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FAQ
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What is UKOP?
What can UKOP do for me?
Who will use UKOP?
I have subscribed to UKOP in the past with ProQuest. What is
different about the new version of the service?
How do I find the documents that I want?
What does UKOP contain, and how much full-text is there?
How often is UKOP updated?
How do I search UKOP?
How does the UKOP thesaurus work?
How does e-mail alerting work?
Can I get help using UKOP?
Technical Information
How can I subscribe to UKOP?
I previously subscribed to UKOP with ProQuest. How will I be
affected? |
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UKOP is the official catalogue of UK official publications; it is
the serious resource for those who need to know what government says. UKOP
combines the official catalogue of The Stationery Office, with the Catalogue of
Official Publications Not Published by The Stationery Office.
The combination of these catalogues creates the most comprehensive and
up-to-date source of government publications in the UK. The inclusion of
thousands of documents archived in full-text adds considerable value to this
catalogue.
UKOP comprehensively catalogues the output of over 2000 official bodies,
including:
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Parliament
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Devolved administrations
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Government departments
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Quangos
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Agencies
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International bodies such as the United Nations and World Health Organisation
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UKOP will help you:
Keep up-to-date
with official publications. The service is updated daily, allowing you to
access the most recent publications from any given government body, including
the devolved administrations. In addition, you can select an area of interest,
such as education or transport, and receive weekly e-mails notifying you of new
publications.
Get the whole story. UKOP takes the full-text
of crucial documents and stores them permanently, so you don't have to. Over
12,000 key documents are archived every year, and a quarter of these will be
digitised especially for inclusion in UKOP. The entire archive is available to
all subscribers, giving you access to a valuable repository of official
documents.
Save time
and eliminate the need for partial indexes. UKOP is the only fully
comprehensive catalogue of its kind. The catalogue goes back to 1980 and
contains over 450,000 records, cataloguing publications from over 2000
government bodies.
Find the right document
first time. UKOP uses powerful and intuitive software to make searching the
catalogue fast, easy and effective. The service also contains a number of
features that enable you to search exactly the way you want to. |
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UKOP is designed for everyone who needs to keep track of UK
government information. It provides up-to-date information on Parliamentary and
departmental publications, and includes thousands of documents in full-text. It
delivers relevant, timely information to those who must know what government
says.
Higher education
The depth and breadth of UKOP makes it invaluable to librarians and academics
in the social sciences.
Scholars researching recent UK political history and current government
activity can discover relevant official publications quickly and easily.
Those requiring information on specific government policies and recommendations
can pinpoint the necessary documents without difficulty.
Daily updating means that information on the latest publications is available -
and thousands of documents are available in full-text, reducing time otherwise
spent searching through collections or ordering missing documents.
Business
Compliance with government recommendations, regulations and statutory
requirements is of prime importance in the commercial sector.
Those interested in particular business issues (from consumer law and safety in
the workplace to e-commerce and investment) can locate factsheets, guidance
notes, statistics and thousands of other documents that may affect company
policy.
The most important official publications are increasingly available in the UKOP
full text archive. Daily updating ensures that the most current information is
available, and e-mail alerting means it can be delivered straight to your
desktop.
National, regional and local government
Through UKOP, civil servants, government officers and public sector employees
at all levels are able to keep abreast of developments in government across the
United Kingdom.
It is also possible to access the Parliamentary and departmental documents that
affect a particular constituency or region, without having to seek information
from individual organisations.
Whether you:
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need a broad perspective on a specific issue
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need to know more about a department's position on a certain matter
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have a query on a particular document
the relevant information is available in UKOP.
Public libraries
Through public libraries, UKOP provides the citizen with access to the
full-text of thousands of significant official documents.
For example, if you are interested in:
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regulations on organic food
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governmental opinion on mobile phones
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animal welfare recommendations
you will find the information you are looking for in UKOP.
The easy-to-use interface will allow you to find relevant official publications
with ease, even if you are unfamiliar with web delivered services or the
structure of government information.
Other groups
UKOP is the only serious resource for anyone who needs to know what government
says. Other organisations that can benefit from the unparalleled access to
official information that UKOP provides include:
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charities and voluntary organisations
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media and broadcast organisations
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single issue and consumer groups
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lobby groups and public affairs consultancies
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trade associations and industry representatives
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international government documentation centres
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| I have subscribed to UKOP in the past with ProQuest. What
is different about the new version of the service? |
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In March 2003, TSO (The Stationery Office) announced its
acquisition of its partner ProQuest Information and Learning's share of the
United Kingdom Official Publications (UKOP) database and associated
publications.
TSO retained responsibility for maintaining the bibliographic record of
government's output when it acquired the trading functions of HMSO in 1996.
Complete ownership of UKOP, together with TSO's appointment by the
International DOI Foundation as a Registration Agency for Digital Object
Identifiers, provides an opportunity for TSO to work with the government
information community to provide a complete record of the discoverable output
of Government.
UKOP, now hosted by TSO, maintains a number of key features to make searching
for official documents easier and more effective:
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increased access to full text, including digital versions of documents not
available elsewhere in electronic format
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daily updating
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email alerting
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search history
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new clear design
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software which allows more powerful and flexible searching
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| How do I find the documents that I want? |
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UKOP has been designed to provide a better service for all those
who need to keep up with the workings of government. UKOP uses powerful and
intuitive software to make searching the catalogue fast, easy and effective,
and so that you can find the documents that you need:
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One box easy search should find the documents you need first time
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Advanced search option allows you to perform fielded, Boolean or command line
searches, as well as to search on related meanings or variant spellings of
words
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Context sensitive help is available to provide guidance throughout the service
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If you have any queries, contact the UKOP webmaster or UKOP esupport team for
help
UKOP also allows you to make use of the results of your searches in the way
that you find most helpful. You can use the Search History option to store
search terms for later use, or you can elect to have the results of searches
emailed to you so you can look at them another time. |
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| What does UKOP contain, and how much full-text is there? |
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UKOP catalogues the output of Parliament, the devolved
administrations, and over 2000 UK government departments, agencies and quangos.
UKOP currently has over 450,000 bibliographic entries dating back to 1980, with
around 100 new records being added each day
As well as being a comprehensive bibliographic resource, UKOP now provides
unprecedented access to thousands of official publications in an archive of
full text. Official publications are permanently stored in the UKOP full text
archive, subject to the permission of the issuing departments. The lifetime of
an official document online can often be less than 3 months. By capturing and
archiving documents that are already available online UKOP ensures that you do
not waste time searching for documents that may have been deleted or moved.
Over 12,000 documents are archived within UKOP each year.
In addition, an editorial panel of official publications experts have
identified a UKOP core collection of documents in the following categories:
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Press releases
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Circular letters
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Factsheets
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Guidance notes
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Consultation papers
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Statistics
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Annual reports
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Inspection reports
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Inquiry reports
Where no online versions of documents in these categories exist, they are being
digitised especially for inclusion in UKOP. Each year around 3000 key official
documents will be digitised from their print originals for inclusion in the
UKOP full text archive. In this way, UKOP provides access to full text that is
not available elsewhere on the web. |
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| How often is UKOP updated? |
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| UKOP is updated daily Monday to Friday with all new catalogue
records. Full text documents are added as soon as they are made available to
the Editorial Team, usually within 24 hours. |
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You can search UKOP by typing the subject of the document you are
looking for into the search box on the homepage. Simply click Go or hit return
and UKOP will return all the records meeting your search criteria. You can then
choose to re-sort your records by date, relevance, issuing body or title.
If you want more control over how your search is performed, choose advanced
search. Two advanced search screens are available:
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Select flexible search if you would like to search on related meanings or
variant spellings of your search term.
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Alternatively, use Boolean search to perform Boolean or command line searches.
Both advanced search screens allow fielded searching, so that you can restrict
your search by issuing body, title, ISBN for example, or to a particular range
of dates. To make continued research easier we have introduced a Search History
option. To save a search click on the Save this Search tab at the bottom of the
list of results. You will be asked to create your own user profile by entering
a username and password of your choice. Your search terms will then be added to
a personal search history screen, which you can return to at a later date to
relaunch or refine your research. |
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| How does the UKOP thesaurus work? |
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Like a print thesaurus, the UKOP thesaurus helps you to find words
that are similar in meaning to your search terms, such as "asylum seeker" and
"refugee". As well as relating everyday English words, the UKOP thesaurus also
contains a customised section that relates specifically to the activities of UK
government and official publications, for instance, searching on "MAFF" will
find the "Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food".
When searching directly from the home page, the UKOP thesaurus works behind the
scenes, intelligently relating words for you, and bringing back pertinent
results. If however you would like to control your search more closely, you can
use the advanced search option to choose to search only words that are
"directly", "closely" or "generally" related to your search terms. |
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| How does e-mail alerting work? |
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| E-mail alerting will notify you of new official publications in
over 30 subject areas, including education, transport, and law and order. Click
on the
UPDATES BY E-MAIL
link on the home page and you will be asked to register your e-contact details.
Each week you will receive an e-mail containing links to the records added to
UKOP in your chosen subject areas. |
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| Can I get help using UKOP? |
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UKOP is designed to be easy to use for information professionals
and novice users alike, plus:
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Each part of the service comes with context sensitive help
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The UKOP webmaster can help with queries on any aspect of the service. Email us
on [email protected]
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On request ,we will provide you with a training manual and other materials to
walk you through UKOP
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What browsers can I use to view the UKOP website?
The UKOP website supports Internet Explorer version 5 and above.
Why does my Netscape browser give lots of errors?
The UKOP website does not support Netscape. Internet Explorer version 5 and
above is supported.
What software do I need to view the full text documents in UKOP?
UKOP full text documents are stored in PDF format, which means that you will
need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view them. This can be downloaded, free of
charge from www.adobe.com. Version 4 and
above of Acrobat Reader are fully supported by the UKOP website. |
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| How can I subscribe to UKOP? |
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| To subscribe to UKOP, please e-mail
[email protected]. Once you have completed your details, a
customer services representative will contact you with details of subscription
options. |
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| I previously subscribed to UKOP with ProQuest. How will I
be affected? |
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back to top |
In March 2003, TSO (The Stationery Office) announced its
acquisition of its partner ProQuest Information and Learning's share of the
United Kingdom Official Publications (UKOP) database and associated
publications.
If you were previously a ProQuest UKOP customer, you will have been contacted
with full details of transferring your subscriptions to TSO. If you have any
questions, please contact us on [email protected]. |
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