Kresge Engineering Library News
Number 5, March 2001
Jean McKenzie, Editor.
- New University Librarian
- New Resources: MD Consult, AIAA Journals, INFORMS Journals, US Patents, SAE Index
- Updates on Resources: ENGnetBASE, SciFinder Scholar
- Nature Online
- Improve the Library
- Library instruction and seminar schedule
- Recommendations for purchases
- eReference
1. New University Librarian
Thomas C. Leonard, Professor and former Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism has been appointed as the new University Librarian. He has been serving as the Interim University Librarian since last summer. His other library-related activities include consulting for the Library of Congress, serving as chair of the UC Berkeley Academic Senate Library Committee and spending "countless hours in the early 1970s researching his doctoral dissertation" in history in the Doe stacks. Here's the full press release.
2. New resources
For information on accessing these resources from home, consult the Connecting from Off Campus guide.
MDConsult: We're participating in a one-year trial of this full-text online product with the Health Sciences Librarians at other UCs. It is a compilation of medical reference books, journals, clinics and yearbooks covering medical clinical literature. Though clinically oriented, it will be of some use to those participating in the campus-wide Health Sciences Initiative. MD Consult includes about 40 reference books, including "Campbells Operative Orthopaedics," "Cecil Textbook of Medicine," and "Rockwood and Green's Fractures in Adults." Amongst its 30 journals are the "American Journal of Sports Medicine" and "The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine." 25 titles appear in its "Clinics of North America" series, including "Orthopedic Clinics" and "Radiologic Clinics." There are also about 35 yearbooks covering all areas of medicine, article index databases, practice guidelines and patient education information. We'll be evaluating the use of MDConsult during the year. Please let us know if you find it useful in your research and teaching. [Note: access to this resource has ended.]
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Journals: AIAA journals are now available full-text from 2001 - on. The titles are AIAA Journal, Journal of Aircraft, Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, Journal of Propulsion and Power, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, and the Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer. Access these titles from the Electronic Journals database.
INFORMS Journals Online: You can now access online all the journals published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) from 1998 to the present. Access these titles from the Electronic Journals database.
U.S. Patent Images: U.S. Patents back to 1790 are online at the U.S. PTO site. The images are Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) files, and need to be downloaded and printed one page at a time. A TIFF viewer plug-in is required and a free version for Windows PCs can be downloaded. TIFF viewers will be installed on Library computers in the next few months.
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Index Online: The SAE Standards and Publications database is an index to their technical papers, journal articles, books, reports and standards. It includes abstracts and covers from 1906 - present. We carry most of the SAE publications in the Engineering Library, including the SAE papers in microfiche from 1985 - present. This index provides more thorough coverage of SAE publications than any other index. It's available from UC Berkeley IP addresses from our Article Databases page or directly from SAE.
3. Updates on resources
ENGnetBASE: This full-text database now provides access to more than 50 CRC Press Handbooks. New titles added include "Intelligent Systems and Technologies in Rehabilitation Engineering," "Numerical Techniques in Electromagnetics," "RF and Microwave Handbook," and "The Ocean Engineering Handbook." As the number of search sessions increased steadily throughout our trial last year, and people who responded to a survey found it to be very or somewhat useful, we have continued our subscription. On the CRC Press side, they have greatly improved the search interface, as well as increased the content in the database. Use it to find general overviews of topics or for looking up specific facts that are usually found in handbooks. Access it from our Electronic Books page. The default search is on all titles — to search just one or more titles, first check the Clear All Books box, then check the box(es) beside the title(s) you'd like to search.
Another CRC Press title, "The Handbook of Chemistry and Physics," is also available on line and on our Electronic Books page.
SciFinder Scholar: Late last year, Chemical Abstracts Service brought out a new client for SciFinder Scholar, its online index to Chemical Abstracts. It now includes records from Medline and allows searching by functional groups within reactions, as well as by company name. As this is a client-server product, you'll need to download the client software, SciFinder Scholar 2000, or upgrade the 3.0 client if you are already using that. It's available for MS Windows and Macintosh.
4. Nature Online
Many of you have asked when the Library will have access to Nature Online. The California Digital Library (CDL) has been involved in protracted negotiations regarding Nature's institutional license agreement and has recently made public a letter written to Nature Publishing Co. outlining the problems it presents for large institutions. The primary concerns are a 12-issue delay on access to the full content for institutional subscribers and an exorbitant price. As of December 2001, Nature Online is available.
5. Improve the Library
The Library Administration has established a suggestion box. Submit your comments and suggestions about library services and collections to them using the comments form.
6. Library Instruction and Seminar schedule
Thursday, April 5, 2 p.m., Bechtel 120A
Introduction to Electronic Resources in Engineering.
Wednesday, April 11, 10 a.m., Bechtel 120A
EndNote Bibliographic Manager.
EndNote is a bibliographic software program used to organize references, and create footnotes and generate bibliographies automatically in the style required in your discipline. A seminar in the use of EndNote will be presented by Gary Siler, ISI ResearchSoft, the producer of EndNote.
You can also request library instruction tailor-made for your class by using the seminar request form.
7. Recommendations for Purchases
Suggest book and journal titles for the Library with the purchase recommendation form.
8. eReference