LINC and Library InfoGate, putting them in SMC Ondisc will be a boon to all researchers interested in this region but without any access to LINC and Library InfoGate. The three databases available in SMC Ondisc are:
The Singapore/Malaysia Collection database has over 30,000 biblio graphic citations. The Collection is particularly strong in source material tracing the various aspects of the development of the Singapore, Malaysia and Borneo (excluding Indonesian Borneo) from their founding through the period of colonial government up to independence and thereafter. A good deal of this source material consists of microfilmed items of public records, government documents, rare serials, newspapers and manuscripts. Other valuable items include company reports, current journals, directories, theses submitted universities abroad. The materials are mostly in English, with a smaller number in Malay.
The NUS Theses Collection comprises over 19,000 higher degree theses and academic exercises submitted to NUS and its predecessor institutions and which are deposited in the NUS Library. The earliest item in the Collection dates from 1947.
PERIND, the Index to Periodical Articles relating to Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and ASEAN (as an entity) contains over 57,000 citations from more than 250 core titles of local, regional and international journals. The bulk of the citations is in English and most of them date from 1980 except for medical citations (from 1975) and legal citations (from 1932). The subjects covered range from the humanities and social sciences to business and management, architecture, building, law and medicine. In addition to periodical articles, book reviews are included.
Although the database focuses on Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and ASEAN (as an entity), some of the records have a wider scope of cover age to meet the different needs of the participating libraries in the NUS Library System. The medical citations, in particular, include those periodical articles published in Singapore and Malaysian medical journals as well as articles written by Singapore and Malaysian medical doctors published in international journals regardless of topic or geographical area. Similarly the legal citations include almost all articles appearing in legal journals published in Singapore and Malaysia regardless of topic or geographic area.
The software used for SMC Ondisc is the well-known SilverPlatter SPIRS software. SMC Ondisc is available from:
Informit
PO Box 12477
A'Beckett Street, Melbourne
Victoria 8006, Australia
Fax no: +61 3 9349 4583
"Working with the National University of Singapore Library on this project has been a pleasure. The project was completed within four months. We have long been interested in working with Southeast Asian data providers and are delighted that NUS agreed to participate in the first venture of this kind."
Sandra Oxley
Head, Informit at the launch of SMC Ondisc
Ms Sandra Oxley and Miss Jill Quah with the SMC Ondisc Team
News SnippetBoth overseas and local librarians attending CONSAL XXV held in KL expressed much interest in SMC Ondisc. |