Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Special Collections News Story

Comedy Turns Into Mystery At U of C

A great story that shows the link between primary resources and inquiry based learning.

New Cartoon Donation

"Intellectual Marijuana"

An essay on the changing attitudes to cartoons and comics in the 20th century. Nice to read in light of the recent Morley cartoon and comics donation.

-from Arts & Letters Daily

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Sensemaking

2005-01-00-sensemaking.html

Short article on sensemaking. A useful concept for libraries and information literacy.

The Worst Building on the Campus

The The Worst Building on the Campus

I love stories like this. Anyone want to comment on the worst office they ever had?

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Best Selling Dissertations

Bestsellers

Some good reads for your weekends on the beach.

HP Lovecraft hits the big time

HP Lovecraft Hits the Big Time

HP figures large in the Gibson Donation.

For another Cthulhu link go to

http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30

Science.gov now offers an alerting service

Science.gov ALERT Main

-from ResearchBuzz

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Scirus indexes patent data of 13 million patents

Scirus indexes patent data of 13 million patents

"Elsevier today announced that its free science-specific search engine, Scirus, has now indexed 13 million patents. Patents indexed in Scirus include those from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japanese Patent Office (JPO) and the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). By making patents available through its index, Scirus has expanded its service to include new and valuable information sources."

-from STLQ

Updates to Previous Entries on Scopus and Patent Downloading

Updates to Previous Entries on Scopus and Patent Downloading

Some added information from STLQ

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

New Product Announcement--->Dekker Encyclopedias

Dekker Encyclopedias

'Dekker is a digital publisher that offers authoritative scientific, technical, & medical content accessible at the article level with linked references. "

The library has invested in a selection of Dekker Encyclopedias--the available titles are:

Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplements
Situated as a scientific checkpoint for the many over-the-counter supplements carried in today's nutritional products marketplace, this definitive Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplements presents peer-reviewed, objective entries that rigorously review the most significant scientific research-funneling basic chemical, preclinical, and clinical data into a descriptive form universally useful to health care professionals, researchers, and educated, health-conscious consumers.


Encyclopedia of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Written by some 400 subject experts representing diverse academic and applied domains, this multidisciplinary resource surveys the vanguard of biomaterials and biomedical engineering technologies utilizing biomaterials—uncovering current lines of research as well as innovative applications in tissue engineering, prosthetics, drug delivery, biosensors, and medical devices. The Encyclopedia vibrantly portrays field progress through the placement of nearly 9000 literature citations, 200 chemical structures and equations, and 350 color graphics.


Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science
Targets new and dynamic movements in the distribution, acquisition, and development of print and online media—addressing recruitment, program planning in the digital era, information management, advances in digital technology and encoding, intellectual property issues, and hardware, software, and database selection and design.

Encyclopedia of water science
Abounding with figures, images, and illustrations previously unavailable in print publications, the Encyclopedia of Water Science provides instant access to the most effective procedures in agricultural water engineering—unveiling a wide spectrum of design concepts, methodologies, and solutions for enhanced performance of water quality, treatment, conservation, and irrigation methods, as well as improved water efficiency in agricultural programs.

Encyclopedia of biopharmaceutical statistics
Remaining on the cutting-edge of this rapidly evolving field, this unequaled resource has expanded more than 70% of its original entries to review amendments to regulatory requirements and recently developed statistical methods impacting the drug review/approval process and biopharmaceutical research and development.

Encyclopedia of medical genomics and proteomics
The Encyclopedia of Medical Genomics and Proteomics contains more than 250 entries dealing with the advances of molecular medicine in the areas of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of genetic and infectious diseases. It also covers the laboratory techniques used to analyze large proteins, RNA, and DNA.

Dekker encyclopedia of nanoscience and nanotechnology
Placing specialists at the forefront of the nanoscience revolution, this reference identifies current challenges and development paths sure to influence fields ranging from materials and surface science, chemistry, and biomedicine to computer technology, information processing, and mechanical, optical, and electrical engineering—examining the design, application, and utilization of devices, techniques, and technologies critical to research at atomic, molecular, and macromolecular levels ranging from 1–100 nanometers

Encyclopedia of supramolecular chemistry
Crystallizing a rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field—not to mention one of the most popular and newsworthy areas in contemporary chemistry—the two-volume Encyclopedia of Supramolecular Chemistry offers authoritative, centralized information on the topic. User-friendly and high-quality articles parse the latest supramolecular advancements and methods in the areas of chemistry, biochemistry, biology, environmental and materials science and engineering, physics, computer science, and applied mathematics. Designed for specialists and students alike, the Encyclopedia covers the fundamentals of supramolecular chemistry and sets the standard for relevant future research.

-descriptions from Site

New Product Announcement--->The music in print series

Music in print series

"I worked as an editor of the Music-In-Print Series for a number of years before forming emusicquest. Through the experiences of editing printed books and developing computer database solutions at Musicdata, Inc., my vision evolved into an Internet-based searchable sheet music index. emusicquest began in 2000 and focused on the areas of piano, band, and popular guitar - areas not covered by The Music-In-Print Series."

-description from Site

Index of Science Tracer Bullets Online

Index of Science Tracer Bullets Online.

"The Library of Congress SCIENCE TRACER BULLET SERIES contains research guides that help you locate information on science and technology subjects. With brief introductions to the topics, lists of resources and strategies for finding more, they help you to stay on target."

I wasn't aware of these kinda cool tools.

-from ResourceShelf

Librarian accuses Harvard of discrimination

Librarian accuses Harvard of discrimination

Consider this one of those "what would you do if you were the manager" type questions.

Still more

'Sexy' library worker pursues discrimination case

Monday, March 21, 2005

Discussion of potential of metasearching

Lorcan Dempsey's weblog

Another good (and brief) overview from Lorcan Dempsey on the difference between the library world, the google world, and the meta meaning of meta searching.

"So, metasearch is one response to fragmentation, albeit one with limited effectiveness. Another approach is to consolidate data resources into larger reservoirs. This has the advantage of reducing the burden of integration, and enhancing the ability to create value-added services. But how and at what level could this be done? What are the sensible and possible consolidations in between the universal Google and the current debilitating fragmentation?"

Wiley sues illegal resellers

Wiley::Corporate News

They used ebay....if there was a Darwin award for copyright violators they'd be shoe ins.

-from ResourceShelf

Friday, March 18, 2005

Reviews of Seattle's new public library

"Brutal" Architecture
-didn't like it

The New Yorker: The Critics: The Sky Line
-liked it

IR Research highlighted in InfoServ

IR Research highlighted in InfoServ

In case you missed it in print, here's a link to the March InfoServ which reported on the Research Symposium in December.

Kudos to Terry Reilly and Judy Loosmore for putting this together, I really enjoyed reading it as I wasn't able to go to all the talks.

France to develop Google 'rival'

France to develop Google 'rival'

News on plans to make european books available via the Internet.

-from Shawna

Author Andre Norton dies at age 93

Author Andre Norton dies at age 93


Obituary from Science Fiction Writers Association


Andre Norton has passed away after a long and productive career. Famous as an author, I wasn't aware that she was also a librarian by profession and avocation.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

New Product Announcement--->AltPressIndex

AltPressIndex (Alternative Press Index)

The Alternative Press Index is a quarterly subject index to over 250 alternative, radical and left periodicals, newspapers and magazines. Librarians consider the API to be the most comprehensive and up-to-date guide to alternative sources of information available today. Each article is listed and cross-referenced by subject. Every citation contains the title, author and information about the publication in which it is located.

New Product Announcement-->Methods in Enzymology

Methods in Enzymology

Access is from 2000 to present.

Here's the blurb from Amazon.com

The critically acclaimed laboratory standard, Methods in Enzymology, is one of the most highly respected publications in the field of biochemistry. Since 1955, each volume has been eagerly awaited, frequently consulted, and praised by researchers and reviewers alike. The series contains much material still relevant today - truly an essential publication for researchers in all fields of life sciences

Extremely nifty mapping and history tool for GB

Great Britain Historical GIS tool

The Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System is a unique digital collection of information about Britain's localities as they have changed over time. Information comes from census reports, historical gazetteers, travellers' tales and historic maps, assembled into a whole that is much more than the sum of its parts. This site tells you more about the project itself and about historical GIS.

-from Sue McKee

Interesting Web Site--->OECD launches new Factbook of economic, environmental and social indicators

Factbook of economic, environmental and social indicators

-from ResourceShelf

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

US Government Docs on Clusty

gov.clusty.com

Good site that clusters US gov docs by topic.

-from ResourceShelf

Library Journal - Article on Visualization software

Library Journal - Visualize This

Nice overview of the different software on the market.

-from ResourceShelf

Something to watch: Infotrieve to Launch Life Science Research Center

Infotrieve to Launch Life Science Research Center

The article notes that this product will be in competition with SCOPUS and some other new product called Thomson Pharm so it should be an interesting summer of comparison shopping.

-from STLQ

Monday, March 14, 2005

New JSTOR Titles

Dear JSTOR Participant:

We are pleased to announce that seven new titles have been added to the JSTOR archive. Participants in the Arts & Sciences II Collection, the Arts & Sciences III Collection, and the Language & Literature Collection will be able to access the new content immediately.

Dumbarton Oaks Papers (Arts & Sciences III)
New Content: Vol. 1 – Vol. 57 (1941–2003)
Publisher: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University
ISSN 0070-7546

Feminist Studies (Arts & Sciences III and Language & Literature Collections)
New Content: Vol. 1 – Vol. 23, No. 3 (1972-1997)
Publisher: Feminist Studies, Inc.
ISSN 0046-3663

International Studies Review (Arts & Sciences II Collection)
New Content: Vol. 1 (1999)
Publisher: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the International Studies Association
ISSN 1521-9488

Journal of Design History (Arts & Sciences III Collection)
New Content: Vol. 1 – Vol. 12 (1988–1999)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISSN 0952-4649

Journal of the American Institute for Conservation (Arts & Sciences III Collection)
New Content: Vol. 1 – Vol. 40 (1960–2001)
Publisher: American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works
ISSN 0197-1360

Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft (Arts & Sciences III Collection)
New Content: 1. Band – 28. Band (1924–2001)
Publisher: Verlag des Kunstgeschichtlichen Seminars der Philipps-Universität Marburg
ISSN 0342-121x

NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction (Arts & Sciences III and Language & Literature Collections)
New Content: Vol. 1 – Vol. 33, No. 1 (1967–1999)
Publisher: Novel Corp., Brown University
ISSN 0029-5132

New Product Announcement-->Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies

Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies

MECAS is a systematic, and non-evaluative bibliographic index of research, policy, and scholarly discourse on the countries and peoples of the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa. Over 12,000 records of recently published & "grey" literature are added annually. Coverage includes the following fields:

* political affairs & law
* international relations
* economic affairs: business & industry
* cultural heritage, arts & humanities
* society & social welfare
* ethnic diversity & anthropology
* significant religious events & movements
* recent history (1900 - present) & archaeology

New Product Announcement--->Biblical Archaeology Online

Biblical Archaeology Online

Contains the content of selected journals and books published by the Biblical Archaeology Society. Includes each issue of the magazines Biblical archaeology review, Bible review, and Archaeology odyssey, and the content of five books. The site allows users to browse the entire corpus of material and perform Boolean searches by title, author, subject, word, issue, or date range in any combination.

New Product Announcement--->The ARTFL Project

ARTFL Project

Researchers may already have used this as for some reason ARTFL had provided our ip with access, even though we didn't have a subscription, possibly a holdover from an earlier trial. However, now we have a sub so we're all legal.

A full-text retrieval database of classical French writings. Consists of nearly 2000 texts, ranging from classic works of French literature to various kinds of non-fiction prose and technical writing.

In 1957 the French government initiated the creation of a new dictionary of the French language, the Trésor de la Langue Française. In order to provide access to a large body of word samples, it was decided to transcribe an extensive selection of French texts for use with a computer. Twenty years later, a corpus totaling some 150 million words had been created, representing a broad range of written French -- from novels and poetry to biology and mathematics -- stretching from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.

It soon became apparent that this corpus of French texts was an important resource not only for lexicographers, but also for many other types of humanists and social scientists engaged in French studies - on both sides of the Atlantic. The result of this realization was American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) -- a cooperative project established in 1981 by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the University of Chicago.

The ARTFL project has focused on three objectives over the past eight years:

* to include a variety of texts so as to make the database as versatile as possible;
* to create a system that would be easily accessible to the research community;
* to provide researchers with an easy-to-use but effective tool.

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

New Product Announcement-->American National Biography

American National Biography

(For you nationalists in the crowd remember that in addition to this tool, and the Oxford National Biography, we have access to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography http://www.biographi.ca/ )

The landmark American National Biography offers portraits of more than 17,400 men and women -- from all eras and walks of life -- whose lives have shaped the nation. More than a decade in preparation, the American National Biography is the first biographical resource of this scope to be published in more than sixty years.

Published in 24 volumes in 1999, the American National Biography won instant acclaim as the new authority in American biographies. Winner of the American Library Association's Dartmouth Medal as the best reference work of the year, the ANB now serves readers in thousands of school, public, and academic libraries around the world.

The publication of the online edition makes the ANB even more useful as a dynamic source of information -- updated quarterly, with hundreds of new entries each year and revisions of previously published entries to enhance their accuracy and currency. The ANB Online features thousands of illustrations, more than 80,000 hyperlinked cross-references, links to select web sites, and powerful search capabilities.

New to ANB Online, over 900 articles from the acclaimed Oxford Companion to United States History provide valuable context on US history and culture.

Friday, March 04, 2005

New Book List--->Jan/Feb 2005

Listing by Subject
You can send this link out when you want to provide access to the complete new titles list.

I think I resolved the printing problems with this version. Let me know if it is still acting up.


Complete Excel File

You can sort this one by fund or call number, and copy and paste parts into email or word documents

Academic Hijinks--->Mistaken Identity

Mistaken identity

What if a novelist celebrated as a pioneer of African-American women's literature turned out not to be black at all?

Lorcan Dempsey's weblog: The integrated library system that isn't

The integrated library system that isn't

Good, and short, overview of how library systems are evolving beyond the simple ILS. Read this, it will be good for you.

-from Lorcan Dempsey

Thursday, March 03, 2005

New Product Announcment-->Russian History Journals

A series of Academic journals on Russian History. In Russian, with limited English content.

Otechestvennaia istoriia
2005-

Voprosy istorii
1946-

Istoricheskii zhurnal
1937-1944

Istorik marksist

1937-1941

New Muse Journal--->Early Music

Early Music

Early Music is a stimulating and richly illustrated journal, and is unrivalled in its field. Founded in 1973, it remains the journal for anyone interested in early music and how it is being interpreted today.

Contributions from scholars and performers on international standing explore every aspect of earlier musical repertoires, present vital new evidence for our understanding of the music of the past, and tackle controversial issues of performance practice.

Each issue is beautifully illustrated and contains a wide range of articles on performance practice, iconography, sources, instruments and many other aspects of the historical context for a given work or repertory. Some issues are dedicated to a particular theme to mark the anniversary of a composer or to explore an otherwise uncharted territory, such as the music of the New World or the early musical traditions of non-Western cultures.

New Muse Journal--->Music and Letters

Music and Letters

Music & Letters is a leading international journal of musical scholarship, publishing articles on topics ranging from antiquity to the present day and embracing musics from classical, popular, and world traditions. Since its foundation in the 1920s, Music & Letters has especially encouraged fruitful dialogue between musicology and other disciplines. It is renowned for its long and lively reviews sections, the most comprehensive and thought-provoking in any musicological journal.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

New Product Announcement-->More titles in Past Masters

We have added the following works to our Past Masters Collection. Particularly noteworthy are the women writers added.
http://ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca:2048/login?url=http://library.nlx.com/

The collection consists of complete works in authoritative editions.

Marc records are available for this collection, and we hope to add over time but this may be a longer term project.

Philosophy
Kant: Gesammelte Schriften
Wittgenstein: Gesamtbriefwechsel/Complete Correspondence
Boyle: Correspondence
Conway: Writings and Letters

English Letters
Synge: Collected Letters
Baillie: Collected Letters

Women Writers
Behn: Works
Burney: Complete Plays
Eighteenth Century Women Playwrights
Haywood: Selected Works
Mary Shelley: Journals
The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers
Wollstonecraft: Works

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Collection of Papers on Library as Place from CLIR

Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space

Some good food for thought, although I confess to only planning to read the first article. Calgary is mentioned under the further reading section.

New Product Announcement-->Sage Journals

Hello. I am pleased to announce that, after several sets of negotiations, we have a deal with Sage for many of their e-journals (as many of you have heard). This deal gives us access to a further 118 journals in 10 Sage collections:

Communications
Criminology
Education
Management & Organizational Studies
Materials Science
Nursing
Political Science
Sociology
Psychology
Urban Studies

Our access to these titles is through CSA. The individual journals are listed in the catalogue via Serials Solutions.

I should note that all Sage journals were not included in this deal (despite our best efforts). There are more than 100 titles that are going to be sold as a separate collection later in the year.

I've attached an Excel file to this message, "SAGE COLLECTION Backfiles", lists the titles included in the 10 collections, along with coverage start dates.

Please email or call me if you have any questions or comments.

Pychinfo new feature--->Cited Reference Searching

Dear Ovid Customer,

We are pleased to announce that PsycINFO will be reloaded on Ovid on or around March 2nd.

With this reload we are introducing links from the Cited References to the associated PsycINFO bibliographic record. Not only will PsycINFO users have the opportunity to view the references for indexed materials, they will now be able to extend their research with direct links to the bibliographic records for many of these sources. Cited reference searching can also be an effective means of expanding the scope of a literature search to find additional relevant articles that may have been missed in a standard subject search.

The PsycINFO reload will contain an update to the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms that includes the addition of 200 terms and 123 cross-referenced terms from such topic areas as Neuropsychology, Educational Psychology, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Psychometrics, Artificial Intelligence, and Treatment. Some of the new primary or cross referenced terms include: Acute Stress Disorder, Bullying, Cognitive Science, Distance Education, Grounded Theory, Online Therapy, Polymorphism, Procedural Justice, Religious Fundamentalism, and Social Loafing.

Another enhancement is the addition of unpublished test names to the Test & Measures field. As a reminder, the Test & Measures field does not indicate which tests are included as part of the article, but rather the tests that were used to conduct the research. To increase the richness of the data in the Test & Measures field, PsycINFO is retrospectively "mapping" some frequently occurring test and measure names to older, database records. This enhancement will increase the number of results that are retrieved when searching the Test & Measures field.

Other changes with the reload include a new All Journals limit that captures all titles, both peer reviewed and other journals; the enhancement of the PsycARTICLES limit to specified ISSNs and publication years; the ability to search for cited reference publishers and DOIs; as well as the ability to search for the electronic ISSNs (as a separate index).

University of Alberta offers PDA downloads of netLibrary titles

Notice on PDA downloads

Michelle Sinotte at the University of Calgary is currently working on developing PDA services over in Health Sciences, we hope that we'll be able to build on her work to offer services across the system.