Creating Webportals for Animal Health Information

This paper was presented at the Library Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) Seventh Annual Conference, held September 27 to October 1 2004 in Pholokwane, South Africa, with the theme “Libraries and Democracy: The Vital Link”.

This paper discusses four websites set up by the Faculty of Veterinary Science of the University of Pretoria, South Africa (the only faculty in South Africa where students can qualify as veterinarians). The university aims to share the information not only with the veterinarians in training, but with the wider community, including farmers and school children working on assignments, and researchers.

The authors note: “In recent years a new emphasis on production animals was introduced into the [university] curriculum, reflecting the country’s primary food needs, the importance of the production of safe food and through the control of diseases transmitted between animals and man, the health of humans. The growing interest in goats and ostriches, the importance of poultry farming in the developing communities and the impact of the infectious diseases of production animals on the country’s economy led the Service Unit Veterinary Science (the Veterinary Library) of the Academic Information Service (AIS) to create portals on these topics for the benefit of its primary user group as well as the wider community.”

The paper describes the process of setting up the four web portals and links to them. It comments on their site structure, the allocation of content to them, collaboration with the relevant lecturerers/academics, and future plans to develop the sites further. The sites are described as follows:

• The African Goats (Goatweb) contains the following sections: conferences and papers on goats; links to goat websites; links to goat bibliographies; full-text books and journals; homepages of goat organisations and associations (African, South African and international ones); lists of African expertise on goats (state/provincial and parastatal/university); goat research centres/departments; South African goat associations/organisations; information on Southern African Development Community - Small Ruminant Network (SADC-SRNET); and links to goat newsletters.
• Ostrich Web consists of the following topics or sections: associations; bibliography; books; conferences; diseases and health issues; full-text articles; list of experts; newsletters; ostrich journals; ostrich tourism; products; research centres; websites; welfare issues; and what’s new.
• Poultry Web lists and provides access to poultry associations worldwide; books; conferences; disease and health issues; full-text articles; list of experts; newsletters; poultry journals; research centres; websites; and welfare issues.
• Animal Infectious Diseases Gateway/Portal aims to provide some of the diverse international resources available on infectious diseases, not only on how they affect animals but their impact on human health as well. It was set up to support one of the university’s new degrees. It contains over a hundred links to websites, documents and presentations devoted to the infectious diseases of animals. The following topics are included: associations; books; conferences; full-text articles; list of experts; newsletters; journals; research centres; websites; and what’s new.

The paper continues by discussing the use of metadata to improve the quality of information retrieval from the websites. The various groups who use their sites and submit questions were noted to include local school children and farmers as well as overseas researchers. It explores the role of the information specialist who creates and maintains the website and mentions certain problems and pitfalls in the process, including keeping it up-to-date, copyright considerations, and access control. It mentions future plans to provide limited free access to the sites, but charging for full access through online credit card payment and plans to provide links to relevant theses, from South African universities and abroad.

To view a 37-slide PowerPoint presentation of the paper, click here.