Library Aquaculture WorkstationPacific Regional Aquaculture Information Service for Education |
The overall goal of this project, which was initiated under the CTSA First Annual Plan of Work and just began its tenth year, is to make scientific information more accessible to the aquaculture community. Specific objectives related to that goal are to:
Objective: Increase and ensure the continued usefulness of the PRAISE program through the use of CD-ROM database searching, telecommunications and new technologies as they develop, and disseminate information products as needed by the industry.
Use of the workstations at both Hamilton Library and remote sites continued to increase. Since establishing the electronic network, the total number of system uses increased from about 400 per year to more than 8,000 per year. The 2,000 percent rise in use of the service was accomplished with no increase in staff.
The primary focus of the eighth year of the project was preparing PRAISE for integration into the Worldwide Web. The existing CD-ROM system was upgraded to effectively handle the tremendous increase in the use of the service. Hamilton Library adapted eight in-house workstations to Pentium computers. This was done in anticipation of allowing these machines to access both the Kapiolani Community College CD-ROM Local Area Network (LAN), which has better capability than the Hamilton Library LAN, and the Internet. This provided access to the PRAISE WorldWide Web page as well as the aquaculture database. Test results of this system allowed progress toward other objectives. Tests were conducted at the CTSA office and Hamilton Library to determine whether it was most efficient to allow access to the aquaculture CD-ROM database either via direct telnet to Kapiolani Community College Library or via the PRAISE home page on the WorldWide Web.
In conjunction with the Joint Subcommittee on Aquaculture and the Aquaculture National Information Center, the project developed programming to allow Internet access to PRAISE. The project instituted methods to allow the Pacific Islands to have cost-effective access to PRAISE, including making PRAISE Internet-compatible. A PRAISE home page on the WorldWide Web was established and is available to Guam, Saipan and other Pacific Island sites with Internet connectivity.
In addition, the PRAISE program was positioned to take advantage of the upcoming national integration of aquaculture information, specifically by interacting with the U.S.D.A. Aquaculture Extension Service.
In addition, the PRAISE Web site includes a "Pacific Islands Aquaculture Vendors" section in cooperation with UH Sea Grant Extension Service. The page allows aquaculture producers a free place to advertise their products and services. The Web site also includes a section listing Pacific Aquaculture Legislation section. Legislation information was provided by the Hawaii Legislative Reference Bureau, and information from other Pacific islands is being sought. The site was expanded to include an electronic version of the Pacific Islands gray literature bibliography, which was compiled under the PRAISE project, and to allow users to download the Hawaii Aquaculture Module Expert System. This software program for DOS, Windows and Macintosh operating systems, which was developed under another CTSA-funded project, helps farmers to diagnose diseases of cultured tilapia.
A program was installed to record use of the PRAISE Web page. From February 1996 to January 1997, the PRAISE Web site was accessed 61,868 times. In addition, the vendor page was accessed 454 times. In addition, the project responded to 135 requests for literature from the Pacific Islands and 95 requests for information from areas as diverse as the U.S. mainland, South America, Asia and the Middle East.
Objective: Increase the efficiency of PRAISE through interaction with other information agencies.
The Joint Subcommittee on Aquaculture (JSA) decided that legislative materials on the development and support of aquaculture should be included on AquaNIC, an Internet gateway to the world's electronic resources in aquaculture that is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The project coordinator, who served on the JSA's Aquaculture Information and Technology Transfer Task Force, began gathering relevant legislative materials from Hawaii and the Pacific Islands for AquaNIC. A similar section was established on the PRAISE web site for Hawaii and Pacific Islands legislation (see above).
Objective: Increase the support base for the project through cooperative agreements with other agencies and information facilities.
PRAISE continued to gather and provide access to Pacific Islands-specific literature for the bibliography of Pacific Islands gray literature known as the PRAISE "gray literature project," which was first published in print form in 1995. Work on the gray literature bibliography received additional funding from the Pacific Island Network, the National Agricultural Library and the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, the commercial vendor for the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts database, into which the bibliography materials will be incorporated. The National Agricultural Library also provided co-funding to publish the bibliography. Additional base project funding was secured from the University of Hawaii, the Pacific Island Network and the University of Hawaii Sea Grant Extension Service.
The Pacific Aquaculture Association purchased a photocopy machine for PRAISE use. The machine significantly sped the process of providing documents for document delivery. It will also be used to provide clean copy for scanning of Pacific Islands documents that will then be indexed in the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts database.
In the ninth year of the project, the PRAISE Web site was expanded to allow users to download a version of the Hawaii Aquaculture Module Expert System, a software program that helps farmers to diagnose and treat disease problems in cultured tilapia. The program was developed for DOS, Windows and Macintosh computers under another CTSA-funded project.
Objective: Transfer the technology to users and develop programs for user education.
User education workshops were held in Palau, Pohnpei, and the Marshall Islands. The workshops were held to train librarians, extension agents, government officials and aquaculturists in use of the PRAISE system. The workshops were conducted with the cooperation of the Sea Grant College Program and the Pacific Islands Library Association.
The PRAISE server at Hamilton Library will be upgraded with new CD-ROM readers and equipment to allow improved access for users. The current system of searching from remote sites will continue, and project staff will continue to send documents to users upon request. The Pacific Islands gray literature bibliography will be updated, and new sources of funding will be sought to broaden the support base for PRAISE.
The vendor of the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts database and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration databases discussed the possibility of gray literature being electronically scanned and transmitted directly to the vendor. This would significantly speed incorporation of the data into the ASFA database. The scanning technology is also being investigated for the possibility of meeting additional document delivery objectives under consideration.
This project has increased the accessibility of scientific information throughout the Pacific region. In the last year, PRAISE users performed more than 8,000 searches, each of which lasted approximately 30 minutes. Commercial databases charge $102 per hour for connect time. Therefore, those searches would have cost approximately $408,000. The highest level of project funding from CTSA was $49,000 in Year Eight, which represents a savings of $359,000 in that year alone.
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