NOTICE: Hard copies of the Australian New Crops Newsletter are available from the publisher, Dr Rob Fletcher. Details of availability are included in the
Advice on Publications Available.The Information Super-Highway is on the tip of many people's tongues but the fact is that most people have never seen it and have no idea what it is or of what relevance it may be to them (Is it all about computer geeks and games?). On the other hand, many people accept it as a useful day-to-day information resource and even a serious research tool. Of the people who have regular access, many undertake to not only be information-users but also information-providers and this is how "the net" has become such a useful thing.
The most used and user-friendly resource is the World Wide Web which has approximately 30 million users . Most documents on "the web" allow you to simply click with a mouse on highlighted words or pictures to navigate to the next piece of information. Like any good modern library, there are also search capabilities. A quick search the other day on the word "agriculture" returned 6888 hits; "crops" returned 1563; "new crops" returned only 2 so I will describe these.
The first is the New Crops discussion group run from Purdue University in Indiana, USA which we have already described in this space in Issue 2 of this Newsletter. The other is a World Wide Web resource, also at Purdue, called NewCROP (New Crops Resource Online Program). This is an electronic information system that provides a window to new and speciality crops and coverage of the activities in the Indiana Centre for New Crops and Plant Products.
The address of the server is http:// newcrop.hort. purdue.edu. This accesses a welcome page that offers links to CropREFERENCE, a new crops bibliography; CropSEARCH, brief descriptions of hundreds of crops; FactSHEET, expanded descriptions of selected crops (including pictures!); CropEXPERT, names and addresses of U.S. contacts; NewcropNEWS, electronic copies of the Purdue New Crops News; and NewcropEVENTS, a list of events at the Indiana Centre, including their upcoming third conference.
The New Crops Group at Gatton has been developing a similar resource which incorporates the Australian New Crops Newsletter, information on the First Australian New Crops Conference, New Crop Profiles and a directory of Australian New Crops workers. This resource should be publicly available soon. We would like to hear about other Australian Internet resources in agriculture.
There are of course many other resources of potential interest to the diverse group of people who are involved in new crops and some selected sites that may be of interest include the following titles:
Any claims made by authors in the Australian New Crops Newsletter are presented by the Editors in good faith. Readers would be wise to critically examine the circumstances associated with any claims to determine the applicability of such claims to their specific set of circumstances. This material can be reproduced, with the provision that the source and the author (or editors, if applicable) are acknowledged and the use is for information or educational purposes. Contact with the original author is probably wise since the material may require updating or amendment if used in other publications. Material sourced from the Australian New Crops Newsletter cannot be used out of context or for commercial purposes not related to its original purpose in the newsletter
Contact: Dr Rob Fletcher, School of Land and Food, The University of Queensland Gatton College, 4345; Telephone: 07 5460 1311 or 07 5460 1301; Facsimile: 07 5460 1112; International facsimile: 61 7 5460 1112; Email:
r.fletcher@mailbox.uq.edu.au[
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GK; latest update 6 June 1999 by: RF