Great News to all you Web of Science users! We have partnered with the Colliege of Information Science and Technology to purchase an additional 10-year access to the Web of Science for all three indexes, Science Citation Index; Arts & Humanities Index; Social Sciences Index. We now have searching and citation access to papers published 1980 onward. This should allow for more robust citation analysis. YEAH!

Check it out at:
http://www.library.drexel.edu/cgi-bin/r.cgi?url=http://isi01.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi?DestApp=WOS&Func=Frame

Ah, not those “Pods”. I am talking about Podcasts, specifically science podcasts. Interestingly, podcasts with science content are popping up all over the Internet. Some are news-like programs providing video- or audio-bites on the latest, hottest topics with a mixture of entertainment that appeal to a general audience. Some are in-depth presentations by the leading researchers directed at the scientific community. Many programs can be downloaded into your MP3 players. Some come with subscriptions that will automatically update your iTune directory.

In this space I will be reviewing podcasts with a bioscience focus, as well as general science content. Today I am highlighting: MicrobeWorld Radio produced by the American Society for Microbiology.

Going online in August 2005, ASM broadcasts a daily “show” on microbiological research. Aimed at a mixed audience of laypeople and scientists, with education a strong element throughout their site. Currently they are podcasting a series “Intimate Strangers: Unseen Life on Earth” a series of 15-25 minute video podcasts of the PBS television series. The weekly video podcast explores the microbial world and how life has evolved over Earth’s 3.8 billion-year history. Subscriptions are available to both the daily podcast and “Intimate Strangers“. The quality of the video and audio is excellent on my computer.

Produced under the authority of the American Society for Microbiology, the content is expected to be vetted and suitable for educational purposes.

Go to:
http://www.microbeworld.org/home.htm

Open J-Gate is a free online multidisciplinary database that indexes articles from more than 3,000 open access publications, with links to the full texts of the articles at Publisher sites. About half of the indexed publications are peer-reviewed scholarly journals. Users can search by keywords, title, and author, and also browse the tables of contents of the indexed publications. Launched in 2006, Open J-Gate is the contribution of Informatics (India) Ltd to promote OAI (Open Access Initiative). At present, it seems that Open J-Gate works better with Internet Explorer.

This is so newly on the scene, I don’t know how it compares to Google Scholar, except that in Open J-Gate there is some ability to formulate a search strategy and all results will be full-text.

Go to: http://www.openj-gate.com/

We are currently trialing a new product from ISI. Web Citation Index offers bibliographic and cited reference data from preprints, open access journals, technical reports, dissertations, proceedings, and other gray literature. It appears they are pulling some of their data from institutional repositories and preprint databases. Since researchers will upload a paper into a preprint database prior to the paper appearing in the “published” literature, this might be an efficient way to stay on top of hot new research and perhaps access papers not otherwise available to us.

This product is still in beta testing. You may send feedback or report any problems to Thomson Scientific from their Feedback Form

Access restricted by license to the Drexel University community. Go to: http://www.library.drexel.edu/cgi-bin/r.cgi?url=http://portal.isiknowledge.com/portal.cgi?DestApp=WCI&Func=Frame

trial access ends October 7, 2006

Have you heard about the Google Library Project? Or maybe the question would be more correct to say “What haven’t you heard about the Google Library Project?” In my opinion, this baby has more “sides” than the NBA.

I just stumbled across this article by Jonathan Band, “The Google Library Project: Both Sides of the Story” recently published in the new journal Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication, and Falsification. I recommend it as a thought-provoking and even-handed discussion.

Copyright and intellectual property are important factors in the ongoing dialogue revolving around Scholarly Communications. For information about Drexel University Libraries’ Symposium on Scholarly Communications go to: http://www.library.drexel.edu/services/symposium2006.html

Soil and environmental analysis : physical methods [electronic resource] / edited by Keith A. Smith, Chris E. Mullins. http://www.library.drexel.edu/cgi-bin/r.cgi?url=http://www.environetbase.com/ejournals/books/book_km.asp?id=3030

Toxicological chemistry and biochemistry [electronic resource] / Stanley E. Manahan.
http://www.library.drexel.edu/cgi-bin/r.cgi?url=http://www.environetbase.com/ejournals/books/book_km.asp?id=3845

Environmental stressors in health and disease [electronic resource] / edited by Jurgen Fuchs, Lester Packer.
http://www.library.drexel.edu/cgi-bin/r.cgi?url=http://www.environetbase.com/ejournals/books/book_km.asp?id=3083

Combustion and incineration processes [electronic resource] / Walter R. Niessen.
http://www.library.drexel.edu/cgi-bin/r.cgi?url=http://www.environetbase.com/ejournals/books/book_km.asp?id=3091

These electronic resources are restricted to Drexel University.

Frequently in this space I will be announcing new resources, probably electronic, that have been added to the catalog recently.

Today, I am highlighting GEO Year Book 2006. This is published by the United Nations Environment Programme. GEO = Global Environment Outlook.

The GEO Year Book 2006 is the third annual survey of the changing global environment produced by the United Nations Environment Programme, in collaboration with many world experts in environmental research and action.
The Year Book includes global and regional overviews.

It highlights the linkages between environmental well-being, vulnerability and poverty; records recent findings on the value of ecosystem services; and describes new research findings on polar and ocean changes that may prove a turning point in the urgency of our awareness and response to global change.

You may access this resource from our catalog by doing a title search on Geo Year Book.

Spanish Minister for Education announced the creation of a new digital library to provide the academic community in Spain with immediate access to scientific articles and books…This new digital collection will be called the Biblioteca Electrónica de Ciencia y Tecnología (Electronic Library of Science and Technology) and it is expected to cost about 80 million euros. According to the Education Minister, it will have 8,000 data bases and users will be able to consult the online editions of all the world’s main scientific journals.

Wow! What a great service.

Excerpted from: http://www.euroresidentes.com/Blogs/2006/04/spains-government-announces-new.html