Identify Database Update

Identify now contains 293,500 records with over 60,000 records being added in the first four months of 2012. There’s been steady growth in both the Public and the Corporate sector this year.

Consortium Directory Online (CDO) Updates

The following consortia have been added recently:

China
– Hunan Documents Information Resources Cooperation Net (HDIRCN)

El Salvador
– Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de El Salvador (CBUES)

India
– Consortium for e-Resources in Agriculture (CeRA)
– Department of Biotechnology E-Library Consortium (DeLCON)
– Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Library Consortium (MCIT)

Japan
– Japan Alliance of University Library Consortia for E-Resources (JUSTICE)

Mexico
– Consorcio Nacional de Recursos de Informacion Científica y Tecnologica (CONRICyT)

Philippines
– University of the Philippines System (UP System)

Poland
– Konsorcjum Bibliotek Kierunkow Ekonomicznych (KBKE)

South Africa
– Education Library and Information Service (EDULIS)

Taiwan
– Taiwan Academic E-Books Consortium (TAEBC)

Thailand
– Electronic Information for Libraries in Thailand (EIFL-Thailand)

United States
– Online Dakota Information Network (ODIN)
– Pennsylvania Online World of Electronic Resources (POWER)
– South Dakota Library Network (SDLN)
– Southeastern New York Library Resources Council (SENYLRC)

If you have any suggestions for future developments to CDO, or wish to provide us with any feedback, please contact us at info@ringgold.com

UKSG Update

Thank you to everyone we met with at UKSG, it was a good conference with lots of activity and busy stands. We had a busy and enjoyable time as usual. UKSG is now such a large and successful conference we do apologise if you didn’t get to talk to us. We look forward to seeing you at the next event, which for us is SSP in Washington, in the UK it will be the ALPSP conference, where we are sponsoring the golf afternoon again.

Types Project

We would like to update you on the Types Project. We are processing and amending the schema with the information that we have received so far and will be sending another consultation shortly. We would very much appreciate anyone who has not yet responded to the first consultation to do so – even if you are only answering the basic questions or adding a few subject areas at this point. You can also send us your own taxonomies. There will be further opportunities to provide input. If you would like to receive the documentation again, or have any questions about the Types Project, please get in touch with Laura Cox, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at info@ringgold.com.

Events

Ringgold will be attending the following events in the next few weeks:

SSP Annual Conference
30 May-1 June 2012, Crystal City, VA

ALA Annual Conference
21-26 June 2012, Anaheim, CA

ALPSP Annual Conference
11-13 September 2012, The Belfry, nr Birmingham, UK

If you would like to arrange an appointment, please contact us at info@ringgold.com

Spotlight on … the Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is a region that includes both the oil-rich economies in the Gulf and countries that have limited resources in relation to their population.

  • GDP figure for the area is $1,206,982,758,169 (World Bank 2010).
  • Exports of goods and services is 38% (World Bank 2007).
  • Literacy rate of adults in the region is 74% (World Bank 2009).
  • 8 of the 12 OPEC countries are located in MENA.
  • The UAE’s per capita GDP of $48,500 (2011 est. World Factbook) which is level with leading West European nations.
  • The population in the UAE was estimated at 8,264,070 (WHO 2010) and approximately 80% of the population are expatriates.

You might find these of interest …

‘Why is the Middle East Important to British Publishers?‘, an article in Publishing Perpectives by Daniel Kalder.

Abu Dhabi’s International Book Fair is a joint venture between the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage and the Frankfurt Book Fair. The dates for 2013 are 19 – 24 March.

The fastest scientific output growth rate over the last two decades has been in the Middle East and Asia with Iran leading with an 11-fold increase. 

Meet Our Researcher

Ahmed Osman, who has been working with Ringgold for over two years, says:

“The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is composed of countries with diverse economic and demographic conditions. We can, nevertheless, say that the region is one of the fastest growing markets in the world today due to population and economic expansion. This means that most industries here are in transition, i.e., evolving and growing.

A very large amount of the customer data concerning the Middle East relates to the higher education and the health sectors, and are prime examples of the region’s growing economic activities.
Working on the customers’ data, there are, however, some challenges that as a researcher I need to overcome to do my job. For example, most of the hospitals (and nearly all primary care centres) do not have their own website. So I spend a great deal of time working on the data to establish the exact entity that the data refers to and then collect data from a variety of sources to provide accurate identification details that the customer can use effectively for that entity. This is further complicated by the lack, in some countries of the region, of a general guide to public health service establishments or private health consortia organisations. In such cases, I undertake a great deal of research to find out the type of organisation the data refers to (is it a primary, secondary or tertiary health care organisation? Is it public or private health provider?), and the organisation’s position in the health sector structure of the country concerned.

The higher education sector in the region is undergoing what the sector had undergone in the 70s and 80s, in many countries in Western Europe. I sometimes get data relating to former university colleges which have since become fully fledged universities themselves, or former training colleges which have similarly been transformed into universities. All this requires careful analysis of the data and gathering information from different sources to link the customers with the correct entities and their relevant details.”

We find that data from these web sites provides a good starting point for some of our research on institutions in the Middle East and North Africa:

Ringgold’s data in Middle East and North Africa

The MENA Region includes: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, West Bank and Gaza and Yemen.

A selection of CDO records for this area include 3 records for consortia in Egypt, 2 for UAE and Turkey. They include ULAKBIM/EKUAL in Turkey and MALMAD in Israel each with over 60 members.