April 7, 2008 is an important date in the implementation of the NIH Public Access Policy; as of this date, all articles arising from NIH funds must be submitted to PubMed Central upon acceptance for publication.

The NIH Public Access Policy implements Division G, Title II, Section 218 of PL 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008) which states:

SEC. 218. The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication: Provided, That the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

According to the terms of the Public Access Policy, all peer-reviewed articles must be submitted to PubMed Central if they are based on work that is:

1. Directly funded by an NIH grant or cooperative agreement active in Fiscal Year 2008 (October 1, 2007- September 30, 2008) or beyond;
2. Directly funded by a contract signed on or after April 7, 2008;
3. Directly funded by the NIH Intramural Program.
4. If NIH pays your salary.

The publishers of some journals will submit articles directly to PubMed Central on behalf of their authors. Authors of articles published in other journals must submit them to PMC themselves; Principal Investigators and their Institutions are responsible for ensuring all terms and conditions of awards are met. This includes the submission of articles that arise directly from their awards, even if they are not an author or co-author of the publication.

Full information about the NIH Public Access Policy, including and FAQ and links to the NIH Manuscript Submission (NIHMS) system are available at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/index.htm.

Posted by Web Editor (Kathleen Turner) at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whether to use Wikipedia or not use Wikipedia depends on what you need and how you are going to use the information you find.

If you need an authoritative scholarly resource for your research paper, Wikipedia is not your best choice. Wikipedia has limitations; its articles are written by anonymous authors, they can be edited by anyone, and the information is largely unreviewed, unregulated and, sometimes, inaccurate.

The University Libraries license authoritative general and specialized online encyclopedias for use by the Drexel community, including Britannica Online (academic edition), AccessScience (McGraw-Hill’s Encyclopedia of Science & Technology Online), Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, POLYMERSnetBASE, Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science, Grove Dictionary of Art and the Wiley Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering. These sources do provide scholarly, authoritative and reliable information. They are all free to Drexel students, faculty, and staff and are not available freely on the Internet.

Likewise, scholarly research articles can be found using electronic databases available from the library's web site. Several databases such as Expanded Academic, Proquest Research Library, and Ei Compendex/INSPEC offer access to peer reviewed journal articles. Major subject based electronic databases are available from: http://www.library.drexel.edu/resources/databasesbysubject.html.

Use the library’s guide, 'Is this a Scholarly publication?,' at http://www.library.drexel.edu/resources/tutorials/scholpubs.html to determine whether the article you found fits the definition of a scholarly publication or not.

On the other hand, Wikipedia can often provide a good starting point. In addition to general background information and context, it can quickly provide appropriate keywords that you can use while searching for scholarly information through databases available from the library's web site.

The library staff is happy to answer questions about finding the best possible source. Please contact the library staff or email or IM your questions by going to:
http://www.library.drexel.edu/about/askaquestion.html

Jane Bryan, Director of Libraries
Jay Bhatt, Engineering Librarian

Posted by Web Editor (Kathleen Turner) at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times has opened it's TimesSelect online service to anyone who registers with an email address from an educational institution (i.e., with a ".edu" address). TimesSelect offers content that isn’t available through the newspapers free site, such as Op-Ed and News Columnists, as well as access to archives since 1851 (up to 100 articles a month), customized e-mail news alerts, special multimedia features, and more.

Register for TimesSelect at http://www.nytimes.com/gst/regi.html.

While we hope the University community takes advantage of this offer from the New York Times, we will continue to offer the New York Times (Current) and New York Times (Historical) collections through ProQuest, to allow academic researchers to take advantage of the more extensive search tools they provide.

You'll find our options for reading or researching in the New York Times, as well as other local and national newspapers, on our Newspapers Online page (look for the Quick Link on the library homepage).

Posted by Web Editor (Kathleen Turner) at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Knovel, provider of nearly 1,000 e-books in our electronic collection, and one of the sponsors of our Scholarly Communication Symposium, is once again sponsoring the Knovel Challenge: use Knovel's online resources to answer 5 questions, and you'll be entered to win a $1500 scholarship, or 1 of 8 iPods.

Enter at http://info.knovel.com/challenge up until midnight on April 5th.

Knovel's online reference books and engineering handbooks are highly recommended by Engineering Librarian Jay Bhatt in his Research Guide, Fundamentals of Engineering Research.

Last Fall, College of Engineering student Sameer Kalghatgi was the lucky winner of an iPod Shuffle in one of Knovel's University Challenges -- will you be next?

Posted by Web Editor (Kathleen Turner) at 08:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)