Research Information Take Away or How to Serve Research Information Fast and Friendly on the Web

In 1997 the library department at the University of Karlskrona/Ronneby was asked to develop a database which could be used to collate and present all the research material and ongoing research projects at the University in electronic form. If possible, full text versions of all the material should be made available. In this paper we will discuss the experiences and problems we have gathered during 6 months of developing an electronic research archive. Using Lotus Notes software we have, with some assistance from consultants, developed a database into which the researchers themselves feed data using web-forms. Since the project commenced in the summer of 1997 we have created: • An electronic archive or research documents which uses pdffiles for full text presentation. • Procedures for cataloguing. In addition to being stored electronically, paper copies of each document are stored. • Material which is generally available via WWW. They are searchable by subject, type of document, name of institution, or text search within the database, and one can print out references or full text versions of them. The material is also accessible from search engines such as Alta Vista. • A database which complies with the guidelines stipulated by the Swedish government, the Education Department and the Swedish University Board.