Greetings and best wishes for the Year End.

SideLines, December 2005

Our thoughts are especially with those who have received the rough end of the stick, through natural or social disaster.

As a gift to present and future Co-op members, we have created a new family of blogs. These are centered around a blog called "The Research Cooperative Community" (see www.researchco-op.blogspot.com). The subsidiary sites are all free, courtesy of blogger.com, and could be useful for individuals, groups, or companies that wish to promote or discuss research writing or language services online.

Blogger.com provides free hosting for simple blog sites that are adequate for many purposes. The sites are easy to use because the instructions are all online, and because blogging systems have improved rapidly in recent years. The system offered by blogger.com is highly refined and is designed for first-time users. No previous internet experience is needed to set up your own site.

What I have done, in effect, is reserve a goodly number of relevant addresses for the use of Co-op members. Since no cost is involved (other than my time), these can be maintained indefinitely on the zero budget of our Co-op.

The new blogsites are listed in the menu at www.researchco-op.blogspot.com (visit the blogsite and the links menu to see them). If you have registered at our main Co-op site (www.researchco-op.co.nz) to use the forums, then you are automatically a Co-op member and can apply, by email to me, to use one of

For editors, translators and others who have limited financial resources, or who are trying to get themselves known and established in their chosen field, these free blog sites may be very attractive. Because they are linked to the main Co-op website, they form a family closely-related sites that has the potential to become highly visible on the internet.

Do not expect these sites to be highly visible immediately - their visibility will depend on the combined efforts of all persons involved, over time (for members with suitable financial resources, a single blog could be given greater visibility through paid advertising).

Please visit our new Network site, consider, and apply! If you have questions about how to use the sites, or what can be done with them, then ask me, or use the online Help system at blogger.com.

Thanks, Peter J. Matthews (for The Research Cooperative), with the assistance of Jules Verne of the Wikimedia Commons, 2005.

Welcome

Through a combination of websites and blogs, the Research Cooperative network provides online support for academic research and research writing, editing, translation, proofreading, web design, illustration, and other work. The present blog links our network and serves as an archive for the SideLines monthly commentary at our first site, The Research Cooperative NZ (see menu at left)

The present blog will eventually provide the following:

(1) ) an email list subscription service for registered members of the Research Cooperative.

(3) an archival service for The Research Cooperative NZ

Support Universities in Pakistan and India

SideLines, November 2005

Three to four million people were made homeless in the South Asian Earthquake just one month ago. In Pakistan, entire villages and more than 7,000 schools were destroyed.
Local universities in the region will feel the impact of this earthquake for decades, and many are involved in the immediate relief efforts. If you have colleagues in Pakistan, please contact them to offer help in some way. The Research Cooperative is attempting to collate information on affected universities in Pakistan, and the relief efforts being carried out by universities in that country.

If you can offer any relevant information, please contact Peter at the address below. See also our pages for this subject at http://researchco-op.net/universitiespk.html

Contact The Research Cooperative (NZ): info (at) researchco-op (dot) co.nz ).