New reference website

ADSET, as some people are aware is a membership organisation and when you ask a question the whole membership MAY be involved in providing your answer. However, the day-to-day research work that ADSET does is just two of us - Hazel (that's me) and Dawn (who refers to me as "Boss"). We have, over time, evolved what we think is a good split of responsibilities -- ologies not starting with "tech" or "info" are Dawn's responsibility (she's a sociologist) and everything else is mine. I'm not sure what I would call myself -- 22 years as a civil servant, most of the time spent in the JobCentre service, 5 years with ADSET as an employee, 12 years as the MD, CEO, CIO, FD and general dog's body don't seem to fit into a mould. Perhaps "Boss" will do.

Anyway, I was reading e-content mag and came across an article about a social issues database -- definitely in Dawn's province! WiseTo Social Issues provides, says e-content, "a balanced look at all sides of social issues and current events, including professionally written information on more than 100 subjects". Sounds wonderful but ...

Dawn says: "It's a good idea in theory, but this site doesn't really do what is claims. It's very American [not necessarily a bad thing -- just makes it less useful to readers in the UK] and the information is presented with a firm American bias. And, of course, there's the problem that one person's balanced look is another person's rabid right-wing outpourings. The section on abortion is particularly interesting. It clearly states that the camp is split into 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' and that both have valid points to make, but then it seemed to descend (to me, at least) into a load of drivel about how the pro-choicers are actually misinformed, misguided and just plain wrong! A nice idea, but I won't be going back."