We now have access to BrowZine at UCLA! BrowZine is a tablet application that lets you browse, read, and monitor thousands of scholarly journals available from the UCLA Library. Download it now!

Features of BrowZine include:

Even though the UCLA library system contains over nine million books and 70,000 journals, sometimes the one you want just isn’t here. Fortunately, our relationship with the University of California system and other universities enables us to expand our selection of resources available to you. If we don’t have access to [...]]]>

Even though the UCLA library system contains over nine million books and 70,000 journals, sometimes the one you want just isn’t here. Fortunately, our relationship with the University of California system and other universities enables us to expand our selection of resources available to you. If we don’t have access to a particular book or journal article, you can use our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) system to get your hands on the perfect resource. Here’s how!

1. Go to Melvyl (more information on Melvyl here), and find your resource.

2. Make sure that your book isn’t listed as being available at UCLA. If we have a copy that someone else has checked out, you won’t be able to ILL it — you can recall the book instead. If there’s a copy in the UCLA catalog that doesn’t seem to be on the shelf, please contact a library staff member to help you fill out a search request, or fill out the Find a Missing Item online form. If the book is already marked missing or lost in the UCLA catalog, you can still order it through ILL.

3. Click on the yellow “Request” button in the top-right corner of the “Find a copy in the library” box.

4. A new tab will open with a form for the ILL request. Your library card number is your BOL account number plus the number on the bottom right corner of the back of your card. If the resource you’re ordering is available in electronic form, you can use the Optional Note box to request it to be delivered in electronic form — licensing requirements restrict us to providing only a small number of pages, however. If your request is time-sensitive, you can specify a period after which it will expire with the “I will no longer need the item(s) after:” drop down box. Press “Continue” when you’re done filling out the form.

5. If your item is a journal article, you’ll fill out another form with more detailed information about the article you’re ordering.

6. On the next page, make sure that all the information in your request is correct, then read the copyright notice and check the box. Press “Process my request now” if everything looks good.

7. That’s it — you’re done! You can enter your email address to send yourself a copy of the page as a receipt. You’ll get an email when your book has arrived, and you can pick it up at the location you specified. If you want to check on the status of your request, visit the UC My ILL Requests page. It usually takes one to two weeks to fulfill an ILL request, but can take longer in some cases.

As always, if you would like more help with library resources, you can contact a Science and Engineering Librarian.

A mini-exhibit for August 2014 asks (but does not answer) the question: Who was Mary Lewis of Camp Hill (Birmingham, England?) and, in 1828, why did she make 58 carefully handwritten, illustrated flash cards which addressed problems, phenomena, and [...]]]> Well, Well, and What Have We Here: Optical Cards created by Mary Lewis in 1828

A mini-exhibit for August 2014 asks (but does not answer) the question: Who was Mary Lewis of Camp Hill (Birmingham, England?) and, in 1828, why did she make 58 carefully handwritten, illustrated flash cards which addressed problems, phenomena, and experiments in optics and vision?

Mary Lewis’s cards (BIOMED Ms. Coll. no. 347 RARE), each with a standard embossed border, were purchased by the History & Special Collections for the Sciences section of UCLA Library Special Collections from Samuel Gedge, a dealer in antiquarian books, manuscripts, and ephemera. They are on display at the Louise M. Biomedical Library (1^st floor lobby/research commons) through Labor Day, 2014.

This mini-exhibit is part of an occasional series, Well, Well, and What Have We Here, which brings to light (no pun intended) surprising, unexplained, and sometimes unexplainable items from or added to the collections.

Explanations are welcomed.

The cards are titled:

1. [Title]
2. A ray of light
3. In the same medium, the rays of light are in straight lines
4. Rays of light may be bended
5. The same joining of mediums will bend some rays and not others
6. A ray passing obliquely through a plane glass goes on afterward parallel to its first direction though not in the same line
7. An angle
8. The angle of incidence
9. The angle of reflection
10. To see an object reflected from a plane looking glass
11. Parallel rays of light
12. Converging rays
13. Diverging rays
14. The eye sees an object by rays diverging from all the visible points of its surface
15. A pencil of rays, and a radiant point
16. A focus
17. A double convex lens or glass, seen edgewise
18. A plano-convex lens seen edgewise
19. A double concave lens seen edgewise
20. A plano-concave lens seen edgewise
21. A meniscus or concavo-convex lens seen edgewise
22. The radius of convexity of concavity of lenses
23. A triangular prism seen end-wise
24. The focus of the sun’s parallel rays when transmitted through a double convex lens
25. Parallel rays become parallel again by passing through two convex lenses placed parallel to each other & at double their focal distance
26. The focus of the sun’s (or any other) parallel rays, transmitted through a plano-convex lens
27. Rays diverging from a radiant point in the focus of a lens are parallel after passing through the lens
28. Rays diverging from a radiant point between a convex lens and its focus will continue to diverge, though in a less degree, after passing through the lens
29. Rays from a radiant point beyond the focal distance of a convex lens will, after passing through the lens, converge to a point or focus on the other side of the lens
30. Parallel rays passing through a double concave lens
31. Parallel rays passing through a plano-concave lens
32. Parallel rays passing thro’ a solid sphere or globe of glass
33. The angle of vision
34. Why an object appears smaller and smaller as we recede further and further from it
35. A convex lens magnifies the angle of vision, and why
36. Rays from an object passing thro’ a convex lens, will make a picture of the object in a dark room
37. To form the picture mentioned on card 36, the object must be farther from the lens than the focal distance of the lens
38. To find what proportion the size of the picture (card 36) bears to the size of the object
39. The camera obscura
40. The multiplying glass
41. An artificial eye
42. The human eye, with its coats and humours
43. The sclerotica & cornea of the eye
44. The choroides and ligamentum ciliare of the eye
45. The retina and optic nerve of the eye
46. The pupil and aqueous humour of the eye
47. The crystalline and vitreous humours of the eye
48. The manner of vision
49. Why an object appears large when it is near the eye, and small when far from the eye
50. Three patches being stuck on a board, to lose sight of the middle one, whilst both the others are visible
51. The use of convex spectacle
52. The use of concave spectacles
53. Single microscope
54. Refracting telescope
55. The magic lantern
56. The phantasmagoria lantern
57. The polyphantasma
58. Prismatic colours.

Russell Johnson
Curator/Librarian
History & Special Collections for the Sciences
UCLA Library Special Collections

Scientific American is the world’s premier magazine of scientific discovery and technological innovation for the general public. Readers turn to it for a deep understanding of how science and technology can influence human affairs and illuminate the natural world. In every issue, leading [...]]]>
UCLA now has online access (2010 – ) to Scientific American.

Scientific American is the world’s premier magazine of scientific discovery and technological innovation for the general public. Readers turn to it for a deep understanding of how science and technology can influence human affairs and illuminate the natural world. In every issue, leading scientists, inventors and engineers from diverse fields describe their ideas and achievements in clear and accessible prose; the work of select journalists rounds out the offerings. The graphics are rich in content and visual style.

For help using this resources, contact a Science and Engineering Librarian.

*Please note that this resource is available to anyone using computers on the UCLA campus.  Off-campus access is restricted to the UCLA community using either the Bruin Online Proxy Server or the UCLA VPN Client.

Scopus User Survey

All ten UC campuses have access to Elsevier’s Scopus database for the 2014 calendar year. Scopus is a citation and abstracting database that covers a broad universe of peer reviewed journal and conference literature, with links to Fulltext – when available – through the library. Covering scientific, technical, medical, social science, [...]]]>

Scopus User Survey

All ten UC campuses have access to Elsevier’s Scopus database for the 2014 calendar year. Scopus is a citation and abstracting database that covers a broad universe of peer reviewed journal and conference literature, with links to Fulltext – when available – through the library. Covering scientific, technical, medical, social science, and arts and humanities disciplines, Scopus indexes nearly 21,000 journals and more than 340 book series from more than 5,000 international publishers.

Scopus allows researchers to perform citation searches to see how many times a work has been cited, by whom, and to rank searches by times cited, from 1996 to the present. Scopus also offers tools to track, analyze, and visualize research, as well as a capability to cross search more than 25 million patents.

UC is providing an initial subscription; however, to continue the subscription, the UC Libraries Collection Licensing Subgroup (CLS) needs to hear from the community about whether Scopus is important to UC research. We would like to add many voices to the conversation about whether Scopus is a useful and necessary research and teaching tool.  This link to a very short (i.e., five minute) UC Scopus User survey can be found in the top right corner of every Scopus web page:

Is Scopus important to your work? Tell UC about it: CLICK HERE

The survey will be available until July 27^th.

UCLA’s Terence Tao was recently awarded one of five new Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics, first awarded this year to honor “significant discoveries across the many branches of the subject” and each worth $3 million. Dr. Tao has been previously awarded mathematics’ highest honor, the Fields medal, and a MacArthur Fellowship, as well as [...]]]>

UCLA’s Terence Tao was recently awarded one of five new Breakthrough Prizes in Mathematics, first awarded this year to honor “significant discoveries across the many branches of the subject” and each worth $3 million. Dr. Tao has been previously awarded mathematics’ highest honor, the Fields medal, and a MacArthur Fellowship, as well as various other prizes and fellowships. He maintains a blog and is active in organizing massively collaborative online mathematical projects; his blog is currently hosting the Polymath8 project.

Here is a bibliography of some of Dr. Tao’s books that are available in UCLA libraries:

• Topics in random matrix theory. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, 2012.

• An introduction to measure theory. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, 2011.

• An epsilon of room, I, real analysis: pages from year three of a mathematical blog. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, 2010.

• Analysis, 2nd ed. 2 volumes. New Delhi: Hindustan Book Agency, 2009.

• Poincaré’s legacies: pages from year two of a mathematical blog. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, 2009.

• Structure and randomness: pages from year one of a mathematical blog. Providence, R.I.: American Mathematical Society, 2008.

• Solving mathematical problems : a personal perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

• Additive combinatorics. With Van Vu. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

And a collection of some of Dr. Tao’s papers that are available through UCLA databases:

• “Multilinear Weighted Convolution of  Functions, and Applications to Nonlinear Dispersive Equations.” American Journal of Mathematics, 123.5, (2001): 839-908.

• “A sharp bilinear restriction estimate for paraboloids.” Geometric & Functional Analysis 13.6, (2003): 1359-1384

• “The Dantzig Selector: Statistical Estimation When p Is Much Larger than n.” The Annals of Statistics 35.6, (2007): 2313-2351. With Emmanuel Candes.

• “The primes contain arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions.” Annals of Mathematics 167.2, (2008); 481-574. With Ben Green.

• “E pluribus unum: From Complexity, Universality.” Daedalus, 141.3, (2012): 23-34.

Access to these resources can be found on any UCLA campus computer or, for UCLA users only, off-campus access through BruinOnline Proxy Server or the UCLA VPN Client. If you would like more help with the library resources or about research questions in general, please contact a Science and Engineering Librarian or for a full list of science and engineering databases, see Article Databases.

The UCLA Library has recently licensed IOP ebooks (Institute of Physics).

This license will provide perpetual access to 35 titles being published throughout the year in two series: IOP Expanding Physics (which offers in-depth texts on key areas in Physics) and IOP Concise Physics (which contains shorter texts focused on rapidly [...]]]> IOP eBooks

The UCLA Library has recently licensed IOP ebooks (Institute of Physics).

This license will provide perpetual access to 35 titles being published throughout the year in two series: IOP Expanding Physics (which offers in-depth texts on key areas in Physics) and IOP Concise Physics (which contains shorter texts focused on rapidly advancing areas). The ebooks are published without DRM in HTML, PDF, and EPUB formats.

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ASME Digital Collection

The UCLA Library has also recently licensed the ASME Digital Collection (on the Silverchair platform).

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is the premier professional membership organization for more than 127,000 mechanical engineers and associated members worldwide.  ASME also conducts one of the world’s largest technical publishing operations in the world, offering thousands of titles including some of the profession’s most prestigious journals, conference papers and proceedings, and ASME Press books.   The entire collection of current and archival literature can be searched via the ASME Digital Collection, including:

• ASME Journals Front File (2000- )
• ASME Journals Archive (1960-1999)
• ASME Conference Proceedings (2008- )
• ASME Conf. Proceedings Archive (2002 – 2007)
• ASME eBooks

For help using these resources, contact a Science and Engineering Librarian.

*Please note that these resources are available to anyone using computers on the UCLA campus.  Off-campus access is restricted to the UCLA community using either the Bruin Online Proxy Server or the UCLA VPN Client.

Wondering what happens to your library access after graduation?

Off-campus access to online resources such as article databases is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff. Once your status is updated with the Registrar’s Office you will only be able to access these resources from an on-campus [...]]]> Congratulations to all of our graduating Bruins! 

Wondering what happens to your library access after graduation?

Off-campus access to online resources such as article databases is restricted to current students, faculty, and staff. Once your status is updated with the Registrar’s Office you will only be able to access these resources from an on-campus computer, such as a public computer terminal in one of our libraries.

If you become a member of the UCLA Alumni Association, you will have access to the UCLA and UC Library systems. Your library access extends to all 10 UC campuses.  Present your alumni association membership card at a UCLA Library circulation desk and you’ll be given a free library card.  This card will allow you to borrow up to five books with one renewal for each book.  Your membership will also give you access to the ProQuest Research Library. Read more…

Access-only library cards are also available but do not entitle the bearer to borrowing privileges.

Questions? Ask us!

Citizen Science (CS), also known as “crowd-sourced science”, is the fast-growing practice of volunteer public involvement in the gathering, analyzing, or sorting of scientific data for research purposes… and SEL is getting in on the action!

Inspired by local UCLA projects, such as the Ozcan Research Group’s Biogames and the community data collection project [...]]]>

Citizen Science (CS), also known as “crowd-sourced science”, is the fast-growing practice of volunteer public involvement in the gathering, analyzing, or sorting of scientific data for research purposes… and SEL is getting in on the action!

Inspired by local UCLA projects, such as the Ozcan Research Group’s Biogames and the community data collection project What’s Invasive!,  the library has created a new online research guide on citizen science meant to introduce UCLA students, faculty, and staff to CS projects on campus and around the world. The guide contains general information about citizen science, links to interesting news articles and videos profiling successful citizen science projects, and lists of prominent CS projects internationally, in California, and at UCLA for those readers interested in learning more or volunteering.

The new guide also includes resources for those who may be considering implementing a citizen science project of their own. The guide highlights several library resources that explain “best practices” for citizen science, as well as online tools and library services that may facilitate the project process. Check out the new guide to begin your adventure in citizen science today!

As always, you can contact a Science and Engineering librarian with any questions or concerns about this resource, or use the guide’s interactive forms to leave suggestions and feedback.

Image Credit: National Park Service, Kevin Bacher