Workshop co-ordinator: Gusta Drenthe,
Social Sciences Librarian at Erasmus University in Rotterdam (the Netherlands), co-author of the Dutch Women's Studies Thesaurus

Workshop presentation 1

Joke Webbink
Gender Studies Librarian
Wageningen Agricultural University (the Netherlands)
"Gender studies in agriculture: a specialized database"
Since January 1998 my database is on the Internet. We at Wageningen used to publish bibliographies on paper, but now think that is not necessary, at least for the Dutch academics who are our main users. The database (6,000 items of articles in journals and edited volumes at Wageningen Library) has narrowed in coverage over the years, because here is now broad coverage by other women's studies databases, so I can now focus only on publications related to rural and farm women - in Holland, in Europe, and in developing countries. We are in the process of evaluating the costs of this database and whether we can continue it. It takes 40 minutes per bibliographical reference. Up till now I do each description from scratch, even if it is already listed for example in IIAV's or Wisconsin's database.

Workshop presentation 2

Mayandi Thevar Suriya
Head of Department of Library and Information Science
Annamalai University (Tamilnadu, India)
"Mapping the depth and dimension of research on gender issues: a lexical and cluster analysis"

I am carrying out a research study of the publication output of the United Nations from 1975 to 1997. The study will give a panoramic view of women's issues across the globe during the last three decades. Specifically, I am using multidimensional scaling techniques and clustering methods to evaluate research performance in women's studies. What I expect to show up includes: the research priorities of individual countries, the similarities and dissimilarities of research problems and approaches by researchers in the North and researchers in the South, trends in research themes, research gaps.
The results of this project will be useful to decision makers deciding priorities of research areas and levels of funding.

Workshop presentation 3

Crystal Kile
Newcomb College Center for Research on Women
Tulane University (New Orleans, U.S.A.)
Co-author of "Surfer Grrrls: An Internet Guide for Us"


"Women's studies and the Internet Generation: educating and empowering women to lead the women's studies movement through the transformation from print culture to digital culture"
We have several projects to reduce "technophobia" of female high school and university students by introducing them to the Internet and having them create web sites using our college's own archives. We got funding to create a special computer room full of Macintoshes and we invest the time to help students find it a pleasurable and exciting place to be. When a technical problem comes up, instead of just fixing it, we take the extra time to sit down with the user and work through the problem so she learns how to deal with the technical side. We need to teach women to teach other women about why we must be involved in the production and marketing of information on the Internet.
"If it's not on the Internet, does it really exist?" - some young university students seem to use the Internet as their sole source of information for research papers. Women need to become "information activists". Women need to be not only buyers of computers, but also part of the decision-making at the production and design level.
FUNDING: in the U.S. right now, it's easy to find funding from local and regional agencies for computer and Internet projects. More women's groups should make use of this opportunity!

Workshop presentation 4

Omima Mustafa Ahmed
Coordinator, Documentation Unit for Women's Studies, Ahfad University for Women (Omdurman, Sudan)
"The experience of the Documentation Unit for Women's Studies at Ahfad University for Women in Sudan"
Ahfad University's Documentation Unit for Women's Studies collects data related to women's studies, facilitates communication among researchers, maintains a national registry of documents in women's studies, and provides relevant information to regional and international agencies. Begun in 1989, the Documentation Unit has initiated an inventory of research on women in Sudan, a directory of organizations on women in development in Sudan, a publications series on women and development, and a newsletter. It carries out its own research (one full-time staff researcher). Its most significant contribution so far is to assist hundreds of students and staff with their research, advising on research themes and structuring the research, as well as helping with bibliographical searches.
Given the high rate of illiteracy in Sudan, audio-visual communication is vital. Each year, all students of our university travel out to villages to teach and learn from village women. Video cameras go along. All fourth-year students take a course in mass media. Incidentally, all students, no matter what their field of study, follow women's studies courses.
The Documentation Unit is helping the University plan the creation of a Sudanese Women's Museum, covering both historical and contemporary aspects. In preparation, many students are being given training in museum science.

Workshop presentation 5

Phyllis Holman Weisbard
University of Wisconsin System Women's Studies Librarian (U.S.A.)
"The changing world of researching women: four new electronic databases"

After years of complaints about the underrepresentation of women's studies publications in mainstream databases and reference works, surprisingly there are now FOUR commercial American databases covering women's studies (mostly journal articles). Each of them has certain advantages and does something the others do not do, so it is impossible to say any one is superfluous. The first two of the databases are bibliographic only (with no full text). The last two contain a selection of full-text documents. Not everyone will agree with the selection made. For each database, you pay a high subscription fee every year.
"Women's Resources International", early coverage back to 1972.
"Women's Studies on Disc", not so early, but better coverage of articles in edited volumes.
"Contemporary Women's Issues", selection of full text, excludes humanities and history.
"Women 'R' " (soon to be called "Genderwatch"), selection of full text, search only by words in the title or in the article.
Remember that full-text documents never reproduce the entire contents of the journal issue, and also do not include any of the graphics. So subscribing to one of these databases is not a reason to end your subscription to the journals! A tip: if you are writing an article, it's good to describe in the text what appears in your charts and graphs.
We at Wisconsin will continue to print bibliographies on paper too. Many parts of the world will not soon have ready access to computers, or cannot afford to subscribe to databases.
Contracts:
We at Wisconsin allow commercial databases to use our bibliographies, but we make sure we have NON-exclusive contracts: We retain the right to publish our bibliographies ourselves and to let others use them too.

Rita DeCoursey
KITLV, Leiden, the Netherlands
telephone: 31 - 71 - 527 26 41 (or 5155 886)