Elements 114 and 116 added to the Periodic Table according to The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/06/08/science/AP-SCI-New-Elements.html?_r=1&hpw
Official word that the food pyramid is no more, and that it’s been replaced by a plate. See this link for more information:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/business/03plate.html?scp=2&sq=food%20pyramid&st=cse
Check out this nifty set of charts displaying arXiv deposit rates over time by subject: http://arxiv.org/Stats/hcamonthly.html
Remarks by the President Honoring the 2011 National and State Teachers of the Year
On a day set aside for National Teacher Appreciation Day, President Obama hosted 2011′s National and State Teachers of the Year for a reception in the White House Rose Garden. The President thanked them for their service to America’s youth, and shared the story of one of his favorite teachers…
To view this post in its entirety, please follow the link:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/05/03/president-obama-welcomes-outstanding-teachers-white-house
To read President Obama’s Speech in full, please follow the link:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/03/remarks-president-honoring-2011-national-and-state-teachers-year
The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society’s (ACS) Publishing Your Research 101, a new educational, web-based video series designed to support authors and reviewers with the process of writing, submitting, reviewing, and editing reports of original scientific research intended for publication in peer-reviewed journals.
Check it out at: http://pubs.acs.org/r/publishing101
Hi everyone! If you have not heard the news:
The Library and Campus ITS are becoming branches of a new organization, “Information Services.”
The Dean of Library Services, Mike Miller will become CIO and Vice Provost of Information Services.
Anna Gold, Associate Dean of Library Services will becoming University Librarian. We will start a search for an Associate University Librarian in the very new future.
The change will be implemented July 2011. Please congratulate Mike and Anna on their new positions and a new direction…
Hi everyone, just a quick follow-up on our discussions about retaining INSPEC we had two years ago. We continue to have low usage and we may need to review continuation of access again…
A question was put out to a number of academic science librarian listservs regarding keeping or canceling INSPEC and why. A summary of the results are below:
24 responses: 9 retain, 2 switched to a different format, 11 canceled, 2 did not have
*Retain*
· Arizona State University at Tempe — usage has decreased over last 3 years, but still in top third of overall database usage; search capabilities probably not as sophisticated as other databases such as SciFinder or BIOSIS; having both on same platform with their backfiles an argument for retention as well
· Carnegie Mellon University — retain for now; not sure why it seems to be getting an up-tick in use — physicists and computer scientists don’t seem to be interested in it, and astrophysics and biophysics aren’t well-covered… maybe part of federated searching or drafting off of Compendex (using E-Village platform)?
· Purdue University — used mostly by electrical engineers; on Ei Village platform which is included in “physical sciences” federated searching — patrons are both directly and indirectly steered to it
· Rice University — Physics agreed to cancel 5 years ago, but engineering (most users) wants it kept
· University of California at Santa Cruz — high cost is making it harder to justify retaining
· University of New Brunswick
· University of New Hampshire — strengths are international coverage and conference proceedings; not used by physics faculty, but grad students and electrical engineers use it
· University of Notre Dame — haven’t cancelled it yet, but have thought about it; not very happy with searching experience or content; users are gradually moving to other sources — physics faculty seem to prefer preprint servers and WoS
· University of Wisconsin — Madison — still have it but regularly monitor it
*Switched to different format*
· Trinity College — switched to “pay-per-view” via STN
· University of Alaska at Fairbanks — canceled a couple years ago; retain password access, but very few requests for it; no pushback from users over the cancellation
*Canceled:*
· AT&T Shannon Laboratory Library — canceled in 2010 due to low use and high cost/use (canceled WoS in 2011 due to low use and budget cut); no user complaints
· Auburn University — canceled due to low use; some mathematicians a little sad but physicists happy with Web of Science, etc.
· Caltech — use stats v. cost didn’t justify keeping it; had already purchased Inspec archive; polled faculty and only had one user (rare use); no complaints since cancelling it; EE faculty used WoS and IEEE Explore, physics faculty used ArXiv and ADS
· Emory University — canceled in 2009; physicists use WoS and SciFinder Scholar; no push-back on cancellation
· Iowa State University — canceled about 10 years ago due to low use; no regrets; the few patrons who ask for it are happy when shown alternatives that are available
· Naval Postgraduate School — canceled a few years ago; low use, high cost; have substantial graduate engineering program; do have IEEE and Ei Village; no pushback from users
· Oregon State University — canceled in 2009 due to low use; no patron response
· University of Illinois at Chicago — canceled last fall after consultation with engineers and physicists; canceled to save journals from being cut; no complaints
· University of Nebraska at Omaha — canceled last fall due to low use
· University of New Mexico — canceled about 2 years ago; a few complaints but not many
· University of Oregon — canceled 2008/9 to protect physics journal subscriptions; faculty not really happy about losing it, but WoS, ArXiv, SPIRES, and ADS, SciFinder Scholar (and probably Google Scholar) meant that it was no longer essential; high cost didn’t help it either
*Did not have*
· Brigham Young University — used to get occasional complaint about not having it, but now physics faculty seem quite happy with SPIN and WoS
· College of New Jersey
AAAS/Science is seeking direct input from its global online community to help rethink the format and functionality of Science’s online research articles.
They rolled out an initial prototype in the 28 January 2011 issue of Science which features a variety of new ideas for online article viewing, including:
- Tabbed interface
- Summary material placing the article in context
- Treatment for figures and supporting online data more visually adapted to the text
They are inviting readers to review the prototype and share their thoughts with AAAS to help them develop of a new article interface that better accommodates user needs in the rapidly changing electronic environment of scientific information.
Review prototype: http://labs.sciencemag.org/splenic/
Share your thoughts: http://labs.sciencemag.org/
Elsevier and IDBS announced today that Reaxys is now interoperable with the IDBS E-WorkBook Suite. The partnership creates a new mechanism that integrates best-in-class chemistry content from journals and patents with documented proprietary scientific results. E-WorkBook Suite [http://www.idbs.com/ELN/] offers a robust and easy-to-use data management solution that is used across R&D
sectors. E-WorkBook users searching for relevant chemical data can smoothly transition into Reaxys [http://www.reaxys.com/info/] , a workflow solution that provides extensive information on chemical compounds, related physical and pharmacological properties, and synthesis information, and then save their data and findings in their workflow. With Reaxys available via E-WorkBook, a new
group of researchers can now access this extensive repository of experimentally validated data.
The New Journal of Physics (NJP) has announced the launch of video abstracts as a new integrated content stream. The new feature is
expected to give all authors the opportunity to go beyond the constraints of the written article to personally present the importance
of their work to the journal’s global audience. The first examples of the new author-supplied videos are now live at http://www.njp.org/videoabstracts.
