Heike vom Orde, International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television, is talking on ISM: A German Network for Internet Resources on Media Education. The ISM database is only in German, but the IZI-Datenbank.de has an English language version. The ISM database covers media education, literacy, research, and policy. It also has information on educational television. It includes media catalogs, a media competence starting kit, reference databases, and project information databases. User-friendly aspects include one common database design for 6 databases, cross-concordance of descriptors (done by human, not automated), a simplification and standardization of database fields, and options for limiting search results to lierature, project information, or media resources.

The second talk in this session is given by Robert Bull, Business Development Director, DS Ltd. and Martin Hayes, West Sussex County Library Services, about a heritage research portal that allows simultaneous searches across West Sussex databases.