Although the University of Liege (ULg) network of libraries webpage is very old and ugly, the network is starting to use new, technologically advanced tools to allow digital access to its content (articles, books, thesis and other media). Three tools are available since a short time:
- Source gives access to all media currently available in libraries (it replaces the Telnet-based Liber, for those who used it before). Source is based on Aleph from ExLibris, a proprietary software.
- PoPuPS is a publication platform for scientific journals from the ULg and the FSAGx. PoPuPS is based on Lodel CMS, a free (GPL) web publishing software. Articles in this database seem to be Open Access although no precise licence is defined (and some articles look strange : see the second picture in this geological article).
- BICTEL/e is an institutional repository of Ph.D. thesis. It seems to be developed internally by the UCL
With these tools, the ULg try to catch the Open Access movement. Source is already connected to other types of databases but it seems that PoPuPS and BICTEL are not (yet) connected to cross-references systems like DOI nor using standardised metadata like in Eprints.
P.S. an old tool is still very usefull: Antilope gives you the location (in Belgium) of publications. If your library doesn’t have a subscription to a specific journal, maybe another library in Belgium has it.
Jean-Etienne's blog 