Kresge Engineering Library News
Number 2, May 2000
Jean McKenzie, Editor.
- New Resources: Journal Citation Reports arrives; Web of Science expanded
- Full-text article links from Engineered Materials Abstracts, Metadex and ESPM
- Berkeley circulation information on Melvyl (CDL)
- Proxy Server
- Request articles via Melvyl (CDL)
- An excellent web searching page
- Recommendations for Purchases
- eReference: Questions via the web
1. New Resources
Journal Citation Reports: This unique tool offers a way to evaluate and compare journals using citation data and article counts. Use it to find the largest and most cited journals, the "hottest" journals right now and the journal impact factor. Please remember to log off when you have finished as our access is limited to 5 simultaneous users.
Web of Science coverage increased: The file for the Science Citation Index Expanded now goes back to 1945! It's great for verifying early citations and tracking who was citing whom. However, some caveats apply to the earlier years. Coverage was much narrower from 1945-73 and subject searching prior to 1991 is limited to title keywords. Use synonyms and plurals when searching and use AND between your terms unless you want to search them as a phrase. Book reviews from Science and Nature are included from 1983 on; abstracts from 1991 on.
2. Full-text article links from Engineered Materials Abstracts, Metadex and Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management indexes
Links from citations for several large publishers and vendors, including ScienceDirect (Elsevier), Kluwer, Springer, IDEAL (Academic Press), HighWire Press and EBSCO have been turned on for these databases from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts. From the citation display, click on the Locate Document link and scroll down the page to the Retrieve Electronic Full Text box to find the link to full text. If there isn't a full-text link, you can do a search in the Melvyl Periodicals Titles file by clicking the GO button in the Your local library collection box. This will direct you to the local location and call number. Connect to these indexes from our article databases page. The links for NTIS do not work and we're working with the vendor to make corrections and provide specialized messages as necessary for all their article databases.
3. Berkeley circulation information on Melvyl
You can now tell if UC Berkeley Library items are checked out or available in both the web and telnet versions of Melvyl. In the web version, simply click the link labeled UCB+ circ status. In the telnet version, add the command circ to the display statement, for example, d sho 7-10 circ (display, short format, record numbers 7 to 10, circulation information). Circulation information is obtained from GLADIS in real time so accurately represents the availability of materials.
4. Proxy Server
The Library began offering a proxy service a short time ago. This allows current UCB faculty, staff and students with a library card or student id to access UCB-licensed resources from off-campus without having to dial into the campus modem pool or use a CDL/Melvyl password.
To participate, you need cable modem, DSL, or high-speed modem access (28.8 or higher) through an internet service provider such as PacBell, AtHome, or Earthlink-Mindspring-Netcom. You also need a recent version of Netscape (all operating systems) or Internet Explorer (Microsoft Windows only).
Early reports indicate the service works very well and delivery of the electronic document is fast. For more information and for instructions on how to configure your browser to use the proxy server, go to the service web page.
5. Request articles via Melvyl
Request is a feature of the California Digital Library (CDL) catalog and databases that permits online ordering of items through Interlibrary Loan for faculty and graduate students. It has been working for book requests from Melvyl for some time and has recently been expanded for articles from several CDL-hosted databases, including INSPEC, Current Contents, Biosis and Medline. After displaying the results, check the boxes for articles you want that the UC Berkeley Library does not own and fill in the forms. The request goes directly to the Interlibrary Loan office in Doe Library to be processed. These requests take an average of 12-14 days to be filled so use it only for articles you can wait for. For those articles you need faster, please come into the Engineering Reference desk and fill out a form — we often can retrieve an article within 48 hours.
6. An excellent web searching page
This Find Websites page includes several web search engines as well as strategies for finding different categories of information on the web. Use it to find home pages for associations, societies and companies, publishers and journals and other topics.
7. Recommendations for Purchases
Suggest book and journal titles for the Library.
8. eReference