Revision of the Finnish Legal Deposit Act 

The Ministry of Education Committee on Legal Deposit has been working on the revision of the Legal Deposit Act and has now published its report. 
Under the proposed act, legal deposit would cover not only traditional printed publications, audio and audiovisual recordings and films but also other recordings, electronic publications of Finnish origin available on open networks, and radio and television programmes.

An English summary of the process is available at http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/english/infoe/news/20030331_legaldeposit.htm 

For further details, please contact:
Riitta Mattila or Jani Stenvall
Helsinkin University Library
P.O.B. 26, FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, Finland
e-mail in the format firstname.surname@helsinki.fi

The NELLI Portal : National Information Retrieval

"Connecting databases - connecting services - connecting people". The NELLI Portal is an information retrieval system with an aim to improve the usability and accessibility of electronic documents. The search can be executed simultaneously in various different databases and it is possible to customize the services as well. The NELLI Portal will be launched for use in Finnish universities in early 2004. The Polytechnics and public libraries have also expressed their interest in joining in the service.

The NELLI Portal uses Metalib and SFX software, and the service is maintained by FinELib / the National Library of Finland. 

For further details, please, contact:
Ari Rouvari or Henri Ryhänen
Helsinki University Library
P.O.B. 26, FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, Finland
e-mail in the format firstname.surname@helsinki.fi

Collection Description in Finnish University Libraries

The project is part of the 2003-2004 agenda of the Council of University Libraries. It is closely connected with the National Library's NELLI Portal and DOMS (Digital Object Management System) projects, and has been funded by the Ministry of Education.

The aim is to create an overall picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the Finnish libraries' materials by subject field. It could help the libraries to plan the development of both their own collections and also on a national level with co-operation in accessions and creation of new services. For the user the description could provide a map of the highlands and lowlands in the collections in their own interest fields with the higways and foot paths leading to the sources.

The aim is also to combine traditional collections with digital and digitised materials and also with both licenced and open access online materials. 

For further details, please, contact:
Vuokko Palonen
The TRITONIA Academic Library
P.O.B. 331, 65101 Vaasa, Finland 
Email: vpa at the address @uwasa.fi 

DOMS : Digital Object Management in Finnish University Libraries

The technical infrastructure of the National Library of Finland consists of three elements: the integrated library system, the NELLI Portal and the digital object management system DOMS. The integrated library system has been in use for years already and the portal will be launched next year. This article gives background information on the third element, the DOMS, which is still under construction.

For further details, please, contact:
Esa-Pekka Keskitalo
Helsinki University Library
P.O.B. 26, FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, Finland
e-mail in the format firstname.surname@helsinki.fi

E-thesis : Online Publishing since 1999

E-thesis (Electronic Publications @ University of Helsinki) is an online publishing service for the University of Helsinki doctoral dissertations and serial publications. The site has hundreds of visitors every day, both Finnish and foreign. The service is maintained by Helsinki University Library in co-operation with the Helsinki University Printing House. By autumn 2003 it has issued over a thousand electronic publications. The article is based on a more extensive review of the service.

The service can be accessed at http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/english.html 

For further details, please, contact:
Jyrki Ilva
Helsinki University Library
P.O.B. 26, FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, Finland
e-mail in the format firstname.surname@helsinki.fi

The New Features of the LINDA Union Catalogue Database

The new web interface of LINDA, the Union Catalogue Database of Finnish University Libraries, was launced in January 2002. It uses the Voyager software acquired by the Finnish University Libraries' Linnea2 Consortium  in 1999. There were great hopes for improvements in the Union Catalogue features. The road proved to be rockier than expected, though.

The Voyager system is used in over a thousand libraries around the world, but the version with the Union Catalogue feature only in a few, besides Finland the only other library in Europe using it is Cambridge in the U.K. The LINDA entries were loaded into the new system in July 2001, but not until December 2003 was this process complete with all new entries from the transition period uploaded as well. 

For further details, please, contact:
Arne Hedman
Helsinki University Library
P.O.B. 26, FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, Finland
e-mail in the format firstname.surname@helsinki.fi

 

Periodicals Contencts Index (PCI) Now Available on Own Server

The Periodicals Contents Index (PCI) database was acquired by the FinELib consortium in the end of 1998. It is a reference database covering the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences, Culture and Art and the years 1770-1995. The set of segments covered by the transaction were updated until 2001, and the database was accessed online on the vendor's server. Because of the high costs the consortium did not want to subscribe to the new segments included after 2001. However, the company had no option to make avalaible only a part of the database. 

The only alternative was to store the segments that were already bought on the consortium's own server. This was done with help of the Voyager software used also for the library catalogues. This new PCI database will be launched for online use by the consortium members in January 2004.

For further details, please, contact:
Nanna Hakala or Arja Tuuliniemi
Helsinki University Library
P.O.B. 26, FIN-00014 UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, Finland
e-mail in the format firstname.surname@helsinki.fi