24 June 1992 Database Twist to 'Turn-Off' Week at Lincoln

Library Week's "great New Zealand television turn-off" is being marked in Lincoln University's library by an encouragement to "turn on" to the small screen technology of computer-linked databases.

As a Library Week activity, Lincoln lecturers are being given free demonstrations of Kiwinet – an information retrieval service containing data on all aspects of New Zealand including business, commerce, the law, arts and humanities and social sciences.

The service operates from the computer at the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington and users usually pay a charge based on the length of time they are connected to the network. This week, however, the National Library has opened the service for free demonstrations and Lincoln University is making use of the opportunity.

"A number of staff and students already use Kiwinet, but what we're aiming at this week is to broaden its use on campus," says Information Services Librarian Kerry Lyford.

"We are offering free demonstrations and the response from staff has been very positive.

"Teaching staff and researchers who have come to our demonstrations have been very quick to see the immense potential of Kiwinet, and that has been a really positive aspect of Library Week for us."

Kiwinet is essentially a database hosting service, and examples of information available through it are, from Business Databases, an index of New Zealand business information in journals and newspapers from 1985 onwards, and from among Legal Databases an index to all available decisions of the Planning Tribunal from 1984 onwards including all related High Court decisions from 1990 onwards.

In recent years Lincoln University's library has been at the forefront in introducing new information technology products to users. The library has as one of its key objectives the provision of access to new information technology as a contribution to research endeavours and the development of new knowledge. Encouraging wider use of Kiwinet is consistent with this objective.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand