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Wild Blueberry Network Information Centre Profile
The Wild Blueberry Network Information Centre project began in June
1997 to provide scientific and technical information about wild blueberry
production and marketing for producers, agricultural professionals, researchers
and students by publishing information on the Internet through the World
Wide Web.
The initiative was originally a combined effort of
the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, MacRae Library, Nova Scotia
Agricultural College, Wild Blueberry Producers’ Association, and
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Research Branch. After 2000 the NSAC
continued to maintain the site, taking advantage of the resources of
all provinces in the Atlantic region, the University of Maine and beyond.
The site is also listed on the US AgNIC site as the repository of record
for information on wild blueberries.
WBNIC has undergone some exciting changes in 2007. The site
has a new look and structure and new content, including full-text
content. A new template and navigation options were added. Bibliographies,
factsheets, the History of the Wild Blueberry Industry in Nova
Scotia by Gordon Kinsman, and research reports are now centrally
located in the Research Centre section. The bibliography has
been updated to the year 2000, new factsheets and newsletters
from the Atlantic Provinces and Maine have been added, and abstracts
and links to PDF theses are now available. The scope of the
site has expanded to include information on the indigenous lingonberry
and cloudberry. We are also actively looking for other information
providers who would like to provide the site with links or information
that would be of interest to people.
The collection can be used for information or education purposes, provided
the source is cited in full.
The WBNIC receives an average of 9700 requests per
month (from 1997 to 2004) totalling more than 1,000,000
such request since the site went on line in June 1997.
(as of Nov 2004). We are able to track how many pages
are requested per month, per week and per hour (see
figure above). Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the busiest
days, with requests peaking in the middle of the afternoon
but occurring 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. While
the majority of requests have come from North America
including the .com, .net, ca and .edu domains, there
are requests from over 60 different counties around
the world. The most requested pages include the history
pages authored by Gordon Kinsman followed by the advice
and fact sheet pages.The people who maintain the site
seek to provide links to the best sources of information
on wild blueberries and to serve as a point of contact
for questions on wild blueberries. Some of the most
important aspects of the site include:
- production, marketing and pest control
fact sheets
- history of the wild blueberry industry
in Nova Scotia by Gordon Kinsman, Volumes I (1880
- 1950) and II (1950 - 1990)
- bibliography of wild blueberry publications
(1955 - 2000), some contained in the collections
of the MacRae Library, Nova Scotia Agricultural College
- abstracts of articles and links to theses
- Home institutions for blueberry specialists
in North Americ
- related sites, organizations, recipes,
health benefits
- ask the expert and frequently asked
questions (FAQ) section where people can e-mail questions
that will be answered by experts in the field and
maybe posted for others to access.
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