===================== HES POSTING ==================== Introducing COPAC COPAC is a new internationally accessible catalogue at http://copac.ac.uk/copac/. Based at the University of Manchester, COPAC provides unified access to the consolidated online catalogues of some of the largest university research libraries in the UK and Ireland. COPAC is normally available 24 hours a day 365 days a year and access is *free of charge*. The COPAC database currently contains approx. 5 million records. These represent the merged online library catalogues of: - Cambridge University - Edinburgh University - Glasgow University - Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine - Leeds University - University of Manchester - University of Nottingham - Oxford University - Trinity College Dublin - University College London - University of London Library The records from a further twelve university library catalogues will be added in due course. Materials from other libraries may be added in the future. As well as providing general coverage of a very wide range of subject areas, these large research libraries have many older documents, specialist collections and particular strengths, such as foreign language materials, which make COPAC a very valuable resource for the researcher. Records for materials published pre-1900 make up c.4% of the database and the proportion of older materials is growing. Some 27% of the records represent foreign language materials, including minority languages such as Welsh. Again, this is increasing as more foreign language collections are brought online. Most COPAC records are for books, reports etc. but there are increasing numbers for other materials such as printed and recorded music, and video. Records for periodicals make up some 4% of the COPAC database. Access to COPAC is at http://copac.ac.uk/copac/ Online search assistance is provided and printed User Guides are available for both interfaces. Postscript and .pdf versions of the User Guides are available for downloading at: http://copac.ac.uk/copac/userguide/ ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]