1.  Budget News

The collections budget cut is 14%.  This will be met by reducing the books budget and canceling serials.  Where our journal subscriptions currently include both the electronic and print versions, the print will be cancelled and electronic access retained as the subscriptions come up for renewal.  This applies mostly to journals from professional associations, including ASCE, ASME and IEEE and their British counterparts, ICE/Telford, IMechE and IET.  The Library's purpose is to support current curricular and research needs and we will evaluate potential cancellations beyond those described above in that context.  We expect to have a complete cancellation plan out to you in Spring 2010.

On the positive side, funds are available and you should continue to forward any recommendations for purchases to Lisa and me.  See the Library Collections page for more information.

The most significant cut on the operations side resulted in a 25% reduction in student staffing across the Libraries, which led to the decision to close all campus libraries, except Moffitt, on Saturday for this year.

2.  New Resources

OskiCat:  The new UC Berkeley Library Catalog

Some of the features of OskiCat are:

• Keyword searching across author, title, subject, and more
• Renew items online and manage your account via MyOskiCat 
• Request items checked out to another borrower or stored at NRLF
• Search more libraries including Transportation Studies and WRCA
• Limit results to specific libraries, or Online items
• Find Course Reserves quickly

 

1. Engineering Library Staff
Our newest staff member is Laura Calverley who joined us in August. Laura is the Reference & Outreach Services Librarian, and the selector and liaison to the CEE Department. With this issue, Laura takes over as Newsletter Editor, and she has created its new blog format. Lisa Ngo is the Instruction and Electronic Services Librarian, and selector and liaison to the ME and MSE Departments. I am the Head Librarian, and liaison and selector for BioE, EECS, IEOR, and NE Departments. As selectors, each of us is responsible for purchasing books, journals and other materials to meet the research and teaching needs of College of Engineering faculty and students.

Brice Sullivan is the Circulation Supervisor and manages all the course reserves for Engineering classes. Fannie Yip, Technical Processing Supervisor, and Pati Moran, Technical Processing Assistant, together process all the materials that come into and leave the Engineering Library. Fannie and Brice also work at the reference desk, and Pati works at the Circulation desk. Taking care of all our website development, current serials lists and archiving EECS Technical Reports is our Electronic Resources Specialist, Fleur Helsingor.
–Jean McKenzie

2. Ebooks
Our electronic books collection is growing in leaps and bounds with the latest additions of Ebrary and a UC-wide trial to Springer e-books.

Ebrary is a collection of full-text searchable books with
built-in software tools. It is multidisciplinary and includes titles such as "Java, a Beginner's Guide" by H. Schild, "Organic and Inorganic Nanostructures" by A. Nabok, and "Computational Bioengineering" by M. Cerrolaza. Get started with Ebrary guide

The UC-wide trial to the Springer eBook Collection gives us online access to Springer's extensive digitized collection of scientific, technical, and biomedical ebooks. Springer books are browsable by subject area or full-text searchable. Our trial ends on December 31st, 2008.

Interested in other electronic books? See all our e-books resources online.

3. SciFinder Scholar – On the Web!

SciFinder Scholar is now available to UC Faculty, staff, and students on the web in addition to the client version that many of you are familiar with.

The web version includes features not available in the client version such as "Keep Me Posted", which allows users to set up current awareness searches.

To use the web version, users must first register with a current Berkeley e-mail address. Registration information

4. IM Reference
Participating UCB science libraries are now offering reference services over instant messaging. Chat reference will be available Monday through Friday from 10am-12pm and 1pm-5pm. You can access IM reference through the Meebo chat widget that appears on many of our web pages, including the Engineering Library’s Ask Us page. Additionally, you can add the username “ucbscilibs” to your buddy list on AIM, Google Chat, or Yahoo Messenger.

5. Berkeley Research Impact Initiative (BRII)

The BRII, co-sponsored by UC Berkeley’s Vice-Chancellor for Research and the University Librarian, supports Berkeley researchers who choose to make their journal publications freely available to the public.

BRII covers up to $3,000 of the publication fees charged by open access (OA) publishers (i.e. PLoS, BioMed Central, etc.). BRII also covers up to $1,500 of the “paid access” fees charged by non-OA publishers (i.e. IMechE (PEP), Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley), who make articles free to read at the moment of publication.

A list of OA and paid access publishers can be found on the UC Berkeley Scholarly Communication website. For guidelines, questions and application forms, please see the BRII website.

1. Next Generation Melvyl Catalog

Melvyl + WorldCat = Next Generation Melvyl!

The UC Libraries have launched Next Generation Melvyl, a potential replacement for the UC-wide Melvyl catalog. Through a single interface, NextGen Melvyl searches holdings in UCB, all UC Libraries, and libraries around the world (with UCB holdings listed first), as well as UC books digitized by Google, and citations for articles in MEDLINE (PubMed) and ArticleFirst, which includes some physical science and engineering articles. Other Key Points: The current Melvyl Catalog and all its functionality will be maintained and available as usual. See the FAQ for more information. NextGen Melvyl will be available for at least six months and is very much a work in progress as improvements continue to be made. Your feedback during this pilot phase is vital. Please test NextGen Melvyl as frequently and as vigorously as possible, and use the "Survey - Your Voice Counts!" link located in the upper-right corner to give us that feedback.

2. New Resources

Nature: UCB now has access to two new Nature titles, Nature Protocols and Nature Geoscience. In addition, the archive of the flagship title, Nature, is available from 1869. Computing Reviews: This database includes book reviews, as well as reviews of articles from journals and conference proceedings. Reviews are written by experts in the computer science field who have been qualified by the Association of Computing Machinery. You can search or browse the database and find recommendations by Editors, Reviewers, and Readers. Use the UC e-Links button to find the full text of reviewed works.

3. Changes to Resources

Springer Protocols: Formerly called BioMedProtocols, these moved to Springer when it acquired Humana Press. The database is comprised of more than 18,000 searchable protocols in molecular biology and biomedicine from the series Methods in Molecular Biology, Methods in Molecular Medicine, Methods in Biotechnology, Neuromethods, and other sources. Springer's new interface features commenting, video protocols, and the ability to upload protocols.

4. Staff Changes

Lisa Ngo joined the Library in August 2007. Lisa is the Instruction & Electronic Services Librarian and selector for Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering. Pati Moran has been our Technical Processing Assistant since last September and plans to attend library school to study for a master's degree in library science. All of us have just completed interviews of five candidates for a Reference & Outreach Librarian and we hope to have someone starting in time for Fall semester.

5. Ask Us, Recommendations for Purchase, Request a Workshop

• Ask Us
• Recommendations for Purchase
• Request a Library Workshop

— Jean McKenzie and Lisa Ngo

1. New Resources: These new resources are now accessible from all UC IP addresses.

Journal of Fluid Mechanics Backfile
The JFM backfile covers Volumes 1 - 329 (1956-1996). Links from article databases will soon be enabled; in the meantime, you can browse the list of issues. (Scroll down the page to find the volume list.)

Taylor and Francis Journals
The complete Taylor and Francis online journals collection totals more than 1,000 titles in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. UC Berkeley already had online access to the Taylor and Francis journals received in print and this extends our access in all subject areas.

ASM Alloy Phase Diagrams Center
The ASM Alloy Phase Diagrams Center provides access to more than 11,000 binary and ternary phase diagrams and associated phase data for more than 2,400 systems. The collection will be updated to include 10,000 binary and 20,000 ternary diagrams. The first update will occur in September and include nearly 18,000 ternary diagrams. See the Introduction to Phase Diagrams for an overview.

Nature Journals

Nature Nanotechnology, v. 1 (2006), covers all aspects of nanoscience and nanotechnology, including "research into the design, characterization and production of structures, devices and systems that involve the manipulation and control of materials and phenomena at atomic, molecular and macromolecular scales."

Nature Photonics, v. 1 (2007), coverage ranges "from research into the fundamental properties of light and how it interacts with matter through to the latest design of optoelectronic devices and emerging applications that exploit photons."

SPIE Journals

The Journal of Applied Remote Sensing, v. 1 (2007), covers the concepts, information, and progress of the remote-sensing community.

The Journal of Nanophotonics, v. 1 (2007), focuses on the fabrication and application of nanostructures that either generate or manipulate light from the infrared to the ultraviolet regimes.

Both SPIE titles are peer reviewed, online-only journals featuring multimedia (video and audio) content; color images; and rapid, article-at-a-time publication.

UCB faculty, staff and students can also access these resources off campus via the Library Proxy Server. These new resources are, or soon will be, in our catalogs and the Electronic Journals A-Z list.

2. Collection Budget: Collection funding for the Engineering Library has been stable over the past year. The Library has had a flat budget for a number of years and has avoided major collection reductions only through a combination of actions, such as favorable consortial licensing, careful stewardship of one-time funding, and the elimination of print versions of commercially-published journals when online access is secured. However, unless the Library Collections budget receives some inflationary adjustments, we will be facing collection cuts in the coming year.  The campus Library system has a new Budget Outlook web page, where you can learn more about these collections issues.

3. SAE Digital Library: UC has encountered licensing problems with the SAE Digital Library, which provided online access to the full text of the technical papers from the Society of Automotive Engineers. It is not clear when or if these issues will be resolved, given SAE's new restrictive license. (UC is not alone in these problems; academic engineering libraries across the country have encountered the same problems and similarly dropped their subscriptions.)

The Engineering Library is committed to working with faculty and graduate students to provide papers as needed. We already own all the papers on microfiche from 1984-2004 (at which point SAE stopped publishing the papers in microfiche). Our microfiche equipment includes the ability to scan and download documents in pdf format. We also have a full set of the SAE Transactions (which includes selected technical papers). We have ordered the 2005 and 2006 papers on CD-ROM and expect to have them installed in the Library within the next week or two, and we are working on a plan to order 2007 papers, as needed, for graduate students and faculty. In the meantime, please speak with a reference librarian if you need help locating SAE papers. More information can be found on the Science and Engineering Libraries News blog.

4. Camille Wanat Retires: I will be retiring July 1, 2007. It's been my privilege to manage the Kresge Engineering Library since 1988.  I will miss working with Berkeley engineering faculty and graduate students on a daily basis; there's something about working with the very best in the field that challenges the library to mirror that excellence. My thanks for your support of library services through the years.

Jean McKenzie will be the Interim Head of the Kresge Engineering Library. She has been the Assistant Head of this library for many years, so most of you are already familiar with her excellent work. She can be reached at (510) 643-5575 or "jmckenzi" at library dot berkeley dot edu.

— Camille Wanat

5. Staff Update: In January 2007, Brian Quigley was appointed to the position of Head of the Mathematics-Statistics Library.  While we miss his services as an engineering librarian, we are very happy that he will continue to be part of the Berkeley campus libraries. Recruitment is in process to fill his former position here at the Engineering Library and we expect to have a new librarian on board this summer. In the meantime, Brian will continue to help out with our reference and instructional services and as the collection specialist for computer science.

6. Ask Us and Recommendations for Purchase

• Ask Us
• Recommendations for Purchase

1. New Online Journals

Biomicrofluidics is a new, open access title from the American Institute of Physics that addresses novel microfluidic techniques for "researchers from diverse fields, including engineering, physics, materials science, chemistry, and biology." Its first issue (Jan-Mar 2007) is partially available now.

Biointerphases began in early 2006 and has three issues out. It is an open access, interdisciplinary journal providing a platform for biomaterials interface researchers from biology, chemistry, physics, and materials sciences communities.

2. Electronic Books Update: The Kresge Engineering Library subscribes to several large packages of electronic books that continually add titles to their collections. Knovel, ENGnetBASE, and Safari are among the largest of these and we thought it might be useful to list some of their recent additions:

Knovel adds newly digitized material, including older classics (about 1,020 titles to date):

• Mobile, wireless, and sensor networks : technology, applications, and future directions. Shorey, Rajiv, ed. IEEE Press, 2006.
• Nuclear chemical engineering. Benedict, Manson, Pigford, Thomas H., Levi, Hans Wolfgang. 2nd edition. McGraw-Hill, 1981.
• Statistical design and analysis of experiments : with applications to engineering and science. Mason, Robert L., et al. 2nd edition. Wiley, 2003.

ENGnetBASE adds newer materials published by CRC/Taylor & Francis (about 625 titles to date):

• Biomedical engineering fundamentals. Bronzino, Joseph D., ed. 2006.
• Multiphase flow handbook. Clayton Crowe. 2006.
• Earthquake engineering for structural design. Chen, W.F., Lui, E.M. 2006.

Safari, O'Reilly computer manuals (about 400 titles currently):

• Programming Python. 3rd Edition. O'Reilly, 2006.
• Google hacks. 3rd Edition. O'Reilly, 2006.

Knovel, ENGnetBASE, and Safari are accessible from all campus IP addresses or via the proxy server. You can view individual titles or search across the entire collections. Thousands more electronic books are accessible from Electronic Books.

3. Retrospective Article Databases: Many article database producers have converted their old print volumes to digital files, making it possible to search for historical material from more than 100 years ago. Compendex, PubMed, and Web of Science have integrated the older materials into the current file; INSPEC has kept the current and historic files separate. Links for all these article databases can be found from our Article Databases page.

Compendex: 1884 - present
INSPEC: 1898 - 1968; 1969 - present
PubMed: 1951 - present
Web of Science: 1900 - present

4. New Services

IM Reference Launches: The Engineering Library recently launched an instant message (IM) reference service. During the semester, we are providing IM reference from 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Through this service, you can instantly connect with a librarian who can help answer your library questions. Our screen name is askengi on AIM, Yahoo!, and Google Talk. Add us to your buddy list for easy access! If you do not have IM software on your computer, or you cannot use it for security reasons, try the web-based meebo instead. For more information about IM, see the Doe Library's IM Reference FAQ. You can also still reach us in person, by phone, and by e-mail. See our Ask Us page for more information.

5. Services Update

Expedited Article Requests: Are you in a hurry to get a journal article or conference paper not available at UCB? The Engineering Library offers an expedited document delivery service for faculty, graduate students, and research staff in the College of Engineering. Use our Expedited Article and Paper Request form, and requested documents will usually be delivered electronically (web delivery) in one to three days.

Course Reserves and bSpace: You can link to your course reserve lists from the Web Content section of bSpace, making it easier for your students to find the materials they should be reading. Faculty will soon receive the first call for their Spring Course Reserve lists.

Standards: We subscribe to a few large sets of standards, including those from ASTM, IEEE, and ASCE. However, we will gladly purchase individual standards from other organizations, such as ISO or ANSI, when they are needed for research. Please contact us if you find a standard that is critical to your research.

6. Ask Us (formerly eReference) and Purchase Recommendations: Ask Us | Book Purchase Recommendation Form

1. New Resources

Knovel: We now have access to the Knovel Library, an online collection of over 800 books in engineering and other scientific disciplines. Over 30 sci-tech publishers are represented in this full-text collection of reference handbooks, texts, and databases, including Wiley, McGraw-Hill, Springer, Elsevier, and others. The Knovel titles can be searched by topic across the aggregated set, or users can browse the content of a specific title. The Search Tips on the home page outline the basic search techniques. Advanced features include numeric range searching for various mechanical, electrical, physical, and optical properties. Knovel has also added interactive graphs and tables to some works, which allow users to manipulate, analyze, and export the data. A few of the works included in this product are:

• Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers
• Perry's Chemical Engineers Handbook
• Handbook of Biomaterial Properties
• Handbook of Materials Selection
• The RFID Handbook
• Springer Handbook of Nanotechnology
• Structural Steel Designers' Handbook

Also included are the IEE's series of over 20 reference works on the properties of electronic materials, such as:

• Properties of Silicon
• Properties of Gallium Arsenide
• Properties, Processing and Applications of Indium Phosphide

A full list of titles is available at the Knovel website. Knovel is available from any computer on campus; UCB faculty, staff, and students can also access it off campus via the Library Proxy Server. Eventually, you will be able to link to individual titles in the Knovel Library from the Melvyl catalog but, for now, you can link to it from the Electronic Books page on the Engineering Library's website.

NMR Journal Backfiles: We have licensed the backfiles for several magnetic resonance and imaging journals. Catalog records and UC-eLinks will be updated soon to reflect the newly acquired material. In the meantime, use the URLs below to directly access the older volumes of these titles. The titles are:

• Concepts in Magnetic Resonance 1989-1995
• International Journal of Imaging Systems and Technology 1989-1995
• Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging 1991-1998
• Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 1984-1998
• NMR in Biomedicine 1988-1995
• Proceedings of the Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 1982-1998

This collection currently includes 21 titles.

Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: This new, ten-volume print encyclopedia describes itself as a "comprehensive single reference source compiling multidisciplinary research topics related to nanoscale science and technology in all disciplines of science, engineering, and medicine." Arranged alphabetically, the 419 chapters include coverage of biomedical nanotechnology, nanoelectronics, nanomaterials, nanomechanics, nanotubes, and theoretical and computational nanotechnology. Its call number is QC176.8.N35 E53 2004 Reference.

It joins the five-volume print and online Dekker Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at call number QC176.8.N335 D43 2004 Reference.

Synthesis, the Digital Library of Engineering and Computer Science: The Engineering Library has licensed access to Synthesis, the Digital Library of Engineering and Computer Science. Published by Morgan & Claypool, Synthesis is a new venture that is based on the publication of lectures, self-contained electronic documents that synthesize research topics, authored by expert contributors to the field. The current and forthcoming Lectures, typically 80-120 page treatments in PDF format, provide more analysis and depth than the usual research journal article. It is hoped that they will be useful for courses as well as in research.

Current lectures are available in the areas of biomedical engineering, communications, image, video & multimedia processing, signal processing, and solid state materials and devices. Eventually, Synthesis titles will cover computer science and mechanical, civil, chemical, materials, and aerospace engineering.

The materials are organized in series, managed by prominent editors. UCB Professors Barsky and Walrand are the editors of the series on Computer Graphics & Animation and on Communication Networks, respectively.

Two Material Science titles:

• Key Engineering Materials: Online access extends back to 1989; we will also be receiving the print volumes from 2006 forward in the Engineering Library.
• Materials Science Forum: Online access goes back to 1987; the print volumes are housed in the Chemistry Library.

You can link to the full text of articles in these journals via the UC-eLinks button when searching in databases such as INSPEC or Web of Science. You can also link to them via the Electronic Journals link.

Chronicle of Higher Education: UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and students now have online access to The Chronicle of Higher Education, the premier source of news and career information for university faculty and administrators. Its many sections cover areas such as Faculty, Students, Government & Politics, Information Technology, Research & Books, and International news. The Chronicle also maintains an extensive database of employment opportunities. Users can browse issues back to 1995 and search for articles from 1989 to date. The Chronicle also provides an assortment of RSS feeds covering their daily news and job listings.

2. New Library Website: The Engineering Library is planning to launch a redesigned website in May, after final exams have ended. Our redesigned website will feature many improvements, including a cleaner layout, more intuitive navigation, and easier access to library resources. Over the past year, we conducted several studies with our library users to help inform our redesign and ensure it will meet your needs. We extend our gratitude to all the faculty and students who participated in our studies. If you have any questions about the new website, please ask us.

3. eReference and Recommendations for Purchase:

• Ask Us: Engineering Library Electronic Reference Service
• Book Purchase Recommendation Form

1. New Resources

Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings: UCB faculty, staff, and students now have access to over 14,000 peer-reviewed papers from MRS meetings from 2000 to the present via the MRS Proceedings Library. An increasing number of these proceedings are only available online. When you locate a reference from a MRS Symposia Proceedings in Compendex, INSPEC, or another engineering database, go directly to the MRS Online Proceedings Library to find the paper. Eventually, you will be able to link to the appropriate online proceedings volume through Melvyl, but these links are not yet in place. For now, going directly to the MRS Online Proceedings Library is most efficient.

CINDAS databases: The Library now has access to two new materials properties databases from CINDAS (the Center for Information and Numerical Data Analysis and Synthesis at Purdue University). The Thermophysical Properties of Matter Database (TPMD) provides thermophysical properties of over 5,000 materials in over 50,000 data curves. The Microelectronics Packaging Materials Database (MPMD) contains data on the thermal, mechanical, electrical, and physical properties of over 750 electronics packaging materials. Both of these databases include dynamic graphing capabilities, allowing users to compare the same property of multiple materials, change scale ranges, and export data. The databases are continually updated and expanded. First time users are strongly encouraged to view the tutorials to learn the full capabilities of these data sources.

We will be evaluating these databases in the future to determine whether or not to continue subscribing, so please send me any feedback you have on these products.

New Electronic Journals Database: The Engineering Library recently started using a new Electronic Journals database, powered by UC-eLinks. The new database offers several improvements over the previous version:

• Provides access to electronic journals in all subjects available at Berkeley.
• Offers searching by journal title keywords or abbreviations.
• Allows browsing by journal title or subject category.
• Provides links to Melvyl in UC-eLinks to find older issues in print.

Encyclopedia of Materials: Users of this online encyclopedia may have noticed that we temporarily lost access. Access has now been restored; we apologize for the inconvenience.

2. Changes to Resources

Safari Tech Books Online: Our subscription now includes all O'Reilly computer manuals published from 2003-2005, plus newly released titles as they are added to Safari.

SciFinder Scholar 2006: Searchers of SciFinder Scholar (Chemical Abstracts) on PCs need to upgrade to the 2006 software by March 31, 2006, as older versions will no longer be supported after that date.

3. Services

Increased Electrical Access: In order to facilitate laptop use in the Engineering Library, new electrical outlets were installed under the large study tables in the library as well as in most of the study carrels. The Library also has AirBears access. The Berkeley Engineering Fund provided the funds to make this improvement possible. Engineering students have been giving the new outlets a heavy workout this semester!

UC-eLinks Citation Linker: This is a quick way to link to the full text of a journal article from a known citation. The journal title (or ISSN) and date are required. Fill in volume, issue and page numbers to go directly to the article.

USB Flash Drives Now Supported: USB flash drives may be used now on all of our public PC workstations to save files from the Internet. You can still use 3.5" floppy disks as well; however, we no longer have Zip drives.

Course Reserves: Reserve materials for all College of Engineering courses are held at the Engineering Library, and faculty will receive a call letter soon requesting their lists for Spring 2006 courses.

Librarians: Please contact your librarian if you have recommendations for purchase, if you would like library research instruction for your group or class, or if you have other questions about library materials or services. Our contact information and departments each of us handles are below:

• Camille Wanat, EE, MSE, ME, (510) 642-0634
• Brian Quigley, CS, IEOR, NE, (510) 643-4299
• Jean McKenzie, CEE, BIOE, (510) 643-5575

4. Interesting Reading: The November issue of Computer includes an article by Bob Colwell on Books Engineers Should Read. As he states in the article, "Some of these books offer wisdom on how to think about the task of engineering, others focus on the boundary between the designer's world and the real world with human users, and some have helped inform my personal worldview in a way that I think has made me a better engineer." Almost all of these books are available in our campus libraries, so you can search Melvyl to find the call numbers and location. Some highlights include:

Henry Petroski, To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (St. Martins Press, 1985).
TA174.P474 1985 Engineering Library

James Chiles, Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology (HarperBusiness, 2001).
T174.5.C57 2001 Engineering Library

Tom Kelley, The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, Americas Leading Design Firm (Currency/Doubleday, 2001).
HD53.K454 2001 Environmental Design Library

Donald Norman, The Invisible Computer (MIT Press, 1998).
QA76.5.N665 1998 Engineering Library

Clayton Christensen, The Innovators Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Harvard Business School Press, 1997).
HD53.C49 1997 Business & Economics Library

5. eReference and Recommendations for Purchase

• Ask Us: Engineering Library Electronic Reference Service
• Book Purchase Recommendation Form

1. New Resources

The Library has subscribed to AccessScience, the online version of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, 9th Edition, and the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 6th Edition. This encyclopedia contains "more than 8,000 articles written by the leading figures in their fields … and illustrated with the non-specialist in mind." It covers all areas of science and technology, including Anthropology & Archeology, Chemistry, Engineering & Materials, Food Science & Technology, Medicine and Paleontology. AccessScience can be accessed from any computer on-campus; UCB faculty, staff and students can also use it from off-campus via the Library Proxy Server.

The Library now has access to the ASM Handbooks Online. This product includes all the data in the 21 volumes of the ASM Handbook, as well as the 2 ASM desk editions: Engineering Materials Handbook and Metals Handbook. This is a good resource to consult for data and background information on materials properties, processes, performance, and selection. Both metals and engineered materials (such as composites, ceramics, and plastics) are included. You can also find a link to this resource from our Electronic Books page.

2. Changes to Resources

UC has changed its vendor for the EI Compendex Plus database to Elsevier's Engineering Village (EV2). This change also includes backfiles to 1884! The older Ovid interface will remain available through March 2005.

The interface for our CSA databases changed in January. It incorporates a cleaner look, searchable help and more visible search tools. Databases affected by this change include Engineered Materials Abstracts, Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management, Metadex, Earthquake Engineering Abstracts, and Georef. They are all linked from our article databases page.

3. Springer/Blackwell Print Journals: Starting with 2005, the Library will rely on online access to the journals published by Springer and by Blackwell. We will no longer receive these titles in print, but will have access to a UC shared print archive for these titles. This is in keeping with the pattern we have been following of eliminating format duplication, while preserving access to the content. The Springer and Blackwell licenses were recently renewed for 2005 through 2007 and the establishment of the ongoing shared print archive was one outcome of the negotiations. You can find further details, as well as lists of the titles involved, on the online lists of Blackwell and Springer titles. This strategy has enabled The Library to achieve sufficient savings in 2005 to avoid any further print journal cancellation projects this spring.

4. Open Access Journals

Definition: An open access publication meets two conditions: (a) The author/copyright holder grants free, worldwide, digital access to the publication, and (b) the publication and any supplementary materials are deposited in at least one online repository to enable such access and long-term archiving. For more details on open access, please see the Public Library of Science (PLoS) statements and timeline.

Several publications that may be of interest to engineering faculty and graduate students are now offering an open access model of publication. The cost models vary, but may include a combination of author page charges, institutional memberships and print subscriptions.

PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences): Beginning in 2005, with UC's PNAS Institutional Site License, UC authors are entitled to a 25% discount off the PNAS Open Access fee (regularly $1,000) to make their papers immediately free online. For more information, see the PNAS Open Access Option page.

NAR (Nucleic Acids Research): UC has an institutional membership with NAR so all UC authors enjoy discounted publication charges for this journal. Authors whose paper is accepted by NAR will receive an email from Oxford University Press (OUP), its publisher, and be directed to complete a form. This will trigger the discount and authors will be charged $500 instead of the non-member fee of $1,500. More information on NAR's open access is at NAR's Open Access Initiative page.

PLoS (Public Library of Science): UC's institutional membership reduces UC authors' charges by 20% for PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. Three new journals will begin in 2005: PLoS Genetics, PLoS Computational Biology and PLoS Pathogens. The non-member fee is $1,500 and PLoS waives author fees for those who do not have the resources to fund them. For more information, see the PLoS announcement.

BioMed Central: With UC's BioMed Central membership, UC authors can publish in their open access journals with no charge. Their journals include Genome Biology and BMC Bioinformatics. Visit BioMed Central for more information.

The Office of Scholarly Communication at CDL provides a wealth of information on scholarly communication, including a list of memberships and discounts.

5. eScholarship Postprint Service:

The University of California Libraries and the California Digital Library (CDL) have launched the eScholarship Postprint Service. This service provides a central location for UC faculty and researchers to showcase and provide open access to their research. UC authors may deposit postprints of previously published journal articles and papers from refereed conference proceedings. CDL estimates that about 70% of publishers currently allow authors to post on institutional repositories. Authors can check publisher copyright policies via the SHERPA database.

Why should you participate? There are a number of worthwhile reasons: work within eScholarship can be discovered through simple Google searches, opening your research up to more readers; posting your article in eScholarship ensures archival access to the digital version of your work; and eScholarship can provide you with monthly reports about your paper and article download rates.

To kickstart this service, the eScholarship staff will be inviting UC authors to deposit their articles from 2004 (as identified in Web of Science). You may have already received an email from them, though you do not have to wait for an invitation. We would encourage all faculty and graduate students to submit their postprints to the repository, when allowed by publisher policies. For more information, see the About eScholarship Postprints page.

6. eReference and Recommendations for Purchase

• Ask Us: Engineering Library Electronic Reference Service
• Book Purchase Recommendation Form