Useful new changes to the Inspec database

Inspec are very pleased to announce the addition of full scientific formula displays on the Inspec database record citations. While Inspec is not a full text database, the result of this new capability allows for these scientific formula displays to appear within abstracts and other fields on the full record displays and Result Lists.  

Also included in the database update is a simpler, more streamlined searching functionality.  Learn more about it, and the scientific formula display, on this page. Any questions or comments, please let us know!

Internet Resources Newsletter

Culled directly from the Internet Resources Newsletter, here is the latest engineering-related internet news.  As ever, do take a look at the newsletter itself which is always packed with links to both useful and intriguing sites. 

Building Sustainable Design (UBM Built Environment’s latest brand) is a new monthly magazine for building services engineers, architects, clients and all construction professionals who care about sustainable, low energy design in the built environment.

EngineeringDaily.net is a news/articles/discussions magazine by and for in-the-trenches practitioners.

Anyone interested in RSS feeds may like to view the following:

Royal Academy of Engineering News Releases
http://www.raeng.org.uk/feeds/rssnews.aspx

Would you miss us?

Here in the Library we are currently pondering whether separate blogs for each faculty are the way to go, or if we shouldn’t have a single blog for all of our users.  Personally, we’d be sorry to say goodbye to Broadcast – but the question is – would you?    If you would, grab hold of our proverbial ankles, screaming “don’t go!” using the comments box below…

24/7 coming soon!

Photo by Leo Reynolds, taken from www.flickr.com

Once again the Library will be extending its opening hours during the revision and exam period. From Monday 4th May to Friday 19th June you’ll be able to use the Library 24/7 for study, research and borrowing purposes.

News from the Web

 

 

Direct from the Internet Resources Newsletter here are the latest extracted engineering-related snippets. When you’ve looked at these, try clicking on the link to the newsletter itself - it’s always packed with interesting website news.

AccessEngineering

http://www.accessengineeringlibrary.com/

AccessEngineering is a redesign of the premiere online engineering resource, formerly known as McGraw-Hill’s Digital Engineering Library.

ENER-Plast

http://www.enerplast.eu/

ENER-Plast is a European Community funded project, supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe programme.

The objective of ENER-Plast is to provide the European polymer and its associated industries with the information, resources and tools needed to reduce their carbon footprint and environmental impact.

Engineering History and Heritage

http://www.engineeringhistoryandheritage.com/

A new journal, Engineering History and Heritage provides an indispensible historical perspective on existing structures and infrastructure around the world.

International Journal of Social Robotics

http://www.springerlink.com/content/1875-4791

A new journal from Springer.

This journal is a periodic publication which consolidates high impact contributions from researchers and developers in the field of social robotics, offering readers a holistic view of this emerging industry.

Library celebrates Loughborough’s contribution to Engineering

In celebration of the National Science and Engineering Week, the Library has on display books (and related objects) written by members of the Science and Engineering Faculties.

See a collection of water collection pots and latrine slab from the Water, Engineering & Development Centre (WEDC), as well as many text books, research monographs and reference works authored by members of the Engineering Depts here at Loughborough.

You may also be amused (horrified?) to see what luxury items you could purchase in the place of some of our pricier library resources.   Check out the display cabinets next to the issue desk to see what resource costs as much as a 5-bed detached house…

We’d love to hear what you think!  Use the comments box below.

Face your information gremlins at our NEW drop-in clinics!

Cartoon by Dave Walker

Do you find Metalib maddening?

Does Refworks leave you cold?

Been told to publish in high-impact journals, but don’t know where to start?

Come along to our WEEKLY drop-in sessions for one-to-one advice from a member of the Library Engineering Team.  You can either turn up, or book a slot via E.N.Gineer@lboro.ac.uk

All clinics will be held in Library Training Room 2 between 12-2pm, on the following dates:

Tues 10 Feb;  Thurs19 Feb;  Tues 24 Feb;  Thurs 5 Mar;  Tues 10 Mar;  Thurs 19 Mar;  Tues 24 Mar;

Staffing update and baby news!

 

Happy New Year to all our readers!

We’re sure all of you in the Wolfson School and the Dept. of Chemical Engineering will be delighted to hear that your Academic Librarian, Tracy Marshall,  has had a bouncing (9 and a half pounds) baby boy called Alexander, born on 5th January. Great news to cheer up this gloomy time of year!

Whilst Tracy is on maternity leave her post will be covered by Sharon Reid, who has previously been working in the Engineering Team office as a Senior Library Assistant. Sharon can be contacted via S.D.Reid@lboro.ac.uk and on ext. 2344.

Literature reviews: are students clued up?

Photograph by ntr23. www.flickr.com

Final year Civil & Building students have recently taken the opportunity to share their views on the literature review process.  As part of the Centre for Education for the Built Environment (CEBE) funded research project, “NEW Review”, final year students were asked for their feedback on a whole range of issues, from how important they felt the literature review was, how many sources they expected to search and read, and how confident they felt using the wide range of resources and services provided by the Library.

Of the 54 respondents, a pleasing 90% felt that the literature review was either very important or important compared with the rest of the dissertation.  In fact most expected to search over 15 resources, read at least 11-20 sources and to continue their search over the lifetime of the project.  However, there was a disconcerting lack of confidence about some the Library’s key resources.  For example, 25% of students were not confident about what Metalib was,  40% were not confident about using it, 33% lacked confidence about what databases the Library has, and 50% lacked confidence about using SFX  to locate full-text.  60% lacked confidence in using Refworks. 

Students ranked well in other areas though.  Over three-quarters felt they could recognise the bias and authority of a source.  Over 80% felt they understood how to cite.  Almost all students felt they understood plagiarism.

 

This data will help the project develop a new approach to teaching the literature review.  Experimental work is currently underway to capture students’ information seeking activities online which will further assist the project’s aim.

 

For more information on the work of the project, please contact Prof Andrew Baldwin, Dept of Civil & Building, A.N.Baldwin@lboro.ac.uk or use the comment box below.

New trial to IOP Science

‘IOPscience is a new online service for journal content published by IOP. It contains more than 300,000 articles, from 1874 to the present day. It’s been designed to give you easy access to scientific, technical and medical content. In IOPscience, one simple search returns three sets of results, expanding your research scope even further. As well as regular peer-reviewed content from IOP Publishing journals, users can also find pre-prints from eprintweb.org (a free service, based on the arXiv.org at Cornell University), and editorial and news from IOP community websites, alongside their search results’.

To access the database please go to http://iopscience.iop.org The trial is available until 31st December 2008.  A User guide is available at http://herald.iop.org/iopsciguide/m1/exl//deliver/IOPScienceUG.pdf   We welcome feedback – good or bad – on this trial, please use the Comment Box below.