Welcome to Volume 9 Number 5 of
Livestock Research for Rural
Development, the twenty-eighth issue of the journal.
On Line Formats for Livestock
Research for Rural Development
New e-mail addresses for the LRRD publisher (CIPAV) in Colombia and for the Chief Editor in Vietnam Vietnam on the Internet Tropical Feeds Tropical animal feeding: A manual for research workers The Ecological Farm On-line The University of Tropical Agriculture Foundation |
HTML ('HyperText Markup Language') is the native language for publishing documents on the World Wide Web and is understood by all Web browsing software. The journal, as the principal means of publication of developing world sustainable agriculture, needs to be easily available to the widest possible audience of interested people. Using HTML as the on online publishing format has three principal advantages. The first is that everybody who finds the journal will be able to read it with their Internet browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape are amongst the most common). Secondly, the Internet search engines such as Alta Vista, Infoseek and others will index the pages. Thirdly, articles can be posted on the WWW as soon as they are refereed and edited, thus increasing tremendously the speed of communication of information.
A counter has been installed on the LRRD Homepage to record the numbers of visiters. The trends over the 8 months since records were kept are shown in the figure. From May to September the slope of the line was 6.15±0.23 whereas from September through to November it has increased to 7.13±0.33. At the present time over 7 people are visiting the journal Homepage every day.
It is intended to put a counter on individual papers which will provide valuable feedback as to which articles are attracting most attention.
All previous issues of the journal will be converted to HTML format, to improve accessibility to what is now a library of nearly 10 years of research in the field of developing world sustainable agriculture. We hope to host as much of this as possible, starting with the most recent issues, through CIPAV´s own node to speed access for readers outside Europe, while continuing to mirror the pages on the server at the Oxford Forestry Institute.
The HTML version of LRRD is available on the WWW at:
http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrdhome.html
The MS-DOS and the Windows Help format are now discontinued. Undoubtedly, there are readers of LRRD who do not yet have access to Windows 3.1 or 95/97 nor to Acrobat readers or the Internet browsers. However, it is apparent that access to these more powerful programmes is rapidly increasing in most developing countries. Preparation of the MS-DOS format is time consuming and it is not possible to incorporate graphs. The Windows Help format permits incorporation of graphs and linkages within and between documents, but it is also time-consuming to prepare.
The publishers of LRRD receive no core funding and the journal is prepared and published entirely on a voluntary basis. We feel it is more important to dedicate these efforts to the HTM and ACROBAT formats as both these versions are relatively easy to prepare. The HTM version is certainly the definitive format for the future and from now on will be considered as the standard. Several readers have requested that we maintain the ACROBAT format which will therefore be continued and can, in fact, be accessed from the HTM version.
Comments from readers and authors regarding these decisions are welcomed.
The earlier LRRD volumes (up to 8.1) will be maintained on the UNELLEZ server and can be downloaded by "FTP" from:
The "Acrobat" version for 7.2 onwards as well as previous MS-DOS versions are available on the World Wide Web at:
http://ifs.ox.ac.uk/lrrd/lrrd.htm
For readers resident in Vietnam these versions of the journal are available on the "VIETNET" List Server located at the University of Agriculture and Forestry in Ho Chi Mi City.
Any comments about the journal should be sent to the Chief Editor (thomas%preston%sarec@sunny.plants.ox.ac.uk)
For readers in Vietnam, members of VietNet, the shorter form of the e-mail address can be used, which is: thomas%preston@sarec
The new email-addres for CIPAV in Colombia is:
The new e-mail address of the Chief Editor in Vietnam is:
thomas%preston%sarec@sunny.plants.ox.ac.uk
Vietnam now has a direct connection to the Internet and as from mid december, individuals and institutions may register with one of four Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who will offer indirect access to the Internet. This will facilitate communication among authors, editors, referees and the publisher of LRRD. It is expected that the system will be functioning in time for the next issue of LRRD in January 1998.
There is now an electronic edition of the book `Tropical Feeds', originally written by Dr Bo Göhl, and published by FAO in 1971. The database (program prepared by Dr A W Speedy and Nick Waltham) is available on diskette from: The Senior Officer (Feed Resources), Animal Production and Health Division, FAO, Via della terme di Caracalla, 00100-Rome, Italy. An updated version (February 1994) has been prepared and is now available in Spanish, French and English versions.
This new edition of the Manual for Tropical Feed Researchers, prepared for FAO by Dr T R Preston, has been restructured to reflect the changing role of livestock in a world committed to sustainable use of renewable natural resources.
Copies can be obtained from: The Senior Officer, Feed Resources Group, AGA, FAO, 00100 Rome Italy
The Ecological Farm, also known as 'Finca Ecologica', now has a presence on the World Wide Web. The aim of the site is give a digestible overview of the technologies that are in use on the Ecological Farm. We hope to develop the site further, adding facts and figures, research abstracts and links to relevant papers, for those readers who want to follow up the subject more deeply. The URL for the site is:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ecofarm
The first MSc course, executed by UTA and funded by the Danish
embassy in Hanoi, is in progress. It was designed as a 'learning
by doing' experience which encompassed the development of
practical skills in natural resource management through to the
use of modern computer technology replacing the teacher and the
classroom with a dynamic global source of information. The use of
computers and email allowed each of the students to achieve their
full potential through access to the most experienced scientists
throughout the world, most of who have access to email. Students
participating in the first of these courses are now actively
engaged in their research projects.
Details are available on:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/utaf