Science Library Updates

Great news! We are going to start circulating bound periodicals and reference books in both Telford and Leyburn, starting today. This means that faculty, staff, and students must either use the self-checkout station or the staffed circulation desk to check out these materials instead of the notebook at the circulation desk. The check out period is for 24 hours, and your Annie account will reflect what you have checked out. Remember that only the bound periodicals will circulate this way. Faculty and staff will still be able to sign out newer, unbound periodicals using the spiral bound notebook.

As always, if you use a bound periodical but do not check it out, please DO NOT reshelve it. I know it is courteous to keep the library neat and tidy, and I appreciate the effort, but this is the only way that we know which periodicals are getting used. We keep track of what we reshelve, and these statistics are very important. You will find book trucks in the stacks where you can place bound volumes after you use them, or you could always bring them to the circulation desk.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You may recall that we have freed up some monetary resources by dropping our subscription to Web of Science in favor of Scopus. As part of the overall process of reviewing the science library's collection, it is time to think about how to enhance our collection using these monetary resources. At this point, there are two options:

1. Subscription to journal packages offered by Springer and Elsevier, which would add around 1300 new titles. A list of titles may be found here http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pyDWZ0fAMwv3zjZ-bH0CnLg. (Note: This is a "working list" of titles, which the publishers may change before anything is finalized. Please be sure to use the tabs to see both lists.)


2. Subscription to individual journal titles, which are often pricey in the sciences, to be recommended by the science faculty.

It is the library's opinion that Option 1 gives us the most content for the least money and would be the best use of our resources. However, if you feel differently, please let me know. Please let me know your preference by Friday, November 16.

In addition to adding resources, I am currently reviewing our science journals and other serials, and trying to determine if we are getting the most out of our resources. After going through our currently subscribed titles, there are a few that need further review. Please look at this list http://library.wlu.edu/wiki/index.php/Main/ScienceResources and let me know if you think there is any reason to keep subscribing to these titles. The reason these titles have been selected out for further review is because I believe they have little to no use for our curriculum and research needs. If you feel differently, please let me know by Friday, November 16.

Thank you for all of your help in enhancing our collection. Your input is always greatly appreciated. As always, please let me know if you have questions. I may be able to give you more information than just what is available in the two links provided.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We will now have access to all seven JGR titles:

Earth Surface

Solid Earth

Planets

Atmospheres

Space Physics

Oceans

Biogeosciences

We previously only had access to the first four of these titles. During our renewal, we opted to save quite a bit of money by opting for the JGR All package, which will provide online-only access to the entire JGR series.

We will no longer receive the print issues of any JGR titles. The new issues will be available online starting with the first issues of 2007, of which none have been released just yet.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 9:32 AM | Permalink

Beginning in January 2007, W&L will have access to an enormously expanded collection of journals published by Blackwell. Currently, we subscribe to 100 titles, spread over all disciplines and Law. With the new package, our holdings will go up to 759 titles. An Excel spreadsheet of these titles is available here: http://library.wlu.edu/research/Blackwelllist.xls (If you click on the STM tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet, you can sort out the science related journals only.)

Part of this new package requires that we change all 100 of our current subscriptions to online-only, which means that readers will have access to new issues much sooner and can subscribe to contents services. Fortunately for the science library, this will not have any impact on our space issue.

If you have questions about these journals, please let me know.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 4:07 PM | Permalink

We are approaching the deadline to decide on purchasing Scopus at the end of this month. As many of you know, we have had a trial to Scopus for a little over a year now, which was meant to act as an extended evaluation period.

Next week I will be arguing in favor of purchasing Scopus, but I would like to have some testimonials from those of you who have found Scopus to be beneficial. This is a big ticket item, and I need as much outside support as possible to make this purchase.

If you have had a positive impression of Scopus or feel that it is a vital part of our library's resources, please send me an email in the next few days explaining why. If you would like to learn more about Scopus, please visit http://library.wlu.edu/details.asp?resid=721. I also have some literature in my office.

Thank you so much for your help.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 11:34 AM | Permalink

After months of struggling with Springer, we finally have restored access to Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences. The new SpringerLink platform is rather clunky, but it's great to finally have access again. Go to http://library.wlu.edu/details.asp?resid=430 to see the updated record. If you have problems with this new platform, which is still in beta, please contact me.

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 10:18 AM | Permalink

I am opening up discussion of the JSTOR Journal Project. If you did not receive the email about this project, please contact me. A list of the Science Library's JSTOR journals is available at http://odtaa.wlu.edu/periodicals/JSTORListAll.asp thanks to the hard work of Cindy Morton and Wendy Richards. This list includes the titles' links in the Annie catalog, coverage in JSTOR, coverage in other electronic formats, and coverage in print. If we are able to discard these volumes, we could save well over 200 feet in shelf space. That gives us room for growth of our other periodical titles that are not available in JSTOR and for new subscriptions.

Continue reading "JSTOR Journal Project Discussion" »

Posted by Mary Abdoney at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)