Knovel Reverse Engineers the New Year's Eve Times Square Ball Drop

Calculating the required horsepower for the electric motor driving Times Square's New Year's Eve ball

One of the most well-known traditions representing the New Year's Eve celebration is the ball drop in New York City's Times Square. A very decorative ball made up of thousands of crystals drops down a pole during the final minute of the year. This year's ball has seen many upgrades from its 2007 version- it's three times brighter, double in size and most notably, has increased in weight from 1,100 pounds to 12,000 pounds.

The ball drop occurs via an electric motor which lowers the ball 70 feet over the course of one minute. The weight increase means that more power will need to be supplied from the motor. We did some research on past ball drops and here's what we know: the gearmotor's output shaft must be 6 rpm and the time must be negligible since timing is crucial for the ball drop event. What we don't know is the minimum horsepower needed by an electric motor.

To see the solution: http://www.info.knovel.com/knovelmessages/NYESolution.html

We Go 2.0 (Sort Of)

As you may have noticed, links to our Facebook page and new blog have been added to the EngLib homepage. Any ideas/suggestions/criticisms about either of these new little ventures will be met with a cold stare. Just kidding! Seriously, I hope these actually get a little use, and it's my belief that the more we all contribute, the more useful our web presence will be. Here a few links about what a Facebook page and blog can do: David Lee King's What can you do with a Facebook page? LibrarianInBlack's Ten Social Networking Tips for Libraries iLibrarian points to the Ultimate Blogger Writing Guide

Knovel Enhanced!

From the Knovel Blog:

Knovel has just introduced enhancements to our Interactive Tables. These enhancements make it even easier for Knovel users to work with tabular information. Not only are the tables easier to read, but they also support drag and drop functionally, so users can move columns around, hide rows and basically manipulate data.

Here is a link to the official announcement for more info: http://www.info.knovel.com/knovelmessages/Tablesanncmt120108.html

Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship

Check out the article "Science Experiments: Reaching Out to Our Users" in the current issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship. Our own Linda Whang and other UW science librarians are the authors! Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

Convincing the faculty and students in the sciences of the value of libraries and librarians can be a particularly "hard sell" as more and more of their primary journal literature becomes available online anywhere from any computer. Six science librarians from the University of Washington experimented with both traditional and unconventional ways to engage our users. We tried meeting them in their spaces, luring them into ours, and using the middle ground of the Internet, with creative initiatives including blogs, give-aways, geocaching, and more.

Reference Extract

http://referencextract.org/ Reference Extract is envisioned as a web search engine, like Google, Yahoo and MSN. However, unlike other search engines, Reference Extracts will be built for maximum credibility by relying on the expertise and credibility judgments of librarians from around the globe. Users will enter a search term and get results weighted towards sites most often referred to by librarians at institutions such as the Library of Congress, the University of Washington, the State of Maryland, and over 1,400 libraries worldwide.

Halliburton Applies For Patent-Trolling Patent

I saw this on Slashdot and thought even if it's not true, it's something worth noting: An anonymous reader writes, "Halliburton...has apparently taken an interest in methods of patent trolling. In fact, according to Techdirt, the company has applied for a patent on patent trolling. Specifically, it's applied for a patent on the process of finding a company that protected an invention via trade secret, figuring out what that secret is, patenting it ... and then suing the original company. Hopefully, the patent office rejects this patent, because I somehow doubt that Halliburton is trying to get the patent as a way to block others from patent trolling."

Videos in honor of Open Access Day

Diane Graves, Librarian from Open Access Videos on Vimeo. Open Access Day was October 14. Openaccessday.org posted several videos testifying to the benefits of open access for scholarship: http://vimeo.com/oaday08 These are a project of Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition: sparc.org/ , Public Library of Science: plos.org/ and Students for Free Culture: freeculture.org/

Science Info Without Borders- Worldwidescience.org

Carol Tenopir presents an in-depth review of the web portal, Worldwidescience.org, which provides free federated search access to science databases from government agencies worldwide, soon to include China!

"Founded in 2007 through an agreement between the British Library and OSTI, WorldWideScience.org is modeled after Science.gov, a portal to 100 million pages of science bulletins from 13 U.S. government agencies. Both are built using Deep Web Technologies, a Santa Fe, NM–based company that calls its product Explorit Research Accelerator."

WorldWideScience.org includes government-sponsored science content from more than 50 member countries and 40 international portals, as well as everything covered by Science.gov. With the addition of China as a member in August, the portal, Warnick says, “will soon reach a billion pages.”

Read the complete review here: http://tinyurl.com/4zpy5w

Engineers develop coating that detects bridge cracks using nanotechnology~

For bridge freaks like me, I think this is pretty cool. I'm not sure about the price though ($1/inch2), although if it prevents structural failure, it's probably worth it at any price: Michigan's Ann Arbor News (original article only available for fee) (9/3, Hamon) reports that Jerry Lynch, a University of Michigan professor of engineering, has led a research team in the development of structural coating that will "detect cracks in bridges before the damage is visible." According to the Ann Arbor News, Lynch and his colleagues created the coating with "carbon nanotubes that use electrical currents to find damage like strain and corrosion." Nicholas Kotov, a UM engineering professor and "key developer of the technology," explained that a "carbon nanotube is microscopic and shaped like a long, hollow strand of spaghetti." Moreover, it is "one of the strongest materials available and, when mixed with the polymers, lends strength to the coating." When electricity flows through the skin, "it produces a two-dimensional image via a central computing device," and "electrical resistance shown in the image will indicate structural damage." Kotov said that the "coating costs about $1 per square inch and is engineered to last decades." He added, "Presumably the carbon nanotube coating won't corrode over the lifetime of the bridge."

UW Researcher named 2008 MacArthur Fellow

David Montgomery, 46, professor of geomorphology, University of Washington. He is making fundamental contributions to our understanding of the geophysical forces that determine landscape evolution and of how our use of soils and rivers has shaped civilizations past and present. Complete list of MacArthur fellows for 2008: http://chronicle.com/daily/2008/09/4703n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Information is Power - Even When it’s Wrong

Posted on the ACRL blog: Check out this example proving the importance of information literacy: a sloppy mistake in handling information led to a plunge in a company’s stock prices: http://acrlog.org/2008/09/11/information-is-power-even-when-its-wrong/ More on the story: Tribune Co., Google Explain Revival of Outdated United Bankruptcy Story http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=150236

Professional Engineering Publishing Launches Engineering Conferences Online

Professional Engineering Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (www.imeche.org), has launched Engineering Conferences Online (ECO), a new online publishing service for conference organizers. ECO (http://eco.pepublishing.com) provides conference organizers with a new way of disseminating important engineering research that would normally be very difficult or impossible to locate in traditional book or CD formats. Papers in ECO will usually be available free of charge on an open access basis and will be fully referenced using DOIs.

Poof! Scientists closer to invisibility cloak

Scientists at UC Berkeley are getting closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnrH1I5OMi2psDdZ2cWrmQlVfyXgD92FPIOG0

DOE Data Explorer - read more on the OSTI Blog

http://www.osti.gov/ostiblog/home/entry/discover_the_data_behind_doe From the entry:"If you’re ready to discover data, then OSTI’s newest product is ready for you! The DOE Data Explorer (DDE) is a unique tool that identifies collections of DOE-sponsored numeric files, figures and data plots, multimedia and images, computer simulations, specialized databases, and interactive data maps. Browse, run a quick search, or advanced search, then click a link to results. You’ll be amazed at the data you can freely see and use, the highly specialized interfaces developed by the owners of the data that will help you delve deeper into their collections, and the software toolkits that allow you to manipulate, compare, visualize, download, and re-use the data." Data is gathered from collections at national laboratories, data centers, scientific user facilities, colleges and universities ...and across all of the science areas with DOE involvement.

iBreadcrumbs.com - for the birds?

Check out the latest Firefox tool bar add-in, a way for researchers to annotate and share information online. You can access your own annotations from any computer, you know the drill. Here's the full article from the Chronicle, June 4, 2008: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=3059&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

New wiki for Engineering Library

Here's what some other Engineering Librarians are doing, just announced today: A Research Portal and Guide to Engineering Resources for the Ohio University Community. Visit it here: http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/engrwiki/index.php/Main_Page So far it has 143 pages.

Information R/evolution

Just in case anyone gets the same question as I got today, here's a note about the books in the display case (someone was potentially interested in checking one out and may return to do so). The key is in the refdesk drawer, and the books need to be checked in again as they are checked out to a library account at the moment, but once that is done they can be checked out to the person as usual.

"Question Shop" (otherwise known as a reference desk)

"What they don’t mention is that the fellow in the picture is named Marcus Googlethorpe." (I'm not sure about that...) http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/02/10/question-shop-gives-answer-to-any-telephoned-query/

Holistic Engineering Program?

Potential employers are finding out that engineers don't know how to manage systems that need knowledge in environmental areas. OSU has a solution: New program combines ecology with engineering "This lack of experience puts a burden on employers, including farmers, engineering consultants and government agencies, who must then teach engineers how to bridge the gap between environmental and engineered solutions themselves. "They need students who understand traditional engineering and how it intersects with biological and ecological systems," said Bolte. For this reason, OSU has launched a new undergraduate program that combines ecology with engineering. "By the time they leave, we expect them to be fluent in both," he said. About 10 students will complete their first semester of the ecological engineering curriculum this spring, and the program is expected to grow to about 120 students within five years... For several years, the university has offered a graduate program in biological and ecological engineering - evolved from its agricultural engineering program - but the students who enroll are generally interested in pursuing careers in research, he said. The undergraduate program, on the other hand, will produce engineers ready for work out in the field..."

Need information? Contact Your Academic Librarian Today

Gap Persists Between Faculty Salaries at Public and Private Institutions

The gap isn't anything new, the author explains, but it just isn't getting much better. Note the continued disparity between men and women faculty too- isn't this the 21st century??! (At least the institution's presidents are paid well...) Read the full article from the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i32/32a01901.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

College of Engineering Open House

2008 Annual Engineering Open House

Friday April 25, 2008: 9:00am - 3:00pm and Saturday April 26, 2008: 10:00am - 2:00pm

As always the Engineering Library will participate in the Open House with a poster display taking the place of the invention poster. We will also be showing a Building Big video continuously.

Please get ready to answer questions about the bathroom locations....

Mourning the Passing of a Household Icon

Start Writing the Eulogies for Print Encyclopedias discusses what most of us probably already know, that the 'old-fashioned' encyclopedias of yore are being replaced by "the online hearth", Wikipedia and the like. In the 1970's, I remember using our huge brown simulated leather-bound Encyclopedia Britannica and the current edition (blue covers) of the World Book Encyclopedia to begin researching my various school 'reports': Mexico, the La Brea tar pits, the human body; they all started with these wonderful sources of, what seemed like an infinite amount of information. Now my 11 year old son starts all his research with Wikipedia and probably ends it there too, to my dismay. I always ask him what books he used, but his response is that it's too hard to find books in his school library. If I had more time, I'd be taking him more often to the public library to search the catalog (which he does know how to do!). This article mentions a Wikipedia alternative, (only however for topics in the natural sciences) that I have never heard of before. The Encyclopedia of Life was started by a Harvard biologist who has been joined by a team of international scientists: "It sounds surreal, and yet scientists are writing the Book of All Species. Or to be more precise, they are building a Web site called the Encyclopedia of Life (www.eol.org). On Thursday its authors, an international team of scientists, will introduce the first 30,000 pages, and within a decade, they predict, they will have the other 1.77 million." (http://tinyurl.com/2rwlef) The researchers want to make the site useful to scientists and non-scientists, so they are creating a sliding button that readers can move to decide how much detail they want about the topic. The EOL is certainly a very interesting concept but obviously an extremely ambitious project. I kind of miss our old Britannica set. They are still available for purchase, although they are being marketed quite differently. Britannica wants people to think of the many volumes as a "luxury experience. You want to be able to produce a lot of joy, a paper joy.” I just don't get that same sense of "joy" from Wikipedia.

New resources help engineers

By Roddy MacLeod, Librarian at Herriot-Watt University Library in Edinburgh, Scotland. Updates regarding new journal titles, developments in publisher's access and technology offerings. Originally published in February/March issue of Research Information. http://www.researchinformation.info/features/feature.php?feature_id=161

The Librarian Song - Check out his facial expressions!

ACRL is proud to announce the 2008 award winners:

Division Award Winners Excellence in Academic Libraries Award (Donor: Blackwell’s Book Services) University: McMaster University Libraries, Hamilton, Ontario College: Laurence McKinley Gould Library at Carleton College, Northfield, Minn. (My Alma Mater!) Community College: Shatford Library at Pasadena City College, Pasadena, Calif. Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award (Donor: YBP Library Services) Peter Hernon, Simmons College Samuel Lazerow Fellowship (Donor: Thomson Scientific) Ping Situ, University of Arizona, and Shuyong Jiang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for their research project on vendor-provided records and the experience of a research library in outsourcing cataloging service for its Chinese language materials, including its backlogs Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (Donor: Thomson Scientific) Donghua Tao, University of Missouri - Columbia School of Information Science & Learning Technology, for her proposal, “Using Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) in Understanding Selection and Use of Information Resources: An Information Resource Selection and Use Model”

Grand Challenges for Engineering Selected

The NAE Committee on Engineering's Grand Challenges has identified 14 areas awaiting engineering solutions in the 21st century: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/ Reverse-engineering the brain sounds a little scary to me! Here is a list of all 14:

• Make solar energy economical
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration methods
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Restore and improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Reverse-engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Advance personalized learning
• Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

Microform Drawer map

Just a note to let you know that Circ kindly shared their microform-drawer map with us, in case you run into a pesky call number that's hard to find. It's on the clipboard in the reference drawer.

Google Jockeying- distraction or learning tool?

In "7 Things You Should Know About Google Jockeying" part of a series from the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, we learn about a new teaching tool that is being used in classes at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC. Professors designate a "Google jockey" for their lecture. This jockey is responsible for searching the internet to explore the topic being discussed. The results are projected onto a screen where all class members can see the searching and they can IM the jockey with more search suggestions. I don't know about you, but I have enough trouble focusing on a presenter or lecturer. I could see being completely stressed because I want to watch the searching and look at the results (which may not be the same results the jockey chooses to look at) and at the same time pay attention to the presenter. Could you be in a class where this is happening? Could be be a Google jockey? Read the report: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7014.pdf

Your Writing, Not Someone Else's

Check out this UW Business Writing Center produced video illustrating the evils of plagiarism.

Greater Access to the NTIS Collection Now Available

Search NTIS.GOV for titles from 1964 to present http://www.ntis.gov/search/index.aspx NTIS is pleased to launch its improved search engine with features such as: Enhanced retrieval with search functionality for categories, collections, and source agencies. * The NTIS search engine now more powerfully finds the information you need. * The Advanced Searching capabilities allows for an even greater focus on appropriate content for your search. Expanded access to the NTIS collection now includes the ability to search, retrieve and select from over 3.0 million products. * Improved access with new NTIS titles added each week. * Customers are provided a Product File of related purchased titles * Now you can find virtually any item in the NTIS collection and order many in your choice of format (downloads, printed copy, CD ROM or microfiche). * Search Help has step by step instructions and graphics: http://www.ntis.gov/search/index.aspx * All search results include a brief product description and easy access to place your order online, quickly, easily and securely.

Minneapolis Bridge Collapse Becomes Partisan Bone of Contention

In today's NYT article: Board’s Theory on Bridge Collapse Facing Tough Sell, the NTSB gets in in trouble with the Chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Minnesota State Representative and Democrat, Jim Oberstar. Oberstar claims that the NTSB is jumping the gun with their claim that the 1/2" gusset plates used in the original construction of the I-35 bridge were 1/2" too thin and they caused the bridge's collapse last summer rather than neglect, which is the current theory. The more popular lack of maintenance belief has become a partisan issue. The final NTSB report isn't expected for 8 more months. For complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/29/us/30cnd-bridge.html?ex=1359349200&en=09693d9b0270a21e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Do we need another reason to move to Hawaii?

Energy Department focuses on making Hawaii energy-independent.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (1/28, Keefe) reported, "Federal and state energy officials are planning a major investment in new technologies in an attempt to make Hawaii the nation's first state to get the vast majority of its energy from renewable sources." The Energy Department will "solicit proposals from researchers, companies and others to dramatically expand Hawaii's use of solar and wind power." The agency will also seek to take advantage of the state's "unique resources to develop renewable sources of energy," such as "harnessing the power of ocean waves, creating new biofuels based on algae or palm oil, and increasing the use of underground heat generated beneath the island state's volcanoes." Hawaii was chosen by the Energy Department "because of its unique resources, its strategic location for national security, and the state's recent emphasis on developing more renewable energy." The Journal-Constitution noted, "Hawaii today gets about 90 percent of its energy from imported oil. Because of its isolation, its gasoline prices are typically the highest in the nation."

Omnibus Bill Mandates Access to Scientific Research

From ALA News: This includes the reinstatement of walk-in service at the Environmental Protection Agency’s 10 regional libraries. The funding is $1 million more than proposed by the Senate in June to reopen four libraries, including the headquarters library in Washington, D.C., and restore scaled-back hours elsewhere, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Also included in this bill is the mandate that the PubMed Central database receive for deposit within 12 months of publication peer-reviewed articles researched with funds from the National Institutes of Health. I know that the AAP is fiercely fighting this on behalf of journal publishers, but hopefully it will be stand. Read the full story: http://www.ala.org/ala/alonline/currentnews/newsarchive/2007/december2007/omnibus.cfm

Facebook and Research, together??

Searching Library Collections in Facebook

Facebook has a new plug-in that allows searching of WorldCat from an interface within Facebook. Not only is OCLC getting into the social networking scene but academic libraries and even JSTOR has plug-ins available as well. More... (from the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Wired Campus, 1/8/08: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2643/searching-library-collections-in-facebook)

Social networking in Compendex, ScienceDirect

(This is an email I received from Lauren Ray, the UW Libraries' Educational Outreach Librarian.) "The Ubiquitous Librarian blog has a recent post on Elsevier's 2.0 tools, specifically how Compendex is using tagging through del.icio.us. I just tried a search in Compendex, and saw that by clicking on the detailed record for a citation, you have the option of adding a tag to the citation (which you can designate as public or for your eyes only). In ScienceDirect, when viewing a citation (Summary Plus), there is the option to "Add to 2Collab", a space in which you can bookmark and share Science Direct citations, websites, blogs, etc with other 2Collab users. I just tried a search in ScienceDirect, and ended up joining 2Collab. I would definitely recommend checking it out. There are library & info lit related groups in 2collab, including the group "Research Assessment and Citation Analysis". Even if you don't end up using 2Collab, it's worth exploring how these tools might help faculty and students enhance the way they discover new sources of information. You can also get a really nice overview of how librarians can use 2Collab from this 2 minute video, featuring a guided tour by the senior project manager for Science Direct: http://technorati.com/videos/youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DJmNQB1tswgY. -Lauren"