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"

GrayLit Network Discontinued

The GrayLIT Network retired October 31, 2007. "Please use [ http://www.science.gov/ ] Science.gov or the [ http://www.scienceaccelerator.gov/ ] Science Accelerator to search across collections of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) scientific and technical information. As a free public service, searches will include research and development results, project descriptions, accomplishments, technical report and more, via resources made available by the [ http://www.osti.gov/ ] Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI), U.S. DOE. Send any inquiries to [ mailto:graylit@osti.gov ] graylit@osti.gov." (odd that they still have 'graylit' in their email address!)

Boston Public plans to make government documents accessible

A digital library partnership, including two nonprofit organizations and the Boston Public Library, is preparing to begin making digital copies of the library’s paper-based government documents collection, which will then be made available on the Internet. Boston Public Library librarians said they planned to begin by digitizing the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings from the 1950s, which is regularly sought after by its patrons. Read the full article in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/business/27online.html?ref=technology

Great guide to finding online technical reports from Stanford librarian

Take a look at this long list of online technical report organizations, including AT &T Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, MIT, Stanford and other academic and corporate organizations. http://library.stanford.edu/depts/mathcs/research_help/guides/online_report_orgs.html

Nice explanation of the function/usage of ASME standards

I was looking for something to explain to a non-engineering student how standards work and stumbled on this great doc on the ASME site. Introduction to ASME codes and standards Anyhow, I thought it might be useful to someone. :) Sarah

The Library Game- sharpen your librarian skills!

http://www.library.cmu.edu/Libraries/etc/game2/game2.swf Click on Hint for how to play-

RefWorks from IEEE Xplore

IEEE just enabled downloading in RefWorks format from their IEEE Xplore database. I let the faculty and students in EE, CSE, and TC know-- so there might be some questions at the reference desk about it. It's not the most obvious thing to import into RefWorks, so I put instructions below. Thanks! -Linda ---- Original Message ----- Great news! Citations from IEEE Xplore are now importable into RefWorks, an online citation management tool (if you don't have a RefWorks account yet, you can set one up at http://www.lib.washington.edu/ougl/refworks/ (please note-- you'll need to be on campus or logged into the UW Libraries' Proxy Server to access RefWorks). To import citations from IEEE Xplore (http://www.ieee.org/ieeexplore): 1. Click on the "AbstractPlus" view for the citation you wish to save. 2. Under "Download this Citation," choose "Citation" or "Citation & Abstract" from the Choose drop-down menu, and "RefWorks" from the Download drop-down menu, then click the Download button. 3. Your citation will be saved as a file with a .jsp extension. 4. Log in to RefWorks (https://www.refworks.com/Refworks/login.asp?). 5. Select References/Import from the toolbar. 6. Select "RIS Format" as the Import Filter/Data Source and "IEEE/IEE Electronic Library (IEL)" as the database. 7. Browse to find the text file saved to your computer. 8. Click Import -- your reference(s) will be in the "Last Imported" folder.

Auxiliary Stacks Requests

Just in case you haven't run into this, I found out yesterday that the Auxiliary Stacks Mediated Request form is down for a while. When I called circulation about it, their suggestions were to: -First try to get the patron to place a hold themselves through the catalog if that is possible. -If not, if they have a borrower's card, circulation can place a hold through Millenium. -And if all else fails, ask a circulation manager to email the hold in or call in to Suzzallo circulation. The timeline for getting the form up again was unknown when I called.

Introducing Le book

If you haven't seen this video, it's a classic!

Information R/evolution

A very creative video gives us pause to think about information and its organizational systems. Take a look!

I broke the door!

This morning I was headed to the main stairwell and the door handle on the first floor just came off in my hand. Maybe I'm super strong or maybe the building is falling apart. I alerted Chris and Tom and I called the Physical Plant. They said they'd send someone over. In the meantime, the door is propped open and the handle is here at the ref desk. After this I might have to dress up as the Hulk for Halloween.

The Scanner PC

Has anyone else heard complaints about the scanner/microfilm computer? Apparently, it's extremely slow in both running the Adobe program and browsing the Internet (so slow as to to cause people to just leave in the middle of trying to scan). A patron suggested we try defragmenting the hard drive (actually, she first suggested we just get a new computer), but there's probably nothing we can do besides maybe putting a sign on the bulletin board that says something like, "Patience is a virtue."

A Fair(y) Use Tale

If you haven't seen this video about copyright and fair use, it's definitely worth it! Plus you get to refresh your knowledge of animated Disney movies!

Antonio Panizzi: ''the fact of a man's being a political exile does not exclude him from the Reading Room.''

This NYT article from 1997 describes the establishment and relocation of the British Library's famous circular reading room. For the anglophiles and book lovers among us, it is an interesting trip back to Panizzi's time: http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/09/bookend/bookend.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Four new chairs in engineering

The departments of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Materials Science & Engineering, BioEngineering and Electrical Engineering each have a new departmental chair. For full story: http://uwnews.org/uweek/uweekarticle.asp?visitsource=uwkmail&articleID=36831

engcirc blog

Steve and Laura maintain this blog for the circ students and staff but we should check it periodically too for shelving updates, other info.: http://stevesdesk.blogspot.com There is a link to it on the right sidebar of this page too.