Down Syndrome Abstracts
This project will create and maintain a freely accessible database of books, articles,
presentations and resources relating to Down syndrome to make discovering appropriate
information quick and straightforward for families, professionals and researchers.
There is an extensive literature associated with Down syndrome. A large part of
the scientific literature is indexed in a variety of specialist bibliographic databases
such as PsycINFO and
Medline. However, some of the scientific literature and much of the more
general, practical information available is not indexed in these services. Furthermore,
although some services (ERIC and Medline via PubMed) are openly available via the
Internet, some are not, and extracting helpful information about Down syndrome out
of them can be a challenge, even for practised researchers.
This project will develop a specialist bibliographic database and provide online
access to it.
This project will help families, practitioners and researchers quickly locate scientific
papers and more general information resources when they need them.
Down Syndrome Abstracts will be closely integrated with the charity's other
information resources, providing abstract display for references in books and articles
on Down Syndrome Online, supporting indexing of
the Down Syndrome Archive and
Down Syndrome Research and Practice.
The Down Syndrome Abstracts service will be freely accessible on Down Syndrome Online at
http://www.down-syndrome.org/abstracts/
This project will support research activities by providing quick and effective access
to the scientific literature across disciplines.
- Up-to-date index of articles, scientific papers, books, presentations and resources
of interest to families, practitioners and researchers supporting people with Down
syndrome.
- Free access search via Down Syndrome Online providing
quick and effective discovery of resources to around 100,000 regular web site users
each year.
Progress
Initial database design, infrastructure development and some of the programming
has been completed. Initial data currently only includes papers published in Trust
publications and hosted on Down Syndrome Online.
Funding
We are seeking further funds for this project.
Further funding is necessary to progress search interface programming and index
content editing. Substantial initial editing is required to populate the index with
back content (estimated at around 50,000 entries). Thereafter, the ongoing editing
requirement is estimated at around 600 entries each year.
If you would like to support this work, please visit our giving site for details
of how you can help or contact giving@downsed.org.
Work completed to date has been partly funded from grants received from The Lyle
Foundation (USA) towards Internet information dissemination and services work. Web
site systems are hosted on computer hardware partly funded by The Vodafone UK Foundation.
The remainder of work completed to date has been supported from general funds.