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What will OMNI mean for you?

The service

OMNI provides YOU with a much better way of locating useful information on the Internet, and provides your USERS with a better way too, provided you tell them about it. It is better because it is selective, it is UK-based hence faster and with less US bias, it is well-indexed, and it provides descriptions of resources. This latter feature means that users can decide whether a resource is likely to be useful before trying to access it.

OMNI will help you to open up the world of networked information to your users without the risk of them drowning. Unlike most existing services, OMNI will guide users to substantive information resources rather than show them every conceivable (and irrelevant) information source. A user of SOSIG recently neatly summarised the philosophy underlying both SOSIG and OMNI:

"Given the amount of information on the net, the real value of a resource such as yours is, paradoxically, not that it is comprehensive but that it is selective of high quality resources"

The concept

The IT section of the Follett report contained many recommendations, intended "not to deliver the virtual library tomorrow but to ... provide some of the electronic bricks from which the virtual library may be made" [1]

OMNI does not provide new information but adds value to existing information by providing an organised framework for its discovery and use. The development of student-centred teaching and learning and the need to provide information support to isolated researchers will both require better access to information over networks.

What can you do for OMNI?

OMNI is closely linked to the community that it serves and wishes to involve as wide a range of people as possible in order to continue building the service. This will be critical for the next phase of the project (up to December 1996) as a faster rate of growth becomes necessary. You can help OMNI by volunteering to monitor and add resources in specified areas, or to review OMNI's coverage of your specialist subject area. You can also help the development of information provision by encouraging information owners at your institution to make their information available via the network and by promoting good publishing practices.

Sources of further information

The primary source of information about OMNI is its WWW page:
http://omni.ac.uk/

The OMNI discussion list at mailbase is a forum for disseminating news about the OMNI Project, for discussion about the project and comments on the service provided.
To join the list send the command:
Join omni firstname(s) lastname
(substituting appropriately) as the only text in the body of a message addressed to: mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk

References
1. Law, D. The Follett report: panacea or placebo? Relay, (1994) 40: 3-4.

OMNI also appear in the News section of this issue where the OMNI launch is described by Sue Welsh.

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January 17th 1996 - Comments can be emailed to Ariadne