Volume 11, Number 1, 1999 |
Welcome to Volume 11, Number 1 of Livestock Research for Rural
Development, the thirty-second issue of the journal.
The editorial strategy of Livestock Research for Rural Development is to promote the distribution of ideas and hypotheses as well as the documentation of relevant research findings in sustainable use of natural renewable resources. The medium for the former (ideas and hypotheses) traditionally has been through the presentation of short research communications usually at a conference, seminar, workshop or a meeting of members of a scientific association. At such meetings, when many short papers are submitted, these may be accommodated in simultaneous sessions for oral presentation or increasingly in the form of posters. The latter procedure is proving to be the more attractive as it facilitates the dissemination of information by having it available on a continuous basis throughout a meeting rather than at selected times as is the case with theatre presentations.
In the same way that the "tele-conference", employing E-mail and WWW communication, is emerging as a cost-effective alternative to the localised (in time and place) scientific gathering, so the "electronic journal" can become a medium for the "poster" presentations. The editors of LRRD are encouraging this approach by means of a section in the journal devoted exclusively to "poster" presentations. It is hoped that by creating a medium for presenting ideas based on preliminary observations, readers interested in the data will be encouraged to enter into a dialogue with the authors using the "lrrd-discuss" discussion list. Details for the submission of the posters are given in "guides to authors".
HTML 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 a form of pre-publication as soon as they are formatted in HTML, thus increasing tremendously the speed of communication of information.
A counter has been installed on the LRRD Homepage to record the numbers of visitors. The trend over the 18 months since records were kept is shown in Figure 1. On average 9.6 persons have been visiting the Home Page daily during the past year, up from 6.6 persons per day in the first six months.
All previous issues of the journal have now been converted to HTML format (thanks to CIPAV staff in Colombia), thus there is available on the Internet through the CIPAV web pages a library of nearly 10 years of research in the field of developing world sustainable agriculture.
Figure 1: Visits to LRRD since posting it on the WWW in May 1997
The HTML version of LRRD is available on the WWW at:
http://www.cipav.org.co/lrrd/lrrdhome.html
and
http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/FAOINFO/AGRICULT/AGA/AGAP/FRG/lrrd.htm
For readers in Asia it is also available on: http://www.hcm.fpt.vn/inet/~lrrd
The MS-DOS, Windows Help and pdf formats are now discontinued.
Comments about the journal should be sent to the Editors
trpreston@email.com in Vietnam
rene_sansoucy@csi.com in France
Volumes 1 to 9 of LRRD are now available in HTML format on a CD ROM disk. Readers who wish to receive copies should send their requests to;
The first MSc course, executed by UTA and funded by the Danish embassy in Hanoi, has been completed. Copies of the research papers that form the theses of the first group of students, and information about the Foundation, are available on the UTAF site at:
http://www.hcm.fpt.vn/inet/~utaf
The Ecological Farm, also known as 'Finca Ecologica', located on the Campus of the College of Agriculture and Forestry of the National University of Ho Chi Minh city, now has a presence on the World Wide Web. The aim of the site is to give a digestible overview of the technologies that are in use on the Ecological Farm. The site has been changed and has recently (25 October 1998) been updated. The URL for the site is:
http://www.hcm.fpt.vn/inet/~ecofarm
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 (September 1998) has been prepared and is now available.
Copies can be obtained from: The Senior Officer, Feed Resources Group, AGA, FAO, 00100 Rome Italy
e-mail: andrew.speedy@fao.org
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