Home > National Documentation Centre, first year.

Galvin, Brian (2004) National Documentation Centre, first year. Drugnet Ireland, Issue 10, March 2004, p. 14.

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In December the National Documentation Centre on Drug Use celebrated its first year in operation.  The documentation centre was officially opened by Noel Ahern TD, Minister of State with special responsibility for drugs strategy, on 9 December 2002.  Since then it has become an essential information resource for researchers in the drugs area.  There are currently more than 2,200 volumes in the documentation centre library in Holbrook House, comprising 1,500 separate titles.  The number of titles is growing steadily and there will be a substantial increase in this figure this year.  The electronic library of research material is easily accessible through the documentation centre website and now contains more than 370 full-text documents comprising journal articles, reports, conference papers, book chapters and theses.  More than 13,000 copies of these documents were downloaded by visitors to the website during 2003.

Interest in the various information services provided by the documentation centre has grown steadily since it opened.  There is an average of 860 visits to the website every week with each visitor spending an average of 13 minutes availing of the various information resources it supports.  These include a news section which currently contains over 800 separate items with several new items being added every day.  The numbers registering as users of the website surpassed expectations and there are now more than 300 registered users. National Documentation Centre staff dealt with over 700 queries during 2003.  Staff carried out literature searches for users of the service, supplied documents, arranged inter-library loans and provided expert advise on a huge range of research topics.  Visitors can undertake literature reviews using the library’s excellent online databases or by searching the collection of electronic journals available.

The documentation centre is planning major additions and enhancements to its services over the coming months.  A monthly electronic newsletter will be delivered directly to users’ desktops and will provide information on, and links to, recent publications and current news stories and will also include tables of contents of journals from which users can select articles to be delivered to them.  The Current Research and Evaluation Database will be launched shortly and will become a highly valuable source of information for those carrying out or commissioning research or evaluation work in the drugs area in Ireland.

For further information on theses resources contact the National Documentation Centre on Drug Use, Health Research Board,Email: ndc@hrb.ie or visit the website at www.hrb.ie/ndc.  

Item Type
Article
Publication Type
Irish-related, Open Access, Article
Drug Type
All substances
Intervention Type
Education and training
Issue Title
Issue 10, March 2004
Date
March 2004
Page Range
p. 14
Publisher
Health Research Board
Volume
Issue 10, March 2004
EndNote
Accession Number
HRB (Available)

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