NAS Library News

Passing the torch

2009-05-21T13:44:00.002-04:00

I have decided to stay home with my daughter, Erin. A new and fabulous librarian, Lakeisha, will be taking my place come July. I hope to pass this blog off to her, but for now, farewell. It has been great keeping Eckerd up to date with science resources.

Maternity Leave

2009-02-09T11:01:00.006-05:00

I am on leave. The blog will pick up when I return to the office at the end of March. Until then, have a wonderful semester.

Remember, the contact for ILL is Liz Bodie, and the contact for instruction is Helene Gold. See the library home page for phone numbers and emails.

Geosciences Subject Guide

2009-01-22T08:42:00.001-05:00

Now that we have a new major, we needed a new subject guide. The Geosciences subject guide is available by clicking here or going to the library home page and clicking on Subject Guides. The guide is designed to give majors a place to start their research and includes pertinent encyclopedias, dictionaries, databases, and Web sites. Please let me know if there are additions you would like to see.

Lecture on Obama's climate policy

2009-01-21T14:18:00.002-05:00

An announcement from Professor Gaskill...

Speaker: David W. Orr, PhD, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics, Oberlin College

Title: Some Like it Hot... Lots More Don't: Climate Policy with the Obama Administration

Location: Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota, FL, Activity Center Great Room

Date: January 24, 2009 3 pm, reception following lecture.

Ticket Price: Member: $25 Non-Member: $30

Special Offer for Eckerd College Faculty and Students: $10

2009-Year of Science begins

2009-01-20T14:15:00.003-05:00

It is officially the Year of Science, and if you have not checked out the Web site yet, take a few moments to see what's happening locally and virtually at http://www.yearofscience2009.org/home/. For example, our own governor Charlie Crist was the first in the nation to issue a proclamation on the Year of Science. Other interesting sections in the Web site include statements on the importance of scientist from scientists, reporters, teachers, authors, and presidents.

Some local events coming up are as follows:

Jan 30: Carbon Neutral: Teaming Up to Make a Difference For Our Climate Mark Van Soestbergen, International Carbon Bank and Exchange, Inc.
Feb 12: Darwin: His Enduring Legacy in an Age of Ecological Crisis, H. Bruce Rinker, Ph.D., Director Environmental Lands Division

St. Petersburg participants include the following:

U. S. Geological Survey-Florida Integrated Science Center
Science Center of Pinellas County
University of South Florida College of Marine Science
Suncoast Earth Force

Search multiple databases from DOE

2009-01-16T10:42:00.006-05:00

Science Accelerator is a federated search engine for the U.S. Department of Energy's science and technical information. Using Science Accelerator, users can search Research & Development reports, e-prints, conference proceedings, patents, and Web sites. Using a basic search or an advanced search, users can access primarily full text information. In addition, Science Accelerator has a number of features usually found in subscription databases, such as the ability to download results to bibliographic citation software, automatic spell-checking, and topic clustering to assist in narrowing your search. Basic searches in various topics yielded results in energy, environment, computing, physics, geology, chemistry, and marine science.

Web resources for science topics

2009-01-14T13:34:00.004-05:00

A consortium of seven UK universities has put together Intute, which is a collection of vetted, educational Internet resources in many topics. There are many useful resources to be explored for science students. Subject booklets have been created in Science and Technology and Health and Life Sciences. Each booklet contains an annotated bibliography of web resources.

In the Science and Technology section, the following booklets are available:

Internet resources for environmental science
Internet resources for materials engineering
Internet resources for environmental engineering
Internet resources for physics
Internet resources for chemistry
Internet resources for computing

In the Health and Life Sciences section, the following booklets are available:

Internet resources for biological sciences
Internet resources for pregnancy and childbirth
Internet resources for animal health
Internet resources for physiotherapy and orthopaedics
Internet resources for agriculture, food and forestry
Internet resources for healthcare and medicine

Many of the resources are international or British organizations, which may help expand your personal favorite sites list beyond the United States.

Another valuable resource at Intute is the Virtual Training Suite. The VTS offers tutorials on conducting research on the Internet in a number of different scientific, social science and humanities disciplines. First the tutorials give you a "tour" of the best available. As you read about sites, you can add the ones that interest you to your own "basket."Next there is a research section that offers information on finding and evaluating sites. Finally you can read success stories on how others use the Internet effectively. At the end you can add the links you collected in your basket to your favorites, or you can email or print them off.

Scifinder Scholar accessible on the Web

2009-01-12T11:00:00.007-05:00

Happy New Year and welcome back for Winter Term!

I know many students and faculty are experiencing Winter Term off campus. I was going to wait until Spring semester for this announcement, but I am too excited. Plus, as most of you know, I will be having a baby around the start of Spring Semester, and I did not want you to miss this news.

Scifinder Scholar has migrated to its Web platform for Eckerd College. This means you do not have to access Scifinder Scholar via the desktop platform, which is only available in the library and the chemistry lab.

The new Scifinder Scholar interface is available through the library web page in the database list and on some of the science subject guides:

To use the new interface, you have to establish an account with Scifinder Scholar. This will be a free account, and it will only accept your Eckerd email. To sign up, click here. Once you have an account, you can log in to use the database.

Not only is the platform different, but so is the search interface. I think many of you will find it similar to other databases you may use, such as Web of Science. Web training, how-to guides, and strategies for new search interface are available from CAS.

Note that while the access point has changed, our access limits are still in place. We share 2 seats among 3 colleges. Therefore, you may encounter times when you cannot enter the database. Try again later. For this reason, I also urge you to log out when you are finished so you are not blocking another user. (You will be logged out automatically if you leave the interface idle for too long.)

UPDATE: Jan 20. I have learned that you cannot register for Scifinder Scholar off campus, and at this time, you also cannot access the web version off campus. However, the latter issue is being worked on by our It department. Soon you should be able to access the Web interface from off campus AFTER you register on campus.

Science Information Literacy Tutorial

2008-11-18T15:43:00.002-05:00

I have been interested in creating a science information tutorial for a while now, but it looks like I am too slow. The fabulous librarians at University of California-Irvine have created an interesting, fast-paced, informative tutorial on the topic. In addition, an article on its creation has been published in the open-access journal Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship:

An Undergraduate Science Information Literacy Tutorial in a Web 2.0 World by Jeanine Marie Scaramozzino, Fall 2008.

The tutorial, which includes interactive reviews, pretests, and videos, went through extensive user testing with science and nonscience undergraduates. The tutorial has 3 sections covering the scientific method, peer review, information formats, information evaluation, and plagiarism--a great deal of information in a relatively short format. The introduction to each section offers a completion time, although I found it took slightly longer than the suggested time (maybe I just read slowly!). Nevertheless, the information is packaged in an engaging manner and did not feel overly long.

At Eckerd, our library classes revolve around particular assignments, although I work to include some of the more "critical thinking" aspects of information literacy. In addition, the Marine Science program is working to include more assignments that address particular aspects of science information literacy, such as this semester's IMS assignment dealing with the information cycle, and recognizing the differences between certain information formats (namely popular and scholarly science articles).

However, I understand that it is difficult to fit even more instruction into an already packed curriculum, and this is why I love the idea of a tutorial. I applaud UCI librarians for their hard work. Guests can access the tutorial although they cannot print completion certificates. Except for the specific references to the UCI libraries, the information is universal so it's something students could work on during lab or in the evenings.

CAS podcasts

2008-11-11T09:24:00.002-05:00

CAS, the division of the American Chemical Society that produces Scifinder Scholar, has created a new "podcast" series. I would actually call them videocasts because they are little movies rather than simple audio files. They are more helpful if you view them rather than just listen to them. These videos show effective ways of using Scifinder Scholar for research in the past and the present. For example, From Fairy Gloves to Nanocrystals: How a Folk Remedy became One of the Greatest Drug Discoveries, demonstrates the connection between research conducted in the early 1900s to today through a substance search on digitalis. Note that the interface shown in these videos is the Web version of Scifinder Scholar, which has not yet been implemented on our campus. In our last discussions with the CAS team, the web version of Scifinder should be in place before the end of the year. Keep your fingers crossed! Until then, check out some of the videos to get more insight into searching Scifinder. At this time, other titles include the following:

Halloween Friday Fun: Optics of Jack

2008-10-31T09:38:00.005-04:00

Happy Halloween!

For your Halloween physics pleasure, I bring you an article from Lorne A. Whitehead and Michele A. Mossman, two professors from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of British Columbia.

Jack O'Lanterns and integrating spheres: Halloween physics
American Journal of Physics -- June 2006 -- Volume 74, Issue 6, pp. 537-541

Of course, it would break copyright for me to post the article itself, but Eckerd Library does subscribe to the American Journal of Physics online.

Don't know how to get to it? Follow these steps:

Go to www.eckerd.edu/library
Click on FIND JOURNAL TITLES
Search for: American Journal of Physics
Click on the online link: Scitation Publications
Click on the link: Volume 74
Scroll down to June 2006, and click on the button to VIEW HTML TOC.
Scroll down to the article.

If you are on campus, you should be able to click here.

Image from YesWeCarve.com

And don't forget to vote! The only bus from Eckerd is leaving today at 1:15 pm.

Open house at USGS library

2008-10-28T17:21:00.002-04:00

The U.S. Geological Survey library in St. Petersburg will hold an open house for the public Wednesday Nov. 5 from 3-6 pm. There will be more than 40 interactive exhibits, as well as special displays for educators. A ceremony honoring 10 years of science in the community will take place at 4 pm. For more information and directions, visit http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/openhouse/

Karst Information Portal

2008-10-14T08:36:00.001-04:00

Last week, I was helping a student doing some karst research. The student needed an article from NSS (National Speleological Society) News, which we do not own. In exploring nearby options, I found that USF had it listed online. Through this serendipitous search, I discovered the Karst Information Portal (KIP). KIP began as an initiative to unite a fragmented body of work, with significant assistance from the USF Dr. Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions. Partners include the National Cave & Karst Research Institute, USF Libraries, University Libraries at University of New Mexico, and the Union Internationale de Spéléologie (UIS). The portal offers resources, including some access to online journals, GIS data, dissertations and theses, and more. Furthermore, a community has started with members discussing karst topics.

Online tutorial for finding full text

2008-10-12T07:51:00.001-04:00

Finally the long-awaited tutorial for finding full text is complete. I decided to try my hand at this online tutorial because finding the full text is one of the challenges that plagues nearly every student with whom I speak. Although, it was a multi-step process in the old days (when I was an undergrad), students seem baffled that it remains a multi-step process. Everything should be instantaneous. I think it comes from confusion and surprise that students have when they learn information is not free, and information that is free may not be the kind you can use. And I get it. I think it should all be free also. Unfortunately until then, we have to deal with different vendors and services to provide information. And that means several steps to find what you need. I hope this tutorial will prove useful for finding full text at Eckerd. I admit, it's not the shortest tutorial ever, but I think it is thorough. I really want you to understand that we have access to many more articles than what you can find in the full text databases. It has been tested by a few people, however if you find a problem, please let me know.

http://home.eckerd.edu/~logank/findingfulltext/index.html

Friday Fun: Changing colors of Fall

2008-10-10T07:02:00.001-04:00

Picture linked from Chemical of the Week: Autumn Colors from scifun.org

So many of the Eckerd students come from out of state. I thought some students may miss Fall colors. The Fall Foliage Celebration site from University of Buffalo provides information on the science of Autumn, including information on photosynthesis and chemistry of color change. In addition, links are given for photographic and pressing Fall leaves in addition to Fall Foliage maps for those of you lucky enough to get away in the coming weeks (Fall break anyone?).

National Chemistry Week

2008-10-08T12:56:00.003-04:00

October 19-October 25 is National Chemistry Week. The theme for the 21st annual event promoted by the American Chemical Society is HAVING A BALL WITH CHEMISTRY. The only Florida event listed on the events page is taking place in Jacksonville. To find more information, visit the National Chemistry week site.

Open Courses from around the world

2008-10-06T08:48:00.002-04:00

When I was in library school, I learned of the Open Courseware Consortium. I thought the Eckerd community might be interested. Listed on the site are colleges and universities that offer open courseware, which is defined as

free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses.

Institutions from around the world offer free coursework, which include presentations, readings, video, and more. Some of the participating schools from the United States with science content are the following:

MIT
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
UC Berkeley
College of Eastern Utah

and more.

Probably the last thing you want to do in your free time is more coursework, but this could be an opportunity to learn something not offered here, to gauge interest before taking a graded course at Eckerd, or to brush up on skills before going into a more advanced course.

Friday Fun: Video Elements

2008-10-03T07:50:00.001-04:00

It seems like I am always writing about the periodic table. People seem to be doing so many fun things with the elements. This week, check out The Periodic Table of Videos. Lecturers at the University of Nottingham have created 3-minute videos on each element. The videos feature a wild-haired (a la Einstein) professor as well as explosive experiments that make me think of the TV show Mythbusters with posh, British accents.

Consider a career as a science librarian

2008-10-02T07:10:00.000-04:00

During the interview process at Eckerd a year ago, I discussed with one of the interviewers the prospects of science librarianship as a career for students who graduate with a science degree. This is still an avenue I wish to explore with students at Eckerd, and as I look into ways to bring this career path into focus, I thought to start with a blog post. The following resources may be of interest if you are a science student who is considering a different, exciting, flexible career with many opportunites.

Leaving Science for LIS
This article describes a study done with librarians who came from the sciences. It includes advice to scientists considering a career in librarianship

From Engineer to Librarian
Personal story of a fourth year engineering student whose heart wasn't in it, and how becoming an engineering librarian was the perfect solution

Science Majors Needed
A brochure from the Association of College and Research Libraries-Science & Technology Section

Medical Library Association Career Development
Brochures, videos, job lists, and more for medical librarianship

Resources on Careers in Chemical Information
Blog, books, web articles and other resources from the American Chemical Society

So there's just a taste, and hopefully more information will be forthcoming in your classes, in a workshop, or ...

Social networking growing for scientists?

2008-09-30T09:40:00.002-04:00

I have to admit that I personally have doubts about the effectiveness of social networking. I have declined several invitations to join LinkedIn in the past few months. However, I suspect that it is a facet of my personality rather than lack of value within the products themselves. For me, cultivating an online network requires time and effort that I personally tend to expend elsewhere. However, I was very interested to find that quite a few scientific social networks have been developed since I last looked into that sort of thing.

Lasilio has a literature search component.
Bamboo has liberal arts institutions as part of its focus.
Ologeez has a great name and is tied to Pubmed
Scilink has more than 40,000 members.
and there are so many more

These networks are discussed by Gerry McKiernan, librarian at Iowa State University, in his blog, SciTechNet.

Do check out these networks if you're so inclined, and let the Eckerd community know which you have joined by leaving a comment here.

200 open access journals from Bentham

2008-09-25T10:53:00.001-04:00

Prof. Meylan brought a new open access resource to my attention: Bentham Open. Bentham aims to provide more than 200 open access journals in Science, technology and medicine. At least one, but often several, journals are featured in each of the following subjects:

Most are being indexed by Google Scholar, and Chemical Abstracts has also picked up a number of journals. This means that the journal articles will appear when searching Scifinder Scholar.

Portal provides access to millions of government documents

2008-09-23T13:24:00.003-04:00

Science.gov has improved on their government science documents portal in its newest release. The press announcement follows:

Science.gov—Science.gov 5.0—was launched Sept. 15th, allowing users to search additional collections of valuable science resources; more easily target their searches; and readily find links to information on a variety of science topics. Science.gov is a free, integrated single-search gateway to reliable science and technology information from 17 organizations within 13 federal science agencies.

Science.gov 5.0 improves upon the previous version, Science.gov 4.0, by offering seven new databases and portals which allow researchers access to over 200 million pages of scientific information. New information available includes thousands of patents resulting from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) research and development(DOepatents); documents and bibliographic citations of DOE accomplishments (DOE R&D Accomplishments Database); millions of electronic scientific documents from around the world known as e-prints (Eprint Network); and comprehensive and peer-reviewed toxicology data for thousands of chemicals (HSDB Hazardous Substances Databank) as well as more than 3 million references to worldwide literature on the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms (TOXLINE Toxicology Bibliographic Information). New information also includes a digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature (PubMed Central) and cancer-related information of all kinds for all audiences (Cancer.gov), including support and treatment resources for patients, comprehensive descriptions of research programs and clinical trials for healthcare professionals and the general public, and funding opportunities for researchers.

Another key feature of Science.gov 5.0 is a “clustering” tool which helps target searches by grouping results by subtopics or dates. This technology was recently developed through a DOE Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program award.

In addition to quadrupling the amount of searchable content and enhancing the search technology, Science.gov 5.0 now provides links to related EurekAlert! Science News and Wikipedia, and provides the capability to easily download research results into personal files or citation software.

Science.gov is hosted by DOE’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), within DOE’s Office of Science. In addition to DOE, Science.gov is supported by contributing members of the Science.gov Alliance, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, and the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Government Printing Office, the Library of Congress, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation, with support from the National Archives and Records Administration.

Second candidate answers ScienceDebate 14

2008-09-15T10:17:00.003-04:00

Science Debate 2008 sent out a press release this morning after Republican candidate John McCain answered the 14 questions on science policy posed by the group. I posted last week that Democratic candidate Barack Obama had posted his answers. A side-by-side comparison is now available: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=42

International Coastal Cleanup is next weekend

2008-09-13T08:21:00.000-04:00

Information box from Ocean Conservancy: www.oceanconservancy.org

September 20 is the date for Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup. The informational box above reveals the source of most of the ocean trash collected in 1 day in 2007. In addition, 237 animals were saved from entanglement in debris. While collecting the trash, the Ocean Conservancy also records all they find to provide a snapshot of marine pollution. Their Web site has a link for joining the clean-up September 20 as well as data and reports from 2007's clean-up.

Candidate answers Science Debate questions

2008-09-12T10:35:00.003-04:00

Back in December, I blogged about a group Science Debate 2008, who encouraged debate about the primary candidates regarding science policy. Although a televised debate sponsored by this group did not occur during the primaries, the group continues to demand answers from the candidates. A list of 14 questions was culled from 3,400 submitted by some of the tens of thousands of members. Democratic candidate Barack Obama has submitted answers to these questions, and Republican candidate John McCain has vowed to do so as well. To read more about the process and Obama's answers, visit the following link: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=40