Another great video

Here is another good video that is about the Creative Commons...



Got this from the Travelin' Librarian.

Science Commons explained in just two minutes

Got a Boing Boing Blog pointer to this HD video via Jambina.

Hubble Image Advent Calendar

This is a really cool Hubble astronomical image advent calendar. Thanks to Charles Early at NASA Goddard for finding this.

Chemists -- Don't party too hard...

CAS Registers 40 Millionth Substance

azulenobenzofuran derivative rel-(1R,2aR,5aR,7S,10bR,10cR)-1,2a,3,4,5,5a,6,7,8,9,10,10b-dodecahydro-1-phenyl-7,10c-epoxy-10cH-azuleno[4,5,6-cd]benzofuran

"On November 21, CAS Registry Number 1073662-18-6 was assigned to the azulenobenzofuran derivative at right. CAS REGISTRY, the world's most authoritative collection of disclosed chemical substance information, now includes 40 million organic and inorganic substances. More than 100 million CAS Registry Numbers have been assigned to organic and inorganic substances and biosequences.

The 40 millionth substance was identified by CAS scientists in a journal article published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition:

* Oh, C.H.; Lee, J.H.; Lee, S.J.; Kim, J.I.; Hong, C.S. Intramolecular Huisgen-Type Cyclization of Platinum-Bound Pyrylium Ions with Alkenes and Subsequent Insertion into a Benzylic C-H Bond. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 7505-7507."

Ithaka's 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education

This report was published a couple of months ago. The blurb below was modified from OCLC's press release.

The report (PDF Format), based on a survey of faculty members to determine their attitudes related to online resources, electronic archiving, teaching and learning and related subjects, suggests a number of specific lessons for libraries:

• The library is in many ways falling off the radar screens of faculty.
  
• In a networked world, scholarship increasingly occurs across disciplinary or institutional boundaries, challenging the ability of any individual node to alone support this work.
  
• For a campus or its library to create a viable information strategy for a competitive environment, it must develop and maintain a thorough understanding of the needs of its important constituents.
  
• Despite the growing significance of information to scientists, the role of the library is diminishing in importance fastest among this group.

Engineers Rule | Forbes Magazine Article

"At American auto companies, finance guys and marketers rise to the top. Not at Honda.

Of all the bizarre subsidiaries that big companies can find themselves with, Harmony Agricultural Products, founded and owned by Honda Motor, is one of the strangest. This small company near Marysville, Ohio produces soybeans for tofu. Soybeans? Honda couldn't brook the sight of the shipping containers that brought parts from Japan to its nearby auto factories returning empty. So Harmony now ships 33,000 pounds of soybeans to Japan."Read on for more...

Libraries are still a critical resource

I just read this in the new issue of the November ASEE Prism magazine, p. 10.

Lyle D. Feisel, Dean Emeritus, Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science, State University of New York at Binghamton, former president of ASEE wrote:

"Library Still a Critical Resource"
http://www.prism-magazine.org/nov08/email.cfm
(ASEE members will need to login with your ID/password combo.)

"As usual, Henry Petroski provides serious food for thought, this time in his article expressing concern about the passage of the print library. As one who has long enjoyed the pleasures of unexpected discoveries while wandering the stacks of a great – or even a minor – library, I share his concern. It is not clear to me, however, that this will significantly change the nature of scholarship or of engineering problem solving."

[A buncho stuff deleted so I don't get trouble with the copyright police...]

"While that means they must give up some space, I’m sure they will continue to be a critical resource for engineers and the rest of the campus community, aided now by the increasingly ubiquitous computer."For the most part, I think it is a good article, but he ignores the librarians who work in that space. Access to electronic resources is not provided in a vacuum. We figure out what books, journals, ejournals, databases, publishers, platforms, vendors and other resources are available with the money that is provided. We teach the students (and faculty) how to find, use and evaluate all of that data and information. In short, it is the people (librarians) who help the students and faculty turn all that stuff into knowledge.

LibQUAL Survey Responses for Science Libraries

This is a particularly interesting report that was presented at the ARL/CNI Fall Forum, "Reinventing Science Librarianship: Models for the Future," October 16-17, 2008. In short, all science library patrons think they are short on electronic resources, it isn't just us.

LibQUAL+® in the Sciences

Highlights LibQUAL+® survey responses from faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates in science/math, engineering/computer science, and health sciences across 302 libraries (including 53 ARL libraries). Reports library users’ perceptions and expectations of service quality and information literacy outcomes, such as contribution of the library to advancing in a discipline. Also reports use of the library premises, Web site, and non-library information gateways. Notably, ratings of information literacy outcomes have risen since 2004 across all user groups.

Google Books Settlement Summary

This post by Jill Hurst-Wahl does a great job of putting together the relevant links that explain the suit.

Great World Wide Star Count

Schoolchildren, families, and citizen scientists around the world will gaze skyward after dark from October 20 to November 3, looking for specific constellations and then sharing their observations through the Internet. The Great World Wide Star Count, now in its second year, helps scientists map light pollution globally while educating participants about the stars.

The event, which is free and open to everyone who wants to participate, is organized by the Windows to the Universe project at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), in conjunction with planetariums and scientific societies across the country and abroad. Funding is provided by the National Science Foundation.

"The star count brings families together to enjoy the night sky and become involved in science," says Dennis Ward of UCAR's Office of Education and Outreach. "It also raises awareness about the impact of artificial lighting on our ability to see the stars."

The 2007 star count drew 6,624 observations taken on all seven continents, and organizers expect the number of participants to double this year. UCAR used last year's observations to generate maps of star visibility across the United States and around the world. The results show a strong correlation between development and a lack of night sky visibility. Next year, the star count will be included in a cornerstone project of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, a global effort initiated by the International Astronomical Union and the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization to promote interest in astronomy.

-----How the count works-----

Participants in the Northern Hemisphere will look for the constellation Cygnus, while those in the Southern Hemisphere will look for Sagittarius. They will then match their observations with
magnitude charts downloaded from the Great World Wide Star Count Web site (see below). The site contains instructions for finding the constellations and other event details, and it links to background about astronomy on the Windows to the Universe Web site.

Participants may make observations outside their homes or go to less developed areas where more stars are visible. Those in overcast areas who cannot see stars will be able to input data about cloud conditions instead.

Bright outdoor lighting at night is a growing problem for astronomical observing programs around the world. By searching for the same constellations in their respective hemispheres, participants in the Great World Wide Star Count will be able to compare their observations with what others see, giving them a sense of how star visibility varies from place to place. The observers will also learn more about the economic and geographic factors that control light pollution in their communities and around the world.

"Last year's results showed a strong correlation between dense development, where there is a lot of light, and a lack of star visibility," Ward says. "Without even being aware of it, many of us have lost the ability to see many stars at night. Part of our goal is getting people to look up and regain an appreciation of the night sky."

Happy Open Access Day

Hope you all have a great Open Access Day. If you are interested, submit a blog post so you can enter a contest and win lots o' swag. It is simple, just answer the following questions in your post:

• Why does Open Access matter to you?
• How did you first become aware of it?
• Why should scientific and medical research be an open-access resource for the world?
• What do you do to support Open Access, and what can others do?

For more info on Open Access, take a look at posting from Peter Suber and John Wilbanks. You should also take a look at some of the great journals that are in the Directory of Open Access Journals. The Open Access Wiki is another great place to start.

The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes have been awarded!

The 2008 Ig Nobel Prizes were awarded last night at the 18th First Annual Ig Nobel Prize ceremony. Recorded video is posted for your viewing pleasure, displeasure or indifference. Here is a list of the "winners".

Two interesting articles

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor, The Telegraph
"An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which has received rave reviews from scientists."

Advancing Science through Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Blogs and the Academy -- PLoS Biology, 6(9): e240
"Scientific discovery occurs in the lab one experiment at a time, but science itself moves forward based on a series of ongoing conversations, from a Nobel Prize winner's acceptance speech to collegial chats at a pub. When these conversations flow into the mainstream, they nurture the development of an informed public who understand the value of funding basic research and making evidence-based voting decisions. It is in the interests of scientists and academic institutions alike to bring these conversations into the public sphere."

Knovel University Challenge

Try to win a Wii, an iPod Nano, or some music. go to http://pages.knovel.com/KnovelUniversityChallenge.html.

1,400+ Knovel records are now cataloged

We now have over 1,000 records from the Knovel ebook platform. There are many great titles, such as the four volume set -- Mechanical Engineers Handbook, Lange's handbook of Chemistry, or Sittig's Handbook of Toxic and Hazardous Chemicals and Carcinogens.

Lots of new things today

Welcome back to school. The Penrose Library has lots of new things for the Fall Quarter.

1) We are pleased to announce the launch of a new home page! This redesign affects only the home page and is intended to feature our new tools for searching the catalog and article databases. The same content is still available on the home page and your old bookmarks and links to pages within our site will still work. Please let us know if you have trouble finding what you need on the new home page. Stay tuned for a complete Web site redesign this year!

2) Be sure to try out the new discovery tool, Encore, to search the catalog. Penrose has branded Encore as “PEAK Beta”, and made it the default catalog search. You can still search the “old” way by selecting “PEAK Classic” from the drop down box or going to the “Advanced Keyword Search”. Students love PEAK Beta’s more intuitive searching, refinement options, and tag clouds. Peak Beta’s relevancy-ranked results are more useful to most searchers. Peak Beta even corrects your spelling! For more precise searching, you will still have access to PEAK Classic and the “Advanced Search.”

3) The Book Drop Cafe is now open for business.

August 26th Server Upgrades -- Very Limited Access to Databases and Peak

There will be no off-campus access to our databases on Tuesday, Aug. 26 because of server upgrades. Limited access to our databases may be available from on-campus via Database & Article Search. During this time, the Peak catalog will also be down. You may check the library’s holdings through Prospector. Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience.

Chemistry Journal Use at the University of Denver

The article that Rachel Hansen and I worked on was finally published today. The title of it is -- "Local Evaluation of Chemistry Journals."

This paper reports on the evaluation of local usage statistics of a specific set of chemistry journals at the University of Denver in Colorado, USA. The objective of the study is to demonstrate that commercial publishers in chemistry charge considerably more for their journals than those from the non-commercial sector. There are three variables that are considered in this research: institutional cost of the journal, cost per Thomson Scientific Impact Factor (IF), and cost per article downloaded. In the defined set of 65 journals, it is found that commercial publishers charge more for their journals by a ratio of 2.59. Commercial publishers cost more per impact factor by a ratio of 3.20 and significantly more per local article download by a ratio of 6.16. This research demonstrates that local usage statistics should be used as part of the journal evaluation process.

Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century

The Council on Library and Information Resources has released a new report.

It is
No Brief Candle: Reconceiving Research Libraries for the 21st Century

Abstract -- How should we be rethinking the research library in a swiftly changing information landscape? In February 2008, CLIR convened 25 leading librarians, publishers, faculty members, and information technology specialists to consider this question. Participants discussed the challenges and opportunities that libraries are likely to face in the next five to ten years, and how changes in scholarly communication will affect the future library. Essays by eight of the participants—Paul Courant, Andrew Dillon, Rick Luce, Stephen Nichols, Daphnée Rentfrow, Abby Smith, Kate Wittenberg, and Lee Zia—were circulated to participants in advance and provided background for the conversation. This report contains these background essays as well as a summary of the meeting.

Games in the Library

We will be getting some recreational board and video gaming systems for the library soon. What kind of recommendations do you have for game titles (board or video)? We do plan on getting either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. We will be getting a Wii, too! What would you like to play?