Search

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 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.