Search

The article focuses on the home page of the Australian Institute of Family Studies which is now accessible via the World Wide Web. Like most Web sites, the Institute's Home Page will be an ongoing project and a means of reporting on the Institute's activities, of disseminating information from its databases and resource collections, and promoting the development of networks with other organisations concerned with family research and policy. The inaugural March 1996 version offers information about the Institute, the Institute's research program, information services and projects. Plans for the addition of new items in the next financial year include access to the Institute's library catalogue, to selected abstracts from the Australian Family and Society Abstracts database, and to databases and full text documents from the National Child Protection Clearing House. The full text of selected Institute publications and papers will also be made available, for example, the papers from the Institute's forthcoming Australian Family Research Conference.

The article features the Australian Institute of Family Studies web site on various worldwide family research and family policy resources. Australia is one of the top ten countries for Internet use, making the World Wide Web an effective medium to disseminate research and policy information on Australian family issues. There are a number of new features on the Australian institute of Family Studies Web site--all part of this year's planned improvements and new developments. A new page to record presentations and conference papers by Institute staff gives a more informal view of the Institute's research activity before published reports are available. The Family Court site has an extensive collection of information for clients, lawyers and students of family law.

This article presents information on features of Web sites of the Australian Institute of Family Studies on the family. The Institute's Annual Report 1998-99 and a number of new Institute papers can now be accessed from the Publications page at: www.aifs.org.au/institute/pubs/pubsmenu.html. The Institute has recently established two email discussion forums to support discussion and networking in the fields of child abuse prevention and marriage and relationship education, and an Institute announcements list. Childprotect aims to promote the exchange of information and ideas between Australasian and other professionals working in the field of child abuse prevention and child protection, including child protection workers, other health and welfare service providers, people working in the criminal justice system, in education and training or in policy and service planning, researchers and information providers. Marriage and Relationship Education aims to establish a network of marriage and relationship education researchers and practitioners, and to provide a forum for discussion of issues related to the research, practice and further development of marriage and relationship education in Australia. Aifs-alert has been set up as a means of keeping people up to date with Institute activities and new developments on the Web site.

This article identifies various worldwide family research web sites. The Australian Institute of Family Studies' web site continues to grow to the extent that a review, redesign and revamp of its structure have been underway over the last few months. All pages now have a consistent look with navigational headers and footers and colour coding for key areas to assist movement between main pages such as Research, Information, Publications and Conferences. They have introduced a Media Releases page that records formal media releases to the press. The Institute's Publications page has been redesigned for easier use. The main page now lists all publications in chronological order, with the most recent first, and whether the title is available in hard copy or online. The Institute's Australian Family & Society Abstracts data base, which records the literature of family and social issues in Australia via citations and abstracts, now offers direct access to many documents available in full text on the World Wide Web. For example, Institute publications, many government documents, conference papers and journal articles. When an online document is available, an active Internet link will appear after the citation leading database users directly to the online document. INSET: Adolescent relationships and wellbeing study.

This article focuses on the Australian Institute of Family Studies' Web site. The Web site provides Institute research, information projects and publications, and access to Institute databases and resource collections. A feature of the Institute's Web site for the past two months has been the Institute's conference, "Changing Families, Challenging Futures," held in Melbourne, Victoria in November 1998. The Institute's Web site offers a full listing of Institute publications with descriptions, prices and information for ordering print copies. A growing collection of papers is also directly available from the Web site. Users should select "Publications" and click on "Current Publications," to find works arranged in subject groupings and also a list of titles available in full text. Child protection and youth suicide prevention are the foci of two specialist information projects hosted by the Institute. To provide access to the current literature in these subject areas a series of regularly updated bibliographies has been compiled.