contacts

areas of operations

Dissemination

The out-reach documentation and dissemination activities of CED are the following:

1. DOCPOST
2. DOCALERT
3. Publication Distribution
4. Backgrounders, Publications

Website and Intranet

1. Docpost
Our Docpost (Documentation by Post) service will send you xeroxes of clippings and articles on subjects you choose.  The charges for these services cover only a part of the documentation and photocopy costs.

Types of Docpost

•  When you need, on an ongoing basis, as much information as we keep on chosen topics from our classification system, we offer - DOCPOST REGULAR

•  When you have specific need and want us to choose for you, we offer- DOCPOST SELECTIVE

When you want everything from a particular subject file for a particular period in the past, you can ask for - DOCPOST ARCHIVES 2.

2. DOCALERT
Under DOCALERT, every fortnight we send out listings of all new books, reports and documents and important clippings to 900 people who have specifically requested for the service. The user can then ask for specific photocopies. Since CED maintains the clippings and documents in its archive, there is no need to place an order immediately as in other such services. Thus users make requests as when they need it. The ALERTS are also useful reference material by itself. A few users have made good use of them.

3. Publications Distribution
We distribute books, pamphlets, videos and audiocassettes brought out by NGOs and campaign organizations and which aren't always easily available. CED maintains a stock of NGO publications as well as some key titles relating to development and social justice issues. Currently, we have about 500 titles in our list.

4. Publications
CED has been experimenting with different forms of publications. Most of you will recall how our Counterfacts on Health Issues, Factsheets on major issues, and Papers of Development experimented with innovative form, and low cost but attractive printing options. Last year we finished three backgrounders. However since there was a delay in the printing of two of the backgrounders, we made updates and experimented with the form of pointing out to references and reading materials, and providing interesting leads to articles, in order to encourage the reader to refer and access different documents at CED.

Meanwhile the Globalisation Backgrounder has been well received and reviewed. CED did the marketing and distribution work directly. The books have been kept in 28 bookshops And we have sold 472 copies.

5. Website and Intranet
On the electronic front one of the major achievements has been the setting up of our Intranet. CED has developed its Intranet during this period using browser technology in open-source software. The Browser Technology Model has been chosen in order to provide for vertical integration of our Knowledge Management and our Internal Management and Documentation systems, to the Indexing and cataloguing of CEDs information, as well as to information on the Wide Area Network, Internet and Distributed Systems. Within this platform-independent technology, CED has chosen the more difficult path of using open-source software, so that the technology can easily be shared with organizations, without expensive proprietary software and problems of patents and copyright. This will definitely help move towards the goal of information and knowledge sharing as part of networking efforts among NGOs and campaign organizations.

In the last year we have developed the preliminary programmes to search our complete catalogue of books, reports, journals, clippings etc. We have also installed a discussion board, a calendar of events, and a chat system which we use for communication and meetings between Bombay and Bangalore. The latter features have the potential to enhance horizontal and section-to-section co-ordination and communication between the two centres at different levels.

Development is still going on to bring in more programmes and facilities to the Intranet. The basic aim is to provide remote access to NGOs, and CEDs other users to the catalogues and database. Ultimately, we wish to promote peer-to-peer interest group communication, and information exchange, as opposed to the wide and impersonal net that Internet Service Providers aim for in order to make commercial ends meet.

Meanwhile, CED has developed its website which provides the following information on-line:

a. Catalogue of all reports, books, and important articles at CED, with access codes

b. Details information on CEDs services, like DOCALERT, DOCPOST with on-line subscription

c. List of Publications available for distribution/sale

d. About CED and donations

e. Top of the Docs. Full text of important documents, especially of those reports which do not get the attention they deserve

•  Events and Announcements

CED's information system is made up of the following elements:
•  Database of documents, books and material enabling, retrieval of these materials as well as preparing bibliographies, by subject author, keyword, publisher, date etc. (MCS)

•  Database and automatic linking to texts of articles, reports, news reports, again by subject, keyword dates, author etc. (ELDOC)

•  Processed and re-packaging / ordering of material in electronic form. (DOCSWEB)

•  Database of addresses, physical email and telephone numbers, with facilities for generating mass email either piped directly from the documentation, or from prepared newsletters. (MCS & DOCeMAIL)

•  A networked system of correspondence generation, filing, and correspondence administration, by following simple rules of filenaming, and linking correspondence

•  An email system of communications of discreet messages, a add on system of bulletin board interfaced with the email to provide topic-wise history (EMAIL & BULLETIN BOARD)

•  a Knowledge Management and generation system, using simple browser technology. (OFFICEWEB)

All the above information is accessed by three sets of users
•  Internet Users: This is the portion of information, which is accessible to anyone in the world. It is mainly advocacy and educational material, containing the first layer of information. They can access the information, place orders, send feedback, messages etc.

•  Extranet Users: The information accessed at this layer is more specialised, and of specific use to a group of people who either pay or are members or specific groups of beneficiaries of the project. There is provision for their contribution to the effort. Such contribution is not taken directly into the website. The material needs to be processed or indexed by the next layer.

•  Intranet Users: That is the staff within the organisation or members of the Platform, who generate the material, does the documentation work, edits records, as well as searches the database, and retrieves the information either for internal purposes, or publications or for helping users/beneficiaries.

The popularisation of browser technology has allowed CED to use it as the main interface or front-end with the user, whatever their level. The back end or the host level programming is done in such away that no specialized knowledge of computers is required at the user end, for any of the operations at any of the levels. Further, different users may be using and/or updating the same data, using different programmes simultaneously.