Yesterday's meeting on aginfo accessibility was a good opportunity to hear more about experiences in this area of Wageningen UR.Hugo Besemer shared experiences with two projects: ‘Wageningen Yield' (see also earlier story) and ‘Groen Kennisnet’ – or ‘green knowledge net.’It seems that the Wageningen repository is now rather complete – they collect and index all resources created by WUR staff, even if they can’t yet make them all publicly accessible (due to license restrictions etc). For some other organizations, like the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, whose web site content management system changes often, WUR maintains an accessible ‘e-store’ of full text documents, giving them each a permanent address on the web.According to Besemer, the key to success so far is the...
Wageningen, 13 November 200810:30 – 12:30 Wageningen UR Library and IAALD are pleased to hold an informal roundtable for people and organizations involved with agricultural & natural resources information in an international context. It will focus on efforts to make documents and other information resources truly accessible. Barbara Hutchinson (Assistant to the Director, University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, will report on “born digital / reborn digital repositories” in the USA. Following Barbara, several colleagues from organizations in the Netherlands will report on similar initiatives:• KIT (Ingeborg Nagel, Harry Heemskerk)• ISRIC / WUR (Ger Naber)• ILEIA (Wilma Roem)• WUR / Wageningen Yield” (Hugo Besemer / Hubert Krekels)• WUR / “Groen...
Methods to measure poverty usually just take into account what people spend or earn. But Nicky Pouw has developed a different method to measure poverty. Pouw a researcher based in the Netherlands, uses what people own instead of what their earn to measure poverty. They hope this measurement can help predict food shortages accurately. Here is how a story in Phys Org explains the new methodology:Development planners and policymakers in developing countries need accurate information about the poverty of the population. The risk of food shortages or other poverty-related problems is an ever present threat. This is certainly the case in rural Uganda where there is a lot of poverty among smallholder farmers. However, the usual method of assessing poverty in terms of expenditure often fails to...
Wageningen Yield (WaY) is the access point to publications from Wageningen University and Research Centre. WaY contains references to publications authored by Wageningen University staff from 1976 onwards, including many in full text.WaY encourages authors to publish according to the Open Access Principle. Content in WaY can also be harvested according to the OAI-PMH protocol. Access to each research unit's outputs is enhanced through RSS feeds listed from the 'browse' option on the menu.Beyond search an retrieval, the service shows how staff publications and reports can be searched and sorted to provide publication lists, by author, research team or research theme. Academic staff contributing to the system can therefore get something...
Civil Wars beyond their Borders: The Human Capital and Health Consequences of Hosting Refugees (Institute for the Study of Labor, April 2008) [text via Human Security Gateway)
Climate Change and Human Rights: A Rough Guide (International Council on Human Rights Policy, June 2008) [text]
Disabilities among Refugees and Conflict-Affected Populations (Women's Commission, June 2008) [access to...
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Human Rights,
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conflict,
Mauritania,
detention,
sexual abuse,
humanitarian personnel,
climate,
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disabled refugees,
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netherlands
Colleagues at Wageningen UR library are getting excited about the potential to link their library catalogue to full text books in Google. Wouter Gerritsma explains how they got over some of the problems.Wouter is a regular 'library 2.0' - and much more - blogger. Well worth visiting to see what's on the agenda at the largest Dutch 'agricultural' library. His colleague Peter van Boheemen also blogs about library applications they develop in...
Many visitors to Wageningen in the Netherlands will recall their visits to the Jan Kopshuis - site of the Wageningen University Library. On 21 February, the new library space was opened with a special congress held in the Forum building.NAL Director Peter Young was keynote speaker at the congress - talking on 'Transforming Knowledge Services for the Digital Age : Redefining the Research Library.' Wageningen library's own blogger Wouter Gerritisma reports on Young's presentation, he also covered the other presentations (in Dutch).Peter Young's conclusion on web 2.0 - that we need to "focus on the library in the user environment rather than the user in the library environment" was picked up by several of the bloggers at the meeting (download Young's powerpoint.Tags: agricultural information...
from Radio Netherlandsby Pieternel GruppenDutch policy towards Africa in recent years has not given sufficient attention to helping the very poorest. That's one of the conclusions of an official review of Dutch aid to Africa. Yet the battle against poverty is a central element of Dutch policy. One of the reasons for this apparent paradox is the policy of giving money to governments instead of specific aid projects.The Netherlands gave almost six billion euros to Africa between 1998 and 2006. But that money didn't always go to help those in the most desperate need, concludes the Inspectorate (IOB) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. For example, in this period about one billion euros - a sixth of the budget for Africa - was cancelled from the debts of such countries as Congo and...
from Dutch NewsPeople on low incomes have increasing problems in making ends meet but the number of households living in poverty in the Netherlands is falling, according to the new Poverty Monitor published by the government’s social policy advisor SCP.Around half of the low income households (net income of €870 for a single person) say they have great difficulties in coping, which is almost double the figure five years ago, the report said.However, the percentage of households on low incomes is expected to fall to just under 8% next year, down from 10% now, the report said.More than one in 10 of these poor households cannot afford to keep their homes warm or provide a hot meal every other day.According to the research, 3.4 million children (9%) live in poverty in the Netherlands....
The Dutch Wageningen University and Research Centre (Wageningen UR) has long been a leader in education and research in life sciences, natural resources and agriculture. Today, it is a collaboration between Wageningen University, Van Hall Larenstein School of Higher Professional Education and research institutes in the field of life sciences, predominantly based in Wageningen.
According to its web site, the Wageningen UR Library participates in the entire process of knowledge communication at Wageningen UR by: selecting and acquiring scientific sources based on quality, reliably storing this information, making information available for education and research, giving open access, informing and assisting users, offering an excellent publication environment for scientific authors, and...