e-Science News New b-on Knowledge Library Online Portal: More User-Friendly and with New Functions New b-on Knowledge Library Online Portal: More User-Friendly and with New Functions
- 27/09/2005
The national academic and scientific community has today been given access to the new b-on – Knowledge Library Online portal, which is more user-friendly and streamlined.
The portal, which has been available since April 2004, now has new and more significant functions. It is now easier for users to find what they are looking for in the vast array of content available on b-on: more than 16000 full text titles and reference databases.
In addition to the basic functions that were available on the old version, such as the federated search engine, the single search interface and the personal area, different interface types are now available for different user types (beginner, standard or expert) with streamlined search, navigation and results interfaces, an A-Z list by institution type (standard or hospital) and crucial background help.
This project is the fruit of work by a multidisciplinary team, comprised of senior library staff from the member institutions of b-on, representatives of the product distributor (Metalib and SFX) and a communication and image expert, which lasted for approximately six months.
B-on has grown at all levels since its launch roughly a year and a half ago: from the initial 3500 titles available there are now more than 16000, from 48 member institutions to 69, which now have unlimited access to the full text publications of benchmark global publishers.
In addition to the publishers who have welcomed this project with open arms since the outset, b-on now includes a further group of prominent publishing houses: Taylor & Francis, Annual Reviews, Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Physics, American Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Chemistry, American Chemical Society, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Zentrallblat, Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier. Of note too are the open access resources provided by PubMed, a benchmark in global medical research.
B-on’s importance has been recognised abroad. In addition to being quoted by the Economist Intelligence Unit as a model in a report on success stories in using structural funds for enlargement countries, this initiative has been presented at different international forums.
B-on is a Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) project which is technically managed by the FCCN - Foundation for National Scientific Computation. The Ministry for Science, Technology and Higher Education is responsible for both these bodies.